Thanks wifey! (aka Our $125 Tempest... serial#00369)

Jeff F

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Donor 12 years: 2011-2022
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Thanks wifey! (aka Our $125 Tempest... serial#00369)

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So the wifey tells me last night that someone is advertising a Tempest at one of the garage sales she's going to in the morning. Thinking the person will probably be one of those "this is worth $1000 on eBay" people and since I have to work, I tell her "good luck". ;)

tempest4002.jpg


This morning she calls me from the place and it's a fully functioning early run Tempest... serial #00369.

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Best part is the price... $125! Good God I love my wife!!! :D

Here are a few more pictures...
http://www.vidiotarcade.com/EarlyTempest/

The screen has a bit of the "shakes" and I'm getting "M" errors here and there but did I mention $125!!!


As a side note, when we were picking it up tonight the guy ends up remembering me from like 10 years ago and starts telling me about the dogs we had and even some of the games we had back then. Talk about a small world? Too funny.
 
argh. You know I search garage sales online every Friday morning for "arcade" and I've never seen one. I've been doing that for like 4 months now, today I didn't even look at the ads because I knew I'd be too busy to go to any sales this morning anyhow... and you find my #1 wanted game locally. :p

Crazy luck Jeff :)
 
Garage sales ROCK! That's were I found my $50 working Tron...

Nice score man!!
 
Great score (on the game and finding a wife like that)!

Protip on garage sales: always mention to the seller that you collect coin operated machines. You'd be amazed how many people have a game in the basement that they didn't put in the garage sale because it stopped working or is too heavy for them to move.

Nearly all of my best garage sale finds came from simply asking.
 
Thanks guys. The wifey is completely cool with the hobby and always has been... she bought me my first game for Christmas ~15 years ago(before we were married even). :cool:

BTW, I forgot to mention an extra semi-working PCB set and the instruction manual were included with the Tempest. :)
 
What's the approximate production numbers for Tempest, anyone know?

Great pickup! I've gotten lucky with a few pickups, but not THAT lucky :)
 
Nice score! Your intermittent M errors may very well be cold solder joints on the interconnect harnesses for the wires that connect the two boards together, a very common problem with Tempest.
 
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