FS: Super Pac-Man MAME Cabinet in Richmond, VA - price reduced

[jhanson]

Well, it looks like I'm going to be moving soon, so I'd like to get my Super Pac-Man project cabinet out of the way rather than take it with me.  I'd much rather move one cabinet than two.  Anyway, here's the details.

My Super Pac-Man cabinet is an original Super Pac-Man cabinet with a rebuilt back and floor.  It is working but does not yet have speakers in it.  It has a brand new Happs Pac-Man replacement joystick and a new 19" VGA-compatible arcade-style monitor mounted vertically.  The monitor is so new it still has the plastic on it.  It comes with a brand new replacement control panel overlay from Two Bits that has not been installed yet.  It also comes with an original marquee and bezel glass, though the bezel glass isn't in great shape.  It has a P3-600 in it, which runs classic games perfectly.  The whole cabinet powers on by pushing one button on a remote control.  Oh, I put a new fluorescent light in the top, too.  The coin door is in great shape, and has the original Midway logo plate on it.

What it needs:
Pretty much all cosmetic stuff.  It needs t-molding, a marquee retainer, some speakers, and a coat of paint (or major touch-ups around the edges).  You would probably also want a permanent mount for the PC inside, too.  The edges on the cabinet were pretty rough, so I put bondo on them and sanded them down.  It could probably use a second coat of bondo in a few spots, but that's your call.  Your best plan of attack on this would be to either tape off the existing art (which is in pretty good shape) and repaint all of the blue areas, or repaint the whole thing blue and stencil the artwork back on.  I'll gladly give you the can of blue paint that I bought for this (color matched to original specs).

It's a nice cabinet, and I hate to see it go, but I'd rather not move it.  I've put about $450 worth of parts in it, plus the computer.  Sorry I don't have any pics yet, but I'll try to post some tomorrow.  If you're in the Richmond area, and can come pick it up, please make me an offer.  I'll help you load it, but I don't have a truck, so I can't deliver it.

[jhanson]

Sorry it took so long, but I finally have some pictures - a bunch of them.  Also, I found some speakers to put in it, so now everything works.  Anyway, here's the pics:

Front view of cabinet.  Some t-molding will make it look 100x better:


Detail shot of front art - awesome condition.  Check out that coindoor too.  Miraculously, there are no big holes in the front of the cabinet, as it his never had a lockbar installed on it.  CPO needs replacing, but I have a brand new one from TwoBits that I'll include with the cabinet:


Here's a closer shot of the monitor.  The weird marks you see on it are actually the original protective plastic film that's still in place.  Peel it off and you're good to go.  The bezel glass has some flaking around the edges, but isn't too shabby.  That's a brand new Pac-Man joystick on there:


While the side art looks pretty good, the edges needed some help.  I have applied bondo and sanded it down.  It could possibly need another coat of bondo - your call.  I have a can of the blue paint that I will include with the cabinet.  You could either touch it up, or tape the artwork off and repaint all the blue parts:


Here's the marquee.  It's an original, and is in pretty good shape.  As you can see, it needs a marquee retainer:


Last, but not least, here's the remote control.  Push the 'On' button and you're ready to play:

[jhanson]

OK, here's the deal.  I'll let this go for the cost of the parts I've put into it, which is $450.  That doesn't include the cost of the computer, which I got for free so I'll give it to you for free too.  Here's what you'll get for that price:

Working Super Pac-Man MAME Cabinet with the following features:
- Brand new 19" vertically mounted VGA-compatible monitor (similar to this one - http://www.happcontrols.com/monitors/491337vp.htm)
- Brand new Pac-Man replacement joystick (http://www.happcontrols.com/joysticks/506084112.htm)
- Pentium 3 600 Mhz computer
- Brand new under-counter fluorescent light (behind marquee)
- original marquee in great shape
- original glass bezel in fair shape
- refinished coin door with original Midway logo plate
- speakers
- fully wired, working joystick and buttons with no unsightly admin buttons
- one-touch power on via wireless remote control

In addition, I will throw in the following at no additional cost:
- Brand new, officially licensed replica control panel overlay from TwoBits.com (sells for $49)
- 1 can of blue paint for touch ups or repainting the blue areas on the sides

Let me know if you want it, and I'll give you directions to where you can pick it up.  I'm in zip code 23227.  If you think $450 is too much, make me an offer and we'll see what we can work out.

[koolmoecraig]

What front end is it using?

Thanks.

[jhanson]

What front end is it using?

Thanks.

It's actually a custom one that I whipped up, but I had it running with GameLauncher and AdvanceMenu at one point.

My custom front end is kind of cheesy, but it's that way on purpose.  Basically, I had four criteria for my front end and couldn't find a DOS one that did them all. 

First, I wanted a vertical front end that showed the marquees in one column, as you can kind of make out in the first picture.

