MAME it or restore it?

[DarkSoul1]

I have my eye on this cab as it is in Adelaide (South Australia), where I live.

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=575&item=6107556494


Monitor is stuffed as per explanation in sale article.  Anyone got a guess as to what may be wrong with it based on the description of the problem?

 

[Trenchbroom]

Looks like a MAME candidate to me at this point.  Needs quite a bit of work to restore.  I'm in the US--how rare is that cabinet in Australia?

I like the bezel on it if you are sticking with a vertical monitor.  And I LOVE those huge illuminated atari player start buttons!  I think it would be awesome to find a very abused old atari cab just for those buttons and for the coin doors that had the chromed O slots where you had to press the coin into the circle and then let it drop--sweet.

[independentthread]

As far as maming it goes, if you can handle a one player mame cab, then you've got one there.  Personally, I couldn't handle the fact that I couldn't have someone help me out in Raiden or the like.  Other than that, it looks like it would make a pretty kewl little Pacman machine...so maybe you could Mame it that way.

[ChadTower]

Oh HELL no!  Don't MAME that!  Restore it.  Please!  I have a near perfect Dynamo cab I'd give you for that straight up if you were near me, which would be so much better suited for a MAME cab.  Don't pass up the chance to return a real classic to circulation.  At the very least, if you do MAME it, please do it with care not to destroy what's left of that cab.

[8bit]

restore it.  You could build a mame cab outta anything but keep the classics going.

[pointdablame]

It's my belief that 99% of the time you find yourself questioning whether to restore or MAME....  you should restore it.

[Gildersneeze]

I'd almost buy it just to get the travesty of "latest game" out of the marquee.

[RayB]

Woooo, those old games are hard to find parts for. A black n white monitor for starters might be a real challenge. The art on the sides seems real nice.

Tough call on this one.

[Generic Eric]

I have my eye on this cab as it is in Adelaide (South Australia), where I live.

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=575&item=6107556494


Monitor is stuffed as per explanation in sale article.  Anyone got a guess as to what may be wrong with it based on the description of the problem?

 

Restore first, mame second.
If you can't do complete restoral, perhaps you can find, or research a color monitor that will fit on the same mounts.  Just reread the article, so all you would have to do is find a replacment monitor for the replacement monitor.

The vertical orianted monitor is a bonus, to me anyway.  I like a lot of the vertical shooters.

The word maming tends to give of a bad vibe; like the control panel would be cut off to allow a for the infamous "franken-panel."  

To me mame-ing has a different meaning.  I say you can mame any game - with a few cavets of course.  

By mame-ing the arcade cabinet, you are pulling the pcb out and replacing it with a PC loaded with mame roms of course, then interfacing that pc with the controls, and the arcade monitor.

When you start hacking up the cab, you are just doing a bad conversion and will go to arcade hell

What was this cab originally?
Right now its a cab with...
 

• a gyruss board (which according to the auction, you won't get,)
• one side of breakout artwork (you might get lucky and find the otherside underneath the black paint,
• a bezel that maybe from cosmic monsters or something similar.
• generic marquee

Basically its just a cab that lived through several conversions.  If you do buy it, do some dective work to see if you can find some hint at what it originally was, and restore it to that.

To everyone else, what do you think Darksoul1 can fit on the cp?  Any room for extra controls to extend his amount of playable games without altering the original style of the cab/control panel? Enough room for a spinner maybe?  A second joystick for two player vertical shooters?

[independentthread]

Restore first, mame second.
If you can't do complete restoral, perhaps you can find, or research a color monitor that will fit on the same mounts.  Just reread the article, so all you would have to do is find a replacment monitor for the replacement monitor.

The vertical orianted monitor is a bonus, to me anyway.  I like a lot of the vertical shooters.

The word maming tends to give of a bad vibe; like the control panel would be cut off to allow a for the infamous "franken-panel."  

To me mame-ing has a different meaning.  I say you can mame any game - with a few cavets of course.  

By mame-ing the arcade cabinet, you are pulling the pcb out and replacing it with a PC loaded with mame roms of course, then interfacing that pc with the controls, and the arcade monitor.

Exactly, anything can be mamed.  To be honest, you could always go for a classic within a classic : put a 486 motherboard in there with a video card that can output correctly to an arcade monitor.  Then throw in a harddrive (a stock one from a 486 computer would even work) and load up Mame, the rom of choice, and figure out a way to have the game boot on startup.

When you start hacking up the cab, you are just doing a bad conversion and will go to arcade hell
To everyone else, what do you think Darksoul1 can fit on the cp?  Any room for extra controls to extend his amount of playable games without altering the original style of the cab/control panel? Enough room for a spinner maybe?  A second joystick for two player vertical shooters?

If you were to make a new cp of the same style, then you could fit two control sets in there, as long as you keep the buttons to a minimum.  Try to throw in an SF2 type game and you're going to hit the other player for real by trying to hit the hard punch.  I'd say 4 buttons MAX.  That grey circle on the end (hole for third button?) is about where the second joystick would be popping out if you fit em snug enough against the sides to still keep it usable.  If you kept it as a single player then there are a couple of spinners that would fit no problem.  

[Minwah]

Restore it.

[jcoleman]

Whatever you do, I call dibs on the joystick.  

Coleman

[danny_galaga]

Whatever you do, I call dibs on the joystick.  

Coleman

me on the bezel