It's getting hard to track down a dedicated Missile Command in good original condition. I looked for 10 years (local 100 mile radius only) here until I found a very decent deal on a broke down one with wasp nests in it... It took melding two machines together to get one really nice one but hell, I don't mind the work for an iconic piece of arcade history that is also a difficult game.

Atari Battlezone 'cabaret'

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I found a NOS B&W picture tube on eBay. It looks like a brand new game.

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Before and after pics are exciting. That was the fourth deconversion I've done. Usually lots of work but outcome is epic.

Slowly adding a few arcades to my collection!

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Man, what an item! Loved playing 720 as it was intended to play.

Congrats and nice find.

Agreed. Atari took a lot of liberty with their cabinets. Great stuff! I was terrible at the game (as well as Paperboy) but the Atari classics can't be beat!

Chris

I had no idea how rare a title it was when I got it. Got lucky with that one. It’s a solid game fun to play. I get asked constantly if I want to sell it.

I love 720.... mounted my old school Skateboard from back in the day to the back of mine.... Skate or Die!!!!

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Its an insanely popular game. Enjoy it and when you decide to pass it along, you will be rewarded. luckily there is repo art and there used to be rebuild kits for the joystick.

last year I got one of the proto 720's from one of the programmers. If you ever dealt with protos, you sometimes need to dress them up as they can come off the line before they get final art(or maybe not even the final version of the cab). This proto probably had a paper control panel overlay or no overlay at all when he took it home. Luckily, I have a spare control panel for it. It needs a retainer bar(I have one), paper bezel and monitor glass.

The sad thing is, its not a grail game for me. I respect the game, I already have a production one, but I was never a skate boarder or even played it more than a few times back when it was in the arcade. I will eventually pass it along to someone or a museum who deserves it.

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Anybody have a SEGA Frogs they want to sell?
Not to be confused with Frogger (totally different game).
I believe it was called Frogs and Flys on the Intellivision.

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Good luck. Thats a pretty rare game. They bring a hefty price too. Really cool game with the bezel art and back drop art.

Yep, I’m aware. My main collecting interest is black and whites and I have no issue having to pony up on the price for the right machine.
Here’s the current configuration of our main arcade room at the house. Want to add a Frogs to that lineup.

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Never has a wooden figurine looked so good!

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Thats a pretty sweet row. I know I've seen some of those machines of yours on KLOV. My handle is mk3u2012 there. Sega Combat is certainly an underrated EM. A friend of mine had a beautiful example. Blue Shark is highly sought after. VP is always fun. Play that at FunSpot in Laconia NH. Same with Skydiver. Which I'd really love to come across one to purchase. Seen a few Stunt Cycles but have never played one. Cool to see the upright Sheriff. I have seen a lot of gameplay on the two player unit Gunfight.

Here is my B&W lineup:

Asteroids
Rip Off
Breakout
Space Invaders Deluxe
Midway Gunfight
Sportorama (cool pong clone)
Battlezone (cabaret)
Shark jaws

Thats supposed to be Tojo correct?

Period wise, I suppose. I keep thinking that he looks Chinese.

Yea I don't believe it was representing Mao Zedong. If I recall somewhere in the machine there are Japanese flags correct?

Has anyone scratch built an arcade (Paperboy)? I want to try but I don’t want to spend more on homemade than actually purchasing a used one.

Surprised no one has mentioned the ice cold beer remake? I'd love to have this game but the price is laughable. Even if it was 50% off I would probably have to think on it. https://www.flipnoutpinball.com/product-page/ice-cold-beer-remake-arcade-machine

Nice, Shark Jaws is pretty impressive.
Ive never owned that machine.

I own a bunch of other black and white titles as well that are either in other rooms or that garage.
That's about 1/3 of them I suppose.

Depends if you’re going original with crt and pcb or emulation.

If you want to try, before you start:
Find the paperboy controller… not going to be easy, probably $1k would scare one up. I have a proto controller in storage, but a buddy of mine is restoring a proto and i think wants it.

