PacMan, PacMan, Oh what have they done to thee?
It was about 2000 or 2001. I was working as a software developer in the mergers and acquistions department, and a buddy of mine named Joe came to visit me at my cube. In his hands he held two compact disks. In Sharpie MAME ROMS DISK ONE was scrawled across one. The other said MAME ROMS DISK TWO.
"What's this?" I asked.
I could see excitement on his face, but there was something else. Lack of sleep. The poor slog had been up all night.
"You're not going to believe it," he said.
I was a contractor in those days, billing by the hour, up to my neck in deadlines and responsibilty. So I did the only thing one could do. I put in disk one and fired it up. Sure enough, I didn't believe it. There, on those two unassuming disks, were the games of my youth, staring up at me like an old friend long forgotten.
***
Fast forward about 8 years. An email arrives from Mike, another old friend. He wants to know if I'll take an old arcade cabinet off his hands. He got it for free off the curb during a neighborhood cleanup day, but he didn't restore it like he told his wife he would, and after a year of it gathering dust, she's making him get rid of it. It's a working TriviaWhiz PCB, but it's in a PacMan cocktail cabinet. The monitor is original PacMan, but it's badly, badly burned. The PacMan PCB is long gone, as are the PacMan controls. The CP is original PacMan, but it's been drilled with extra holes and it's pretty much done for. Still, the cabinet isn't bad overall. If I'll take it off his hands, it's free.
I tell him I'll take it. I tell him I'll be over some time next week. Or the week after. Weeks and weeks pass, and I almost forget about the thing.
Then one day I get an email from him about lunch. A bunch of us meet, we eat, and when the meal is over there's a mixup with the ride situation, and I have to take Mike home. I get to his house, and he starts dragging this thing out of his garage. I am tentative. The thing looks like a giant piece of junk, and I have a lot of junk already. Too much junk, in fact. But I peer over my shoulder and see his wife. She's standing behind the screen door, watching us. Her arms are crossed, and she's tapping her foot. She's a red head, and I know that there's no way I'm getting out of his driveway without that thing in my truck. I take it home.
Later in the day my wife returns from picking up my 3-year-old at preschool, and she asks me, "What is that in the back of your truck?"
"Don't ask," I say, and I go outside and move it into the garage. A couple months go by.
One day my neighbor comes over and tells me he's having a garage sale. "Got anything you want to sell?" he asks me.
Hmmm. Maybe I do, I think, and I drag the cabinet into the driveway. I run a drop cord and plug it in. In the bright sunshine I can't even tell if it plays, but when I shield the screen I eventually see a picture. Raunchy sex trivia. I slap a $70 price tag on it. My neighbor gives me an odd look. I shrug, go back into the house.
By early afternoon, I begin to hope it doesn’t sell. If it doesn't sell, I decide, it's a sign from God himself. God is a huge PacMan fan, I've decided this will mean.
***
And that was the birth of my project. I can't even guess how many dozens of MAME cabinets I've planned out in my head since the day Joe brought me those disks. I've even put pencil to paper and almost left the house to buy plywood (a couple of times). But I've never quite pulled the trigger. Until now.
This is the point in every project where the builder has to ask himself a very serious question. 2 MAME or not 2 MAME. Perhaps some will disagree with my decision to MAME a PacMan, but I think it was the right thing to do for me personally. Here's why. First of all, the game I received was not a PacMan. It wasn't branded PacMan, and I had to open it up and investigate the tags to even know it ever was a PacMan. So it's not like I'm sticking a dagger in PacMan's heart. That was already done in 1985 by whoever converted it to TriviaWhiz.
Plus, even though it was a PacMan, the serial number is 8678. I feel that gives me a bit more latitude. If the thing was serial number 102, I'd probably feel like I had a duty to restore it to its original glory and donate it to the Smithsonian.
Another thing is that I don't really like to play PacMan. I really like Ms. PacMan, but I couldn't see dedicating a year or more of my life to a game that I'd don't enjoy that much. On that point, I am aware that there are 60-1 boards you can buy, but my tastes actually span many manufacturers. My favorites games are Ms. Pac Man, Donkey Kong, Burger Time, Frogger, 10 Yard Fight, QIX, Super PunchOut, PuzzleBobble, Tetris. Plus I love Visual Pinball and Future Pinball. And unless I can play all those on my machine, I'll always view the machine as a bit of a disappointment.
I've spent a fair amount of time lurking at the Restorations forum, and while guys like Level42 have my utmost respect, it's worth noting that most of those guys own a MAME cab and then also restore the classic cabs for collecting purposes. This isn't a reality for me. I consider myself to be more of a 1-cabinet kind of guy since my Valley pool table and 1 cabinet are about as much space as I'm ever going to be able to devote. So it's important to me that one cab does as much as possible.
Those are contributing reasons I went with MAME on this project, but the main reason was simply one of practicality. I know absolutely nothing about arcade machines. However, I'm a software developer by trade, and I have quite a bit of PC gaming hardware knowledge. So the MAME route is much, much more comfortable territory for me. Also, I had practically everything I needed for the MAME conversion without spending a penny. I don't mean to be a cheapskate, but let's face it. A full-on PacMan restoration would be expensive. I'd need a new PCB/ROMS and also a new arcade monitor. I'd probably be $600-700 poorer when I was done.
So with some guilt I chose to MAME my cabinet. However, I decided early on that I would do whatever it took to preserve as much of PacMan's original iconism. I also decided that if possible I'd try to use the word iconism at least once during the project. What does this mean, you ask? Well, I guess it just means that I'm keeping the door open for a future PacMan conversion and that I'm going out of my way NOT to deface the original equipment. Also, any parts I remove will be stored, not thrown away.
So, without further ado, here are my BEFORE pics. This is what the game looked like when I took possession. I'm at about 50% completion, but I want to make a point to document my build with some precision, so I may go slowly with my posts.
More to come!
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Topic: Converted PacMan Cocktail to MAME Cab (Read 2621 times)
