How much do you think this cabinet is worth?

[NiN^_^NiN]

Hey guys i just won a auction on a taito speed race game. It's a black n white video game and from what i can tell the board inside doesn't use a CPU so it hasn't been mamed its just electronics like pong.

What im woundering is would it be worth it to restore it (the guy mentioned he found a new board for it) or just make it a mame cabinet?

I haven't found much information on it at all and i it's a classic but i dont think its something any1 would pay a good amount of money for.

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3235231797

[kspiff]

Hm.. if it has working components and decent sideart (or all woodgrain, which can just be replaced), I would keep it original.. if you don't think it would be worth the time/cost to restore just for one 1P racing game, cabinet/accessories are in really bad condition, etc., just MAME it.

Looks cool, but it's no Sprint or Sprint 2.. then again, the cabinet doesn't look like it would be that good for conversion, either, and would probably be much cheaper to fix than MAME.. seems almost a toss-up to me

EDIT: Whoops!  Just wondering how much it is worth to a sucker when fixed up, eh?

Like I said, it's no Sprint.. and even those aren't in really high demand :/ (I think a working Sprint 2 in OK condition went at about 350 last SuperAuction)..

[NiN^_^NiN]

Well i'm just woundering if i did restore it that it would go for a prety price?

I do agree it's not the best looking machine. Actually it's prob 1 of the few thatsd blah but still if the spare speed race board is only $20 or so then i will prob fix it up.

I dont think it would be worth ti to any1 unless they wanted a real calssic it was taito's 8th arcade game i think.

Id rather a super sprint cab i loved that game it was the only arcade game i ever played. I'm in australia so there wern't to many from what i saw.

1 possibility is to make it into a Jukebox it kinda has a ok shap for that have some cool light designs in the front and it look quite good.

I'll have to see when i get it.  

Here is a better picture of what it looks like

[paigeoliver]

You could probably repair it without even getting a new boardset. The auction says it has a ROM board problem. It is likely that either the ROMS on it have gone bad. All you really need to do is find a ROM archive of the game, and get some new EPROMS for it. That will probably clear it right up.

[paigeoliver]

Gareth Hall in Brisbane claimed to have 5 working boardsets for this game last fall. Maybe shoot him an email guruchoc@arcadeheaven.com and see if he still has them.

That would be a fairly dumb game to Mame anyway. Totally wacky cabinet. But it doesn't look that large or heavy, so it would be cool to squeeze into a corner somewhere.

None of the Pre-Invaders black & white games are really worth much, except Computer Space, Pong, Firetruck, and Maneater. But they are fun to play, and tend to have pretty interesting cabinets.

[NiN^_^NiN]

Thanks for the info paigeoliver it really helps.

The problem is the board doesn't contain Roms/epproms its all electronics like pong you can't play the game in mame cause there isnt any roms its just circutry.

I dont know what to do i'm gonna get it in a few hours so i'll post pics and post em here

[kspiff]

If the pic from the flyer is any indication, though.. that game has probably been refurbed extensively in the past.. and is a long way from any kind of real collector's condition .. I would refurb it keep or sell, but I'm more into dedicated arcade games than MAME so that's just me..

I still just think it would be cool for a game room like Paige said.. looks like a jukebox

[NiN^_^NiN]

Well i got it home right now and plugged all the stuff in and i got the image on the screen. There are 2 problems with the board:

A) The screen sync is off the vert doesn't seam to be working proper.
b) My graphic of the car is fine but the other cars are just blocks.

Would it be possible to convert this into a mame driving cab?

I have a spare colour monitor and all but no powersupply so will the power supply in this machine work with the colour monitor?

How hard is it to hook up a steering wheel and pedal to the pc?

The wheel does full 360 just spins n spins and the pedal uses a pot.

I dont think this would be good for anything besides a mame cabinet or a jukebox cabinet.

