Attn: Zakk

[SirPeale]

They're talking about you in RGVAC.  About your Gravitar conversion.

[Zakk]

yeah I got some e-mail already.  I love fan-mail like that  

[Zakk]

funny thing about those guys, they have a bunch of bastardized "jammarized" original boards lying around in milk cartons, usually just rotting away, and they jump all over us.  There is a small collection of those guys that have killer collections of mint original cabs.  I can't argue against that, but the rest are hideous hypocrites.  The guy that e-mailed me today had a directory of pictures of himself torching tempest cabs.  ?

I'm glad I didn't do the followup project where I turned the working vector monitor into a terrarium, and the boardset into a makeshift flyswatter!

 Now you know why I stay out of the newsgroups...how are things in AGM since I left?  

[SirPeale]

The guy that e-mailed me today had a directory of pictures of himself torching tempest cabs.  ?

Ah, must be Mark Spaeth.

From what I understand, that particular cabinet was *beyond* saving.  Severe water and mold damage.

I'm glad I didn't do the followup project where I turned the working vector monitor into a terrarium, and the boardset into a makeshift flyswatter!

There's still time!

Now you know why I stay out of the newsgroups...how are things in AGM since I left?  

I don't go in there much any more.  The signal to noise ratio was too high.

I'm still a burner, but one of the biggest reasons I started with AGM was to learn about MAME.  I have.  I've transcended it.

[Zakk]

yeah that would be the guy.  Ah well, whatcanyado.  I got that cab out of a wet chicken barn, notched the control panel instead of the cabinet, -gave- the monitor to a guy restoring a tempest, touched up the sideart instead of painting it, and sold the panel on ebay instead of drilling it.  I'm still the villain.  :sigh:

[Wade]

What is the title of the thread, i don't see it??

Wade

[SirPeale]

Dan Coogan, what do you think of this Gravitar?

[Zakk]

Funny thing is, the only reason that it's on the net to be fired upon by the sanctimonius is that I rescued it in the first place.  Here's where it came from, and probably where it would still be sitting:
http://www.mameworld.net/massive/news/Warehouse\Warehouse.htm

The operator had told me he had burned "about 50 cabinets" before I had made it out there, and these ones were surely next on the list when he dug his way to them.
Some guys went out there to try and save some more of those cabs, but they were too far gone to save.  To me, that's the sin.  Ah, at least some of you guys understand the effort I took to do as little damage (if any) to that old classic cab.  

[SirPeale]

I remember this!  Wasn't this where the guy was like "you can have this, this and this, but the Pacs stay."

[Zakk]

That's the one.  And of the guys that I sent out there, one guy calls me back and goes "did you see the raccoon nest in the bottom of the space invaders, and did the horse bite at you?"

I really wanted the pac, and came close to picking up a pin from him, but he sold me a "working" mspac cocktail that sure wasn't working "just a couple of wires are loose, I had it working yesterday"...well you get how it went from there, so I couldnt recommend him to anyone after that.

[Wade]

Hey Zakk, don't sweat it!!  There are always going to be some people who criticize what you are doing, no matter how "clean" it is.  A lot of people who will make a big fuss are either just being jerks, or they don't yet understand that "restoring" one of these games usually costs a lot more than just buying a really nice one and it really isn't worth the time and money to fix one up.  This is even true of most of the really valuable classics!

I appreciate that you didn't do anything destructive to the cabinet.  I'm not a big fan of the large control panels you put on most of the Mame's you make, but hey, it's your stuff and you can do with it what you want.   Besides, that's just a matter of taste anyway.

Personally, I'd love to see you restore more of those cabs to their original state, but I know I wouldn't go through the trouble and expense.  And at least, you are trying not to damage the cabinet just in case (unlikely!) someone wants to restore it to original down the road.

Guess i should post this in rgvac rather than here...

Wade

[Zakk]

Thanks Wade, no sweat about the flak I take from that group, I've suffered through it before.  Don't think dude needed to say "he should be shot" though, sheesh

For the record, I agree with you, I think the huge oversized frankenpanels are ugly, but that's the way they were ordered.  For me a nice clean 2 player setup is killer (or the rotating panels, very clever).  Zelda mame was out of control (bad pun), and I even argued with the owner about the design, but hey, that's what he paid for...crazy.

 Exempt are cabs that were once 4 player cabs.  I have a golden axe 2 cab that I wanted to make into a 2 player mame, but I'd like a tron stick on there, and damn it's hard to make one of those look right on a combo panel.  I suppose I will make "player 4" the tron stick, but it just doesn't look right wne I mock it up.  See, I do put a lot of thought into these )

[Tailgunner]

Thanks Wade, no sweat about the flak I take from that group, I've suffered through it before.  Don't think dude needed to say "he should be shot" though, sheesh

To be fair, he retracted the bit about you needing to be shot after learning the pains you took to keep the cab restorable. I'm one of the few Gravitar fans, and I'm much happier knowing the cab is no longer rotting in a barn. Thanks for saving it and not ruining the cab.

[Zakk]

True, but still...  

I've tangled with them before, you're either a mame guy, or you're a purist (and most of them are closet mame guys too)...I once posted a link to this pic on there....whoo they were ready for a lynchin that day!

The cabinet is a great looking piece, and one day someone could get it off the guy I sold it to, unbolt the panel, find a working boardset and vector monitor, and have a dedicated cabinet.  Probably take 2 hours or less if they knew what they were doing.  It's not very likely considering the value of a fully functional 4 player mame cabinet nowdays, but could happen.  Now there's a guy on there implying that I "stole the deal" from him, I mean, how do you even answer that nonsense    Oh yeah, it looks like I raced him to that cab, got there in the nick of time and all