Cabaret buyer beware

SillyB

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Donor 3 years: 2013, 2023-2024
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I was trolling craiglist for arcades (I know, shocker) and I saw a guy listing a Donkey Kong for sale like 40 mins from me. The attached pic is a little dark and hard to see detail on but it looks like a Pac Man cabaret, which I've been wanting bad lately.

The shape is Pac mini, but it's themed Donkey Kong so I know it's a project, but that's fine. I called the guy and he's really cool - he said the cab has like 40 or so games and it works fine except some times down on the stick isn't responsive. I figure it's a xx-in board and maybe the microswitch or wire is out on the joystick. He has a few pins and a 6 button fighter cab that's not working right. We end up talking hobby and he says if I can fix his fighter cab he'll give me the mini!

I get out there late-ish at night and his garage is kind of dark, he's got the Star Wars Ep 1 pin which is super cool and some other stuff and I see the mini in the corner and it's running but the paint looks like it was rolled on with dirt in it but I though maybe someone was covering the wood grain - who cares. His fighter is a mame and windows is all jacked up, the I-pac isn't grounded and all his buttons are mapped wrong. I spend a little over an hour fixing it up and he's stoked it's working perfect. It's late now and my wife is gonna be mad I'm at some stranger's man cave on a friday night at 10:30 so I grab the mini and throw it in my truck quick. When I touch it I feel the wood is like OSB and I was like - that's weird.
 

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Then I got to my house and find this hot mess. It's 100% garbage. An old ass PC and CRT. Scrap wood cabinet. The joystick and buttons are held together with masking tape! The moral of the story is - don't be so quick with your greedy gollum arms to swipe away what you think is a steal before they change their mind. It might be a pile of crap in disguise!
 

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Sorry you got taken advantage of..
Craiglist is a spin the wheel kind of deal.
With the increased amount of collectors here. It is kind of hard to find a good bargain at times..
 
Well, at least you didn't pay $500+ for it and you have a couple hundred in parts you can use for something else.

There is less than $25 worth of parts there. But, heck, it was free, so that's a one in the "w" column. Paint it black, put a 60-in-1 in it and sell it on CL for $800. Now is the time since it's Christmas shopping season. Or kill it with fire now. I don't think even tbbk would take the PC.
 
Hellen Keller would have walked away from that one.

Time to pack up your bags folks. nobody is going to beat this response. :D



If you wanna part that thing out, I'd be interested in the ipac and joystick.
 
There is less than $25 worth of parts there. But, heck, it was free, so that's a one in the "w" column.

I'm putting it in the "L" column
old crappy Windows XP computer with mame - $0
17" VGA monitor + $0 free all day on CL
one PC speaker + $0
broken junk joystick/buttons + $0
used microswitches + $2
used Key Wiz encoder + $10
OSB & 2x4s + $0
Gas there and back -$10
2.5 hours of my time - lost

I'm thinking
Or kill it with fire now.
 
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