Find the boardset. Luckily you can us champ sprint, apb, super sprint(? Not 100% sure), or 720. Again, not an easy find and really hard to find one that works.. so probably another $1k+

You probably want to find a champ sprint cab. You will need the audio reg, transformer and other game specific parts. Depending on how complete figure $200- $1500+

Lastly, what are you going to do about the monitor. Finding a 19” medium Rez crt is going be really hard. Again, rob the same cabs from above or add in narc, and Tobin. Or if you’re building, maybe make it’s slightly wider and maybe slightly deeper and use a 25” medium Rez. 25” medium will be easy to find(all those drivers for the 90’s). I believe a 25” will actually fit into a system 2 cab, but you probably need to modify or toss the frame to do it. So monitor will cost you anywhere from $250- $1k+.

So add custom art, cab building, metal for speaker cover, control panel blank, monitor glass, speakers, wiring and coin door and thats probably another $1k.

So for scratch build, I would guess you’re talking $4k+ in parts and maybe 100 hours of work. So access what you have. If you have any of the needed parts, you have a chance at scratch build. Or you can buy a paperboy probably for around $3k+. If not local, add another $600+ to ship it.

If you go on KLOV and do a search you will find all the info your looking for. There have been dozens of cabs scratch built. Many using CNC machines. 100's if not thousands of reproduced parts. Off the top of my head for Paperboy: cabinet, artwork, handle bars, control panel, wire harness, gears have all been reproduced. Probably a lot more.

Example : https://forums.arcade-museum.com/threads/atari-paperboy-arcades.504147/

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I’ll find a used one. I think shipping alone would kill me for parts, let alone the search. I contacted the guy on KLOV, so Thank you! I dislike KLOV there are a lot of people here on Pinside that are A$$holes, but so far KLOV has had way more than Pinside.

Funny I was just having this conversation with another Pinside member last week. I feel the opposite for the most part. Regardless, ignore the assholes. Its a valuable source of technical information and its members have a wealth of knowledge to offer for FREE. I have found no equal in regards to video arcade machines. I tell people on KLOV the exact same thing when they are searching for advice on pins. Pinside and KLOV do not have enough crossover to warrant utilizing just one site if you fix, buy or operate both vids/pins.

The other option is to be on the lookout for a Championship Sprint, which is the same cabinet.

Ms pac man converted to multicade, astroids, space invaders, hydro thunder and a SF Rush

Yes! You and I had that conversation about your Toobin! I only want a few dedicated cabinets, the rest can be multicades. I really want the games I played as a kid to be dedicated, QBert, Paperboy, and Toobin. I already have the cocktail version of Millipede and working on my pole position 2. I do think KLOV would be better if it were run similarly to Pinside. I think that more of us are buying repairing and fixing both pins and arcades for our arcade rooms than not, on both sites. I think the purists are the only issue on both forums!

I think I’m going to wait for the right machine. I have enough feelers out that one of my machines will show up!

Have you ever owned one? My wild guess is if you do track one down, you will have it less than a year and be like... "Why do I own this $5K boat anchor that is always breaking down?" Once you play through the game a few times, the replay value is close to 0.0. This is also known as "Marble Madness syndrome".

The bigger challenge is to come up with a great arcade game with tons of replay value that you still own after 20 years.

Nooooo.

If anyone has nostalgia for playing Paperboy in their youth it is one that brings back big smiles as an adult. A great example of a game you can't replicate on a console or in MAME.

I am certain I played this game in my youth hundreds of hours between ages of 10-13. I felt the same way as you, owned one and could not unload it fast enough. I mean, Championship Sprint (just mentioned) or even Roadblasters are much better designed games with a lot more replay value and cost a LOT less.

For me, these things take up so much space, it does not leave much room for nostalgia. King of ironic that people are willing to sacrifice a great game for one that has not aged all that well, just for the sake of nostalgia. Are we sure we are talking about "nostalgic value" and not "monetary value"?

