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Arcade Game Pickup - Atari System 1 - Did I make a mistake?

RetroRalph·video·13m 8s·analyzed·Jul 8, 2021
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.017

TL;DR

RetroRalph unboxes water-damaged Atari System 1 arcade cabinet missing core components.

Summary

RetroRalph purchases an Atari System 1 arcade cabinet from Captain's Auctions that was advertised as a Roadrunner but turns out to be a Marble Madness with significant water damage, missing main PCB board, missing power supply, and no keys or coin mechanism. The video documents the unboxing process and initial inspection, revealing the cabinet is essentially a shell requiring substantial restoration work.

Key Claims

  • The cabinet was advertised as having 'no game board' but RetroRalph expected the main board would be present

    high confidence · Clearly stated in opening inspection; notes the distinction between game board and main board in System 1 architecture

  • The cabinet actually contains a Marble Madness control panel, not Roadrunner

    high confidence · Confirmed by visual inspection of artwork and control panel labeling during video

  • There is evidence of water damage throughout the cabinet, including on connectors and swelling at the bottom

    high confidence · Multiple observations: 'There's a little bit of swelling at the bottom, which means there's probably some water damaged to it at some point' and visible discoloration on PCB connectors

  • Atari System 1 cabinets were designed with modular architecture allowing control panels and game cartridges to be swapped

    high confidence · Detailed technical explanation: 'Atari had a series of games that were compatible with the System One architecture, so you could simply remove the control panel and put on a different control panel'

  • Peter Packrat was produced in only 500 units and is extremely rare

    medium confidence · RetroRalph states 'Only 500 of these were made and I don't ever see them. Never seen one out in the wild.'

Notable Quotes

  • “This is how you do it. This is totally professional. Anybody that's anybody that understands how to, you know, handle an arcade machine knows this is how you do it.”

    RetroRalph@ 2:07 — Self-deprecating commentary on his unscientific method of unloading arcade machines from pallets

  • “I'm an engineer and that's what I know. You said there was no game board, so the main board must be there, right? Yeah, probably not, but wishful thinking.”

    RetroRalph@ 4:28 — Expresses skepticism about the auction listing's accuracy while documenting his expectations

  • “Atari back then, the heyday... Actually, this probably was when it was declining, but still, let's just say. The heyday, they came up with clever ideas. Like, let's have accessibility of the PCB in the front. Clever. Brilliant. Love it.”

    RetroRalph@ 6:49 — Appreciation for Atari's engineering design philosophy in the System 1 architecture

  • “Well, this is where the main board would be and this is where the cartridge would be. The cartridge is really a board. It's not a cartridge and clearly there's some water damage. You can see it all over that connector back there. Oh man is that mold?”

    RetroRalph@ 9:37 — Moment of realization when discovering the missing core components and water damage

  • “Is this a sound investment? I think not. Maybe. I'm not gonna tell you what I paid for it.”

    RetroRalph@ 12:32 — Final assessment of the purchase decision, with humor masking concern about the investment

Entities

RetroRalphpersonCaptain's AuctionscompanyAtaricompanyRoadrunnergameMarble MadnessgameRoad BlastersgameIndiana Jones and the Temple of DoomgamePeter PackratgameAtari System 1product

Signals

  • $

    market_signal: Roadrunner Atari System 1 cabinets are rare and expensive in secondary market; Peter Packrat production was limited to 500 units and is extremely difficult to find

    medium · RetroRalph states Road Runner is 'really rare, hard to find, and quite expensive if you're looking for one' and Peter Packrat 'Only 500 of these were made and I don't ever see them'

  • ?

    product_concern: Atari System 1 cabinet shows significant water damage, missing main PCB, missing power supply, and missing coin mechanism—essentially a non-functional shell requiring major restoration

    high · Visual inspection reveals water damage on connectors, swelling at bottom, interior mold, missing all critical components; cabinet described as lacking 'basically everything'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Atari System 1 featured innovative modular design allowing arcade operators to swap control panels and game cartridges to repurpose machines for different titles

    high · Technical explanation of System 1 architecture: cabinets could be converted between compatible games (Marble Madness, Road Blasters, Roadrunner, etc.) by swapping control panel and cartridge

