A roadtrip to a familiar place

[caincan]

something is weird on their story.. they trashed most of the good original cabs. but the survivors are wasted in generic cabs 

[slowcade]

something is weird on their story.. they trashed most of the good original cabs. but the survivors are wasted in generic cabs 

They didn't have any idea about which games were valuable or popular.  They just sorted the games into working and not working. The old cabinets with original hardware were probably mostly not working, so they were trashed when they moved to the second warehouse in 2005.
Then they had some cabinets left (I say 100-200, the owner says 4-500). They were trashed in 2011. And what you see in my recent pictures is all that was left in 2012.

[Tyrem]

something is weird on their story.. they trashed most of the good original cabs. but the survivors are wasted in generic cabs 

They didn't have any idea about which games were valuable or popular.  They just sorted the games into working and not working. The old cabinets with original hardware were probably mostly not working, so they were trashed when they moved to the second warehouse in 2005.
Then they had some cabinets left (I say 100-200, the owner says 4-500). They were trashed in 2011. And what you see in my recent pictures is all that was left in 2012.

makes me a little mad over here. imagine what we could have saved for the generations ahead and for our basements if we would only had known about it.

[Superully]

makes me a little mad over here. imagine what we could have saved for the generations ahead

i've been thinking a lot lately about the future of our beloved cabs and i've been wondering whether there IS a generation behind us who cares about the games in the future. let's be honest, we love those games that much because we played them as kids and we want to hold on to something from our past. the coming generation does not have that link to the past and honestly i think they are not going to care for the cabs. perhaps there's a new generation coming up who's going to collect mortal kombat and stuff as THEIR classics, but somehow i've got the feeling that our games from the golden age are doomed to disappear forever ...

[Laschek]

It has been converted to JAMMA,

Looks like a Sega System 16B board, so no Jamma.

[slowcade]

Looks like a Sega System 16B board, so no Jamma.

Sorry, my bad. 
It's Shinobi, and System 16 as you said.

[Q*ris]

<side note> too bad such thing as a real nice dedicated Shinobi cab doesn't exist, I just love that game.<side note>

[Tyrem]

i've been thinking a lot lately about the future of our beloved cabs and i've been wondering whether there IS a generation behind us who cares about the games in the future. let's be honest, we love those games that much because we played them as kids and we want to hold on to something from our past. the coming generation does not have that link to the past and honestly i think they are not going to care for the cabs. perhaps there's a new generation coming up who's going to collect mortal kombat and stuff as THEIR classics, but somehow i've got the feeling that our games from the golden age are doomed to disappear forever ...

well... i think there will allways be a need for those cabs. look at the collectors market in the us for example when it comes down to jukeboxes or old vending machines.
over the next years more and more cabs will disappear for sure.... i am not collecting to sell them with a huge provit in 10 or 20 years. i wanna bloody own those machines.

it would have been so amazing to get some cabs for a really good price. restoring them would have been a blast. i am still new to this hobby but it is so much fun and I really want to get more experienced with everything that comes with it.

[slowcade]

perhaps there's a new generation coming up who's going to collect mortal kombat and stuff as THEIR classics, but somehow i've got the feeling that our games from the golden age are doomed to disappear forever ...

Mortal Kombat is 20 years old, so people who collect that must be well into their thirties by now. Hardly a new generation.

[level42]

makes me a little mad over here. imagine what we could have saved for the generations ahead

i've been thinking a lot lately about the future of our beloved cabs and i've been wondering whether there IS a generation behind us who cares about the games in the future. let's be honest, we love those games that much because we played them as kids and we want to hold on to something from our past. the coming generation does not have that link to the past and honestly i think they are not going to care for the cabs. perhaps there's a new generation coming up who's going to collect mortal kombat and stuff as THEIR classics, but somehow i've got the feeling that our games from the golden age are doomed to disappear forever ...

Maybe, maybe not.

If your thinking was 100% true there would be no steam powered locomotives running today....

[Arch]

Very nice writeup, Mads. As you say, this story had its upsides and downsides. The prior excitement was huge, and we were served quite a reality check once we got there.   Still, it was a cool trip, and we really went out of our way to save some cabs.

The current status for the ones I bought are as follows:
- I bought a very clean populated control panel for the Indiana Jones. So all I lack there now are the guts. Sadly, affordable System 1 hardware is hard to come across it seems. Anyone? 
- I ripped the 14" monitor out of the Rainbow cab and gave the cab itself to a friend. Despite the beat up cab, the monitor is _very_ clean and crisp. Almost like new!
- The Pole Position II is a total wreck, so that will take some work. It might be my autumn project if I manage to do the rough part of the woodwork it needs this summer. I got some boards from Mads, and the monitor is fine, so the work is mostly cosmetic it seems.