Prologue: This is a continuation of sorts from the original, The Arcade Box or My MAME Adventure article. For more on MAME™ the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator and some other general information please read the Arcade Box article. It is by no means necessary to read but it may help with an overall understanding.

I had the Arcade Box up and running for about a year. At best it could use a processor and memory upgrade, but nothing was in any need of replacement. Then a strange sequence of events took place and I found myself deep in the wires again.  

It started with having to remove the memory form the Arcade Box to keep another computer going. No memory pretty much meant the box was inoperable and the hunt for memory began. The Arcade Box used PC 2700 333 mhz RAM which is not so common anymore, not impossible to find but often at a premium or as high density sticks. I was in no hurry to find the memory and didn't want to pay the outrageous prices for new old RAM, so I just kept looking.  

Then my main computers CD/DVD burner died and, well, the Arcade Box happily gave up its so I could keep working. It wasn’t like the Arcade Box was using it after all. The poor Arcade Box was really not doing well now. It had no RAM, no CD/DVD, it was really inoperable although not exactly dead. A new CD/DVD is easy to find and cheap, but no point buying one until I have the RAM, and I only really need it to put new versions and updates onto the machine.  So no rush in getting a new one, and I know I have a plain CD Drive if I need to install an OS or something.

Now for the third and most important event in this chain I was walking home from the grocery store when I spotted what looked like an arcade machine sitting in the alley. (Well at the end of someone’s drive-way.)  I had to investigate this as it couldn’t be what I thought it was. I discovered it was an Asteroids Deluxe machine and it looked a tad rough but in overall good shape. The control panel was hanging loose and the back panel was off. The cabinet structure looked solid and the bezel and marquee were still intact. I couldn't tell exactly how the insides looked and had no idea if the machine actually worked. I really wasn’t to worried about it though as it was the cabinet I really wanted.

Now that the machine was cleaned up it was time for further investigation to make sure there were no problems. As it turned out there were a few loose connectors but they could only plug into one place. The power supply looked okay except there was a little bit of bare wire on the power cable. So that would need to be fixed but a little electrician’s tape works fine for testing. The time had come to plug it in, see if any breakers blow and if the old machine would even work. After plugging it in and turning the power on it sort of started. There seemed to be some problem as there was no audio and the display was very odd. The monitor did give a glow and I watched a small line move across the screen but no real image appeared. I adjusted the volume and had no results. Tried the self test switch and there were no results from that either. Turned it on again, waited, tried the self-test, repeated with slight variations adding other options as needed but nothing worth while changed. It was time-consuming but not a difficult task as the manual was right there. The marquee lights were still working as was the black light to illuminate the backdrop. The coin door and mechanism were still intact, but the collection box was missing. So one big issue was the bad display, which could be the monitor, the ROMs or possibly something else. The audio was missing too but a quick test of the speaker showed it worked just fine. The sound issue had to be with a sound board component, or possibly part of the harness. Although there were no visible corrosion or leaking issues it could also be possible all the problems were because of a corroded or faulty connector. A fried ROM is also a likely candidate for causing the problems. Whatever the reason this Asteroids game was unplayable in its current state. This of course brought me to a fairly obvious conclusion; it didn't work, but wasn’t exactly dead and not worth restoring to a nice, original, Asteroids Deluxe Machine. I, of course, was a tad biased as the best conclusion to the Arcade Box adventure would be a proper stand up model.  

With that conclusion I didn't feel bad about what would have to be done next it wasn’t a well machine after all.

After unplugging the beast and letting it sit for a few days. I started to remove parts of the machine. The marquee came out easily as did the bezel; the control panel just required a connector to be unplugged and it was off too. Behind the marquee is a sliding box that contained the lights and speaker. This came out easily and required a few more connectors to be located and unplugged from the main harness.  The manual came in handy at this point as it gave good directions on what order to do things or at least on how to remove/replace most of the main parts. So the monitor came out as did the main board, power supply and anything else that was in it. Being fairly careful not to destroy anything or hurt myself in the process it took a few hours to remove everything. The machine takes up a surprising amount of space in its component parts and I have a bunch of parts with no real purpose. On the plus side there looks to be a reasonable amount of room inside the cabinet.

Next

It was tied to a fence and looked like it was out for the trash. I left a note about the arcade machine at the door of the house where it was. I had no reply after a couple of days so after work I stopped by hoping some one might actually be home at this time. Luckily there was, I asked the guy if I could take the arcade machine away and he said yes as it was garbage. So no problem, I could take it away as long as I didn’t hurt his vehicle in the process. The next step was moving a 300 lb Arcade cabinet the few blocks to my house. I called the people I could think of and had a truck sort of lined up, but not for several days. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to wait as this sort of thing doesn’t happen all the time. I was also somewhat paranoid that someone else might just drive by and take it.  After a couple more days I was able to talk to one of my neighbours and he was willing to help me move and transport the beast right then. I called another neighbour who was around and would help and the three of us were off. We managed to untie and move the beast to my house with very little trouble and then brought it inside where it could be investigated further.

It had just been unscrewed from the machine for some reason and was hanging by the cables.  The bezel, marquee, and the inside backdrop were all in very good condition. The only artwork in really bad shape was one piece of side art that was horrible scratched up. There was also a little peeling and tattered t-moulding, but it was in good enough condition to add some character without having to do any thing more serious than glue it down. I still didn’t know if this old Asteroids Deluxe machine was working or not.

Now that the old Asteroids Deluxe machine was just a shell of its former self the first part of this adventure was over.

It Begins

I gave the old machine a good clean and had a quick look at the insides everything seemed to be in its place and the original manuals and schematics were in there too. The Control Panel was in reasonable shape and the buttons still worked.