:: Extreme Road Trip :: Q*BERT (@!#?@!? ) !!!

[DarthNuno]

Back three months ago... it's Wednesday, the 3rd of June 2009, I'm just back from my epic "Holiday in Florida / Texas".

The huge road trip is scheduled for tomorrow, very early.
This a not a typical road trip, It's a cabinet exchange. Let's load the cab' I'll give...



Yes, I'll let go this Pac Man Jr cabinet, which is a real Pac Man cabinet, but converted to Jr. I'm already more than happy with one Pac Man cabinet (this one), and Pat, who has the cab' I'm looking for, is looking for a dedicated Pac Man, so...



Let's prepare a special music CD to play in my car... Oh by the way, there is a special item on the following picture I'll comment it after    



Ok, now let's go to sleep, and set the alarm at ...

Thursday , the 4rd of June 2009...4h30 am!  



Yes, because this gonna be a huge one, I take few clothes and other stuffs... in case I've to sleep somewhere

Argh... it's very early, but fortunately... it's summer time, so it's not as dark ...



More CD... I'll have a lot of time for listening them  



For this road trip, I'll cross all the France as you can see  


  
Everything is ready, let's officially start this road trip   :





Arriving at the French border...



Hey see... this is WOINIC, the biggest wild boar in the word! (more info about this right here)  



After 2 hours  & half of driving, it's time to take my breakfast around the city of Reims :





Driving on the French highway is expensive... It happens too many times    



This coming picture is usually done at the end of the road trip...    



Arriving at Paris...



I'm alone for doing this road trip... I didn't have a lot of time for organizing it, and I didn't had enough time to invite a friend to come with me  ... so I speak to myself ... I sing ... and I listen a lot of music!


    
Hey, I'm in Vierzon  ( see :: Report :: Exhibition / Rock'n'Brok years or THIS IS IT !!! VIERZON 2009 !!! topics).  



Well, it's 12:26...



...I'm already very tired ...



... but ... does it is still far from here now?



  still 357KM to go @!#?@!  

Hey, the caves of 'Rocamadour'... very famous spot in France  



France is a beautiful country, I like to 'road trip' here, but why the country is so big  



At least... arriving at my final destination : Toulouse ...


 
Let's see... it's 4:00 PM.

[DarthNuno]

I see a big hangar... I open the door and...

Welcome to STARCAB Arcade Shop   



Welcome to the pat's lair  It's a shop, it's a workshop, it's a game room... Awesome place 

Pinballs 



I use to buy arcade parts from STARCAB.NET, but because I'm here... let's do some shopping (without shipping cost yyeaahhh!!!!) 







All you need to repair games or to build mame cab is here... heaven! 

Here's the man, here's Pat... while I'm doing my tour + shopping, he's preparing orders to ship...  :



Nice items here, see   



Tabletops collection   



Marquee, CPO, ... I do my shopping of course 



But for what the hell I'm here? So far from my home? 

For Q*BERT of course

Here's a couple Q*BERT   





TWO Q*bert's pinballs  Man, I LOVE that pinball (I played on it like a crazy at the Vierzon 2009 fest') ... but ... but ... I'm a 'die hard' fan of the arcade game first 



So ?



So let's go to an other hangar 

This is it... this is really it... Q*BERT  One the few last games still in my 'MUST HAVE' list 



Ok, regarding the history of that cabinet. It's a dedicated Q*Bert, but It has been converted to a jamma multigame ( ), and when Pat got it, He started to converted it back to its original purpose ... Q*BERT  So, he already did some work on it as you can see :



Ok, let's load the game very quick, in case he would change his mind     



No, he won't of course... I know Pat now  For the story I knew he had this cabinet since more than two years, and every month I asked him to sell it to me... but now he realizes he is working on so many projects, he would not have the time to finish it, and this cab wasn't in his priority list. So, as a favor I would say, he finally accepts that deal with me. Because he knows me, he know this cab will go into the heaven of old cabs, in a real safe place  Thanks again Pat 

...but I know you're very happy with your new cabinet too   

 

Did I told you I'm really happy too   



He doesn't have the original Q*Bert board, but he has a Q*Bert boot (jamma). Because the Q*Bert cab' is already in my car, he tries the board on an other jamma cab... seems ok at first sight :





  

[DarthNuno]

OK my first idea on this road trip was to set ... something like a record My idea was to accomplish the trip in less than 24 hours, alone... I thought it was possible, and ... I'm still sure it's possible but ... it sounds stupid and very dangerous at the end... and I'm a little bit to old for that ( ) So... I accept his invitation : Be his guest until tomorrow.
For the story, even If I would like to go back to Belgium now, we won't let me go... because... I look so tired, and I can tell you I'm really tired...



