Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Main => Project Announcements => Topic started by: bfauska on August 07, 2007, 03:02:43 am
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My home page on firefox is a search on Craigslist for "arcade," but I didn't have any room for a second cabinet so I rarely pay much attention to the cabinets for sale. On the other hand, when I happen to want to check something on the internet and find upon opening firefox that somebody has listed a FREE cabinet a mere 20 minutes earlier it's worth a closer look.
Fairly standard type of cabinet listing, "Free Mr. Do, had it too long, almost worked once, works even less now, don't have room or time, come and get it." While I have 1 generic dynamo cabinet I've always thought that something with some nice art would be cool to have too, so when I saw these pictures I had to email the poster. Clearly the "Mr. Do" in the description was refering to the board, the cabinet is covered with much cooler (at least in my opinion) "Magical Spot" artwork.
(http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t100/bfauska/magicaldo.jpg)
(http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t100/bfauska/magicaldo1.jpg)
About an hour later I recieved a phone call from the poster (very nice guy, made it a point to contact the first response to the listing first.) I arranged to pick up the cabinet the next afternoon. I suppose I should arrange a vehicle for transport now, eh?
I get the story and the cab from the guy the next day. "Got it free about 10/15 years ago, it played blind, my son (must have been about 5 at the time, full-grown-cabinet-loading-helper now) played with the wires inside it making a "space ship" and it hasn't made any sounds or showed signs of life since."
Get it home and vacuum out the inside and give it a once over, in spite of being aged and the cabinet having a few dings it looks good, the monitor under the bezel hasn't been exposed to dust since the conversion bezel went in, but the boards inside are dusty and there's a few webs. I check all the connections, plug it in and then do what I think is the step the previous owner had been missing... pull out the kill switch on for the back panel. To my surprise, the monitor comes on with a bunch of lines running vertically but no picture or sounds. I turn up the volume, press a few buttons, and switches and hope for some sign of life from the board but get nothing. Oh well, I can trouble shoot it later, right. Finally I move the cabinet inside (well, finally may be an exaggeration, it was only listed on CL about 22 hours earlier and I already had it home, dusted, and preliminarily tested.
Today I come home from work with a borrowed multi-meter so I can check the PS and whatever else I decide to poke at, plug the cabinet in, flip the switch and hear a few beeps and a hum, my wife was sleeping in the next room so I quickly unplugged the speaker and gave a look at the monitor, "hey, is that the game hidden behind all those jumbled waves and lines?" Twist knob A, turn screw B, yada, yada, yada, working "Mr. Do" board in a cool looking cabinet with a working monitor... FREE.
Here's some more pictures:
(http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t100/bfauska/IMG_0722_1.jpg)
This is the view with the back panels removed
(http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t100/bfauska/IMG_0721_1.jpg)
Here's the underside of the CP, my first leaf switches and I think I like them.
(http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t100/bfauska/IMG_0723_1.jpg)
The game board... is this "Universal" harness different from a Jamma, are there adapters if it is?
(http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t100/bfauska/IMG_0725_1.jpg)
The monitor neck and board, anybody know where the Vertical Size adjustment is, I can only find "vert hold, horiz hold, bright, vert pos, horiz pos" my image is too tall and goes off of the screen on both the top and bottom.
(http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t100/bfauska/IMG_0718_1.jpg)
And the artwork that made me want the cabinet in the first place... does it get much more retro than that? And it's got nearly naked ladies. That's just cool.
I am not sure what I am going to do with this cab. I am not too interested in a dedicated cab, and it's already a conversion so I am thinking of making it a "vertical classics" emulation cabinet. I'd keep the original sideart, maybe try to replace the marquees, but more likely try to design something complimentary, and do up a new bezel that goes better with the rest of the art. I think for controls I'd keep the leafswitch stuff but probably in a new CP, maybe with one more button and a TB, or spinner (I'd have to see if one was more appropriate for vertical games than the other). Then I'd set it up to run ArcadeOS or something else lightweight on my old Athlon 900 hooked to the original monitor, filter the game list and be good to go.
What's everybody think, good find, good luck, nice art, crap story telling, crap game, crap carpet, crap plans? Go ahead let it rip, I can probably take it.
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Love the shape, love the artwork. And I'm one who doesn't mind modding originals (think about it as 'hot rodding' :-))...
Go for it!
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Excellent find. That coin door look like it was chisled from stone. Any wood rot?
I think I'll change my browser home page as you have done. Great idea.
It's funny how projects just drop in your lap sometimes. I recently got a call from a local arcade guy offering me a small dead cab for $35. Like I need another project now. It's now in my garage awaiting parts and time.
