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Restoring vs. Maming a cabinet - The complete rule book
protokatie:
--- Quote ---Take a genuine 1780's sailing ship and drop a 2000HP Diesel engine in it, cut the masts off, because they're no use any more... Oh and while we're about it lets just fit it with air horns and some go faster stripes down the sides.
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I wasnt saying I agreed with such a thing, but I was saying that you cannot tell someone it is "wrong" to do such a thing. I was merely pointing out that there is no "law" that should exist that tells us what to do.
Say I want to take that late 1700's sailing ship and make it into a house (lived in something similar during my teen years), does that make it wrong?
Fozzy The Bear:
--- Quote from: protokatie on February 03, 2008, 08:57:57 pm ---I wasnt saying I agreed with such a thing, but I was saying that you cannot tell someone it is "wrong" to do such a thing. I was merely pointing out that there is no "law" that should exist that tells us what to do.
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And I agree with you completely...... and in fact I said that to him in his other thread:
"While I'll acknowledge that at the end of the day, the cabinet was your property and therefore legally you can do as you wish with it, I will not acknowledge that it is morally right or acceptable in any way to butcher an evidently restorable item like that, to build a Mame cabinet."
Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
my58vw:
As many people have said above the supply of cabinets will not be around forever. I own a cabinet from japan (Beatmania). There are maybe 200 - 300 working cabinets in the US, probably many less (I think the number is about 100). No one would think about maming a beatmania cab. Likewise there are other cabs which may be meaningful to someone out there... and for those people they are probably searching for those cabs now. In my world there is a game called beatmania III - VERY RARE, expecially in the US - we know of about 10 - 15 cabs in the US (arcade infinity 30 min. from me has beatmania III the final). Someone destroyed one of them about a year ago - people were up in arms.
If someone was to come up with a working classic cab it is nothing to put it up online and see if there are interest. Some classics are easier to get than others - games such as Ms. Pacman, etc. - and you can recreate them. Take something like an original burgertime, etc and try and recreate it easily.
Point is - it is not hard to make a very quality custom cabinet - or have one made (or buy a kit). I think it is challenging to buy a cab and convert it to mame - you have to undo engineering the factory did. If you can do that build your own - and it will be to your own style!
Of course we can not forget the joy of playing these games - we choose not to forget!
Enjoy your game!
solderguy1:
I was at the SuperAuctions next to Ca Extreme last August and was shocked about how little interest there was in the arcade games. A lot of $100 games and some working cabs didn't get a bid at all, especially some 90s fighters that were never popular to begin with. Even the auctioneer was surprised, it was strange after reading on the net how SA events are always newbies overbidding and getting ripped off.
If I was starting out and knew what I know now about costs, I might have joined the darkside. Heck, even a sheet of smoked glass set me back $40. I'm actually paying extra for the joy of doing things myself.
SavannahLion:
--- Quote from: Fozzy The Bear on February 03, 2008, 07:20:34 pm ---There IS a moral responsibility to history and our heritage. What is the point of destroying parting out and mangling what we are supposed to be preserving!!
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In some small minor defense, parting out seems to often be the only way for other cabs to survive. Parts to my current cab came from parted out cabs elsewhere. However, I admit that I don't know if those parted cabs were fully functional before they became organ donors. Of course, I'm specifically talking about hard to come by parts. Such as XY monitors, Star Wars yokes, etc. etc. I'm not entirely sure a blind cab automatically qualifies it for MAME.
While I don't necessarily agree with what csa3d did to his cab or how he chose to go about it. I don't see csa3d as being the worst enemy to the destruction of classic cabs. Cases in point.
When I went to go pick up my Z's from a retiring arcade operator. I was absolutely shocked by the cabinet graveyard I witnessed. To my dismay I spotted cabs like Pac-Man, Super off Road, Neo Geo and numerous others destroyed and thrown into a goat pen. Marquees, monitors and other salvageables were either left out in the rain to be destroyed by goats or store in a barn to be covered in an inch of chicken ---Cleveland steamer--- and feathers. I refuse to think about what kind of marquees I might have inadvertently destroyed because I couldn't see them while walking around in there. I would've happily given up the Z's in exchange to save that Pac-Man. (As it was, I only managed to locate the converted Pac-Man board and save it). The operator told me that it never occurred to him to place the cabinets on Craigs, eBay or even FreeCycle. He figured since he had them in storage for years that no one would want them. :dizzy:
Several months ago I was reading a thread in RGVAC (or was it on the KLOV forums?). This group is supposed to be all about the preservation of arcade cabinets. Instead I read an account of one collector who was so fed up with other collectors that he destroyed perfectly good monitor glass. A Baby Pac-man was smashed with a hammer amongst many other irreplaceable parts. And the worst part isn't because he did what he did. The worst part is that others on that forum applauded his actions. He did it because he was fed up with the arcade community as a whole and the amateur collectors that (as he states) never pick up their parts when promised.
What about the jerk that decided to drop a supposedly nonworking ? Even though it was nonworking, I myself would've liked to have that cabinet. That cabinet would have been an excellent candidate for MAME.
Even better, anyone remember the money grubbing retarded ---fudgesicle--- nut that destroyed a Death Race... from a museum no less?? Nevermind what Havok says, this was a fantaqstic piece of artwork (the cab, not the game) and only the ---smurfing--- door was salvaged and sold.
Then there are ---uvulas--- like and other images like it found at HellCade. What kind of retarded monkey ---uvula--- sets fire to Baby Pac-Man, Tempest, Tron, and Space Invaders cabs? What kind of person takes a ---Cleveland steamer--- inside a Battlezone? Every week I see someone looking for something from at least one of these cabinets.
The real enemies aren't people like csa3d who "preserve" cabinets by their own definition. The real enemies are those people who have so much and callously destroys these bits of history.
csa3d sees what he did as "hot rodding" his cab (we all need to start using the same dictionary here). These other people don't even care enough to do even that.
--- Quote from: solderguy1 on February 03, 2008, 11:25:29 pm ---I was at the SuperAuctions next to Ca Extreme last August and was shocked about how little interest there was in the arcade games. A lot of $100 games and some working cabs didn't get a bid at all, especially some 90s fighters that were never popular to begin with. Even the auctioneer was surprised, it was strange after reading on the net how SA events are always newbies overbidding and getting ripped off.
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Wish I went :'( I bet it's because California has a softening housing market and there's been a lot of concern about jobs, mortgages, etc. Last year, I saw a lot of stuff go for free or really cheap. Now, people are selling rusty lamps for too much. I've seen the same six cabinets floating around on Craigs with asking prices that are way too high.