Page 13 - OSG Presents Classic Gamer Magazine #8
P. 13
BRINGING THE PAST
BACK TO LIFE
By Jason Buchanan
For many video game master in the art of analog
lovers, the closest they'll resuscitation.
come to owning their own
bona fide home arcade is The machines he owns are
a large-screen television mainly of the 1980s variety,
fed by their choice of driven by fairly simple hardware
home console systems. and basic transistor logic. Since
then he has acquired a variety of
machines, some simply for the
For Rodney Minch, however, it enjoyment of repairing and
began by collecting and repairing selling, and others intended
classic arcade machines. Fueled specifically for the purpose of
by childhood memories of expanding his rapidly growing
feeding quarters to the digital private collection -- which
monoliths on weekend trips to currently stands at 23 cabinets,
the local arcade, Minch has including a Pinbot machine. As
acquired over twenty classic for how he goes about finding the
machines since making the leap increasingly rare but sometimes
from video game junkie to highly sought-after machines,
serious collector. His dream Minch mainly relies on the local
became a reality right around the Bargain Corner and arcade
time he moved into his first auctions to see what's out there.
house: "There just wasn’t enough
space in the apartment," says When he began keeping tabs on
Minch.
the arcade machine market in the
early 1990s, there was a wealth of
It was after acquiring a Bad quality games available to the
Dudes machine from a friend prospective buyer, a trend that
that Minch first tasted the joy of only continued to grow as the
owning his own full-sized, coin- internet and eBay in particular
operated arcade machine, and made access to and advertising of
though the monitor board the machines more available to
needed some repair, the prospect the casual collector. Though the
of pounding baddies in the amount a machine can fetch
comfort of his own home was all depends mainly on its working
the incentive needed to push the condition, the fact that Minch
self-taught repairman into has grown quite accustomed to
hitting the books and learning repairing machines has made the
the skills needed to bring the variety of potential purchases
machine back to life. more open and the price range buyers with good negotiating
more accessible as well. skills may find that starting a
The fact that Minch had been collection isn't as expensive as
into computers since about the Though he claims that acquiring one might suspect. Though those
age of ten certainly didn’t hurt in games at arcade auctions is skills certainly can't hurt, it's
learning the ins and outs of the roughly the equivalent of mainly a matter of being in the
machines, and with the aid of purchasing an automobile from a right place at the right time. Like
monitor documentation and used car salesman, Minch notes the time when Minch called a
internet FAQs, Minch was soon a seller who was advertising six
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