Good luck with the project. Mame away...
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Great find :cheers:
I love universal cabs :P
Is that a magical spot pcb ?
I have a original cocktail but the pcb is very different !
Greetings
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Any wood rot?
Nope, some pealing paint on the back of the cab, but I don' think this things ever been wet, mostly it is flaky where it has dried out.
Is that a magical spot pcb ?
Nope, Mr. Do. It also had some shards of a Mr. Do marquee and there is a Mr. Do instruction card on the CP.
Speaking of Mr. Do, here is a few pics of the screen up an running this morning before work.
(http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t100/bfauska/IMG_0732.jpg)
This picture is washed out from the camera flash.
(http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t100/bfauska/IMG_0735.jpg)
This one on the other hand shows the image much better.
No burn in, a little too tall of an image, a spot on the screen that is less vibrant than the rest, and some occasional fluttering light levels/focus. I am not sure how to deal with those problems. I haven't researched yet but it seems like a cap kit is sort of the universal fix-it approach to monitors, so I'll look around the monitor forum for info on that.
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That cab is uber sexy. The name is definitely NSFW. :)
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I was just looking through the Time Out Tunnel.com website and saw your cab and thought of this thread.
http://timeouttunnel.com/album_vintage_timeout.htm (http://timeouttunnel.com/album_vintage_timeout.htm)
Fourth pic
Rick
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Ahhh, it's so nice to see them in their native environment. While the artwork seems a bit off the wall now, it sure did fit right in back in the day. I'm going to save a copy of that picture for my collection of things related to this cabinet.
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The old Universal cabs are very cool. Those and the Classic Taito cabs would be tops on my list. I think a classic Vertical cab would be doing it justice. Good luck with what ever you decide to do with it.
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Necrothread for my own purposes. I've still got this cabinet, sadly the game didn't work last time I tried to fire it up but based on the way this cabinet has behaved in the past that may not mean anything.
I've moved my Dynamo MAME cab to my office at work so now I don't have anything to play at home and I've been thinking I may want to revive the idea of doing a dedicated 4-way vertical cabinet with restored art and a MAME pc driving the monitor. I happen to go down this thought path on occasion and this time it led to photos of someone who did a restore on their cabinet and that means that the part that's always been missing for me to find is available to try and reproduce, the back-glass/upper-bezel/lower-marquee art.
I'm linking to the restore thread over at the arcade-museum forums so I can find it again from here if needed.
http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=269631
(http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=269631)
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Thanks for bumping this I *love* that cabinet. What a great show piece - that art is killer!
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Thanks for bumping this I *love* that cabinet. What a great show piece - that art is killer!
Yeah, Universal made some **crazy** looking cabs, and I mean that in a good way.
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I have a spare working Mr. Do PCB if you are interested. Not sure what your plans on the cabinet are though...
D
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I have a spare working Mr. Do PCB if you are interested. Not sure what your plans on the cabinet are though...
D
Mr. DO is the board it came with, and may work, I'm not sure. If I were to go with a dedicated board though I think it'd be a Magical Spot. But thanks.
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Wow, thanks for bumping this! I wasn't around for the original thread. I've never seen a cab like that before but that artwork is GORGEOUS! I'm going to have to go check out this game in Mame and see what its like. Good luck with the project and kudos to you for preserving this piece of history!
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(http://i1126.photobucket.com/albums/l616/colecomeister/IMG_2157_zps7035ff77.jpg)
Wow, that's incredible. What am I doing with my life?? I gotta start a study on this type of artwork, it's g-g-g-gorgeous!! :applaud:
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(http://i1126.photobucket.com/albums/l616/colecomeister/IMG_2157_zps7035ff77.jpg)
Wow, that's incredible. What am I doing with my life?? I gotta start a study on this type of artwork, it's g-g-g-gorgeous!! :applaud:
Right? The style of this cabinet and the artwork are just so outside the norm, I feel like it'd be a shame to do anything other than try and restore its appearance.
I've played the game in MAME though and it's nothing to write home about, that's why I think a MAME machine dedicated to games with a vertical monitor and the same controls is the way to go.
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Looks straight out of the animated movie from the early 80s Heavy Metal.
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Looks straight out of the animated movie from the early 80s Heavy Metal.
Which was denied to exist for years, by the writers/artists who founded Heavy Metal magazine which came out in 1977, based on a French Magazine from 1975. (Ahh, Druuna, how I miss you.)
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What did you end up doing with this cabinet? Did you keep it and restore it? Or did you end up selling it?