So, let's have some good time here  

Let's go back to the first hangar, in his office upstairs... nice    



He was to tool for printing side arts, CPO, marquee ... and posters (I got my Star Wars cockpit poster printed on a mirror for him) :



Did you see that Cirqus Voltaire poster? Because print out of ink during the print, a small part of the poster (background on the right) is not well... Pat?
Ok Bruno... gift for you  

Now, let's go to the Pat's house... hey, do you have a rabbit?  



Cute! ...too bad Darth Nunette wasn't with me   ...

Ok, because we are in Toulouse... impossible to miss the famous Toulouse sausages    



It was a great evening with you and your wife Pat, thanks again for your kind hospitality  



Before going to sleep Pat shows me an other jewel  



Fully working... wow ... the warm sound of old music on this Seeburg... AWESOME  



It's late now ...



I say good bye to Pat and his wife... because I'll leave tomorrow and I do not want to awake them... thanks for everything  

After sleeping only 4 hours, it's time to go back on the road... again    



I'm easy ... I'm easy like a Sunday Friday morning...  



I fact I'm still tired... RED BULL POWER!!!  



Yeah!!! It's working ... I'm driving faster now... like RIDDDDDGGGGGGEEEEE RAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCCCEEERRRR !!! See    



Usual 'back to home' picture... happy to finally read Q*Bert on a cabinet inside my car    



Breakfast time...



Lunch time...



...few meters to go and ... a Q*Bert cabinet will enter 'officially' in Belgium    



...and ... I'm here... with the cabinet ... both safe... let's check the data now :




 
34H05 on road trip (including 4 hours of sleep) - 2036 KM on the road

But more than numbers, here's the real satisfaction!!! Q*Bert!!!

THIS IS IT!!! THIS IS REALLY IT!!! Q*BERT entering the Nuno's Lair V2    



Here's the 'loot' of this road trip, in addition of the cab itself of course :











Now stay tuned for the restoration to come  

 

[Ronald Reagan]

awesome trip. Q-bert rules, really nice to own such a cool cabinet.



Q-bert graffiti Amsterdam app. 1983

[level42]

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK ! Bruno found my holy grail in Europe !

And it is BEAUTIFUL !!!!!!!


I hate you

Serious: Congrats my friend !!

By the way, did you see this ? That would be +perfect+ for your Q*bert cab since the it is Jamma already:

http://www.jrok.com/xfer/msf

Will allow you to play all the Q*bert games plus lots more and the best thing is that it's not emulated

Great-great road trip. If I had known Pat was in Toulouse I would have paid him a visit when I was on holiday in the Dordogne !

Did you pick-up that SI CPO ? I need one....

O, and if you plan on letting go one of those Q*bert CPO's......I'm game. I bet I'll never find one, so there's a distant plan to build a repro.....so I could really use it

[Etienne MacGyver]

nice big roadtrip !

thankx for the pics and story ! 

[Superully]

holy f***, bruno's got himself a q*bert 

congratulations on that fabulous score! and R-E-S-P-E-C-T for that roadtrip - hell of a ride. thx for sharing.

looking forward to the restoration!

@andré: don't worry, we'll both get our q*berts eventually (after all, import is always an option)
@bruno: nice marquees for great games. are those all on your must-have-list?

[DarthNuno]

Thanks guys 

Yes André, I've seen you're looking for a Q*Bert too. I had to 'fight' more two years with Pat' ...and it finally happens.
I was seriously thinking about importing one (with other games 'almost' impossible to find in Europe too), but on the other hand, I've seen two or three times Q*Bert in UK during road trip (not for sale of course  ) ... so there is still hope for finding one in Europe.

