Just saw this online at a local auction that will take place next week and I am interested in possibly picking this up for our first full size arcade cab. Sometimes things of this nature at this place can run away in price and I don't want to overpay. I couldn't find anything online of past sales of a complete cab, just the PCB or marquee only. Another thing is I don't know if I will be able to test the machine before auction or not. So what would be the value for one in untested condition and what would be a value for a fully working one? Below is the pictures of it they had posted. Thanks in advance for any help.
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InsaneDavid
07-07-2012, 02:18 AM
Poor converted BurgerTime...
Anyway, the game isn't that common and it's also not very fun. Depending on how well the conversion was installed you could have a messy hackjob inside as BurgerTime (what this cabinet originally was) has a unique pinout and Aurail uses a Sega System 16 pinout.
If you're just getting in to arcade games I recommend one of two places to start:
1. Get a dedicated game that you really enjoy and would like to have original as you played it back when arcades were plentiful. A dedicated Galaga, Joust, Robotron, Pac-Man - something like that. That way although the machine will only be set up to play a single game or a small conversion class of games, it'll be a title you really like and will be a nice dedicated example of the machine.
or
2. Get a solid generic cabinet or a dedicated game that uses the JAMMA standard pinout. That way you can play pretty much any board that uses the JAMMA standard. More or less it's plug and play since all true JAMMA games will share the same connector. The JAMMA standard gives you four joystick directions, three buttons, a start button, and a credit switch each for two players - although not all compliant games use all the controls or have full harnesses. Klax, for instance, only uses the joystick directions, credit, and one button per player (duplicated on either side of the joystick). The game uses Button 1 as start. This setup is mirrored by Tetris (really it's the other way around as Tetris came first) and since both boards are JAMMA they can be interchanged. I can also toss other JAMMA boards into my dedicated Klax machine but due to the limited controls I can't play them properly. This is why I recommend a generic JAMMA cabinet with at least two action buttons per player.
When you're first starting out you're going to either want a machine that you REALLY want and remember or the flexibility to run different boards in one piece of real estate. While buying, selling and trading arcade cabinets is a fun part of the hobby, remember that permanent / semi-permanent additions to the collection should be something you're actually going to play over and over again.