Partial Resto on my Cento part I

This will be a short entry in this journey because tonight was all about ridding the machine of antiquated wiring, loose screws, nails, dust bunnies and the like.  I opened up the back of the machine and unbolted what I have to assume is the power supply.  At first glance it looks like a brick or one of those mouse traps for live catch and release of rodents.  It is surprisingly heavy for the size of it.

As you can see, this is the nerve center. Someone had wired a standard orange extension cord into it and it connected to the light bar behind the marquee as well as the speakers.   All of these cords were trimmed away from the walls of the cabinet and discarded.  It was really difficult to crop them and I felt like I was cutting the umbilical cord in a way, but since this machine will have modern components in it (i.e a computer tower, monitor, and desktop speakers) the need for the outdated wiring is zero. 

From here, I took a shop vac to the inside of the cabinet to get rid of 30 years of dust, cobwebs, fallen screws and God knows what else was lurking in the dark recesses of that hull.

After the back was taken care of I turned my attention to the front of the cabinet (namely the marquee/speaker area).  I took the marquee off and removed the housing for the speaker (which is genius in its design), removed the old school speaker and cleaned the marquee (it had glue all the way around).  Last, but not least, I cleaned both sides of the bezel glass and what was once a dusty weathered looking display area was now clean and vibrant looking once more.

I bought a tube light during our travels today that I had hoped would work behind the marquee, but unfortunately it was a little bit too big and as I do not really want to alter the inside of the cabinet (structurally) I think I'll hold out for one the right size.

Some final notes I want to make about this machine before wrapping this up:  while cleaning the inside of the base of the machine I discovered that the coin catcher was still there and the previous owner had left a quarter behind (maybe for good luck... like not giving a wallet as a gift without some money in it?)  Just for authenticity it was from the early '80s.  On the right wall of the cabinet was a typed note that from the tone of it sounded like a checklist for construction on the cabinet or a primer for what things to look for in a defective cabinet.  And the last little bit of awesomeness was that the coin box had two counters still attached and the combined count (if I am doing the math correctly) implies that this machine made someone about $30,000 in quarters (or a sore thumb from adding credits on free play).  Would love, in an alternate universe, to see a montage of all the action this Centipede game saw in its heyday.

  

For the purpose of score keeping and later scrutiny the stats on this project thus far are as follows:

Hours into the project (1)
$$ into this project   ($120)
Cups of coffee consumed during this project thus far  (2)

Retrogaming love is a many legged creature

After searching local ads for NES games and arcade cabinets I happened upon a guy selling a Centipede cabinet as follows:   Arcade Cabinet and Header for Centipede game.
Original arcade cabinet and header for Centipede.  The cabinet does not have a monitor or the
centipede game board. -  $150

So on Monday, June 23rd I met the seller at the storage center where he had this "not so little" gem holed up.

The cab looks very much intact and with the exception of the control panel overlay all the artwork is there.  The side art has a few scratches, carvings, burn marks, etc but definitely workable.  The T-molding is peeling in places and there are dings and chunks of wood missing.  I suppose, though, if the machine was immaculate then doing a resto on it would seem a moot point.  After a little bit of negotiation I managed to talk the seller down from his asking price a bit and got the cabinet for a fair shake.

A quick search on wikipedia reveals that centipedes are Cavernicolous (cave-dwelling).  This little factoid helps to diminish the guilt I have about locking my new machine away in my cold, dark shop.  When my mancave is completed this species will be in its natural habitat.

I am so excited to be embarking on another arcade cabinet project.  This will be my first crack at a partial restoration. I say partial because I plan to keep the artwork more or less intact and preserve the vibe of the original machine, but as it has no arcade monitor, board or guts anymore I plan to convert the interior into a mame machine capable of playing as many of the classic hits from that same golden age of arcade games as possible.  One of the first steps is to try and design a control panel that will obviously play Centipede as it was intended but (without getting too over-the-top) also be capable of games such as:  Donkey Kong, Pacman, Asteroids, and the like.  It should have a clean interface with the original style 1 and 2 player buttons, a trackball, 1x 8way joystick and maybe 2 or 3 buttons.  I realize that some of the games from that era had 4 or 5 buttons (Defender and Asteroids I think are examples), but at least with the case of Asteroids I have managed to play it on my other machine using only a few buttons and it still allows for fun game play.  I think want to go with a Zippy joystick with a white or green colored ball to bring out the colors of the sideart and/or marquee on the machine and led-lit colored buttons to tie the control panel together with the awesome original artwork.

