I joined the site 2 years ago, but realized that I never made an introduction post. Better late than never, I suppose!
Professionally, I'm a software developer; but I not-so-secretly try to follow in my late father's footsteps. He was an electrician, that had a long history with electronics as well -- as he used to repair and do custom mods for CB radios back in the 70s, expanding the frequency ranges in use, etc.
I've been messing around with classic arcade machines since the late 90s when a local operator would regularly throw out whole cabinets with monitors that worked poorly, but usually games that were working or almost working. I remember nabbing a Sidearms, Commando, Street Fighter II, Super Pac-Man, and a whole slew of other machines.
Now I have a big backlog of both "classic" and jamma-era games in my garage. The newer systems I've managed to acquire are a Triforce, Naomi 1 & 2, Taito Type X2, several CPS2 systems, as well as a slew of MVS boards (no 6-slots, though). The stuff I'm really into and/or trying to get working are:
If you can't tell by now, I'm nutzo for Lupin III, that's been an interest I've had since I first saw Castle of Cagliostro in 1997. I'm always looking for Lupin arcade equipment. My dream would be to purchase a dedicated Lupin III machine. I've only ever seen one user post pictures of one, and it was freaking beautiful. In passing, I offered them my Toyota Corolla in trade, but I think they thought I was joking or the logistics would have been difficult to figure out. At the time it was still valued at around $18k.
Lupin III (1980) took me 10 years of searching to find a PCB, but finally one popped up on an auction in Japan, and I was able to nab it several years ago. It wasn't super cheap, but I was super happy to get it. Recently, I picked up the cocktail instruction card and a piece of pop related to it.
Cliff Hanger has taken me a long time to collect all of the pieces, and I think I can finally begin assembling it all. I bought the ZPU board from someone in Canada, drove 9 hours straight one-way to get an original cabinet for free, found original RFB, VMB, UIB, and NTSC decoders from various auctions and arcade collectors over the years. Bought an original sealed Cliff Hanger laserdisc off of eBay. This thing literally was built with parts from all over the world. Which is funny since Stern, the original manufacturer of the game, was located in the state next to where I live (Illinois).
Currently, working to get my Taito Type X2 Lupin game working. Board has a ton of bad caps, which are all ordered now, and I think someone tried to replace the video card with an off-the-shelf minor upgrade to the original card. Probably not going to work. The specs on the label for this Lupin say it should have had an Radeon X1300LE in it, when in reality it had an X1600Pro inside, which boots up on a regular PC -- but does not boot up in the TTX2. I have the means to dump and reflash the BIOSes on these cards, if I can locate someone else's dumps, but it seems like there isn't much of that out there, or I'm looking in the wrong places.
Taito Type X2 is now working, got it all lined out by going over my recap job and reflowing the vias. I'm chuffed about that.
Okay, if you made it to here, I'm impressed because I think I even got bored with reading/writing it.
TL;DR: I love Lupin stuff. If you have something related, I'm most likely into it. If you're familiar with getting any of the games going in my bulleted list, I love help and collaboration. I have helped mame developers and some people on nesdev improve both emulation and documentation of hardware respectively.
Professionally, I'm a software developer; but I not-so-secretly try to follow in my late father's footsteps. He was an electrician, that had a long history with electronics as well -- as he used to repair and do custom mods for CB radios back in the 70s, expanding the frequency ranges in use, etc.
I've been messing around with classic arcade machines since the late 90s when a local operator would regularly throw out whole cabinets with monitors that worked poorly, but usually games that were working or almost working. I remember nabbing a Sidearms, Commando, Street Fighter II, Super Pac-Man, and a whole slew of other machines.
Now I have a big backlog of both "classic" and jamma-era games in my garage. The newer systems I've managed to acquire are a Triforce, Naomi 1 & 2, Taito Type X2, several CPS2 systems, as well as a slew of MVS boards (no 6-slots, though). The stuff I'm really into and/or trying to get working are:
- Lupin III (Taito 1980)
- Cliff Hanger
- Lupin the Shooting
- Lupin the Typing
- Lupin the 3rd (Type X2)
If you can't tell by now, I'm nutzo for Lupin III, that's been an interest I've had since I first saw Castle of Cagliostro in 1997. I'm always looking for Lupin arcade equipment. My dream would be to purchase a dedicated Lupin III machine. I've only ever seen one user post pictures of one, and it was freaking beautiful. In passing, I offered them my Toyota Corolla in trade, but I think they thought I was joking or the logistics would have been difficult to figure out. At the time it was still valued at around $18k.
Lupin III (1980) took me 10 years of searching to find a PCB, but finally one popped up on an auction in Japan, and I was able to nab it several years ago. It wasn't super cheap, but I was super happy to get it. Recently, I picked up the cocktail instruction card and a piece of pop related to it.
Cliff Hanger has taken me a long time to collect all of the pieces, and I think I can finally begin assembling it all. I bought the ZPU board from someone in Canada, drove 9 hours straight one-way to get an original cabinet for free, found original RFB, VMB, UIB, and NTSC decoders from various auctions and arcade collectors over the years. Bought an original sealed Cliff Hanger laserdisc off of eBay. This thing literally was built with parts from all over the world. Which is funny since Stern, the original manufacturer of the game, was located in the state next to where I live (Illinois).
Taito Type X2 is now working, got it all lined out by going over my recap job and reflowing the vias. I'm chuffed about that.
Okay, if you made it to here, I'm impressed because I think I even got bored with reading/writing it.
TL;DR: I love Lupin stuff. If you have something related, I'm most likely into it. If you're familiar with getting any of the games going in my bulleted list, I love help and collaboration. I have helped mame developers and some people on nesdev improve both emulation and documentation of hardware respectively.
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I am still working on my Cliff Hanger, however, a new CNC cabinet may end up helping me to get a looks-like-new setup built before I can restore the original one that I have!
Sure would love to see a bit of your collection!