It does look like a jukebox doesn't it but it's not worth making it a jukebox. All the score boards and all work on the machine including the time extension lights etc.

It's so hard to choose what to do with it

[paigeoliver]

Are you sure it doesn't use any ROMS? A lot of the pre microprocessor games still used roms for graphics. My shark jaws had several roms, and it didn't have a processor.

Monitors don't use power supplies. So the current power supply doesn't matter. If the spare color monitor you have needs an isolation transformer, than the one already in the cabinet will work with it just fine.

You can hook up the gas pedal pot using the joystick port (hacked through a standard cheapo analog joystick, replace the pot on the pedal with the pot out of the joystick).

If the steering wheel uses an encoder wheel then it will hook up just like a spinner.

I would sill personally try to fix it. It is already partially working. Those black & white monitors are pretty simply. Recapping it, and replacing (maybe) the vertical output transistors should fix the monitor half of it (if the sync problem is even a monitor problem, it may be a boardset problem).

Try replacing the caps on the boardset as well.

[NiN^_^NiN]

Well Paigeoliver i whipped out the multi meter lastnight and i fixed the sync problem on the board but i accdently hurt a cap and when i looked at it there was a resistor right next to it that was broken.

I had the cars playing when i got it home it just had a sync problem and now i have the sync fixed but now the cars are invisible and i'm guessing it's cause of the cap i hurt.

I'm at work right now and am getting the parts for it at lunch i still have 6 hours left

But everything works on the cabinet the scoreboard the pedal and wheel plus all the LED for the time clock.

I did notice that there was something missing as there's a hole with something inside it i am guessing thats the speed-o-meter.

Oh yeah i don't think the cabinet has had anything happened to it as the guy who has it said it was taken form a pub ages ago then just forgotten about in storage. And by looking at the differences my model looks different.

I can't find anything saying taito it does have a big logo of some japanese company tho named something differently. And the design is a bit different.

But i must say i love the cabinet it looks different when your actually there the pictures dont do its shape justice.  

Oh about the rom thing. It might use roms but no cpu

The game goes like this.

You have a static background (its only really 2 white lines so it looks like a road) and you just dodge cars while your driving. It can't be any simpler u crash u start again.

[paigeoliver]

Here is what to do about the missing speedometer. I saw someone do this with a missing gauge on a different driving game.

Get an automotive voltage guage the same size as the hole, and hook it up to the 5 volts or the 12 volts (and ground) on the power supply. That will fill your hole, and provide functioning information on how your power supply is doing.

[NiN^_^NiN]

Hmm actually thats a good idea but i think i would hook the pot from the pedal to the speedometer so i can have the needle move right or left depending on how much my pedal is being pushed. It's an easy way to fake how fast it's going  

I have 3 hours left till i'm home. Can't wait to see if the board is fixed if it is i'm gonna play it  

Must remember to take some pictures of it to

[paigeoliver]

Aren't speedometers normally cable driven? I couldn't think of a solution with the gas pedal that put out enough voltage to power a standard guage.

[NiN^_^NiN]

Nah i'm gonna see if i can use 1 from a toy like them racing toy things.

I just soldered the new parts and they did nothing

I see the track but no cars and i hear everything fine

I dont know what else is wrong with it
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After all that soldering and thinking i saw a game field i turned the cabinet on and relised it was the monitor so it looks like me replacing the caps have made no video show up what so ever :\

Also i took a few quick pic there here at http://www.doomportables.org/~ninja/thumbnails.html

[NiN^_^NiN]

I have decided to restore this cabinet to its orignal state.

The reasons are:

1) speed race was the first commercial coin operated car scrolling game.
2) Next year will be it's 30th Birthday
3) It's a classic the pcb boards are rare and the cabinets are very rare
4) I can't wreck shuch an orignal machine.

SO no mame driving cabinet now

I'll keep you updated tho

Thanks to all the people who helped me decide on this all of them you can see above ^_^