I don't have to like a thing and I can state however I feel about a game. If I think a game is crap, I have no reason to keep it to myself.

I have a hard time saying bye to most machines I purchase. Large or small. Paperboy and other unique control scheme games will always be sought out by collectors as they just can't be replicated. Lack of space is certainly a problem. But lets be honest, a pin takes up far more space than Paperboy. I'm the type that would buy an antique cigarette vending cabinet with mahogany sides and mirrored front to restore and display and I don't smoke. I'd fix up a kiddie ride to put in my front yard. I'll restore an old soda machine even though I have a fridge. It's all perspective. And Paperboy is one cool as game when played in the right perspective.

This is why I don't chase nostalgia, just authentic experiences that feel good. I didn't grow up with candy cabs, but they're so much more comfortable than the stand up woodies of my youth, easier to swap games on, better controls, etc. Still have CRTs and original PCBs and everything plays like it should. That's ultimately what matters to me.

Dedicated cabs look awesome, I love seeing them, but owning them is just a huge space suck that I don't have room for. If I had a warehouse museum or something that would be different, but it's just a little garage, everything has to earn the square footage it takes up.

We play fighting games because they don't get old. Always room for self improvement, always something new when playing another human being instead of a CPU that never changes.

But if you have the room to line up a bunch of classics? Live the dream even if you just like walking past them all turned on.

I remember spending hours collecting pop bottles around the neighbourhood to get the $.25 deposit back for them to play these games! It was absolutely worth the time! The point that it might just be a boat anchor is very valid though, because something I loved as a kid might not have the same level of fun as an adult, however we do own the handheld Paperboy and it gets new batteries almost weekly. Toobin however I haven’t really played since they removed it from the corner store. I really should give it some play time before I jump in both feet! If Blake lived closer I think I would have to drop by with some bourbon!

AGREED! I still remember the cigarette machines at the bowling alley!!!

I think the main reason I started collecting Arcades and Pins is the nostalgia! Well honestly COVID… no vacation and no fun makes Jeff a dull boy.

Hey, whatever works for you, it's always personal. I collect to play. I have 8 candy cabs because I host a weekly night for players, they get used, and I enjoy playing and sharing them.

If I stopped playing fighting games, or my players stopped coming to play them, I'd sell it all. Just looking at them, or owning them, isn't really enough for me.

I think that statement fits almost every person who buys! I have only ever sold one game that didn’t get played regularly Centigrade 37. The rest of the machines I play or have played! The statement that I buy for nostalgia stands! I keep for enjoyment!

It all depends on how many games you have and if you have any friends who will play them other than you. games like track and field, gauntlet, super sprint, eliminator, ect are great party games. but if they are the only game you own, they will get old fast.

if you use your logic, there is no game worth owning. Games like crazy taxi(add pretty much every driving game), pacman, donkey kong are all repetitive in nature.

you can probably apply it to pinball. I am not a very good pinball player, but how many pins do you end up just repeating the same shots or finishing all the challenges in a game? So there is more to games than if you just can dominate it.

when it comes to paperboy, its a total challenge to me. I cant handle more than a few days before I loose. vs a friend of mine who knows all the bonus and tricks to game who can dominate it. So skill level will determine how long lasting a game will be.

Nostalgia is also a big factor too. I love my black knight pin. I grew up on it, pinbot, space shuttle, blackout, ect. But its the only old pin I am keeping. why, because the newer pins are more fun. But black knight takes me back to 16 and arcades of my youth.

If your ever in the area, give me a shout.

Arcade "FIGHT NIGHT" with eight candy cabs sounds freaking awesome. I have an upright MKII, MK3U, MK4 and Super SFII. But I love candy cabs.

If that were true, I would not own over 50 games. Just because I don’t want to own a game, or I think its replay value is severely lacking, that does not mean that I don’t like it. It just means that I have no desire to own it. I understand why people want to own certain games like Paperboy, they even pointed those reasons out. The logic they use to justify owning it is different than the logic I use to justify owning a game. (I can count the games that I have owned for over 20 years on one hand.)

