Author Topic: Zaccaria Space Pirate - Bela's Catch of the Century  (Read 91370 times)

Superully

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Zaccaria Space Pirate - Bela's Catch of the Century
« on: February 06, 2011, 12:01:05 AM »
as you guys know, our beloved hungarian member bela is on a mission: he's trying to collect all the zaccaria cabs ever made!

he has already made a lot of progress, but the further he proceeds, the more difficult it gets to find the missing games, because they get rarer and rarer. at the end of the last week bela contacted me because of a posting he had spotted in the classified ads section of ebay germany. on offer there was a dedicated zaccaria space pirate! this game is so damn rare, klov shows only one member who has one, marco "vernimark" from italy, but he "only" has the cocktail version - and the ad was talking about the full upright. what makes this game so special is the fact that it is one of two vector games that zaccaria produced back then.

so bela asked me if i could get in touch with the seller to make the necessary arrangements. it wasn't easy to get a hold of the person, but eventually i managed to talk to HER on the phone. she sounded pretty young and told me she was selling the game for her father. she said that the game was fully operational, the only problem it had was a loud sound coming out of the speaker once the game is credited. i asked her if she was SURE that the correct game was inside the cabinet, she said YES, but asked her father again just to be 100% positive - he confirmed! i had heard similar answers in the past and was pretty sure that this game had been converted at some point in the past, but no matter what, bela said I WANT THAT CAB! :)

there was just one problem: the seller wasn't willing to wrap up the cab and fix it on a palette, she said she had put the ad up in the classified ads section on purpose for a pickup by local people only. ladies and gentlemen, coming to the stage now: superully! because i want to support bela's dream, i offered to pick up the cab for him, although the seller's location was 300 kilometers from my place - one-way! "whatever, i'm going to get that cab for bela", so i set a pickup date for today!

i didn't do a roadtrip report this time, but i will tell you a little bit more about it: when i arrived at the seller's location after three hours on the road, i was greeted by the father. the first thing he told me was that his daughter had made a critical error when putting up the ad: the price! let me tell you this: it was EXTREMELY low, four persons spend that amount of money at mcdonald's on one visit. he told me the price he had in mind and i was a little bit shocked at first. not that it was rude, but it was way above the listed price - way above!!! he told me that he had bought the game 10 years ago for 1,500 euros and that he had set it up in a bar for quite a while - without registering it with the public authorities :P. he said it got a lot of gameplay back then (but the counter only shows 3020 plays)!

i asked him to show me the cab first, because up to now we had only seen one small picture. so he walked me down into the basement and turned on the game. i immediately realized that this was indeed the real deal: zaccaria space pirate full upright in great conditon with a working pcb and a working vector monitor! holy maccaroni, holy ravioli, holy moly, holy smokes, holy whatever!!! :o :o :o

enough said (for now), here's what i saw (i'll be revealing the cab step by step with the lights coming up slowly for dramatic purposes ;)) :arrow:

















there was only one problem left: the price! i couldn't call bela because he was on a skiing holiday in austria (plus i didn't have his phone number with me), but i knew how much he wanted to have the cab and that i couldn't simply walk away from this once-in-a-lifetime chance (i guess bela would have killed me 8)). so i started negotiations with the seller and after some hard bargaining we agreed on a price which made both of us happy (well, i have to tell you that i think bela will be happier than the seller was :P). in the end, i made the decision to get it and bela promised me he will be filming a video of himself dancing around in joy IF the cab is the real deal and IF i bring it home for him! your turn, bela, get out that video camera ... 8)

so we loaded up the cab (i realized that those zaccaria cabs are pretty light) and off i drove! on my way back, i made a small detour to visit saschak "laschek" where we tested my paperboy roms and where i loaded sascha's atari system ii pcbs (paperboy and super sprint) for trying them out in my cab. of course, i also took a lunch break at the golden m because bela had invited me to do so :)

i dropped the cab off at The Storage™ where it is waiting for a delivery to hungary. i'll be adding more items for bela next week (stay tuned), but for now i want to end this looong story with the following resume: the cab is in almost immaculate conditions, it came with the manual and with all the keys (!) and it is going to be one of the highlights of bela's zaccaria collection!

ENJOY, BELA!!! :spaceace: :spaceace: :spaceace:
« Last Edit: February 06, 2011, 12:52:04 AM by Superully »
all i need is ... PONG - and a select few others: TOUCH ME, DRAGON'S LAIR, JOUST, ROBOTRON, MR DO, SAN FRANCISCO RUSH THE ROCK!!!

level42

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Re: Zaccaria Space Pilot - Bela's Catch of the Century
« Reply #1 on: February 06, 2011, 12:16:35 AM »
Very very very very very very cool !!!!!

Man this is so great. I love Euro Vectors !!! :)

And no matter, I lovvvvvee that artwork !!!

But uhm..... Ully is this a Space Pilot or a Space Pirate ?    ;D ;D ;D

What monitor is in there ??

