BIGMAC76

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So I going to start this story and make it as short as possible. Hopefully. So I bought this Bottom of the Ninth (harrisburg auction 3/25) in hopes of rotating the monitor (or use multi williams board before I saw their going for $225 now!) and turning it to 60 in one since it was Jamma(originally?) or so I thought.

So tonight, like literally an hour ago, I bought a Robotron marquee off another guy with Stargate for $30 shipped. Really good deal so I hopped on it, figured it would be cool up on my wall or in random possible cabinet or purchase in the future. And I swear the gods must have been saying hey dummy why dont you research it a little more. So i look up Robotron here on the KLOV to and start looking down the list of sellers. I come across a guy who just got one in his business that he's selling - Earl Estell and click on his link to http://arcadeunbelievable.com/.

I start to look at that machine and go wow that bottom double coin door looks odd.... Don't see many weird ones like that. Light bulb goes off and I'm like weird that Bottom of the Ninth, which I had a feeling early on was definitely a conversion based on the paperwork the operator included with inside. New stickers, instructions, extra left over stickers.

So curiosity killed the cat and I started to peel back the fake wood laminate and started to see the beginning of this bad boy.

Felt like Xmas morning unwrapping my "new" present. Very cool experience.

Now my question, which I'm sure is a stupid one, "Do I attempt to fully restore this sucker back?" I already have the marquee on the way but the bezel is weird, just plain black outline/paint but seems to be very similiar to the originial (glass right?) Seems to have the original power supply and some of the originial wiring haugepauged into Jamma harness/adapter. I will try to include more inside pics later. I can tell it has older wires and newer wires for the new power supply - not sure what their called switching? or something I think. looks kind of like a modem or hard drive.

Included pics of my unwrapping. Also the sideart is pristine since it's been protected by that laminate stuff for couple decades now. only issues is that operator numbskull used brown paint on the tops where he either ran out of fake laminate or where it peeled back
 

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more pics

other side, crazyness
 

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I would definitely restore it back... it looks to be in good shape cosmetically and structurally. I'd bet that brown paint comes off pretty easily too.
 
cool thanks, yeah already looking into a cpo, opened up the control panel and noticed is was modified but seems original. maybe just some filler and a new overlay? anyone know the damage on a working robotron PCB, haven't run across too many for sale recently. hopefully this doesn't make or break the me. any word on those jrok boards? he's not selling anymore?
 
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Weird things happen. Thats pretty cool that you were able to peel that right off and the art is really nice underneath. A similar thing happened to me today. I picked up a gyruss and I get to messing with it and of course its not the dedicated gyruss cab but still i was going to leave it like it was.... until.... I saw the williams logo outline in the black paint. Then underneath the logo were letters. STARGATE!!!!!!!!!! Now I'm all excited about restoring it back or making it a multi williams. I really like to have games in their dedicated cabs if possible so I may have to find a gyruss cab for my other parts and have yet another project, lol. It was a cool surprise though.
 
cool thanks, yeah already looking into a cpo, opened up the control panel and noticed is was modified but seems original. maybe just some filler and a new overlay? anyone know the damage on a working robotron PCB, haven't run across too many for sale recently. hopefully this doesn't make or break the me. any word on those jrok boards? he's not selling anymore?

Fortunately for you Robotron panels are wood... this makes it much easier to fill and fix...

Robotrons have more than one board... you need the CPU, ROM, Sound, and IO boards. Harnesses can be found, Dokert used to make them (not sure if he still does). There are two parts to the harness, the AC section and the DC section.

If your power supply isn't complete that could be another board plus the heat sink/power transistor assembly.

The game boards are mounted to a metal panel on the back door and the power supply is mounted on a metal panel along the inside. The base of the cabinet should have a wooden board with the power transformer and fuse attached to it which plugs into the power supply board on the side of the cab.

Drop some pics... there are tons of Robotrons out there and tons of people here have them who may have some pics to show you what I'm talking about.

Its gonna be an easy couple hundred all said and done...

I may have a Robotron CPU kicking around...
 
will do. wife will probably kill me dropping more money into this thing but i feel i must now at this point. the cabinet is really awesome shape and the sideart is near perfect. i need to get some zzzz's before the kids wake up. i'll take some pics, the back door (ha) was in 2 pieces, def nothing i've seen before, one locked and the other swung open. i'll get those pics up tomorrow or today - wow it's late.
 
I can't believe the fake laminate sticker came off so easily...it is a sign that this machine should absolutely be returned into a Robotron....
 
Holy crap, what a find.

Restore that thing! Robotrons may be common, but they're fun as all get out. Nevermind they look great.

Lucky!
 
Here is the route I would go:

Get all original Robo art pieces, but go for the JROK board and jamma harness. This will be good for reliability and should you decide to go Mulitwilliams later, all you have to do is swap CP's out. That is what I hope to do with a Robo one day. I won't kill a Robo, but I'd like to find a conversion that still has nice original sides. This route will also be cheaper than finding an original boardset and harness.

Robert
 
Here is the route I would go:

Get all original Robo art pieces, but go for the JROK board and jamma harness. This will be good for reliability and should you decide to go Mulitwilliams later, all you have to do is swap CP's out. That is what I hope to do with a Robo one day. I won't kill a Robo, but I'd like to find a conversion that still has nice original sides. This route will also be cheaper than finding an original boardset and harness.

Robert


Definitely a good idea.... however JROK MultiWilliams are not readily available at the moment and if you are lucky to get one you are going to pay a premium. I think James is doing another run but not sure if / when. It actually may be cheaper to get a working Robotron board set at the moment. Then if you get lucky go MultiWilliams later.

I may have a CPU kicking around ... I'll have to test it. I won't be back home until May.
 
Thanks everyone for the all the good ideas. Definitely have been eyeing the jrok board for awhile now but when I heard $300's thats def no go for me. Wife put the kibosh on overspending right now so I'm going to have to be very picky about what I'm putting in this thing. It will be almost fully restored one day trust me. It's not leaving my hands anytime soon either. The sideart is so good it's ridiculous. I finally got some inside pics and found out where the boards were installed on the door (screw holes). So i have 0 boards. kinda already figured that.

rETro thanks for all the help. Definitely send me some prices my way because I'm not paying the going rate for the multi williams, i'll just wait and hope more boards will be in the future. I might consider that CPU too maybe if you want to package both? My wife's going to sheit a brick but oh well, when don't they.

Thanks again everyone and I'll check in time to time if there's any progress. Should be getting the marquee soon (weird the marquee purchase lead me to this point, almost freaky) Can't wait to put that bad boy in and light her up.
 

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rETro thanks for all the help. Definitely send me some prices my way because I'm not paying the going rate for the multi williams, i'll just wait and hope more boards will be in the future. I might consider that CPU too maybe if you want to package both? My wife's going to sheit a brick but oh well, when don't they.

Nah... you can have it for free... just pay shipping, all in the interest of fun and preservation. :)
 
Nah... you can have it for free... just pay shipping, all in the interest of fun and preservation. :)

holy crap, uuuhhh thanks! wow. pay it forward! awesome. well i still owe ya something. we'll talk!
 

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I just traded a completely working board set (Main CPU, ROM, I/O, Sound, the 2 PS board and transformer) from robo with the hardness for a none working Sea Wolf.

Not sure what the guys going to do with it but I could find out.

I would also have the mounting plate for the back door if ya need it
 
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