My "rescue" for 2011 would be the second cab in my collection -- a Universal Magical Spot UR.
At base, it was an accidental rescue -- a collector in Drummondville, Quebec (about a four hour drive east of Ottawa, ON) posted that he was selling some empty cabs, and featured four or five specific titles in his post that included pictures. In one photo, I noticed off to the side a partially visible cab that had the distinctive Universal dimensions that featured orange cabinet paint, but I couldn't make out the title. I wrote to ask about the identity of the orange cab, and if it was for sale. He wrote back to say it was a Magical Spot that had been converted to Nibbler but was now empty and for sale at $75:
I always liked the distinctiveness of Universal cabs, particularly early ones like Space Panic. I hadn't heard of Magical Spot before, but it was an attention-grabbing cab, and thought that it would be interesting to use it for a 60-in-1 or MAME project (more on that in a sec).
I agreed to the sale, took a day off work and make the trek to Drummondville. When I arrived, I found Magical Spot in a warehouse of 50+ cabs -- the collector had to vacate the place at the end of the month. Whatever didn't sell, would hit the curb. We closed the deal and I brought the cab back to Ottawa:
When I picked it up, the Nibbler marquee was not included, but I didn't really mind since my focus was on trying to locate Magical Spot parts. But I didn't realize until later that finding parts would be a challenge (KLOV n00b)!
Missing was the marquee, upper bezel artwork, control panel, and monitor. But it wasn't a completely "empty" cab as it still included the original Universal power supply and wiring, although modified to run Nibbler. The cab spent about a month in my living room before I rustled up neighbours to help with the move to the basement:
I wrote several KLOVrs about Magical Spot parts, potential leads, and advice, including modessitt, charger and alejandromad. Alejandromad suggested I try to contact Van for potential help since she recently acquired some Universal cabs from him, including Magical Spot, and was a top-notch restoration collector.
I sent off a message to Van explaining my situation, and she wrote back to offer her help. As part of our initial discussion, she convinced me to restore the cabinet rather than MAMEing it, so I doubled-down my efforts to locate the necessary parts, including a PCB.
The next few months were a daily exercise in searching various for sale forums, and following up on potential leads from fellow collectors. Then some things began to fall into place.
When I began to poke around the control panel, I noticed that the Nibbler was actually laid over the original Universal metal CP frame.
nickvannan wrote me to say that five years ago, he came across a Magical Spot screen bezel and CPO art that was on sale at an outdoor market near Toronto. While the bezel had subsequently broke, he still had the CPO art, and would happily send it my way for the project.
With the art in hand, I purchased the necessary control panel parts from dj dns to repopulate my CP.
Afterwards, I came across a thread where jj mann was soliciting help to ID some PCBs he acquired. One of them turned out to be a Magical Spot, and he graciously agreed to a sale.
Before mounting the CPO, I scanned the artwork and via VAPS saw that RobertL was interested in obtaining a copy of the CPO art. I followed up with him as well about Magical Spot parts, and while he didn't have any extra, we exchanged scans, sending the marquee and upper bezel scans my way:
Through it all, Van has been a great source of advice and help with restoration advice, including help with securing a marquee reproduction.
I planned to post a "restoration" thread when I was closer to getting the cab up and running, but given the thread's subject, I thought I would get a head start here. Basically all the pieces are in place, but it's just a matter of organizing the time to go through the elements step by step, such as getting the wiring harness to work with a Universal pin-out. It's always a juggling act, but I hope to have it up and running in the spring. Thanks for reading!