If you’ve been following this weblog through the years, you’ll know that house is now at a premium right here at Arcade Blogger Towers. Simply put, I can’t see a manner of compressing one other cupboard into the loft arcade house that I’ve, so future acquisitions in principle should not potential, except I begin promoting issues.
Well, that was till I noticed this deal on eBay a pair months again, and I figured ‘what the heck, why not?’
I secured the acquisition then drove an hour north to gather what appeared to be a challenge Williams Defender upright from a village within the Cotswolds.
Released by Williams in 1981, Defender noticed large success, leading to 55,000 cupboards bought to operators within the United States. For a fast recap on that, plus footage of the manufacturing line, try my earlier article right here.
I do have a comfortable spot for Defender – it was really the primary basic arcade cupboard I acquired manner again in 2005. It was in completely mint situation by the point I completed restoring it, however I (quite stupidly) bought it a number of years later in 2010. Hindsight is a superb factor, nevertheless it was the fitting factor to do on the time because it was being changed with one thing else. But I do want I’d stored it!
Anyway, again to this cupboard. On arrival on the vendor’s home, he instructed me that he bought the cupboard from an operator a few years again with the intention of restoring it totally, however then had a possibility to purchase a working instance and determined to purchase that as an alternative to avoid wasting himself the difficulty of all of the work concerned. The cupboard had sat in his storage since then, untouched.
So, loading up, I managed to jar the cupboard on its aspect into the household SUV and drove dwelling. it was a really tight match, however we acquired there!
The eagle-eyed collectors on the market may have seen a number of issues not fairly proper with the cupboard. The important one being the management panel. Clearly this Defender has been topic to a conversion in some unspecified time in the future in its life. My guess earlier than opening it as much as have a better have a look at the internals, is that this might be a Jamma conversion. A standard follow within the late 80s and early 90s, was to transform these outdated, devoted machines on the finish of their life, right into a extra helpful up-to-date machine – such was the enterprise mannequin of arcades.
But what else have we acquired right here? On the optimistic aspect of issues, the marquee is unique, it has the unique bezel monitor encompass and plexiglass and it appears to be like like there’s a monitor in there!
Those two orange sq. buttons on the entrance must go. These are in all probability wired to P1 and P2 begin.
Another optimistic, the coin door is a silver unique and comes with “20p” inserts. Nice!
Let’s check out the internals to see what now we have. Removing the again door for the primary time revealed a pleasant surpise:
Original CRT displays have gotten more durable to search out today, so I’m happy to find that not solely is a monitor included within the cupboard, nevertheless it appears to be like to be an entire WG4600. No concept if it really works, however these are comparatively simple to work on. It’s start line if nothing else:
I’ve not eliminated it but to examine the display, however trying by means of the dusty plexiglass, the monitor appears to be like to be burn free.
Some different good issues found on opening the cupboard:
So there you’ve gotten it – an unique Williams Defender! The cupboard is stable and a lot of the {hardware} is there. It is ripe for a restoration.
My preliminary ideas listed here are to strip it down and get that monitor examined. Then clear up and restore the cupboard. No plans to do something main – the scratches and marks and basic light patina will keep. There’s a number of mould on the base of the cupboard and a few inside, which I need to take away earlier than winter units in. I’ll additionally sand out the inside to get that again to good form.
I do have a few Jamma-based JROK Williams boards in search of a house, so quite than going by means of the ache of discovering an unique loom and the expense of repairing what’s left of the PCBs, that sounds prefer it could be the very best plan to get this up and working once more.
The management panel will want changing, however I’ll take that steel panel off and see what’s beneath – I wouldn’t be stunned to search out the unique panel hacked over however trying on the bolts which have been used to mount the plate and the joysticks, I don’t maintain out a lot hope that it may be saved.
Frankly, I don’t suppose I’ll be conserving this one long run however will take pleasure in engaged on this Williams challenge – in fact I’ll share the restoration within the coming weeks right here on the weblog. So, maintain a watch out for future updates!
So there you go – this stuff are nonetheless on the market to be discovered! Stay frosty and maintain your eyes peeled!
Thanks for studying this week.
Tony
