WTB/T: bubbles control panel or overlay

gwarble

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i'm looking for a bubbles control panel, complete, empty, even just an overlay... i'm pricing stuff out to decide and checking availability if i should restore this bubbles cab, multiwilliams it, or mame it... i leaning towards MW as bubbles appears to be too expensive and mame would suck... but i hate the MW panels as much as most of the mame panels we've all seen online, and my defender would be a better candidate for MW with swappable control panels... hmm

cash or this stuff to trade, pics provided on request, all original, varying condition, +or- cash:

Marquees:
Galaxian
Mad Crasher
Legend of Kage
Generic Space Shuttle
Ghostly Goblins
SF2 Champion Edition
Space Fury
Magic Sword
Roadblasters (flex, junk)
Karate Champ
Golden Axe

Time Soldiers
Snow Bros.
Joust
Joust 2
TMNT (flex)
TMNT in Time (flex)
SF Alpha
SF Alpha 2
Crackdown (letters)
Crackdown (pictures)
Street Fighter
Midnight Resistance

Joust cocktail top glass (scratched and no underlays)
SF2 Turbo Hyper Fighting
Venture
BurgerTime
Satan's Hollow
Wonder Boy
Thief
Galaga
Satan's Hollow above control panel plexi

PCBs:
Donkey Kong Jr. (both, on metal plates)
Magic Sword
Mission 660
Street Fighter
SF2' - Champ Edition (i think)
BurgerTime
Gallag
Galaxian
60-in-1
Time Soldiers
Bobble Bobble

artwork sets:
Satan's Hollow marquee, glass bezel and curved-plexi-thing above control panel
Robotron Mini bezel, cpo
Venture marquee, plex bezel
Joust marquee, glass bezel (junk artwork)

let me know if you want details, i'm in northern california
- gwarble
 
thanks guys...

aaron: i saw that, and have included your price into my figuring to see if this is worth pursuing... but i want to make sure i can find everything i need and see what my total will be to do a restore or multiwilliams...

steve: perfect, although pricey! thanks for the link


so i've found available:
bezel, cpo, ROM board, joystick

free cabinet has:
control panel (moon patrol originally)
sideart
monitor

and stuff i have already:
robotron boardset (but need the bubbles rom board above)
williams power supply or switcher

stuff i'd still need:
header (havent looked yet, figured this would be easy)
time (repair control panel hackjob, replace jamma wiring (probably from scratch)

i also have an old multiwilliams kit from clay cowgill i could use, but i hate multiwilliams control panels (and playing games with the wrong stick... i can barely play defender with a two way, how am i going to be able to play it with a robotron stick??)

- gwarble
 
trust me i will... i don't expect them to be too common, just trying to see if the whole package will be worthwhile... pricey compared to some MW one maybe... not abnormal for NOS

bezel's at 90, cpo's at 80 (shipped, guessed), joystick's at 50, rom board is probably 50, header is at least 30... even not considering my time, its not looking good for bubbles... that's $300 bucks already, which i probably wouldn't buy a bubbles for...

maybe i'll leave it jamma and put a bubble bobble in it :) at least the sideart would be kinda fitting


EDIT: and if i was to go for resale value, that $300 would be in addition to the value of what i already have, the cpu and other boards, power suppply, the monitor that came in this cab, so it was free, but i've already stolen it and put it in my defender so there's some cost there (at least until i rebuild the bare tube defender came with)
- gwarble
 
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How many Bubbles cabs were produced, anyway? It seems to be pretty damned rare today. Did it bomb back in the day? My hometown arcade had it and it got played as much as anything. Today it seems most of them are gone, trashed or converted I imagine. I'd love to have a decent condition Bubbles to add to my Joust, Robotron, and Moon Patrol lineup. Of course, I'd have to sell something else first. :rolleyes:
 
Bubbles

Remember, it is Buy It Now or best offer. I have some wiggle room on the price.


thanks guys...

aaron: i saw that, and have included your price into my figuring to see if this is worth pursuing... but i want to make sure i can find everything i need and see what my total will be to do a restore or multiwilliams...


- gwarble
 
sweet thanks guys, aaron, thanks for the heads up, might make or break the sale, and thanks for the offer jplj, shaves $25 here and lets say between 10 and 30 for the bezel

so maybe $250 or less now... anyone have any opinions on how i should proceed?

EDIT: i also have a nice old 19" crt vga monitor and free computers galore, so a mame multiwilliams (or horizontal) is another option, one that would be totally free (and yes, i know its despised on this forum... but i'll admit i love the mame addon i made to my smashTV years ago... gives me access to games i could not otherwise play/share with people, without taking away from the smashTV in anyway)... so i could do the same with this, at least until i build up the parts i need to restore it without big expense now, and not taking much time...

- gwarble


EDIT: here's the cabinet i picked up and peeled the paint off of (45 minutes with a hair dryer and a gift card, i was able to pull sheets of paint off and reveal very decent sideart)
 

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Bubbles

Bubbles cabs do not pop up too often. Especialy with the side art in tact. It is a uncommon and unique game. I think it deserves to come back to a dedicated Bubbles. Value of the complete game may not be as much as the money and time you put into it but, how many people can say they have a dedicated Williams Bubbles?

