As many knows I brought a Juno First back from our Archer's roadtrip (Erik's ,Bruno's).
This epic trip is also know as the tight roadtrip because of the limited space I had to put my leg's in Bruno's car after we loaded his Wacko.


To be honest Gyruss spotted it first but after a few belgian beers, I could convince him that this game was complete crap and that the joystick was built with a dengerous toxic material so he let me have it.
Also note that Bruno almost bought it too, in that case that would have been a Bruno First.
Ahem..
Anyway, here's how it was when I bought it.





Everything was there except the coin door (more on that soon), the CPO and the power supply board...

"Mario Bros., the Nintendo arcade game, was first published in 1983. (The sequel, Super Mario Bros., arrived in 1985.) That is also the year The Smiths released "This Charming Man," just their second single, written by guitarist Johnny Marr and frontman Morrissey (the band had formed the previous year, and would put out their self-titled debut album in 1984).

It's not clear whether that historical coincidence inspired the brilliant bit of electronic composition by lazyitis below—which orchestrates the song in the style of an 8-bit videogame theme complete with Mario Bros. sound effects—but I'd like to think it helps to explain just why it works so beautifully."

I'm about to reveal some classified informations about that mysterious secret UK base hidden in Belgium.
It now belongs to a certain Alpha1 and has been spotted in the woods of "Wallonia" lately.

This very powerful piece of equipment helped me locate the machine in the first place:


Nice belgian slippery road, we all love that don't we? It all adds to the big road trip fun.


A cool Belgian following another cool Belgian, just an ordinary day on the Belgian highways...


At the seller's place I was welcomed by this beauty   :


...and then told to tell you guys that this working Daytona 500 was for sale (PM me if interested):


Here's the secret behind the nice effects:


This mint 2012 calendar is also for sale, unfortunately, it comes with 2 free bingos (PM me too if interested):


...and now a little tour of the seller's place.
He has some kick ass toys in there, it's awesome to see them all in action at the same time:












The older guy of the place (1925), still alive and kicking:


...and finally the reason we're all here  


Time to hit the road, check out this french fries temple located oh, so very conveniently right on my road:


After another 1h drive we're back home and we're hiding in the woods, camouflage style!


















As you can see the game is in great condition for it's age (1978 as written on the coin mechs);
It plays blind, but I'm sure it's a minor thing like for instance that HV cup not being plugged in the monitor  
The cab really looks dangerous, especially in the wild like that, don't you think?


Anyway all it needs now is for Alpha1 to drop by and press start to LET THE BOMB GO!

Maybe I'm gonna get flamed here but searching the web I stumbled on "Gust de Meyer".
I had never heard of him before but he seems to be a Belgian die hard arcade collector (and also vintage video games in general).
He put out an exhibition at the toy museum in Mechelen in 1999 and judging from the pictures, the machines displayed there were simply amazing.
Gust sure knows his classics! ...and remember that the pics are at least 13 years old... respect!

If you read this topic, Mr de Meyer, just login and share some more pics from your collection with us (or invite me for a tour, I'm pretty free this weekend ).

Remember Ully's perfectly working Canyon Bomber?

Well long story short: I broke it's monitor neck   I know, I know...
Although Ully took the news like a gentleman I really really feel super bad about it and could bang my head on the wall for hours for being so stupid.

How did it happen? Well, my trailer was too small to carry the cab upright so I had to carry it lying on its back. Of course I double checked if everything was firmly attached before moving the cab. Little did I knew that the monitor chassis itself was too weak to support the wheight of the monitor in this horizontal position...
The whole chassis bended and of course the neck of the monitor touched the backdoor and got seriously damaged.

Lesson learned, try to carry your cabs in a vertical position as much as possible, because those old giants don't like to rest on their back, hence the name "upright"...

I will now of course do whatever I can to fix this BIG mistake.

Etienne has already suggested that a really precise soldering might fix the problem,...that would be a great solution!
Other ideas I had: finding the exact same broken part... but is this something you can just swap?
If so, in my tournament table, I have a working TEC TM600 (it's the same monitor but in it's 19'' version), I'm of course OK to give the non broken piece to Ully but can it even be removed, and will it work on his monitor?
Questions,questions,... need you help here guys, my electronic knowledge is definitely too limited to tackle this problem alone.

