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Nintendo Cocktail questions -- Restore or Mame? and/or Parts wanted
MonitorGuru:
Hey all...
After restoring a handful of uprights and a real nice Ms.Pac cocktail, I just obtained a partially gutted Nintendo (DonkeyKong) cocktail cabinet. It was missing the monitor, power board, game board and joysticks.
Anyway, here are my questions/wants
- Sould I attempt to restore it to a Donkey Kong or DK Jr? or Should I convert it to a Mame system instead? (I have enough parts to build one to play all 4 way + 1 button games easily, including PC monitor or hacked Commodore monitor for arcade graphic quality
- If I dont mame it, does anyone have a working or only-need-a-cap-kit non working Nintendo 13" color monitor? How about a power board? How about 4 way restrictor plates for the joystick? (I have the joysticks, but only in 8 way or 2 way, not 4 way.)
- Has anyone ever tried to match the paint on the game? Are they all the same? Mine is a darker red/purpleish brown color. Are there standard spray paint colors that are very close? something from the big 3 (Rustoleum, Krylon or Painters Touch [rustoleum too I think])
RayB:
Pics always help people form such opinions...
spriggy:
My opinion... and methods....
Is it something you would want restored in your place? If not, would someone else take it off your hands fro dollars when restored? Or take it off your hands for dollars to restore themselves so you can buy something else you really want or would like?
I would restore where possible!! And not half-assed. At least as asthetically close as possible anyway. If need be, iInternals can always be upgraded due to the age of some parts.
Extensively scour the net for the parts you require to restore her. If you can't get the parts or repro the artwork to do the job (and or have the dollars to do it!)... then take the step of selling it to someone who has the parts to do it or mame it as the LAST RESORT.
But that's just my opinion......
Game On!
MonitorGuru:
I will upload some pics this weekend. It's shell is pretty good only a few dings, but inside there is rust in quite a few scattered, but small spots. It definitely needs a sanding inside and out and a coat of paint.
Don't worry, if I were to mame it, I would not degrade the value of it by drilling new holes/etc... I would make board mounts (circuit boards like being mounted to non-conductive surfaces better anyway :)) and adapt them to the existing mounting pieces, so it would be a cinch to convert back.
I got for a reasonably good deal (around $100), but I didn't know how different it was than from working with wood products and didn't consider a lot of the issues with that and it being nintendo and having 'special needs' compared to other games (e.g. 100 volt monitor, 110->100 volt power converter, negative video monitor, special nintendo joysticks, metal vs wood shell)
It has 3 pieces of graphics, all have been warped and need replacing. It had almost all the wiring (they chopped the wire right next to the power supply, otherwise all ends are there including the 2 prong AC line to the (missing) monitor. The vinyl fake red stained oak laminate is starting to peel in spots.
The joysticks were stripped out, the buttons were still there. The top glass has scratches and one edge ding (1/8") over player 1. The support legs are physically okay but look like he11--tons of grain-of-sand sized pitting on the pewter-like aluminum base (probably from aluminum eating floor cleaners) and no black (just rust starting) on the uprights that slide into the cabinet side posts.
It definitely needs work. I know I could sand it down, spray a new coat of paint, make some mounts, slap in an ATX power supply, ATX mobo, Duron 600 (O/c to 933) chip, 128 meg DDR memory, 4 meg AGP video card, 2.5 gig hard drive, a hacked Commodore 1084 monitor, AdvanceMame, and hack a single USB gravis gamepad to 2 replacement 8 way Nintendo joysticks I have for under $100 and have the thing playing every single vertical orientation 0 or 1 button game ever made, and no headaches with getting working classic parts.
I'd sand, reprime and repaint the top cream-white as it's got a fair amount of liquid damage (cleaner more than soda pop). I could easily iron on new real-oak laminiate trim and restain the deep red and it'd look even better than the vinyl laminite.
Just wouldn't be able to replace the slightly worn graphics around the P1 joystick.
I figure cost to mame: $0 == Nothing as I have all the parts ($100-$130 if I had to buy them all now), plus ~$20 in paint and laminate. (Value of selling parts , on ebay that I'd end up using are probably < $50 [half what it would cost for me to buy them there due to shipping])
Cost to restore to original DK: At least $300 all told. Need to get power ($50), monitor ($75), boards ($100), 2x 4 way sticks ($30), new graphics ($25 though I dont think the bigger instruction sheet for the cocktail was ever repro'd.. the smaller one on the uprights were), ~$20 paint and laminate. Don't think the thing would be worth $400 to resell though...
Again, I'll post pics this weekend, but I think my description above gives a good idea of where the thing is at...
RayB:
It's weird, but I am kind of sitting on the fence on this one. I am definitely anti-MAME when it comes to beautiful uprights (like Centipede, Midway classics, etc), abd also for some of the cooler looking cocktails (Williams), but sometimes there just isn't enough there to make it really worth it. DK cocktails look a little weird and don't have much art on them beyond the little instruction card. So I'm torn. It's almost not really worth restoring cuz it's an ugly cocktail to begin with. ;D
I'm debating the same thing with an Atari Missile Command cocktail. It turns out I have alot of non-working electronic parts in it, and thetop glass is missing (the top glass is where all the artwork would be). So right now it's basically a brown box doing nothing. Should I could MAME it and go against my own pro-repro opinions?