Picked up this Defender cab about a year ago from a guy living not too far away who was looking to scrap it if it wasn't saved. It's a Williams Streets cab, the 'streets' stuff being mini-cabs, so it's kind of cute and tiny. I don't drive so there was a big palavor and several trips with a mate featuring increasingly bigger cars (in the end we got it in the boot of his people carrier - god knows how.)
So bar ten pounds gas money, it was basically free, but came with 2 big problems - no game, and one helluva huge scratch down the middle of the glass overlay screen.
I spent a little while asking glaziers if the scratch could be buffed out, but alas, it's too severe. After sticking up wanted threads on J+ Neokidgeo came through like a hero and contacted me to tell me he had a spare, so I went to London to pick it up. It also has a scratch, but very small and hardly noticeable. Beggars can't be choosers n' all that, its in great shape considering it's from 1981.
Finally, many thanks to Dave2084 who runs this fine website: http://www.robotron-2084.co.uk/
Dave managed to not only get me a full original boardset, but seeing as I had no idea how to install it, did several video conferences with me over several days. He helped me test, install and troubleshoot the little bugger (we even had to replace the rom board and CPU once) until it was up and running. Truly, I'm indebted to the chap for his help and enamoured by his passion and knowledge of retro gaming.
I'm in need of a replacement stick. The death spike it comes with is a little more useable since I freed it up with some wrenching about, but still lacks decent movement, but otherwise it plays a great game of Defender.
We thought Cave shmups were hard? This thing is rock!
And here it is, doing it's thing -
) "Stargate". Adds one more button to that monsterous control panel. Stargate is what I grew up on in the arcades, and was the first arcade cabinet I bought 11 years ago.