You might not understand why I do not want to own specific games. For me, replay value, randomness, and difficulty is a lot more important than the ability for a game to be emulated, rarity, if a game is fun only with multiple people playing, or, just owning it for nostalgic purposes.

I made my guess about Paperboy ownership because over the years, I have asked a lot of other Paperboy owners why they got rid of theirs and the answers are always the same. Nearly all other’s sentiments ended with “it was just not worth keeping”. I’m certain there’s 1000 people that own it (and 720: another highly overated game) and love it and dust it off daily.

One thing I realized with both pinball and arcade games is that nostalgic reasoning does not pan out for me… I would much rather use the space a game takes up for a fantastic game that is played weekly or daily over one that I played back in the day and I thought was great just because it was in front of me when I was 12.

The reality is that with classic game design, your nostalgic faves are not always the best games that were made. I am willing to sacrifice that space where a nostalgic game could sit for one that I enjoy playing today in the present, all the time.

For some, yes this is important… for me not so much.

Now that arcade enthusiasts are also competing with barcades that want the iconic games like Paperboy and Tapper, it helps keep supply low and demand high. If every game was available for say, $500, my collection along with a lot of others, would look a LOT different and my perspective would likely shift.

Just moved my Neo Geo goldie downstairs with the pins so I (and my guests) would play it more and realized I haven't shown it off in this thread. I restored it a couple years ago and put a darksoft cartridge in it. I've never seen one in the wild, I think it's a pretty rare one.

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Not rare but certainly not something you see on location much. Great system and cool looking cabinet. I kick myself for not buying a nice example a few years ago. I have a Big Red and love it.

Not to mention the Darksoft MVS cart is badass. I throw a cheap multi cart in mine to play a bunch of expensive carts.

I understand your point. Most people are limited by space and you have to make choices. I have let many games go for space. back when I was trying to get all the laserdisc games, I had about 15 of them(ignorantly thinking I was close, but I did have a badlands and a freedom fighter). Then I thought, why am I getting laser disc games? my buddies liked them and I never really liked them back in the day. So I sold them all. the last 2 to go were star rider(sitdown) and firefox(sitdown proto), but they still had to go due to reliability and size.

my other objection is your disdain for paperboy. Its better than many games. I have about 125 vids and 35 pins in my collection. If I was forced to get rid of 50 vids, I would still keep a paperboy. It would be when I got down to about 50 vids, when I would consider selling mine. My video game hobby has more than paid for itself(I have bought, fixed, and sold a ton of games). I dont really think about what its worth. I got my paperboy so long ago, I paid probably $100 for it. Its probably worth $2500+, but I would not trade it for say a stern ironman pin. But I would keep a paperboy over say a pacman or donkey kong.

everyone has their own taste in games. I dont know why, but some people like zaxxon. Enough so, they made super zaxxon. There are some games I have that cant really be played alone (space wars, and I would never sell). Or are no fun playing alone (joust pinball which is why I sold it).

I am sure with your collection at about 80 games, you probably dont have the time to play many of them on a regular basis. I consider myself blessed to be an average game player. I am happy playing robotron for about 20 min before I get wasted. I cant imagine people playing it endlessly. Same with pinball, It probably takes me 20 games at 5 ball to get lost in the zone on my twilight zone. where as my buddy can usually do it on 1 ball.

I really doubt you would find many people who say its not worth owning a paperboy. I would agree with you people might sell it for space or would rather sell it for its high value to buy something else. I think its a very good game for people who have more than 20 games in their collection.

I’ll be honest and say that I find the Darksoft MVS a little disappointing. Love his products. Use my Darksofted CPS2 and CPS3 every week. Have two CPS3 Super Bios setups even. But the Neo Geo cart is just a bit clunky.

He promised for years it was getting updates and it’s languished.