Author Topic: Who You Gonna Call?  (Read 23418 times)

Q*ris

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Who You Gonna Call?
« on: October 01, 2010, 01:43:37 AM »
On this Saturday September 25th 2010, it was the start of an ordinary day at the Rockbusters headquarters:

(Archive Picture taken during daylight)


Here at Rockbusters we have one mission: to search and destroy all kind of rocks, asteroids, asteroids deluxe, asterocks, meteors or even blasteroids.
This day at 5 am the members were using their ultra sophisticated computers to check frantically the www in search of some more asteroids that could threaten our earth.



Suddenly an alert appeared on their ebay-ionic radars!
Original Asteroids from 1979 spotted in Pool (Dorset), UK.
The Rockbusters Signal was automatically send to call Pascal my N°1 wingman.



Our security cameras catched him entering the Rockbusters HQ...
6.30 am, perfect timing... the blankets and some special tools were already prepared in case of such an emergency, so let's go!



Estimated lenght of the trip 1000km on the roads + 60km on the sea.
Estimated total time of the trip 18h.
But first some Rock Blasting Music!
Ooops... damn, I'm not cut for this century...



A few Night Driver games later...



...we arrive miraculously at Calais in France.
It is now 8.44 am and my 6th sense tells me we are heading in the right direction.



Pascal is loading the weapons while we wait for the ferry.



Once we're on board, it's now Burger Time! Sausage time! Beans time! whatever greasy thing time! ...a true "breakfast for the winners".
(We were planning to visit the burger king at noon as we always do when we are on a mission but because of this heavily heavy meal we had to wait until the evening... burps).



It's now game time because even a soldier has to relax sometimes... even by the simple way of shooting ninjas with a bright pink gun for instance.






Then I heard Pascal screaming "Blue screen! Blue screen of death!".
Wow, how cool is that? a BSoD on Segarally3. Clearly the highlight of this gameroom.



My usually loyal wingman tried to attract me into the Dark Side by making me play Cops 'n Robbers. But rest assured: I resisted.



Damn, my 6th sense is overworking again, we must be close...



During the cruise the crew came to congratulate us on all the good work Rockbusters is doing and thanked us for protecting the earth like we do on a daily basis.



At the arrival we were pulled over (probably because of that stupid rock'n roll looking van) and asked a lot of question.
True story: the guy from the customs asked me several times "How comes that you don't own a pac-man?".
He even said he knew the game asteroids and then again several times "So you're collecting and you don't own a pac-man?"
... I wish, mate, so for my next roadtrip I'll try to get one, just to be completely in order with THE LAW.



It's now 10am local time. Super nice weather and 3h of driving ahead of us until we reach checkpoint 4: loading the asteroids cab!
My very first 100% dedicated cab! I can't wait, I can't wait, I can't...
wooot, oh that's true I forgot about the official 1h15 traffic jam that's included in the full package of every real arcade roadtrip.  :(
Maybe this time the slowness is because we got a bit crazy and decided to drive on the wrong side of the road (and everybody followed us)?
Lucky for us a rockbuster friend opened the road a bit for us.



We stopped for a few minutes just to grab the official arcade roadtrip drink and The Guardian for my girlfriend (she used to live in UK)...
Aaah, amazing things you can do for love: driving 1000km in a day just to bring back a newspaper for your fiancee  ;D



Do I really need that... mmmh decision, decision...



2.45pm local time, we're at the sellers place!
It's mainly a pool and snookers renting/selling place.
They used to have arcade games for sale/rent but Gareth from PSL explained that nobody is playing with them in pubs anymore.
Slots/gambling machines are still hot though, eurrrgh :(



We wait 5 minutes in the showroom while Gareth is preparing THE machine in their warehouse and then...
Bam! Boom! Wooohoo, it's there in all its 1979 beauty! fully functionnal... just waiting for my high score to burn it's screen a little bit more :-)
Employees of the company were regularly playing on it but it had'nt been rented in ages.
As SPL were moving premises, this old lady had to leave (with me!).