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.039

0:00
Alright, here it is. I tried to clear out as much space as I could, so hopefully it's not too bad. Alright, let's get a screwdriver real quick. We'll unscrew that. Let's just hope there's something behind here. Please, please. Okay, just please let there be something behind here.
0:30
Okay, so this thing just showed up from Captain's Auctions. Now, this is the part that I usually don't show, because it's not pretty. It's how I get the actual arcade game off of the palette without any help. It's not very scientific. As a matter of fact, it's pretty rough. So I'm going to do that right now and you'll see why I don't show it to people. Let's try it. So what I do is I kind of like rock it a little bit and I usually have, oh, actually, you know what? I'm so stupid right now. It's strapped down, obviously. So I got to cut the straps first. You get your crust, your crusty, your trusty cutter right here. And then oftentimes there's just like two straps or four straps and they're usually just, just below here. So you have to sometimes lift the bottom of the plastic up and you cut the straps. once the straps are cut I can rock it off of the base which isn't that big of a deal all right so I think we got everything it's probably just those two straps so that's probably it so again not very scientific as a matter of fact it's probably really dumb oh that didn't sound good see this is a lot of cracking that happens a lot of like yeah a lot of stuff doesn't sound very good somewhere I got it I know I do keep in mind there's a bit of a mystery to this machine because I hope that it has the Atari System 1 hardware in it, because if it doesn't, then that's a problem. You following me so far? Yeah, this is how it goes. This is how you do it. This is totally professional. Anybody that's anybody that understands how to, you know, handle an arcade machine knows this is how you do it. Oh, God. Okay, so now I'm in an interesting spot where oh boy okay so if i just swing this around i should be able to do it without it falling over see see almost almost it's on one damn it i just dented the side of the freaking nintendo like i said it's not very scientific so whoever buys that nintendo it has scars already see there we go it's off the palette damn it all right it didn't nick the nintendo that bad i can patch that up all right so now i have to figure out what you're gonna do with this thing because I don't know about you, the normal trash, the trash man doesn't pick up these stupid pallets. It's dumb, but I understand why they do it. They have to ship it to you. So what I do,
3:00
don't tell anybody this, but there's an apartment complex right behind my house. I sneak in there when the gates open and I throw the pallet into the dumpster. I would highly not recommend this action but it the one that I take Don judge me Don judge me Okay Okay let see what going on with this Get this stupid pallet out of the way Let turn the machine so we can see it
3:25
Okay, there we go. There's the front of it. You guys should see it pretty good now. There it is. Let's get our cutter, and we gotta be careful. You gotta be careful. They put this cellophane stuff on and then what they wrap it in so you just kind of just be careful cut that off and then before you know it it'll be a big mess of cardboard everywhere so just keep in mind when you order these they do pack them very good they're professionals after all and they know how to pack games so nothing usually gets damaged in transit Any damage that usually happens is because of me. Okay, so there we go.
4:08
Now we just got to get this separated, and then we'll be able to see what we're dealing with here. Please, fingers crossed, please let there be the arcade system board in here. So how it was advertised is it had no game board. Now, with Atari System 1, the game board was separate than the main board, but maybe they're not being that specific. It's just that I'm an engineer by trade, and that's what I know. You said there was no game board, so the main board must be there, right? Yeah, probably not, but wishful thinking.
4:41
Okay. This is the part that... Oh, man, it's double-wrapped. They double-wrapped this thing. Ooh, that looks nice, man. Oh, if I was going to keep this a Roadrunner, it actually looks pretty nice. If anybody has any Roadrunner... Oh, whoa, whoa. Okay, don't touch that Nintendo. Watch out for the Nintendo. Okay, so visual inspection, it doesn't look half bad for being as old as it is, but, alright, you with me still? Okay, so we're going to just get to this a little bit. CRT looks like it's got some burn-in, as I probably expected that. I don't know what it's burn-in of, though. It'd be interesting, it's probably some other game, but, alright. Could be Roadrunner, you never know. Why would anyone take it out anyway? probably because it's worth something why okay so I got some spiders and stuff but so far it doesn't look half bad oh there's no back door on it I don't know if that was that might have been there's nothing in the back all right I'm going to take the camera and swing it around here so you guys can see what's going on but there's no like back panel which I think I could probably get smells old. It smells very old. There's a little bit of swelling at the bottom, which means there's probably some water damaged to it at some point. That's not very good, but let's see. Okay.
6:13
My first Atari System 1. And it's water damaged. Well, we don't know yet. Okay, let's see. It says no PCB right on it. No PCB.
6:28
