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Rescuing vintage arcade video games from an abandoned ship (2016)

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Re: Rescuing vintage arcade video games from an abandoned ship (2016)

#31

Post by ObsoleteNerd »

lostgame wrote: post #19

What on earth is with this website? Literally half the page is covered by a massive photo. I expected scrolling further down the article would rid me of it, but it doesn't - furthermore, it's aligned to the right instead of the left, which breaks my brain while I'm trying to read it. I can't imagine any benefit to this layout. Shrinking the screen causes the article to display properly, I learned, and I couldn't find…

I find the page easy to read as I hate wide chunks of text in general, but for what it's worth, Reader Mode in Firefox worked perfectly on that page when I just tested it.

Re: Rescuing vintage arcade video games from an abandoned ship (2016)

#32

Post by turk73 »

_ofdw wrote: post #18
sheepdog wrote: post #17

Perhaps this is just my inner poverty showing, but how does something like this even happen, from a monetary perspective? I'm assuming the owners had investors or loans or some other financial reasons that would prevent them from spending a lot of money and then simply parking it forever. And wouldn't property taxes or city nuisance abatement fines nibble away at the property over the years? It can't be completely fr…

I'm no expert in arcade games but often the case with niche assets is that the cost of getting them off the premises can outweigh their market value, and assets are only worth something to creditors if they can be sold to recuperate accounts receivable. For example via my employer I technically own a large multi-engine aircraft that is worth some $70 million dollars but requires significant repairs, engineering and r…

"...that is worth some $70 million..." um, by your description, I highly doubt that unless it's an SR71 or something.

Re: Rescuing vintage arcade video games from an abandoned ship (2016)

#33

Post by Jamwinner »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #16

The one thing about these old cabs I still love is the artwork that adorns them. I know there's always been a huge market for skateboard deck artwork, but I still wonder if there's a market for this type of art - some of it was just magnificent in its heyday.

Most is now reproduced for restoration. Even a well perserved cabinet has a bit of fading and wilting of the marquees and screen frame by now, not to mention the sides and control surfaces.

Re: Rescuing vintage arcade video games from an abandoned ship (2016)

#34

Post by pmarreck »

jandrese wrote: post #3
jackhack wrote: post #2

I can't help but wonder what sort of maintenance might these machines require before starting up again? I imagine, at the very least, cleaning corrosion from the contacts of all mechanical switches and changing out the filter capacitors in the power supply and CRT. What else? Would every capacitor be suspect? Are the boards salvageable or would the cabinets just be gutted and a modern (MAME?) machine be substituted (…

Cabs from this vintage would have lots of individual components with probably a lot of through hole mounting. With the water damage being more recent I'd expect most of them to be serviceable. It would be most exciting if there were some for which no ROM dumps already exist. A game could be returned from the grave. Since these games were grabbed by collectors I'd expect most of them to be fixed up like new. No need t…

The Atari SUBS game in particular would be potentially difficult to emulate (at least trivially) due to its dual-monitor configuration, and without redisplaying it on opposite-facing monitors wouldn't be much fun lol

Re: Rescuing vintage arcade video games from an abandoned ship (2016)

#35

Post by pmarreck »

ChickeNES wrote: post #22
pwg wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> changing out the filter capacitors in the power supply and CRT. What else? Would every capacitor be suspect? Given the timeframe the article quoted for the most recent cabinet (1980-1981), they all predate the capacitor plague [1] by nearly two decades. It is possible that the capacitors in the PSU's of these games might still be close enough to spec. to not need any replacement. But given the folks who picked them…

That's more true for early 1980's and earlier electronics with through-hole caps (though a shorted cap could easily ruin your day), but I've seen a lot of mid-80's and newer vintage computers and game systems destroyed due to leaky SMD electrolytics.

I recently fired up an old Mac Plus that has stayed in the family and everything seemed to work fine until it started smoking, the display started to go wonky, and then it quit... Almost certainly an old-capacitor issue

Re: Rescuing vintage arcade video games from an abandoned ship (2016)

#36

Post by pmarreck »

867-5309 wrote: post #6

who would believe it - northwest Wales. if you're not familiar with the area, be sure not to ask George Bush https://youtu.be/S0ZG5-WB_ho

The United States has the following states that have a town named Wales:

Alaska, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, North Dakota, Utah, and Wisconsin.

If she met him in the States, it is entirely reasonable for him to first ask her what state she's from.

Re: Rescuing vintage arcade video games from an abandoned ship (2016)

#38

Post by pmarreck »

jackhack wrote: post #2

I can't help but wonder what sort of maintenance might these machines require before starting up again? I imagine, at the very least, cleaning corrosion from the contacts of all mechanical switches and changing out the filter capacitors in the power supply and CRT. What else? Would every capacitor be suspect? Are the boards salvageable or would the cabinets just be gutted and a modern (MAME?) machine be substituted (…

Speaking as a guy who grew up in a family of boaters, the nearby presence of seawater seems to greatly accelerate the degradation of electronics on ships, probably via salt corrosion.

Re: Rescuing vintage arcade video games from an abandoned ship (2016)

#39

Post by nitrogen »

contingencies wrote: post #20
rbanffy wrote: post #9

I know that somewhere there is an old IBM mainframe connected to a bunch of 3278's, 3279's and 3290's waiting to be saved.

If you're in to period dumb terminals see if you can figure out what the hell this thing I uploaded to Wikipedia used to connect to: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/4800-52-...

Not that I would be able to help, but do you have a picture of the back and the connectors?

Re: Rescuing vintage arcade video games from an abandoned ship (2016)

#40

Post by eru »

videotopia wrote: post #13
jackhack wrote: post #2

I can't help but wonder what sort of maintenance might these machines require before starting up again? I imagine, at the very least, cleaning corrosion from the contacts of all mechanical switches and changing out the filter capacitors in the power supply and CRT. What else? Would every capacitor be suspect? Are the boards salvageable or would the cabinets just be gutted and a modern (MAME?) machine be substituted (…

Restoration just requires logic for the most part. before switching on a game that's sat somewhere for 30 years, start with power. Is the machine getting 240v (or 120 depending where you are). Then check the transformer/power brick - is it doing its job converting 240v AC to DC voltages. Measure those. Is the monitor getting power and working. Then you can plug in your PCB (assuming it's not corroded to hell). Then g…

Well, that's a bit of logic, and whole lot of domain knowledge about electronics.

But yeah, the documentation you mention will help.

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