Mansfield Snowbowl (or the length that I will go to for my acrcade collecting addiction)

Thanks to John (Blckdog7) and Craigslist, some friends and I ventured out into the great white nothing to chase down a few cheap games today.

I woke up at 7 am to ready myself for a run to Mansfield, MA today to chase down a collection of 3 1/2 games (see below for an explanation of the fraction) that were posted on MA Craigslist recently. When I went out on my porch, this is the view that greeted me.





The first order of business was to shovel off the porch and then make some calls to confirm that everyone involved was still ready and willing to meet up given the weather. My NEACF cohort Joey was the first to be contacted and he was on his way. When he arrived, he was skeptical and seriously thinking about bagging on this one. In his defense, he told me to sole reason he got out of bed was because he knew I was meeting up with John aka Blckdog7 and needed help pulling the Domino Man out of my basement. We had some coffee and waited to get the word from John that he was on his way to meet us.

John's call came and I called another NEACF affilliate Andy (aka McGizzle) to confirm that he would still be able to meet us to snag a couple of the cabs and take them back to his shop for a planned NEACF gathering coming up. On the agenda was a Smash TV for me, A Road Blasters for Joey, a Mystic Warriors for our friend Straker and a Rolling Thunder "parts" machine for Dan, another NEACF Member (more on the latter in minute).

With all the key players in place and on their way, Joey and I pulled the Domino Man out of the basement while my girl did her best to sleep through all the noise we made (it was around 8 am and she does not rise before 10 on Sundays, NEVER). In the process of pulling John's soon to be cab out of my basement, we lost one pair of gloves (Joey's), one set of keys (mine) and part of one back (Joey's).

Given the Snow and the status of my usual game transporter, a trusty Subaru baja (bed full of snow), I opted to trade out with my girl and bring her Subi Forester for this run to help protect the game(s) on the way out and back.

So with the Domino Man in the Forester, we headed south for Mansfield. I couldn't help but think we could have used a little help from our NEACF buddies JC and Dewman on this trip, and I said a little prayer for a safe journey as we made our way on down the road.



An hour and a quarter later, we meet up with John in the back lot of a Dunkin Donuts in Foxboro, MA. I decided to pass on doing a few donuts with Domino Man in the Subi, and pulled up beside John to make the exchange, which went quickly. With John heading back to West Mass mumbling something about rat shit, Andy, Joey and I headed over to meet Mike (the seller) and check out these "cheap" cabs. I must admit, both Joey and I were wondering what we would find when we got there.

Well Mike owns and operates an auto shop and was a very cool guy. He said that a few other folks has been bugging him about these games and that he had held them for us. The lead in to Mike's shop was rather steep, so we waited for his friend to swing by with a plow to clean up the landing a bit before loading up. Once the way was cleared, I slid up the driveway to get my vehicle to load up the game that I had come to snag.

The first to go was my Smash TV. To call this game a "conversion" is a bit of an understatement considering that the only thing truly "Smash TV" about the cab was the marquee, pcb and torn repro side art. The game fired up though and with a little work, will be presentable, though definitely not a candidate for being mistaken as a "dedicated" cab.



Next up was Joey's Road Blasters, which was in pretty nice shape and came with a full set of manuals. This cab was a beast and fun for Joey and I to unload once we made it back to his place.

As luck would have it, it turned out that Straker's game, Mystic Warriors, was actually in the best shape of all the cabs.

Andy, the incredibly cool guy that he is, was on hand to load this and Dan's Rolling Thunder into his truck to take back to his shop for later pickup. I can't say thank you enough to Andy. He is always ready and willing to help, even when he has nothing at stake in the process. Andy got out of bed and met us on this shittier than shitty day and was not even snagging a cab for himself.

Last to get loaded up was Dan's Rolling Thunder, the very definition of a "parts machine" as it turned out. This was what Mike pointed to when we asked where this game was.



After having a good laugh and making some preliminary plans to post "before" and "after" pictures of this "cab", along with a story about doing a few involuntary donuts on 95 on the way back for Dan's benefit, we took a closer look and realized that the PCB, marquee and cp were actually in very nice shape. Not a bad score for Dan, who currently has a working Rolling Thunder game.

So with all the games loaded up, we said goodbye to Mike. Joey and I parted ways with Andy, who headed south back to RI, and we headed north to unload our games.

We stopped at my place first and almost lost Joey under the Smash TV as we worked to get it onto my porch and into my house through more snow which had accumulated since we departed. He was literally crawling backwards on his butt and elbows with the cab on top of him as we entered my living room. My girlfriend looked on with that "why do I let him do this?" look on her face.

We got the Smash TV down to my basement and it fired right up.

The game did post some RAM/CMOS errors on boot-up that I am hoping will be remedied once I replace the 15 year old battery on the board. Despite this, and the fact that the monitor badly needs a cap-kit, this game works well. The cabinet itself is a bit of a Frankensten assemblage of parts.

I am not sure if this was a home-made cab or if it was converted from something else, but check out the wood paneling, circa Brady Bunch, that currently resides where the coin door and kick plate should be.

After relaxing with a game of Ms. Pac-Man, Joey was ready to make the final leg of the trip back to his place where we loaded the Road Blasters into his garage with his two Gorfs and his one Centipede.

All-in-all the day was a success and I have yet one more project cab to work on, though I did divest myself of the Domino Man, so it was a even slate for me in the end. The Smash TV is now the second in my collection created by Eugene Jarvis & Co (I currently have a Robotron). Jarvis is my favorite game designer from the 80's and I may continue collecting his games if time, money and luck allow.