From VAPS:
There are 51 known instances of this machine owned by Bubbles collectors who are members. Of these, 41 of them are original dedicated machines,
 
from the thread where i got the cab:

tron guy said:
williams multi game it if you aren't going to restore it to bubbles. You can keep the sideart the same, and the control panel is already hacked.

p1899m said:
Yep I'd say these are the only two real options. Anything else would be blasphemy. Personally I'd make it look like a dedicated bubbles with all the art and probably run the jrok multi in it.

gwarble said:
while i totally agree, the JROK option being the best, with full bubbles artwork restore, i'm not sure the end justifys the mean$... the purist in me says full bubbles restore, the jrok/clay multi williams is an easily justifiable solution and may be the only way to make it worthwhile... and any other emulated multiwilliams could be accomplished for much less with a simple mame setup... not ideal but probably the cheapest and easiest option, either way with a multi i won't be happy with the control panel unless they are modular or limited in games, normal MW panels are too cluttered, worse than a lot of mame setups
EDIT: and just to clarify, this things already hacked up, so MW or mame wouldn't be too blasphemous, it would only be a way to postpone its restoration until a time when it makes sense (cost,time,and priority-wise) without the space it takes up becoming a nuisance. Thats often how cabinets end up ruined in storage from rot, weather, neglect, even as mame machine it would probably be upgraded from the garage to the indoor arcade...
 
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great point aaron... i'm thinking starting a restore and a MW with clay's kit i already have, get it pretty much back intact wiring and artworkwise, and someday down the road find a bubbles boardset to finish it off, and then do the control panel at that point...

would probably pay its "rent" better as a MW via play time... but in the long run i'd rather have a dedicated bubbles, a MW isn't that desireable for me to keep, but would probably be easier to not lose money on...

- gwarble
 
you could always throw a PC in there and MAME for the time being until you get the shit together for a full restore...
 
Bubbles Parts

Marquee, Glass Bezel and Joystick for $100 + shipping. Pics are posted on your FS thread, if you don't want to pay for shipping I could bring them to CAX.
 
Sorry to be late to the party (I don't check the wanted section that often), but a couple of observations:
(1) Bubbles Wooden Uprights are fairly rare. Most of what is listed in VAPS are Duramold Bubbles, mainly because they are difficult to convert to anything else.
(2) The Bubbles board set is unique. The Bubbles ROM boards only work with Bubbles MPUs. Let me know if you need a working set. I have a set that I was going to put up on EBay for $150 (MPU, ROM and I/O board). The I/O board and sound card are the same as found in Stargate/Joust/Robotron.

ken
 
Bubbles NOS sticks!

I've been digging through some old stock of mine and I may have found a few NOS bubbles sticks.. It's just the stick, but it's new!
 
thanks everyone, you guys rock

yellowdog, thanks for that info, i thought it was a simple rom swap like robotron->joust

so now i've got a line on 2 bezels(aaron and kalan), one marquee(kalan), one joystick(kalan), one NOS stick-only(local413), and 2 NOS cpo's (jplj and usamuse...) anyone want anything from my list in trade?

i'm pretty sure this will become a multiwilliams for now and then someday a dedicated bubbles... so bubbles bezel and marquee are going on for sure (i dislike multi-anything artwork almost as much as the multiwilliams control panel)...

the stick could wait, but if i go multiwilliams i may make some swappable panels or something so then i would want the bubbles stick (and robotron sticks, and joust sticks, and a defender stick... hmm... splat sticks? maybe i can skip that one)

and bradd, i was considering that route until i found an old clay cowgill multiwilliams kit i had, and since i can play mame on my smash tv if necessary, this seems like a better un-emulated but still "free" option... though its still a contender

thanks for everyone's input, i've come around to the idea of a bubbles in my collection :)
- gwarble
 
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thanks guys...


and stuff i have already:
robotron boardset (but need the bubbles rom board above)
williams power supply or switcher

From robotron-2084.co.uk:

Bubbles runs on *almost* identical hardware to Robotron and Joust, except that the CMOS RAM is 8 bits wide instead of 4 bits wide. To stop board problems Williams made the CPU to ROM board cable a different pinout to the other games so a Bubbles CPU and ROM board will only work together and not mixed with other boards. You can however ROM swap a working Bubbles boardset to Robotron, Joust, Stargate or Splat! (with modified ROMs) with no problems as the software just ignores the extra 4 bits of CMOS RAM.
 
thanks for the info kstillin... aaron pointed that out, but i was unaware when i posted...

at this point i'm planning clay's multiwilliams on that robotron boardset for the first iteration of this game... get the artwork for the cab together as a bubbles running multiwilliams, and then eventually get the bubbles boardset and go back to dedicated... now the question is if i should go with a MW control panel, make a swappable setup, or just make the bubbles cp with the NOS cpo thats available, and skip the others from the MW (which isn't a big deal since i have a robotron, joust, and defender playable mostly). all this just because i have no desire to have a MW control panel in my arcade, too cluttered for me... swappable/modular would suck to (because of the chore to swap them) and cost more, but at least each game would play better with the right controls (and no extra stuff, except maybe inviso when playing defender

- gwarble
 
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