Evewalker
Active member
One of the parts of this hobby that really seems to drive me are the rare cases of finding out where your cabinets have been, and what they've been through. I recently picked up a Ms. Pac with a little story behind it, so for those of you who enjoy finding out the history of your cabinets as much as I do, I thought I'd share it.
I recently snagged a very cheap non-working Ms. Pac from a local CL post. Despite it having very serious board problems and some storage incurred wear and fading, the monitor and internals looked disturbingly clean, as well as the bezel and cp being in extraordinarily good condition compared to a lot of other classics I've restored. The G07 in there, for example, has absolutely no burn. It also had just over 6k on the coin counter, and looked oddly un-abused for a in-service cabinet. It had some evidence of being on location, so it clearly wasn't a HUO, which was strange.
The folks I picked it up from got it at an estate sale in a bulk junk buy, which apparently had the possessions of a late gentleman who worked as a "technician" in the area. They had no experience with arcade games, but tried to diagnose it to see if it was an easy fix, before quickly realizing it was beyond them and putting it up for sale. They were very happy I was going to restore it, as even they remarked that it looked good for its age.
Once I got it home and really started to poke around in it, I found a Dedham, MA service call card inside, which was dated "9/21/82". Nothing was written on it, except for "STORM" scrawled across it. Oddly enough, everything on this board, in some form, seems like it has needed to be replaced. It has fought me almost every step of the way unlike any other repair, some of which has been congruent with surge damage.
At this point, with the help of a couple of folks here, it's almost 100% working. However, I have to wonder if a lightning strike on location parked this thing in storage somewhere for 30 years... I haven't had a chance to yet, but I assume it might even be possible to pinpoint the storm that cooked poor Ms. Pac many years ago.
Anyone have any similar legacies uncovered about their machines?
I recently snagged a very cheap non-working Ms. Pac from a local CL post. Despite it having very serious board problems and some storage incurred wear and fading, the monitor and internals looked disturbingly clean, as well as the bezel and cp being in extraordinarily good condition compared to a lot of other classics I've restored. The G07 in there, for example, has absolutely no burn. It also had just over 6k on the coin counter, and looked oddly un-abused for a in-service cabinet. It had some evidence of being on location, so it clearly wasn't a HUO, which was strange.
The folks I picked it up from got it at an estate sale in a bulk junk buy, which apparently had the possessions of a late gentleman who worked as a "technician" in the area. They had no experience with arcade games, but tried to diagnose it to see if it was an easy fix, before quickly realizing it was beyond them and putting it up for sale. They were very happy I was going to restore it, as even they remarked that it looked good for its age.
Once I got it home and really started to poke around in it, I found a Dedham, MA service call card inside, which was dated "9/21/82". Nothing was written on it, except for "STORM" scrawled across it. Oddly enough, everything on this board, in some form, seems like it has needed to be replaced. It has fought me almost every step of the way unlike any other repair, some of which has been congruent with surge damage.
At this point, with the help of a couple of folks here, it's almost 100% working. However, I have to wonder if a lightning strike on location parked this thing in storage somewhere for 30 years... I haven't had a chance to yet, but I assume it might even be possible to pinpoint the storm that cooked poor Ms. Pac many years ago.
Anyone have any similar legacies uncovered about their machines?



