I recently tried my hand at restoring a Donkey Kong cab which whet my appetite for another project, and so I picked this Tempest Cabaret up in November from a chap in Oxford over here in the UK.
Over here, Tempests are pretty rare, and the cabaret especially so, so I was delighted to have found this one for sale on ebay.
I bought it almost blind - just a few pics to go by. It was in the guy's garage. Turns out it had a really easy life. only 3000 credits on the counter, and it had been owned by a programmer who played it in his office and latterly home. He said the monitor had only recently gone but it did play blind supposedly. Biggest concern was that it had been stored in a garage with no heating.
After getting it home and looking at what I had, it turns out it was in really nice shape - matching serial numbers, the lot. No water damage, everything solid. The laminate had no damage either.
The only "damage" was the top vinyl had been torn and the grill was missing from the top. Nice and easy to repair that I reckon. Plan is to strip is right off and replace. Think I'll keep those holes open as is, for better ventilation as Tempests have a habit of getting very hot:
Insides were filthy as you'd expect:
Over here, Tempests are pretty rare, and the cabaret especially so, so I was delighted to have found this one for sale on ebay.
I bought it almost blind - just a few pics to go by. It was in the guy's garage. Turns out it had a really easy life. only 3000 credits on the counter, and it had been owned by a programmer who played it in his office and latterly home. He said the monitor had only recently gone but it did play blind supposedly. Biggest concern was that it had been stored in a garage with no heating.
After getting it home and looking at what I had, it turns out it was in really nice shape - matching serial numbers, the lot. No water damage, everything solid. The laminate had no damage either.
The only "damage" was the top vinyl had been torn and the grill was missing from the top. Nice and easy to repair that I reckon. Plan is to strip is right off and replace. Think I'll keep those holes open as is, for better ventilation as Tempests have a habit of getting very hot:
Insides were filthy as you'd expect:
