Bootleg Ms. Pac/Galaga cabaret [7/15: suspicions confirmed]

[alfonzotan]

So over the weekend I stumbled into a freebie cab.  It's a Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga combo cabaret with a dead monitor.  Quick test indicates it plays blind.  The interior is clean and appears to be complete.

I didn't recognize the cab--no marquee, Atari cabaret shape--or artwork design at first, other than quickly figuring out it wasn't the same as the official Ms Pac/Galaga machines.  I'll post pictures of the actual cab later, but it's very similar to this one.  The joystick and buttons are different, and the left side of the front panel is drill-holed for speaker output, but artwork is pretty much identical:



Took quite a bit of Googling to identify it.  Turns out to be a bootleg knock-off that was most likely built by the now-defunct (thanks to Namco suing their asses off) PC Amusements in Orlando about 10 years ago.  It's been in use a high-traffic area associated with children for many years, and was about the be thrown out with the garbage when I rescued it.  The coin box had a great many quarters in it.

I have to say I'm impressed with the construction, at least as far as the woodworking.  Very solid cabinet, clean interior design (well, with one or two exceptions... wait 'til you see the pictures).  Black melamine exterior with (I think) screened-on art.  I haven't had time to inspect the boards with any detail, but I'm reasonably sure there's a genuine (or at least slavishly-copied) Ms. Pac PCB in there.  I'm not familiar enough with Galaga boards to ID whether the other big PCB is a "real" board or not.  There are a couple of other very odd smaller boards off to one side, I'm guessing one of them is probably the JAMMA board switcher built by these guys for PC Amusements: http://lupinesystems.com  The power supply is the weirdest part of the cab, it's a generic PC PSU with a hole routed out of the back panel to accommodate it.  

So, more to follow.  No idea what the state of the monitor is other than "not working," so I'm not sure if I can fix it or not.  If not, I'll probably buy a screen from Dave Countryman and shove it in there.  Also plan to replace at least the fire button (Galaga was meant to be played with a leaf switch) and probably the joystick.  Doubt I'll do much restoration on the artwork (which is worn on the sides and CP) since it's bootleg to begin with, but we'll see.

[IG-88]

Very cool! Post lots of pics. I'm interested in learning about this...

[TopJimmyCooks]

Interested to follow this as I also recently picked up (and plan to resell) a Ms pac upright of questionable vintage. 

The cabaret form factor is nice for space reasons. 

[alfonzotan]

Okay, here are the pictures.  As you'll see, Ansel Adams I'm not.  Exterior views:





... and with the back off:



The Ms Pac board, and behind it (I assume) the Galaga board:



Jamma board (I assume) and Jamma switch board... dig the ripped-up cardboard as a separator:



I pulled the monitor, it's a Wei-Ya 2820H chassis and Panasonic tube.  Chassis stamp says it was manufactured in 1993.



Monitor seems 100% dead, no hum, no neck glow.  At least it was easy to pull... anybody know anything about this model?

So today I changed the locks, cleaned out the last of the quarters, pulled the monitor and checked out the control panel.  One game select button has a pulled wire and the joystick is garbage, but otherwise it's in good shape.  

As far as the cabinet itself, it's in pretty good shape.  Artwork is beat up around the control panel, but as TJC noted, the form factor is really quite nice, especially with a full-sized monitor (at least I assume it will be once I have one that's working).

[IG-88]

Kewl looking cab    I loves these cabarets.

You would probably have better luck over on KLOV with getting the monitor diagnosed. Also, have you checked over at Bob Roberts site yet to see if there is anything on it about this monitor? He may have a "kit" or something you could get for cheap that may fix it. I'm betting if you got a flyback, hot and a cap kit it would solve the problem.

Any chance you could post some measurements of the cab itself. I wouldn't mind building me one.... 

[RayB]

It was either a Centipede or Tempest.

[DamagedGoods]

unfortunately what you have is 2 bootleg boards.
Gallag is the one by the back door and not familiar with ms. pacman bootlegs but I can see it's not an original ms. pacman.

[alfonzotan]

It was either a Centipede or Tempest.

It's a "new" cabinet (circa 2002), but obviously built based on those Atari cabs.

[alfonzotan]

unfortunately what you have is 2 bootleg boards.
Gallag is the one by the back door and not familiar with ms. pacman bootlegs but I can see it's not an original ms. pacman.

Yeah, I suspect you're right.  None of the boards look old enough to be original, and they don't have any Namco (or Midway) markings.

[alfonzotan]

Here's something funny:  the cab has a credit button installed on the coin door... but the coin box was at least half-full of quarters.  Nobody at the place where it had been living had a key, and apparently nobody thought to pull the back door to check the coin box.

[alfonzotan]

Oh man, I remember hearing about these things.  Wasn't Two Bit threatening everyone that contemplating selling them?

A commercially made Ms Pac / Galaga bootleg cabinet.  Awesome.

