Wow, has it been a long time since I posted here... Not sure if anyone here remembers me, but last time I was here I was an enthusiastic gamer who wanted to make his own arcade machine, and I posted here quite often. I was in the process of collecting parts for my own BYOAC unit, but then the grim reality began to set in that I didn't have the cash, time, or space to build my own machine. I really wanted to, but it was seeming like an unrealistic pursuit with my current living conditions.
Flash forward a year or two to today: my mom wakes me up at 9:00 AM (early for me, considering I was up late last night drawing), and tells me she was driving home and saw what looked like an arcade machine in someone's driveway. I was pretty tired, but the news was certainly enough to get me awake. We hopped in the car and headed over to where she saw it. I thought there was a pretty good chance that it was just a book shelf or TV cabinet, since my mom knows I like arcade machines.
I was quite surprised to find that it was actually a complete cabinet, including the game hardware and monitor. There was a green paper on the screen stating it was for pickup by the garbage service, but the guy who owned it was outside working on his car. I told him that arcade machines are a hobby of mine, and that I'd like to know if I could have it. He said yes, and even told me that the machine still works! I haven't gotten a chance to test it yet, but assuming that there's no significant burn-in or damage to the monitor, this is very exciting news for me. The man was even nice enough to help me and my mom load it into the car, and the machine is currently in my garage.
As you can see, it's clearly a conversion, and as far as I can tell none of the original art work is in tact. It's missing the marquee, and the control panel is pretty dusty. There's some minor damage to the woodwork on the bottom of the machine, but that shouldn't be difficult to repair. The kick plate is completely gone, so that's something I'll have to replace entirely. The machine has a kind of weird paint job. It's mostly black, but there's green speckling all over it, including on the coin door. I've seen worse conversions in my time (a particularly offensive Star Wars to Ninja Turtles conversion comes to mind), but it's certainly not my cup of tea.
I'm thinking this cab is going to serve as the launching point for a total conversion MAME project. My attitude towards MAMING cabinets is that for the most part, I prefer seeing things restored to their former glory. But in cases when a cabinet's already been converted to the brink of insanity, I tend to have slightly more lax standards. I'd all but given up on being able to make a BYOAC before I was finished college, but it looks like the big guy upstairs had other plans! This is certainly an exciting time for me.
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Topic: Mystery Ajax conversion cabinet rescued! (Read 989 times)
