
on his
roadtrip to the abandoned warehouse in hungary, bela discovered - amongst others - a shinobi-converted taito jungle king. although it seemed to be in rough shape and it would take a lot of time and money to get all the jungle king parts together, i
needed to have this cabinet in my collection, because i had played the game like a madman on my commodore 64. we managed to figure out a
german - hungarian trade and so the cabinet made its way across the german border into my storage, where i did some first inspections!
everything about its shape screams
TAITO, but (almost) nothing else suggests that this was once an original jungle king cabinet - i still don't understand why a Sega game ended up in a Taito shell


the right side - grey on grey

the left side - you can clearly see the original green jungle king colors underneath that layer of grey!


a more detailed shot of the hidden artwork

as usual, the corners are rough, but the material that taito used on their cabs doesn't deserve to be called "wood" - i'll post more pics of that "crime" later on


shinobi identification plaque on the back of the cab

shinobi control panel

the front of the cabinet will also need an overhaul

with the coin door removed, parts of the original art come to light

a sneak peek inside the cabinet (photo courtesy of bela

)

as you can see, a switcher has been installed (although it's falling apart) and an original shinobi pcb is present. if anyone is interested in the shinobi conversion kit, just let me know!

behind the generic marquee hides an original taito lighting system - completely different from the usual tube stuff!


because the cabinet needs a complete makeover, i've decided to dismantle it entirely which gives me better control over the individual pieces. fortunately, those taito games come apart easily: just a couple of L-brackets and some nails to be removed. let's start at the very top!

looking dangerous, doesn't it?


halfway there ...

the sad remains of the on/off switch at the bottom of the cabinet - and an itsy-bitsy spider. can you spot it?

nothing left but the very bottom

the bottom viewed from the bottom

- a lot of work is going to be needed there as well!

just a couple of screws and nails i removed from the cabinet. i guess they need to be replaced


in order to repaint the cabinet in its original color scheme, i need to have the colors scanned first. because the "scanner guys" need a large enough area to work with, i'm carefully removing parts of the grey top layer!

i can spot some interesting details at the lower left corner, so i'm once again using the exacto knife to "dig" for what lies underneath ...

i L-O-V-E

stuff like that!
to be continued ...