Yep.  Here's some info on the now-defunct outfit that was building them:

http://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/stories/2003/04/14/story6.html?page=all

And yeah, twobits was definitely interested:

http://www.twobits.com/sued/

[DamagedGoods]

well i've never seen such a clean Gallag board so they obviously cleaned it up to make it look new.
I currently have 3 Gallag boards and none of them look anywhere near as good.

only one of my boards still have the Gallag chips the rest were changed to Galaga by previous owner.
I think it's 2 chips that are different, one for the title and the other for the copyright graphics.

[MaxVolume]

Super-sweet find, dude.  Bootleg or not, that thing is cool.  I always thought that having two MAME cabs would cure me of wanting individual cabs, but for some reason I just want MORE!  I'd really love to have a Japanese NEO-GEO "candy" cab with one of the "all-in-one" carts, but unless I win the lottery and buy a big house somewhere, that ain't gonna happen.  Fun to dream, though. 

[alfonzotan]

Kewl looking cab    I loves these cabarets.

You would probably have better luck over on KLOV with getting the monitor diagnosed. Also, have you checked over at Bob Roberts site yet to see if there is anything on it about this monitor? He may have a "kit" or something you could get for cheap that may fix it. I'm betting if you got a flyback, hot and a cap kit it would solve the problem.

Any chance you could post some measurements of the cab itself. I wouldn't mind building me one.... 

Okay, here ya go... Disclaimer: sketch is (obviously) not to scale, and measurements aren't exactly precise.

[IG-88]

Hey thats great!! Thank you for taking the time.    I'm not wanting to make an exact copy just something close. This will help alot!

[alfonzotan]

Hey thats great!! Thank you for taking the time.    I'm not wanting to make an exact copy just something close. This will help alot!

No prob.  While I still think arcade games are supposed to have marquees, I do really like this design for 19" verticals.  It's surprisingly portable... a slim version with an LCD would be really nice for small spaces.

[IG-88]

Ya, I would prefer to have the full sized ones but by living in a "arcade cab desert" and not having alot of space and not having alot of $$ I am having to improvise.

[alfonzotan]

I handed off the monitor for repairs this morning, Dave was confident he could fix it.  In the meantime I'll do a little tweaking, fix a broken wire in the control panel and swap the fire button for one with a leaf switch.

The joystick assembly (it's either a "Reunion" stick or a Happ Super; based on the balltop, my guess is Reunion) turned out to be in better shape than I'd thought.  Might put in a longer shaft/bigger balltop, though (and you can keep your smart-arse remarks on that front to yourselves...).

[RayB]

I like the design of that cab (I have a Centipede cabaret myself) but I would suggest two modifications if someone is to build one custom from scratch:

1. Don't make the cabinet as deep as it is. The cabaret is as deep as a full upright, which kind of defeats the perceived "space saving". You're only saving space in terms of height and width.

2. Add some sort of topper or top-mounted marquee.

[alfonzotan]

Still waiting for the monitor to be repaired.  I took the control panel off to repair a broken wire and replace the fire button with a GGG TrueLeaf version.  Also replaced the old, discolored carriage bolts on the joystick (one missing) with new ones.  Before:





After:

[alfonzotan]

[alfonzotan]

The monitor is fixed... the cabinet turns out to be a multicade, with Pac-Man, Ms. Pac, Pac Jr., Frogger, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. (this was a particularly cool discovery, as my first cabinet--long since traded away--was a DK Jr.), Galaga and Galaxian.  As Butt-head once observed to Beavis, "All of those things are cool!" 

On the downside, the monitor doesn't come on from just the system power supply, I have to plug in the bench test AC cord from the chassis to get it to fire up.  So that's odd, and something I'll have to look at.  The PSU is just a generic PC power supply, so I'll probably swap it out and see what happens.

I topped my personal-best Galaga game just fooling around with it last night before the mosquitoes chased me back into the house...

[alfonzotan]

So does anybody know anything about this kind of multigame/multiboard setup?  It looks like an old 9-in-1 to me (although I only count eight games... maybe I missed one).  Trying to learn how to trigger an admin menu, and generally figure out what I've got here. 

Might well be a one-of-a-kind kludge the Orlando pirates made up themselves, of course...

[alfonzotan]

JAMMA board:



Switcher board (custom):



Forward board (not sure what this is):



Rear board stack (ditto):

[alfonzotan]

[alfonzotan]

Some "famous names" in this old thread about it...

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=31344.0

I think I'm starting to figure this out... The two big PCBs are connected to the custom switcher board, which is in turn connected to... nothing.  

My guess is, at some point in this beast's past, somebody disconnected the switcher board, slapped in the GAMMA-1 JAMMA multiboard, and hooked it up to the JAMMA harness (which explains the cardboard "rack" it's on).  That's why the two micro-buttons on the control panel don't actually do anything now.

So what I've really got here, I suspect (I'll swap the JAMMA harness and test this later), is a (probably bootleg) Ms. Pac board, a (probably bootleg) Galaga board, the custom switcher between those two built for PC Amusements, and a bootleg 9-in-1 JAMMA board.  The JAMMA board is the only one of the lot actually hooked up at the moment.

