Arcade Journey

A blast from the past; My arcade cabinet restoration journey.
By Josiah Sapp


    Your pocket is full of quarters. It’s Friday night and the year is 1983. You’re on your bike with your friends, all heading to your town’s local arcade. You arrive and the place is packed with kids your age all lining up to play their favorite games. Pac Man; Galaga; Centipede; Donkey Kong. This is the only place these games are played and this loose change is burning a hole in your pocket. You stand in line waiting for a shot at the high score. You think to yourself that this place will always be magical. As the years go by, more of your favorite game cabinets go out of order and get carted off. A few years later, the whole arcade has to shut down due to so many of their regulars playing games at home. It’s 1992 and home video game consoles dominate the market. Arcades are closing left and right but those out of order cabinets are finding a new home.
    Over the past ten years, video game collectors have been preserving and restoring old video games as a way to “preserve history”. They see videogames as a form of art and want to treat it as such. A sect of these collectors specialize in arcade cabinet restoration. Finding those out of order cabinets you used to love and restoring them to their former glory. Over time, this small group of collectors has turned into a profitable industry with games like the original Popeye cabinet being sold for $6,000. It doesn’t matter what shape these cabinets are in as long as they used to be something popular, they can be restored.

Getting my feet wet
My actual cabinet 
    I’ve recently come into possession of a cabinet myself. It’s an original Donkey Kong Jr. arcade cabinet. First released in 1982, Donkey Kong Jr. is the sequel to the smash hit Donkey Kong. Instead of you playing as Mario trying to save the princess from the big ape, you are the child of said ape trying to save your dad from Mario. It’s a great twist on the original and I can’t wait to get this thing up and running.
    I was able to get this cabinet from my uncle who has had it for 18 years but it has sat untouched and unoperational for quite some time. The screen cover is missing, the screen itself might be toast, it’s filthy and the wiring is tangled with cat hair. As far as I can tell, the whole thing needs a scrub down. From the screen to the circuits, it all needs to be cleaned and the connections need to be tested. I won’t know anything until I am able to plug it in. I’m starting to do my research but coming to find out that this isn’t just a hobby for some people. It’s a lifestyle. Keeping the arcade dream alive by posting their high scores on internet forums. I don’t think I’ll get that serious but I’m excited to know there’s a community here of awesome people that I can tap into if I get really lost.

To be continued…
    Just like my cabinet, this post isn’t finished yet. Life is a little too crazy to actually dive into this endeavor but once things settle down, this will be my first project. I’ll update you all once work begins.

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