Before	After

I found my cabinet when a local car dealer bought a storefront that used to be a sports card store in order to turn it into an Apache motorcycle dealership.  When they were cleaning out the store, they put everything out on the sidewalk and just let people take whatever they wanted.  Among the discarded items was an old arcade game.  I asked one of the men cleaning out the place if it was for sale, and he said, "It sure is.  For $100."  I decided to play it cool and just said, "Thanks," and walked away.

Later that evening, two friends of mine called me and asked if I still wanted it.  They said they had been by the store scavenging, and they had asked about the cabinet again.  The guy told them that he was going to leave it outside that night, and if it was gone in the morning, he wouldn't say anything.  So I went straight there and picked it up!

The cabinet had a Sega Aurail PCB in it, and it still worked!  The only problem was a loose connection, but I never could find it.  So I will probably end up selling the PCB on Ebay because it is still good.  I actually played the game a few times after I brought it home.

Anyway, the cabinet has had at least three incarnations that I know of.  It was Aurail at the time I picked it up.  Before that, in 1992, it was Ghosts 'N Goblins.  I know this from the state inspection sticker on the front of the machine.  It used to be in an arcade called Games Galore in College Station, TX, where I live.  I found a token from the arcade in the coin box when I got it home.  The funny thing is that I used to play arcade games there when I was going to Texas A&M.  So I most likely played on this machine back then.

One thing struck me about the cabinet.  Its shape seemed very familiar to me.  Under the control panel, there was a stamp that said, "Inspected, Approved, July 6, 1981."  Also, I could see that the control panel had been modified over the years, and the layout of the original holes in the control panel also seemed very familiar.  Then I found a schematic of the cabinet wiring inside that told me it was exactly what I thought.  Notice the controls on the schematic are reverse, hyperspace, smart bomb, thrust, and fire.

My cabinet was originally Defender!  The serial number, 507819, is stamped on the back.  It is too bad that the cabinet has been "recycled" over the years.  It would really be cool to have the original side art, marquee, and control panel.  For now I have a Centipede marquee mounted in it that I bought on EBay.