Sidetracked by the wife, a guide to marital bliss

The Major Havoc, Paperboy and the start of my 26th and final Ms. Pac restoration has thrown up a major red flag with the wife and the term "neglect" has been tossed around a bit. she has always been very supportive of the addiction but never forgot about her machine that sits in the garage unrestored. I've used all my excuses so now i'm screwed.

Last year i picked up a huge pile of free Megatouch machines and scrapped all but one. This particular machine was in good shape but the hardrive was toast and damn it was fithy/smelly. A local friend had a Titanium hardrive upgrade that would work for this machine and bring the game count up to around 60 games so we tossed it in and i dropped the game on the dining room table in all its filthy glory. This thing has 4 fans quietly kicking out years of dust and a smell that was so nasty that i never should have brought it in the house. The first day she sat there for 4 hours playing and by the end of the week i knew i had made a big mistake bringing this bar sponge in the house as she wouldn't leave it alone.

I told her that i couldn't stand the look/smell anymore so it was going to the garage for a little cleaning and i'd bring it back in when it was fresh and pretty.....................That was a year ago! The proverbial foot has come down and because i love you so much, i restored one just for you. Here it is all finished!



I have to say that these things are just as time consuming as restoring a full size machine and simple removal of any part requires contortionistic skill. The monitor in this thing is a simple VGA however a good cleaning, 40+ capacitors on the chassis and reassembly will set you back a good couple hours. Everything else in this compact machine is so filthy and nicotine stained i don't have to many options other than soaking all the parts in skin eating chemicals in an attempt to get the smell out.

The metal shell and original powdercoating were still in very good shape but after scrubbing the hell out of it with water and chemicals, the finish was less than desireable. I didn't want to waste my free powdercoating sessions on a countertop game but stripping the powdercoating/repainting looked like a several hour project and i'm far too lazy for that. Off to the powdercoater! To be continued.

Here's the final pics.














A final note:

This had to be one of the PITA restorations to date, and i honestly think this was more work than doing a full size machine. The only bit of joy ever found was when i flipped the power switch and it worked. It took alot of time/swearing to get it back together and i really struggled to get the touchscreen calibrated. Every part of this little beast was cleaned, all parts that make up the black exterior metal shell were stripped and powdercoated, the monitor was rebuilt, t-molding and new side decals finished it off. It's a great little machine but one i would never restore again. The wife is happy and i get to return to my projects so i guess that's all that matters.