What I still can't figure out is how AC power was getting to the monitor previously.  There's no iso transfomer block, the PSU doesn't output 120V, and there's nowhere obvious on the interior where you can plug in the bench test plug from the monitor.  I'll have to get out the meter to be sure, but I don't think there's any juice on the "hot" wire going to the monitor.

[dgame]

[alfonzotan]

Suspicions confirmed.  What I've got here is a DOUBLE bootleg cab.  The "original" PCBs are a Galaga and a Ms. Pac, both with JAMMA pinouts (so they're most likely both bootleg) running into the Lupine Systems switcher.  Everything does work, including the switcher, although whoever post-converted the cab to an 8-in-1 yanked the switcher wire from pin 8 of the main JAMMA harness (shoving it back in there restores the switch capability).  All that stuff had been disabled at some point and replaced with an old 8-in-1 GAMMA-1 multiboard, but left intact in the cabinet.

So, decisions, decisions... with what I've got here, you could build either a fake "Reunion" cab, or seperate dedicated Ms. Pac or Galaga cabs (both JAMMA, which makes things relatively simple), and still have the original cabaret with the multiboard.  Or pull the multiboard and take the cabaret back to its original (if phony) glory, and do something else with the GAMMA-1.

Either way, a pretty nice find all around, I think...

[alfonzotan]

I'd sell all those boards and put a 60 in 1 in there personally.

Maybe.  I'd need to get another button hole cut in the CP. 

[Malenko]

I'd be interested in the bootleg Galaga board, I'd be one step closer to having my grail

Kudos on figuring out the board situation in the cab!

[alfonzotan]

I'd be interested in the bootleg Galaga board, I'd be one step closer to having my grail

Kudos on figuring out the board situation in the cab!

I'm sort of inclined to build a replica Galaga around it, but if I do decide to part it out, I'll let you know.

[alfonzotan]

There's only a handful of games that require more than one button, and you can disable them.

Let me rephrase:  "I really like Qix, so I'd probably want to add another button if I did that."

[alfonzotan]

You don't want to put in a 60 in 1 because it has Qix on it and you'd be compelled to add another button?  

Now you're not even making sense.  

No... simply saying that if I were to put in a 60 board, I would probably also want to add another button.  No more complicated than that.

[Malenko]

You don't want to put in a 60 in 1 because it has Qix on it and you'd be compelled to add another button? 

Now you're not even making sense. 

Simmer down jimbo. He's saying if he put a 60 in 1 in, he'd want to play Qix and Qix requires another button. (1 for draw fast and 1 for draw slow)

[MaxVolume]

You don't want to put in a 60 in 1 because it has Qix on it and you'd be compelled to add another button? 

Now you're not even making sense. 

Simmer down jimbo. He's saying if he put a 60 in 1 in, he'd want to play Qix and Qix requires another button. (1 for draw fast and 1 for draw slow)

Nah, man... PEDAL TA THA METAL!!!  No need for a second button... draw fast or go home!!! 

[flashiv]

I'm all for restoring it to it's former "phony" glory, and then build a cab for the 8/9 in 1.  This way you've restored an "original" cab and still have the 8/9 in 1. 

Heck couldn't you put a switcher in the 8/9 in 1 cab and then add a 60 in 1?  I don't know anything about the X in 1 boards so I'm just speculating there.

[alfonzotan]

I'm all for restoring it to it's former "phony" glory, and then build a cab for the 8/9 in 1.  This way you've restored an "original" cab and still have the 8/9 in 1. 

Heck couldn't you put a switcher in the 8/9 in 1 cab and then add a 60 in 1?  I don't know anything about the X in 1 boards so I'm just speculating there.

I tried that recently, but when using the switcher, both the multiboards have extremely dark screens.  Not sure why, they work fine going direct to the main JAMMA connector.

Still thinking over what to do with all the parts here.  I'm not in any hurry.

[bryan95502]

You know that Gamma-1 board is the early Arcadeshop multi board, right? Clay Cowgill designed. Not a cheap Chinese board. It is not upgradeable or reprogramable.

I have seen those cabinets at auctions. Most had original boards in them to try to be sold legally but Namco disagreed and sued PC Amusements over it.

They are still around (www.pinballs.com)


I think they also sold DK/Frogger or some other odd combinations too.

 

[alfonzotan]

You know that Gamma-1 board is the early Arcadeshop multi board, right? Clay Cowgill designed. Not a cheap Chinese board. It is not upgradeable or reprogramable.

I have seen those cabinets at auctions. Most had original boards in them to try to be sold legally but Namco disagreed and sued PC Amusements over it.

They are still around (www.pinballs.com)


I think they also sold DK/Frogger or some other odd combinations too.

It's a very nice board.  Much better than the generic 60-in-1's, at least for the 8 games it plays and the selection screens.

That outfit sold all kinds of weird ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- combination cabinets.  One of them was Crazy Climber and some shmup that I've forgotten (Xevious, maybe).