I won't say that Centipede is my favorite game from this era, but certainly the artwork that came on this cabinet is some of the best I have ever seen.

I hope that others out there with similar interests will get something out of this series and, if nothing else, I want to document the choices I make for this project (good and bad) and see how it turns out.

NES happenings June 4th - 18th, 2014

Good thing I had my twitter feed to fall back on or I would have forgotten 3 of the games I had recently acquired.  On June 4th I made my way around to a few pawn shops in town and picked up 3 games at one location:   Blue Marlin, Image Fight, and Golf Power (as if I needed another golf game).  Then just tonight I made a return visit to my new found contact (a fellow NES collector) and traded him some NES and SNES accessories for 9 games.   Most I already had, but I managed to replace some of my damaged label carts with better copies and added 2 new games:  Spy vs. Spy and Golgo 13.

The stand out for me from this lot is Spy vs. Spy.  I have many fond memories of camp-outs as a kid (tenting in the back yard, etc.) and reading Cracked and Mad magazines with friends from the neighborhood.  The Spy vs. Spy comics always cracked us up (no put intended).   Like all good things the written works tend to spawn movies or games and Spy vs. Spy was no exception.  My first introduction to the game was on a friend's commodore 64.  I think what I loved most was the split screen shenanigans and hilarity that came from trying to outwit your opponent with bombs and booby traps.  I have yet to play through the NES version, but I hope it lives up to my memories of it from way back when.

These additions bring my collection perilously close to 50% overall... which is a bittersweet realization.  To have come so far and to, at the same time, realize I have so far to go.  Games are going to become harder to come by and more costly from here on out and as a by product I imagine my entries may become fewer and farther between.

For this reason I am trying to pick up some doubles along the way in the hopes that I might be able to sell, trade or barter my way to some missing titles in the weeks, months and years to come.

NES cartridge total:   411

Nes pickups - June 1st!

In the words of Chris Farley (as Todd O'Conner from Bob Swerski's superfans): "That's a baker's dozen for me".  Never been big on superstitions myself but I'm willing to consider thirteen lucky.  My previous entries have touched on how I've been searching for games a little off the paths less traveled. On two recent trips stateside I came up empty handed and only found a handful of items on my last few car trips.  Never would I have thought that just around the corner from my house (literally four houses around the block) I would find a stockpile of games for sale by a neighbor. 

I wasn't sure what to expect when I arrived at the seller's front door because the listing was a guessing game with a lot of the titles difficult to make out in the pictures provided.  The night before (with only the light of my laptop to guide me) I felt like a forensic tech trying to clean up closed circuit images and make viewable the grainy outlines of letters in the ad.  I sharpened the images, resized them checked them against google images as to the guess of the colors vs letter placements and tried not to make too many assumptions as to what the games might be.   I was so anxious to finally see the titles in the cardboard boxes when his garage doors went up that it was difficult to hide my excitement.  I'm not sure if most people can relate to this feeling, but game collectors (or I suppose collectors of anything) know this feeling all to well;  that pure rush of adrenaline that comes from seeing that thing you are looking for right before your eyes.  The titles I got from his lot were as follows:  Dragon's Lair, A Boy and his Blob, Wrecking Crew, Ikari Warriors 2, The Simpsons: Bart vs the World, Disney's Adventures in the Magic Kingdom, Bomberman, Castlequest, Rad Racer 2, Flying Warriors, Pinball Quest, Clu Clu Land, and Solomon's Key.

Today holds a few milestones for my collection.  Firstly, these 13 games are (I believe) the largest pickup in one day that I have had since this collection started and secondly this push puts my collection over the 400 mark of total carts!!!  The obvious standouts for me would be the two black box games I added to the collection (Wrecking Crew and Clu Clu Land), Dragon's Lair, Bomberman and A Boy and his Blob.   

This brings the game count to:  406