Here are some pictures of the damages and the monitor's manual.

It's a B/W Monitor TEC TM623 (sometimes called TM123 by Atari) and it's used in Atari cabs from that period (circa 1977).









 

It's the third times in 3 days that ebay removes my ad because they are, according to them, "an illegal activity".
I'm speechless...
2 firsts were electronic darts games, ebay removed the ad displaying a nice "illegal activity warning" for the followers of the auction.
Latest one was an N'Styl non-working arcade cab.
They told me that the game was regarded as a gambling machine (even if I sent them the exact definition of what a gambling machine is) because "you could insert euros in it".
What's the point of having a "pinball and arcade" section then??
Boys, are we back in April 1976? Do I have to go in the courtroom to play a game or two of Kung-Fu Master to show them that it's not a game of chance but of skills?

Before going on vacation this year I felt the urge to do something stupid and impulsive... my choice went for:"buy a new cab!".
I saw one on ebay and asked myself the 4 basic arcade questions:
-do I want it?
-do I need it?
-do I have the money for it?
-do I have the space for it?
Please note that: as long as you have at least one positive answer to either one of these fundamental questions, you're good to go  

So I contacted the seller and the deal was quickly made.



Since that minute I was on a mission,...erm, I mean on an operation.
Heading full speed to Kalubya, a thousand nations army couldn't hold me back!



Weapons for the battle were quickly loaded in the combat vehicle.



I kept my eyes open during the trip but there was nothing unusual so the drive was a smooth one.



Arriving at enemy's hide-outs, I couldn't document the rescuing of the green berets Roy Adams and Hardy Jones...
...because my secret camera was confiscated by the guards!
...but I can tell you that:



It was a matter or millimeter to be able to load this package in my Jeep while Adams and Jones were covering me:



Arriving on location in Belgium, the guys were warmly greeted by the local green berets:


Some more pictures of the heroes for the record:


Allright, althought I might not keep this cab forever (did I already say that earlier?), once again the arcade force was stronger than "weak me"  
...and as you witnessed I went for buying it (after having recommended it in the "cabs on ebay" topic, duh).

The price was allright, the distance was 150km, the cab works flawlessly and the gameroom was missing a 2 players cab with a special type of control
(in this case 2 machine guns... sweeeeet  )... more than enough reasons to convince me (yes, I'm that easy).

I'm happy with it and so are the visitors + the rattling noise of the guns sure keeps the rats away from THE BASE... what more could I ask for.
I was then a happy man, ready to go for some wel deserved vacations.

Many thanks to KID for lending me his Road Warrior on the very last minute  

Tuesday morning I woke up and took a look outside my bedroom window.
"What is that moron doing on my parking spot?" I said out loud to my cats.
I instantly put on my Batman dressing gown and went downstairs to check this closer.

The lady (yes it IS a lady) suddenly started to undress herself when she saw me (that happens all the time).
"Hum... but we barely know each other", I mumbled.


"No, wait, in fact I know you very well!"
"You're the one who took me all that money back in the 80's!!"


She didn't answer but I noticed the nice invitation that was taped to the menu of the day.
"Oh, thank you ma'am but I'm not that kind of guy...I'll just use the dip switch and SET YOU ON FREE PLAY! "
Yeah baby!


Allright, enough with the ladycab metaphor otherwise this will definitely get too weird with these pictures...






The only thing I had to do in order to play was changing the plug.
Even I can do that!


Pedal to the metal, blondie! Splash Waves blasting (a good way to cover that super noisy ventilator).


On temporary location:


To do list:
I'll give it a good cleaning and lubricate some mechanical squeaky parts.
I also have to attach a spring inside the wheel because the force feedback only works in one direction atm. (Done thanks to Kroustibat!!!)
I have to find an emblem. (Done thanks to Béla!!!)
Otherwise it works fine.

I'm really thrilled to be a member of the famous Out Run Owner Club.

The game is as hard as I remembered it but I'm really enjoying it.

The best part of it is that it all happened thanks to this forum and more precisely thanks to über-wonder-SuperUlly who worked his ass off to buy and get that cab back from Germany to Belgium for me.
Many thanks to you, for your patience and dedication, man, I owe you big time.