This page serves as a brief history of all of the games that have passed through my hands since I started collecting in April 1998, as well as a list of any games I currently have for sale.

The following cabinets are for sale in the Seattle area only. Life's too short to schlep games to Forward Air in my minivan ;) Send mail to drews-arcade_AT_aqualion.net with any questions.
 

Golden Axe conversion - $125 (SOLD!)
This is a Pac-Man cabinet that's been painted black and converted to that 1989 Sega classic, Golden Axe. I've recapped the monitor, and aside from a little screen burn it looks good (the picture does not do it justice due to JPEG artifacts). The cabinet is wired with a JAMMA harness, so it could be used to run JAMMA games (the Golden Axe PCB comes with a little adapter that connects it to the JAMMA harness). Of course, the cabinet would also run other Sega System 16 PCBs, like Shinobi and Altered Beast, if you've got 'em.

Vanguard - $200 (SOLD!)
This is a dedicated horizontal/vertical scrolling shooter from Centuri, circa 1981. The side art and control panel are in good shape, and I've put a fairly nice marquee in it (a few small scratches, but it still looks nice even when backlit). This game is in my living room, so it's the one I tinker around with the most. I cleaned and recapped the monitor, and the picture looks great, with almost no burn-in. The gameplay is pretty good for 1981 - lots of sprites on the screen, bright colors, multiple stages, and even synthesized speech. I have the original manual and schematics for the game and for the monitor.

The Pit - $75 (or trade for working PCBs) (SOLD!)
This is another interesting game, which is also from Centuri, 1981. It's a dedicated cabinet, and the sideart and control panel are in almost perfect shape. The marquee has some flaking (I'm trying to find a new one), and the glass that lies on top of the monitor bezel has a small chip in one corner, but other than that, the machine is beautiful (screen burn-in is unnoticeable while playing). The gameplay is something like Boulder Dash meets Lode Runner - you dig your way down to a special jewel chamber, avoiding falling rocks and enemies, get the jewels, and return to your flying saucer, crossing over "The Pit" on the way. I have the original manual for the game.
 

Pac-Man Cocktail - $450 (TRADED FOR TEMPEST!)

Pac-Man was one of my first loves - I used to play this game for hours as a kid. My mom used to sneak me into the cocktail bar at the local mexican restaurant so I could play their Pac-Man cocktail with her (remember when they used to have arcade games everywhere)? I saw an ad for a Pac-Man at a garage sale, and when I showed up it was a cocktail, in decent cosmetic condition, except for some flaking silkscreen on the monitor glass and a little wear on the Player 1 control panel. It was only intermittently working - most of the time the video was garbage, but it played blind.

I brought it home, and started poking around at it. I bought a manual + schematics from Dave Grohowski on eBay, bought a logic probe, and with the help of some people from RGVAC I found the bad component (74LS174 @ 1-H). I replaced the IC, and now the game works wonderfully.

I cleaned it up, replaced the monitor glass and underlay, and now it looks beautiful - click here to see my Pac-Man restoration diary. The monitor still looked nice, but I threw in a cap kit anyway, just to clean up a little curl on the side. I was really tempted to keep it and put a Multi-Pac kit in it, but I traded it with Thomas Campbell in Chicago for a Tempest. I really grew to love this little game while restoring it, so it was h-a-r-d to finally give it up. But now that I have my Tempest, I have no regrets.
 
 

19" JAMMA cabinet (not for sale)
I bought this one when I was just starting out collecting video games. From the screen burn-in and from other people's reports, I'm pretty sure that it started out life as a dedicated Bad Dudes by Data East - by the time I got it, it had a horizontal RPG called "Cadash" in it, and had this really dirty blurry display. I brought it in to work, started poking around in it, and realized that it was quite a find. The monitor picture is much better after I cleaned the screen up and adjusted the focus. I finally got around to putting in a cap kit, but I still need to tweak the convergence. But the real win is that the cabinet is designed to allow you to switch the monitor from horizontal to vertical fairly easily (I installed a couple of handles on both sides of the monitor so I can do it myself). Similarly, I can release two latches and the control panel flips out really nicely, to give me easy access to the guts of the machine.

I played Cadash for about 10 minutes before trading the board for Sky Shark, which is one of the best vertical scrolling shooters I've ever played (Galaga and the 194x series might be better). The cabinet has a new generic flexi marquee (I had to replace the Sky Shark marquee after a friend headbutted it out of frustration and broke it). I still have the Cadash monitor bezel, but I swapped it for a plain black one as it looks weird with the monitor in a vertical arrangement, so the cabinet looks like so. I kept the Cadash control panel overlay for a while, as I thought it looked pretty cool. But when I built my Multi-Williams board, I decided I needed more buttons so I could play Defender, so I revamped the control panel so it looks like this now. I've also wired it up with an external audio amp (I used a kit from Jameco) so I can play unamplified games like Mr. Do. I recently added some quick-disconnect terminals to the monitor yokes so I can invert the monitor image without having to physically rotate the monitor (also very useful for Mr. Do).

Asteroids Deluxe (not for sale)

I've always loved vector games, and this baby was right on the top of my want list when I started collecting, next to Ripoff, Armor Attack, and Tempest. I mentioned on RGVAC that it was my favorite game, and Mike Benge (Retrodaddy) offered to sell me one. The Forward Air gods were smiling on me, and it arrived undamaged.

It's a dedicated upright, in great shape. No noticeable screen burn in, and only slight scratches on the sideart. The backdrop has gotten a little droopy over the years, but I've fixed that up pretty well. I also added a nice fan to blow air over the deflection board to keep things nice and cool. Man, I love this game. Especially now that I've finally gotten good enough to bump the old high score off.

If anyone has any vector games in the Seattle area that they'd like to sell, most notably Space Duel, Gravitar, Ripoff, or Armor Attack, please drop me a line, and we'll see if we can work something out.

Tempest (not for sale)

Here's a game that I wasn't very fond of when I was a kid. Tempest and Robotron were always a little too hard for my tastes. Heck, I still can only get through about the first 10 stages of Robotron, or get to the Red stages of Tempest starting from the beginning. But there are some games you just have to own, and Robotron and Tempest are two of those games. Robotron is raster, so I can buy a board and put it in my JAMMA cab, but the only way to get Tempest is in a dedicated cabinet. So, when I got an offer to trade a Tempest for my Pac-Man cocktail, I jumped at it. It's now become my favorite game. I put a repro control panel overlay on it, because the original had some spots worn through it. Here's