Ms. Pac-Man is a Drag Queen

Note the NES Box Art

Finally up to the Ms. Pac-Man Cocktail Cabinet restoration!  As you can see in the pictures below this thing needs a fair (but not extreme) amount of work. 

 

 First and foremost the second player joystick is fucked.  Next the graphics (while they look to be lovingly done) are all inkjet prinotuts and not very attractive.  Third the cab is kind of beat up and the plexi-glass is shot to shit.








So I begin by researching what parts are available to purchase for this thing.  Bingo, in less than 10 minutes I am on an official page that sells are kinds of parts for Ms. Pac-man machines.  "Well, this isn't going to take nearly as long as I thought," said my unsuspecting brain to my.......unsuspecting brain.

  

Will the real Ms. Pac-Man please stand up?

Lo and behold as I start going through all of the offerings every single picture looks completely different than what I have here in front of me.  After careful cab inspection it turns out that...........................(drum roll)................this is actually a mother farking Donkey Kong Cab, fully modified from the days of its simian glory!












 Well great, this slots it right into the nothing is ever easy category. Ok, no biggie I go right to see what artwork i can find, since I know nothing that I find will fit, but maybe I can rig something up.  I was able to find some nice vector art for the Ms., and (what I believe to be) a correctly sized DK control panel JPG that I am using as a template. 

Trying to fit a square pac peg into a round pac hole

Two hours later (an Illustrator wizard I am not) I have something that may work, though the size of the holes for the buttons and sticks may be an issue.  Daniel (Retro Fool Deuce) is going to print them out in black and white on a large format printer and we are going to match them up and see what needs adjusting.




I also sent some pictures of the non working joystick to Andrew at The Twisted Quarter.  I have no idea if it is original or aftermarket, but hopefully he can find me something that works.
 







  So, here I am.  I strongly considered converting this back to a DK as I like original stuff, but that would require obtaining the right board and to be honest I would play the Misses more than the Monkey.  Updates to come soon when progress happens!

Not Emulation related, but I wanted to share a good pickup we (myself and my room-mate, with the help of my brother) got this weekend.

I was woken up at 10am with a text of, "Do you want to go to an arcade auction?"  "Well yes," I thought, "I would like to do that."

So away we went and when all was said and done for under $300 we got an X-Men, Pac-Man Jr. and (2-Player) Tetris cabinet!  Shitty pictures below, I will add better ones when I am able.