Loading time now! Wow Gareth is fast with that cart. He moves the 95 kilos like if it was an empty cardboard box...
Wait it isn't, or is it?



Gary (with whom I made the deal) had also offered me to check a DK cab.
Sounds interesting but in reality it was a plain white cab with nothing original on it except for the marquee...
...so instead I picked up a busted change machine just in case SuperUlly would want it (and he did!).
Gareth said: "For a Rockbuster, of course it's free of charge".
Time to drive back to Dover.
I'm so happy I keep on looking back at the trunk while driving.
A bit dangerous in Pascal's opinion...
Also did I mention it's my first time driving on the right side of the road?
Oh, relax you all..



A quick stop at the gas station made us aware of the fact that tabloids were (again) talking about a Rockbuster (me in this case).



It's now 7pm local time.
Burger Time at last!
We had to wait so long for our stomach to want more food again after that crazy breakfast but it was worth the wait.
Yum Yum Yum! Our Energy level bars are increasing.



No problem with the customs this time (it's easier to pass the border with a loaded van than with an empty one obviously).
Time for the brave soldiers to celebrate: Huge beers time + Huge games time!




Note that Pascal played cops'n robbers again and WON 10£. He wants one at home now to use as a moneybox (seriously if you have one for sale...).


Found a very good book by one of our colleague on the boat:



Of course the crew members came to congratulate us because rockbusters, blablabla:



OK, we're a tad tired after the dancing games, especially against 17 years old girls that we were trying to impress
but we now have to drive 2h15 to my place and most of all: unload the Asteroids.
We are not afraid of anything because we are the mighty rockbusters AND ALSO because we are the:



OH30am Belgian time: arrival at my place. Perfect timing for the Rockbusters team again...
...and the rain miraculously stopped!!!
So we should get to work quickly.





After a good night sleep, it's time for me to: unload the change machine and take some pics of it for Ully,
put back those damns seats in the vito,
plug and test the machine and teach our newest member how to blast asteroids.
See, it's a great game for the whole family... but wait...
Oh no, something terrible happened to us during the night!
Someone "rocked" us!

(cab in it's temporary location)


The job of a real Rockbuster never really ends, so we now have to chase this old wizard who did this to our faces...
...and take control of the mother of all asteroids cabs: the mysterious and evil golden cab...
Go, Rockbusters, go!


blast! blast! blast!
« Last Edit: August 10, 2014, 11:19:22 PM by chrischris »

Q*ris

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Re: Who You Gonna Call?
« Reply #1 on: October 01, 2010, 01:44:22 AM »
Allright, thanks for reading all this, I can't tell you how happy I am right now...
It's one of my absolute ever dream cab and now I own it and can play it everyday!!
It's IN MY house, can you believe it? I'm like a child :)
When I'll have more time during the next weeks, I'll clean the cab a bit and I think that's all I'm gonna do because I want to keep it as original as possible...
...so no repro, no wood filling at the moment... might add an "highscore saver" in the future though.
Of course it shows some wear and has a few scratches but I like it that way for now (who said "lazy"?).
What do you think, you resto pros?

If you're not tired of this post, here are some more pics, please forgive me because I went a bit picture happy with this cab :)
OK time to blast some rocks now!





« Last Edit: August 10, 2014, 11:07:31 PM by chrischris »

level42

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Re: Who You Gonna Call?
« Reply #2 on: October 01, 2010, 06:56:26 AM »
Great road-trip and pics !  ;D ;D ;D ;D

Great catch ! US version too with owl-eye coin door, cool !!

Etienne MacGyver

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Re: Who You Gonna Call?
« Reply #3 on: October 01, 2010, 07:13:08 AM »
Fantastic story !
Congrats !

Belike

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Re: Who You Gonna Call?
« Reply #4 on: October 01, 2010, 08:15:50 AM »
We all knew you were on roadtrip, but you didn't tell us it is an Asteroids! :o
Congrats for this amazing catch and thanks for the great roadtrip report! ;D

Q*ris

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Re: Who You Gonna Call?
« Reply #5 on: October 01, 2010, 08:18:34 AM »
Thanks guys!

US version too with owl-eye coin door, cool !!
From what I read Asteroids machines with serial numbers below 18,900 had G05-801 monitors and "owl eye" coin doors.
It was replaced because it was prone to misuse (attach a coin on a string to play for free aka the fishing technique).
The writing on my bezel is white and the (c) atari is displayed on the screen so it's not the very early version
(which is good because I didn't want of that bug in the rev1 of the PCB where you could hide undefinitely somewhere
behind the score without being hit by anything... it spoils all the challenge of this wonderful game imho).

What puzzles me is that inside the cabinet most of the stickers on the monitor are in french...?

OK, one more pic for the road, the "money shot"  ;D:

68276 happy customers  ;D
« Last Edit: August 10, 2014, 11:02:23 PM by chrischris »

Ronald Reagan

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Re: Who You Gonna Call?
« Reply #6 on: October 01, 2010, 09:27:17 AM »
very very nice roadtrip report!!   ;D ;D ;D
congrats on your catch! EPIC BRITISH BREAKFAST pic!
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ckong

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Re: Who You Gonna Call?
« Reply #7 on: October 01, 2010, 09:32:57 AM »
LOL, very nice and very funny road trip report. I had some good laughs.  :spaceace:

And a great catch, Asteroids is also one of my favourites. It breaths true Arcade history. And thanks for mentioning about the high score save kit, I will check that out for myself too.

Q*ris

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Re: Who You Gonna Call?
« Reply #8 on: October 01, 2010, 10:15:57 AM »
And thanks for mentioning about the high score save kit, I will check that out for myself too.
Check here: http://www.andysarcade.de/asteroids.html
...and scroll to the very bottom of the page for more infos.
If you're interested we could maybe order it together.
One thing is sure: althought there is a pretty detailed tutorial, I will definitely need some help to install this  ::)

Muerto

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Re: Who You Gonna Call?
« Reply #9 on: October 01, 2010, 10:16:36 AM »
Wow, great roadtrip, and great modded pictures!, i had a few laughs!
And of course, awesome score!!! :spaceace: :spaceace: :spaceace:

Superully

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Re: Who You Gonna Call?
« Reply #10 on: October 01, 2010, 12:45:57 PM »
fabulous catch and imho one of the best roadtrip reports E-V-E-R! great job with those pictures, i had a lot of laughs along the way. i wonder when the rockbusters are going to strike again ...

p.s. do you have a shot of the control panel alone? most of the time parts of the graphics have rusted away, but yours seems to be in nice condition.
all i need is ... PONG - and a select few others: TOUCH ME, DRAGON'S LAIR, JOUST, ROBOTRON, MR DO, SAN FRANCISCO RUSH THE ROCK!!!

Wil2000

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Re: Who You Gonna Call?
« Reply #11 on: October 01, 2010, 01:06:11 PM »
I approve, this roadtrip report was totally awesome, and this cab is really a legendary one, I think I'd prefer to have this one first than many other cabs because of its control panel, so attractive with its nice colors and buttons only!

kroustibat

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Re: Who You Gonna Call?
« Reply #12 on: October 01, 2010, 03:05:22 PM »
awesome report chris ! really really funny :) And really great cab , congrats  ! great to know there's a asteroid cab near :p

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Re: Who You Gonna Call?
« Reply #13 on: October 01, 2010, 09:04:19 PM »
Woww!!! What a fantastic report  :o
I'm sure you spent a lot of time working on this one  ;) Many thanks for that!
Very fun to read... special effects on almost all pictures... (Darth Vader voice: Impressive....very impressive!)  :-*
I think it's the first time I see someone taking the Ferry instead the EuroTunnel for a UK road trip  ;) Any special reason for that by the way?

ON AIR IMMEDIATELY OF COURSE  ;)  :arrow:



 :spaceace: :spaceace: :spaceace:

Be proud... now, you have your 'graal game'  :)

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Re: Who You Gonna Call?
« Reply #14 on: October 01, 2010, 11:43:48 PM »
Great cab, great road trip and indeed a few good laughs!

nice one! ;D