By the way, is this an original game or is it an Asteroids copy ? (Where are the screenshots Ully ?!?!?! )  ;D ;D ;D
« Last Edit: February 06, 2011, 12:19:19 AM by Level42 »

level42

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Re: Zaccaria Space Pilot - Bela's Catch of the Century
« Reply #2 on: February 06, 2011, 12:23:35 AM »
Ah, I should have known where to watch for info about this:

http://andysarcade.de/spacepirate.html

It's a Rip off copy/license !

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO you've got a WORKING Cinematronics (clone) game there !!!!

With probably a Hantarex vector monitor....


Man this is rare !


gyruss

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Re: Zaccaria Space Pilot - Bela's Catch of the Century
« Reply #3 on: February 06, 2011, 12:30:11 AM »
That must we the first zaccaria that i really like. Love the blue on black artwork.  :)

Congrats Bela!


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Re: Zaccaria Space Pilot - Bela's Catch of the Century
« Reply #4 on: February 06, 2011, 12:48:37 AM »
What I don't get is that it seems to use (copys of) the original Cinematronics boards, but the Hantarex monitor looks like a regular analogue vector monitor.
Maybe this is explained by the two big DACs on the soundboard (and no, in this case the DAC's are not processing the sound but the deflection).

I hope Andreas will chime in here, he must be interested in this !

This means a lot of scanning Bela ! ;) Congrats man, this is really something special !!

ANd Ully....please correct the Space Pilot name in the title of this thread..... ;)

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Re: Zaccaria Space Pilot - Bela's Catch of the Century
« Reply #5 on: February 06, 2011, 12:50:43 AM »
Note what Andreas wrote on his webpage about this game:

Only the Cocktail version is known to still exist as of today (2007). The two Upright version seem to have 'disappeared'.
Not unlikely, this is one of those 2 ?

Here's pictures of the PCB's:
http://www.vernimark.com/arcade/default.asp?PageMode=3&PageMode2=4&GameID=358&tog=4#PictureID979



Superully

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Re: Zaccaria Space Pirate - Bela's Catch of the Century
« Reply #6 on: February 06, 2011, 12:53:35 AM »
ANd Ully....please correct the Space Pilot name in the title of this thread..... ;)

thx, just did that!!!
all i need is ... PONG - and a select few others: TOUCH ME, DRAGON'S LAIR, JOUST, ROBOTRON, MR DO, SAN FRANCISCO RUSH THE ROCK!!!

Superully

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Re: Zaccaria Space Pilot - Bela's Catch of the Century
« Reply #7 on: February 06, 2011, 12:59:14 AM »
Only the Cocktail version is known to still exist as of today (2007). The two Upright version seem to have 'disappeared'.
Not unlikely, this is one of those 2 ?

i guess there's a word missing: the two PLAYER upright version!
all i need is ... PONG - and a select few others: TOUCH ME, DRAGON'S LAIR, JOUST, ROBOTRON, MR DO, SAN FRANCISCO RUSH THE ROCK!!!

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Re: Zaccaria Space Pirate - Bela's Catch of the Century
« Reply #8 on: February 06, 2011, 01:06:39 AM »
Yeah, very possible !

Get that out of the storage my friend.....this should be in a vault ! :P



Q*ris

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Re: Zaccaria Space Pirate - Bela's Catch of the Century
« Reply #9 on: February 06, 2011, 01:54:43 AM »
Wow, did the father forced people to use white gloves when they were playing it?
It looks so clean!
So when is the official opening date of the Zaccaria Museum in Hungary?
(and of course big up to Ully for being the super driver-negociator!!)

Etienne MacGyver

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Re: Zaccaria Space Pirate - Bela's Catch of the Century
« Reply #10 on: February 06, 2011, 07:08:01 AM »
Nice cooperation there guy's !
Thats one rare beauty you got there !

I want to see that dancing vid !  ;D

Thats what i call community guys !

Big thumbs up to Super Ully !  :spaceace: :spaceace:

Superully

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Re: Zaccaria Space Pirate - Bela's Catch of the Century
« Reply #11 on: February 06, 2011, 08:36:55 AM »
Get that out of the storage my friend.....this should be in a vault ! :P

i know, andré, but the only vault i have is my apartment - and i don't want to drag it up here. i could put it in storage at school ...  ;D

btw, bela doesn't know yet the outcome of thise, so if you guys here a loud noise this evening, it is bela doing his dance of joy!!! can't wait for the video :P
all i need is ... PONG - and a select few others: TOUCH ME, DRAGON'S LAIR, JOUST, ROBOTRON, MR DO, SAN FRANCISCO RUSH THE ROCK!!!

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Re: Zaccaria Space Pirate - Bela's Catch of the Century
« Reply #12 on: February 06, 2011, 10:01:45 AM »
Fantastic community spirit!

More than ever, all the fame for a such story... homepage immediately!  ;)



I can't wait to see more pictures of the cabinet... but also a special Bela's video  ::) :P  ;D

 :spaceace: :spaceace: :spaceace:

Alpha1

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Re: Zaccaria Space Pirate - Bela's Catch of the Century
« Reply #13 on: February 06, 2011, 11:20:24 AM »
I've got a NIB box Hanatarex vector monitor for this game!

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Re: Zaccaria Space Pirate - Bela's Catch of the Century
« Reply #14 on: February 06, 2011, 11:23:11 AM »
 :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: