Chance to buy a non working Galaga etc ... worth it?

[daikaiju]

Last night I sat talking with an aquaintance over beers when he mentioned he has a Galaga machine sitting in his living room collecting dust. The conversation progressed to the point where he offered me the Galaga machine AND a trivia challange machine (retrofitted into an original Pacman cab) for $300 - I haul em away. I figure with some friendly beer talk, I can get him down to $250...however. The Galaga is currently not working, and has some cosmetic issues. When running the diagnostic, it hangs on one of the chips...monitor however and everything else seems to be in good working order. The Trivia Challenge works completely. I'm not really interested in the TC, but it's a package deal - and the Pacman cab supposedly has a lot of the original items still in it, including the Pacman manual. My dilemma is this. I have 0 working knowledge of fixing coin ops, and wonder if in fact this WOULD be a deal. I know that Galaga machines bring a pretty decent coin in good shape. Any chance if I could find out the exact code the diagnostic hangs on if someone here could tell me what it might take to get it up and running approximately? Advice?

[DogP]

That sounds like a pretty good deal... you should be able to get the Galaga working yourself by figuring out which chip(s) are bad (or sometimes just dirty), or maybe adjusting the power supply. If you don't feel like screwing with it, you can sell the non-working board for ~$80 on ebay, and buy a fully working one for under $150.

DogP

[NESVIDIOT]

So did you end up taking the deal??
Galaga cabs are always worth a few bucks if they are original because once restored they fetch a very good dollar. Probably one of the most popular retro games ever!