Williams Cabaret; converting it back

ShyGuy86

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Stumbled into my next project this past weekend! It was a disaster at first glance, but after talking the guy down, I paid and the real fun began.

No keys, two security bars, a mountain of dust, and not even sure if it will power up.. Got it home and my buddy came to the rescue with his fantastic masterlock breaking technique, which is kind of scary actually..

Got into the back and saw the monitor (which has a ton of burn in), harness, pcb, original ps, and a newer switching ps all inside! Good start! Cleaned as much dust from everything as I could and checked that the harness was all plugged in. Flipped the switch and all I got was scrolling glitched graphics...
After about 30 mins of messing with the monitor I can see Ms PacMan running!! (though there's still a bit of curl on the right edge of the screen)

So far so good! Now what to do with the painted cab?
 

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You got my curiosity up - what does he do to break them?

Nice grab btw, I've been wanting a cabaret.

Thanks! I wish it were in better shape, but for the price, I shouldn't complain. We'll see what I can manage to do with it!

So he used two medium sized wrenches, put one on each side of the lock 'arms' or whatever, and squeezed together. That's it. Took like 3 seconds. I was convinced it was a fluke, shitty lock or something but he snapped the second lock seconds later.. needless to say, not too much faith in padlocks now!
 
When I got the game up and running, something was strange about the sound. It was on, but almost like it was in a different room? Hard to explain, but, I found out why. I removed the marquee to find someone had unscrewed the speaker and wrapped it in a huge bath towel and stuffed it back inside the cab... I laughed pretty hard at that one.
Fixed that all up, coined up the game and startled myself, apparently to counter the muffled sound, someone turned up the game audio to max volume.. Glad I know how to fix that without a towel!

Onward! So, the whole cab had been sprayed in a layer of cheap black paint, as well as a layer of miserable clear/blue 'texture' paint. After getting the cab home, I noticed the artwork underneath was still peeking through in some small spots so last night I decided to start sanding. And I'm glad I did, most of the Make Trax silkscreen art is still underneath! Got one side of the cab sanded down now and my arm hurts.
 

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Great grab!

What are you going to make it? Restore it to Make Trax or go for Robotron, Stargate, or Bubbles?

If you decide on Robotron, you might be able to talk me out of a mini marquee and CPO. Of course, I also have a Stargate mini marquee.

Scott C.
 
I'd make a robotron myself if you are going to redo the cab anyways.

Unless you love the game for some reason Make Trax is probably the worst game Williams did minis for.
 
Thanks guys!! I would love to have a Robotron or Bubbles, but I'm not sure what I'm going to do just yet. Are all 4 Williams mini games a straight swap? Or do I need a new wiring harness to match the CP/PCB?

Also, I had a chance to take a few pics of the PCB and edge connector, cause it's looks a little Mickey Moused. As far as I can tell, it's a Pac-Man board converted to play Ms.Pac-Man Turbo. And the harness has an old tag that says "Make Trax", but it looks like someone may have messed with that too?

Any help is much appreciated!
 

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Just bumping this old thread to see what you ended-up doing.

The funny thing about this conversion is the operator could have left the insides original, since Make Trax boards can be easily converted to Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man.

Scott C.
 
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