Museum of the Game® & International Arcade Museum® Forums

In business I always present myself as a charity. Thus, prices are accepted without question.

I must have the vibe keyed right, because even the technicians in my employ donate equipment to me.

Presenting, my most recent charitable acquisition. My pilot-in-training picked it up from one of his string of 11 computer repair shop jobs (long story, some other time) and says its for "hard drive forensics."

IMG_20250508_204554614.jpg

This thing's got more ports to attach strings to than my ex-wife. When I saw it had an IDE port, my jaw dropped open. Just what I need for my Golden Tee 2005 "copy that floppy" hustle!

These old drives are all dying, and there's a lot of them out there in the hands of private Canadian collectors. And when something goes wrong, I'm the guy they call. Not because I'm the best tech in Canada, but because I've got my SEO keyed in like 😚👌

IMG_20250508_204620328.jpg

Hey, I recognize some of those plugs! But the context is all confusing 😵

IMG_20250508_204632895.jpg
Obviously, this is a serious piece of equipment for serious technicians.

So when I show up with this monstrosity at a service call (yes, we travel!) my patrons (so-called because I'm a charity, remember?) with their eyes wide and mouth agape will retain that memory of the sexy arcade pilot with his bizarre machinery beeping and booping and FIXING THEIR FAVORITE GAMES.

Which is great for word-of-mouth advertising.

IMG_20250508_204638760.jpg

But the spell I'll cast is sure to be broken if I don't actually know the rudiments of this system. Help me out guys.

Basically what I gotta do is this:
  1. Show up to an arcade running off a runs off a hard drive that HASN'T yet died
  2. Remove the drive and plug in to my DIGITAL MEDUSA
  3. Declare, "now it's safe! it's in THE ARCHIVE
  4. (important) charge a reasonable fee for such showmanship
And then on the back end, I shall be paid one again according to this procedure:
  • Burn one of my IDE image files (hereafter referred to as an "arcade soul") from THE ARCHIVEonto a SATA drive (when I don't get them free, they're a buck each)
  • Alternatively, and for an exhorbitant upcharge, same as above, but SSD.
  • Some sort of IDE adapter?
  • And a molex adapter?
  • (important) charge whatever the market will bear for restoring an arcade's SOUL.
Back
Top Bottom