Thanks for the link ( http://www.jrok.com/xfer/msf ) , it looks very interesting  I've tried to search more information on the website, but cannot find anything else  Do you have more details about this?
I got a Q*Bert boot and a Jamma adapter, I'll try it to see if the game works fine and if that boot is accurate 

For Ully, regarding the marquees, I would say they are all in the "Nice to have" ...but mhhhh! If I have a plan for a Moon Patrol or Robotron or Berzerk... they may joins the 'MUST have list' 

[scr33n]

Woowww Bruno extreme roadtrip is the right word 
You have once again found a great treasure here in Europe 
And now we want to see a Moon Patrol or a Robotron (I love this game  ) in your lair !!! Good luck for your research 

[Muerto]

congratulations! she´s a beauty!!!!
.. how do you manege to keep quiret this long??? - 3 month´s!!!
When i buy sonthing i really want, i can´t keep it a seecret that long!!
 

[level42]

Indeed pretty hard. I had been chasing my SW cockpit for a couple of months with mails going very slow (sometimes 3/4 weeks no answer, then settling a date, canceling it again, settling another date, going to see it first before arranging the pick-up, again some weeks until the real pick-up......it was hard to not tell anybody, but worth it

Bruno, the cab is in good hands and in a great place so I'm really happy you got it ! (Plus that it's an extra reason to come and visit you again soon ).
One time, I discovered a Q*bert for sale on e-bay in the US for a very good price. No-one seemed to be bidding (probably because it was listed with a wrong name) and I tipped the guys at KLOV (Because I didn't see me pay shipping for that cab, plus all the hassle of actually getting it here). Forgot who, but one of the regulars on KLOV lived pretty close to the seller and won it.....he is forever in debt with me


There's not too much info about Jrok's board, but he's pretty fast in developing and gettting it ready for sale, as we've all seen with his excellent multi-Willams board (essentially this is the same board with an adapter to host the different CPU). I think the most work is programming all the surrounding hardware in the FPGA chip and also there's probably a lot of work getting the sound to be 100%.

I'm not really sure, but I thought I read about bootleg Q*bert boards not having all the sounds correct (maybe the samples) ?

What you really need to check: Is the knocker still in the cab ?
I totally LOVE that feature of Q*bert. I was startled the first time I heard that and 2 seconds later laughing out loud because of it's extreme coolness

Jrok hasn't released very much info but he wrote this on the KLOV forum (on a thread I started about this board):
The idea is to get as many of the games supported as possible. The base hardware is currently working and the version '1' soundboard is functional. Some of the titles are horizontal others are vertical and it's not going to rotate the screen in hardware.

I do plan on supporting the knocker for Q*bert and it'll have the cocktail mode for Q*bert's Qubes.

With "as many of the games" he means the games that were running on (basically) the same hardware. We did some inventory of games that MIGHT be able to run on that hardware (some are sure, some maybe):

Q*bert
FHMC Q*bert
Q*bert's cubes
Mello Yellow Q*bert
7-11 Q*bert (prototype)
Krull
Mad Planets
Insector
Reactor
Curveball
Tylz (prototype)
Scew Loose (Prototype, only 3 cabs produced)

Of course, I didn't include wether these games are vertical or horizontal but James already said he won't be doing the rotation in hardware (like Sinistar on his multi-Williams).
Also, a Q*bert cab has the joystick "tilted" of course and this will probably be a problem with the non-Q*bert games.

About "Screw Loose" Jrok writes:
It is in mame, the base hardware is the same as the other Mylstar games. Just the soundboard is radically different than the earlier games.

Two 6502's, 2 x AY-3-8193 sound chips, 1 x SP0250 speech generator and 1 x dual 8 bit DAC. It's total overkill  I'm working on this at the moment, although kinda slowly. It's the same as the pinball System 80 'B' soundboard and functionally the same as the Mach 3 soundboard.

If it will be as good as the multi-williams, this will be another fabulous product and perfect for Bruno's jamma-tized cab

[gyruss]

Cool trip and really nice cab!

[petieken]

That's a great cab you got there , and some nice marquees too
The cab looks to be in pretty good shape (even for it's age), good luck with the restoration!
It's a good thing Pat offered you to sleep a few hours at his place, that's indeed an extreme roadtrip

[level42]

I drove the same distance to my holiday in the Dordogne and though it was a LOOOOOONG drive.....
And that for someone who drives about 65000 km/year.

Amazing road-trip, but I would have done the same for a Q*bert !

[Superully]

Amazing road-trip, but I would have done the same for a Q*bert !

i guess i'd go EVERYWHERE for a q*bert or a moon patrol (or ... or ... or ...  )