Second, I wanted to have an option for launching a random game without any fancy button presses.  In this case, I made it so that there is a "marquee" for Random Game, and you choose that like you choose any other marquee.  The whole front end works by pushing the joystick up or down, and hitting any button when you find the game you want.

Third, I wanted a slide show of only Pac-Man related stuff as a screensaver.  I took a bunch of photos of Pac-Man memorabilia, old Atari cartridges, cabinets, promotional materials, etc, and digitized them so they work as a random slide show screensaver.  There's pictures of Pac-Man shot glasses, board games, lunch boxes, and pretty much anything Pac-Man related that I could find.

Finally, I wanted it all to look like it came out of the 80's.  It uses a very low resolution (320x200) and uses only 256 colors.  All the photos are dithered and look like the type of stuff you would have seen back then.  Think of the digitization used in the Journey game, only not black-and-white.

Overall, I like the effect.  It looks authentic, loads quickly, and is very simple.  As an added touch, I replaced the BIOS logo with a shot of Super Pac-Man punching out some ghosts.  It looks pretty cool, and covers a lot of the load/test screens when you power it on.

[XtraSmiley]

Would you consider renting a truck and driving it to me near DC?  I know, I know... just asking!  hearingprotection@yahoo.com

[jhanson]

Would you consider renting a truck and driving it to me near DC?  I know, I know... just asking!  hearingprotection@yahoo.com

You've got mail!

[pcates]

It's actually a custom one that I whipped up, but I had it running with GameLauncher and AdvanceMenu at one point.

My custom front end is kind of cheesy, but it's that way on purpose.

[jhanson]

That sound great. Is there any chance that you would be willing to burn that to a cd/dvd before you get rid of the machine?? I am building a ms pac, and I was planning on having it load up to a menu with all the pac games. I am just better at the building and wiring then I am with the menu. I would be willing to pass along some$ to cover you efforts.

LMK, Patrick

Check your PM.

[koolmoecraig]

I would love a copy of that front end as well.

Thanks!

[XtraSmiley]

Would you consider renting a truck and driving it to me near DC?

[redfivexw]

I know everyone else is asking, but anyway you can hook me up with your front-end setup?  i also have a super pac man here and it would be awesome!  i am more than happy to pay you for your efforts.
-

[jhanson]

Unfortunately, the front-end was not designed for public consumption.  It requires a heavy amount of manual configuration (including the use of special graphics tools), has many hard-coded elements, and has a very low practical limit for the number of games listed in the menu due to the 256 total colors palette constraint.  It also has no sound support.  Also, it has been tested on exactly 1 computer, so it may be incompatible with every other setup in the world, and may even blow things up.

It is perfect for what it is doing, which is sitting on a machine with a never-changing selection of less than 30 games.  It was built to be stable and easy to use from a player's standpoint, but it achieved that at the expense of customizability and ease of configuration.

That said, I have placed a copy of it out on my website at http://www.jhanson.com/files/downloads/pacfe.zip so that you can check it out at your own risk.  It's a DOS executable, but it should run fine under Windows.  It uses the arrow keys for up/down movement, and 1 or 2 to start.  The q key quits.  It expects to be placed in c:\pacfe and expects MAME to be in c:\mame, though both of those can be changed in config.txt.  Be careful if you edit config.txt, as it is VERY picky about the format, and has no error checking in place. 

If you wait about 10-20 seconds without pushing any keys, a pared-down version of the slideshow should start.  This is set to about 1 minute on my actual machine, but I throttled it down so you could see it without waiting very long.  Changing what games and slides are displayed is difficult, but technically not impossible.

If you really like what you see, PM me and maybe we can work something out.  The actual software would be free, but I'd probably have to charge something for the customization, unfortunately, since it's pretty time-consuming.

Anyway, back on track.  The Super Pac-Man machine is still available, so make me an offer if you're near Richmond.  I'd like to get $450 for it as it sits, but I'll consider all reasonable offers.  Thanks for looking!

[XtraSmiley]

Thanks man!

Hey, I'm trying to sell some stuff off, maybe I'll be able to hit your price point, but is there any chance you could paint it before you sell?  I have no place to do that and it would sweeten the deal a bit.

[jhanson]

Thanks man!

Hey, I'm trying to sell some stuff off, maybe I'll be able to hit your price point, but is there any chance you could paint it before you sell?  I have no place to do that and it would sweeten the deal a bit.

Well, I really don't have time to do a proper repaint, but I could possibly squeeze in a few touch-ups.  The problem there is that if you want to add another coat of bondo to some of the areas to smooth them out or build up the areas I was going to ignore, it won't stick as well to the painted surface as it does to the unpainted/sanded areas.

[jhanson]

How about $425 as it sits?  Any takers?