I know, I know. There are a thousand of these threads, so what is one more. To the story......
Monday there was a CL ad for an "Atari Driving game" on CL. I have wanted a driving game to round out my collection, so I email back for pictures. I got two cell phone sideways pictures (I'll upload one of them later, they are on my work computer). It turned out to be a converted Pole Position running Mille Miglia 2 (Great 1000 Mile Rally 2). Now I am interested. The send back that the monitor sometimes works. I write back that I will take it, I can fix monitors. I made arrangements with a friend to borrow his pickup truck Tuesday night and we go to get it (he came along as backup). On the way I give her a courtesy call and say that we are on our way and will be there in half an hour. She tells me that somebody is there looking at it now. I said I thought we had a deal, what is up with this? She says she will call her husband. We get there and 2 guys are just shutting the doors on a panel van. Sure enough, the game is inside.
To set the stage, this is a Taqueria in a seriously Hispanic part of Houston. A quick glance through the window & I can't tell if they are remodeling, gutting the place or a hand grenade just went off in there.
So I go in, just because I am pissed. Found the guy who was selling the game (or at least the one that spoke the most English). The story went that his wife never called.
As I am walking out, he asks if I want to look at the "other game". I said sure and he drags me over to a really sorry looking Robocop conversion in a Defender cabinet. The monitor looked fubar and the characters all had bars or boxes around them. Some of the background graphics were hosed. It was a mess. We haggled on the price for a while. Had to tell him what a POS it was and how much work it was going to be to make it work right, so we finally settled on a price. He helped wheel it out and load it up.
Got it home and sprayed it down with bug killer (it was from a taqueria after all). Undid the obligatory 7 drywall screws holding the back door and got my first surprise. The back door was original and had the Defender back door sheets still intact. There was some other game sheet tacked up over one of the sheets, but I think I can get that off without destroying the underlying sheet. The second surprise was that the monitor just needed some adjustments and the Robocop board just needed the ROMs pushed down. I put two new locks on it and I will need to trace some wiring so I can put a switch back into it, but it is a working Robocop game.
But I really wanted that Mille Miglia 2....
Oh well, looking at the two guys that drove off with it, it will probably be back on CL in a week or so, once they figure out they can't fix it.
ken
Monday there was a CL ad for an "Atari Driving game" on CL. I have wanted a driving game to round out my collection, so I email back for pictures. I got two cell phone sideways pictures (I'll upload one of them later, they are on my work computer). It turned out to be a converted Pole Position running Mille Miglia 2 (Great 1000 Mile Rally 2). Now I am interested. The send back that the monitor sometimes works. I write back that I will take it, I can fix monitors. I made arrangements with a friend to borrow his pickup truck Tuesday night and we go to get it (he came along as backup). On the way I give her a courtesy call and say that we are on our way and will be there in half an hour. She tells me that somebody is there looking at it now. I said I thought we had a deal, what is up with this? She says she will call her husband. We get there and 2 guys are just shutting the doors on a panel van. Sure enough, the game is inside.
To set the stage, this is a Taqueria in a seriously Hispanic part of Houston. A quick glance through the window & I can't tell if they are remodeling, gutting the place or a hand grenade just went off in there.
So I go in, just because I am pissed. Found the guy who was selling the game (or at least the one that spoke the most English). The story went that his wife never called.
As I am walking out, he asks if I want to look at the "other game". I said sure and he drags me over to a really sorry looking Robocop conversion in a Defender cabinet. The monitor looked fubar and the characters all had bars or boxes around them. Some of the background graphics were hosed. It was a mess. We haggled on the price for a while. Had to tell him what a POS it was and how much work it was going to be to make it work right, so we finally settled on a price. He helped wheel it out and load it up.
Got it home and sprayed it down with bug killer (it was from a taqueria after all). Undid the obligatory 7 drywall screws holding the back door and got my first surprise. The back door was original and had the Defender back door sheets still intact. There was some other game sheet tacked up over one of the sheets, but I think I can get that off without destroying the underlying sheet. The second surprise was that the monitor just needed some adjustments and the Robocop board just needed the ROMs pushed down. I put two new locks on it and I will need to trace some wiring so I can put a switch back into it, but it is a working Robocop game.
But I really wanted that Mille Miglia 2....
Oh well, looking at the two guys that drove off with it, it will probably be back on CL in a week or so, once they figure out they can't fix it.
ken
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