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Tempest MAME

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Stingray:
Sounds like a helluva good idea to me. It's not as if he's taking a working Tempest and junking all the insides in favor of a frankenpanel MAME setup. It'll still be original looking and you'll still be able to play Tempest on it.

-S

Gunstar Hero:
If he saved a cabinet slated for the junkyard anyways, I find it far from a crime to MAME it. It's not like he's planning to paint it black and slap a big blue MAME logo on the marquee.

Even if he did take what was left of the original Tempest guts out and sell them, they'd go to save other Tempest cabs. right?

paigeoliver:

--- Quote from: DiamondDave on November 12, 2004, 08:18:46 am ---  Vector monitors aren't that hard to find, You just have to spend the money, I've been able to find one when I need one, I have two sitting in my shop right now.
  I been restoring and repairing video games and pinball machines for almos ten years, and I just find it crazy to hack up a original game for a Mame machine, There are lots of more suitable cabunets out there easy to find, Hell if anybodys ever looking for one, drop me a line, theres two sitting in my driveway  right now.

--- End quote ---

Whenever you see a vector monitor for sale you can almost be sure that the seller pulled it from the cabinet. You can always find them because they are up to like $450 now and a working Space Duel or Gravitar isn't worth much more than that, SO guess what happens?

There seem to be 10 times as many vector cabinets without monitors as there are vector monitors without cabinets.

Paladin:
I bought a Tempest that was converted to a horizontal JAMMA cab, and restored it back to a fully functional Tempest.  It cost me just under $1000 including the cabinet.  Details are here, including a price breakdown:
http://home.comcast.net/~dark.paladin/tempest/index.htm

I just bought another converted Tempest, and realized just how lucky I got with the first one.  The new one has been spray painted gray and it will not come off without taking the art with it, has cabinet scratches down to (and into) the wood, has no marquee panel, PCB, power supply, coin door guts, etc...  Pictures can be found here:
http://home.comcast.net/~dark.paladin/tempest2/index.htm

I originally planned on restoring the outward appearance to Tempest, but running MAME on the raster monitor that is in the cab.  I have since changed my mind.  My current plan is to strip and sand the sides, apply black paint and Galaga graphics and run MAME.  This will not cause any more damage than is already there, and it will be less expensive than restoring the outside to a Tempest.

How rare can these cabinets be?  I was able to find 2 converted cabinets within driving distance. I know of another local collector who bought one fully functional Tempest, then sold it to buy another one he found in even beter condition.  I think a lot of Tempest cabinets were converted and are still around.  It's the monitors that are hard to find.  

I have no quilty feelings whatsoever about converting this second cab, as long as I do no more damage than is already there.  It just isn't financially feasable to restore it when complete working cabs go for $500-900.
Think about this - for every Tempest cabinet that is restored, another classic vector game has problably been killed for it's monitor.  My restoration uses a monitor from a Space Dual that a local collector was hanging onto in case his Space Dual needed it.

As long as you're not chopping the thing up, I say go for it!

paigeoliver:
Exactly, you can't unconvert a converted vector game, or restore a stripped vector cabinet without taking part in (perhaps unknowingly) the slaughter of another vector game somewhere else.

Why do you think there are always so many Space Duel parts on ebay?

Right now there is a complete one with NO MONITOR (imagine that), a working boardset, a control panel, and a monitor glass.

I have actually been hoping to find a local "no monitor" Space Duel, so I can MAME it. Although all I would be doing is putting a same size PC monitor in it and hooking up the original control panel.

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