No PCB. Okay let look inside Actually we don have to This is what cool about the Atari System One You can open up the front You can open up the front to gain access to the PCB Genius. Genius Atari. Seriously, Atari these days, I don't know, they're making hotels and stuff. But Atari back then, the heyday... Actually, this probably was when it was declining, but still, let's just say. The heyday, they came up with clever ideas. Like, let's have accessibility of the PCB in the front. Clever. Brilliant. Love it. Alright, let's open it up. Let's open it up. Uh, it needs a key. Let's see. Let me get the camera off here. We'll inspect it. Usually the key is in the coin box, but you never know. It's usually like on the coin door on the other side. Let's inspect it and check it out.
7:12
Oh my gosh, get a look at her. She looks pretty nice. There's some artwork damage right there, but all in all, she doesn't look that bad. Look, the control panel looks pretty nice. You know, there's no... This game used a joystick right here. There's no joystick. you can see the monitor's got some burn in this was glass and the marquee she looks pretty good so i'll show you in the back what i was talking about there's no oh man that's that's uh nice okay someone tried to bondo it not so good see this is the problem about me is i fell asleep during the auction so i won this kind of by accident the crt doesn't look let's see I mean, I don't know. It looks like it would work, but who knows? Just visual inspection. Okay. I'm just really curious what's down inside there. So we're going to go see if we can find the keys to the coin door. Let's see. Do they have any serial number information? They have the serial number information right there. It says you are two one one zero. So I'm not sure if that meant unit 2,110, I'm not sure, but I don't know as much about these Atari System Ones. And then there is some water damage right there. I don't like that. And then here's some like Atari information right there. All right, let's see. Let's see, what could possibly go wrong? Let's just hope for the best on the PCV situation. Okay, so we opened it up. There are no keys. Normally the keys would be sort of dangling on this side and there's no keys. Is the door? All right. The door is screwed. So a lot of times when they don't have the keys, they'll put a screw in there. So it looks like that's there. So we can at least check that. And then there's no coin box. Okay.
9:05
All right. Let's get a screwdriver real quick. We'll unscrew that. Let's just hope there's something behind here. Please.
9:11
I am not feeling so far like this is a sound investment. I don't know, guys. What do you think? I'm sure you'll let me know in the comments of this video, but Okay, just please let there be something behind here Damn it, it's absolutely nothing. No, no No Oh, what did I buy? Oh, no Well, this is where the main board would be and this is where the cartridge would be The cartridge is really a board It not a cartridge and clearly there some water damage You can see it all over that connector back there Oh man is that mold I don know what that is That looks disgusting
9:57
This is maybe not a sound investment. Shoot. Well, let's see what was on the other side of the cabinet. Oh, interesting. So this was not, this was not a roadrunner, it was a marble madness, which is a good game by the way, but...
10:17
Okay, so what's unique about these Atari System One cabinets is the control panels have latches, and they're meant to come off. Most control panels are, but the thing that's unique about this cabinet is it was designed to be modular. So Atari had a series of games that were compatible with the System One architecture, so you could simply remove the control panel and put on a different control panel and the arcade owner could you know repurpose the game as a different game so for instance if you happen to have a road blasters laying around or a marble madness which is what this apparently was originally you could simply put this in and now as long as you have the road blasters cartridge you could make this a road blasters now this cabinet's lacking both the main board and the power supply and basically everything else so it's really irrelevant but if this was a complete cabinet you could simply replace the controls replace the marquee and put in the cartridge for that game and in most cases you're up and running with a different game which is really cool and quite innovative for that time other atari system one titles include indiana jones and the temple of doom marble madness with its unique trackball controls very cool game. Peter Packrat. Only 500 of these were made and I don't ever see them. Never seen one out in the wild. Road Blasters. This came in a stand-up in a cockpit with a really cool yoke style controller. And then Road Runner. This one is really rare, hard to find, and quite expensive if you're looking for one. Well, I've got my work cut out for me with this one. I thought this was going to be something simple. It is not. It is not going to be something simple. I mean, I got to acquire a main board. And then I would have thought some of the, man, none of it's there. All right. Well, we're going to become, we're going to become experts at the, uh, Atari system one. That's just a matter of fact. So here it is. Here's my, here I am with my, here I am twin pine small. No, here I am 2021 captain's auctions roadrunner. That's it. If you enjoyed this video, give me a thumbs up. Consider subscribing to the channel. Put your comments below. I wanna know what you think. Is this a sound investment? I think not. Maybe. I'm not gonna tell you what I paid for it. You can look it up. You just go to Captain's Auctions. And now you'll do that and you'll make fun of me in the comments below. So please do that. And we will see you on the next one.
12:53
We'll see you next time.