When we were starting Aftermath, I posted the following: “If this website does really well I’m gonna buy a candy cab or something and blog about it.” Well, it is time to make good on that promise. When I saw a listing for a Taiwanese arcade machine priced to move and in project status, I decided to go all in. I am now the owner of a mangy, abused candy cab. What have I done?
A “candy cab” is an arcade machine. The best known ones are Japanese, like the Astro City, and were usually produced by companies like SEGA, CAPCOM, Taito, Konami and Namco. Unlike horrible American arcade machines, which were made of particle board and designed to be briefly played standing up at a pizzeria, the candy cab was designed to be played sitting down, often while chain smoking. They are usually made out of sturdy, injected molded plastic and are designed so that the operator can easily swap out games, service the machine, and rotate the monitor for shmups (this is known as TATE mode).
The machine I got is called a Weche OK Baby, a Taiwanese clone of a Jaleco Pony Mark IV. Every time I get into a hobby I preemptively join every niche Facebook group related to that, and this paid dividends: I saw that the owner of YubiParts had imported a bunch of them from China, well-used machines in imperfect shape in Yonkers (they still have a few available if you are in the New York City Area). They are not as well-known as their Japanese counterparts, so there are very few people importing these machines in the New York area. The price was right, and so me and my friends decided to check it out.
You may ask: Chris, was that machine originally that yellow color? No! You are looking at decades of nicotine and plastic yellowing covering this thing. It is not in ideal shape. If you buy a cabinet like this the prevailing advice is to get one you know works or else you are going to have a very long, drawn out project on your hands. Since long, drawn out projects have become my thing, I could not say no. This was reinforced by the revelation that my beautiful, perfect girlfriend had been planning something similar for my birthday anyway.
Sure, I will have to clean every inch of this thing, but luckily I have a comprehensive list of hyper-specific cleaning products at my disposal. I will probably replace both the monitor and the chassis, potentially with something that can do tri-sync resolutions, but luckily I know how to discharge a CRT and replace capacitors on a vintage TV. I am going to put a MiSTercade in there to fill it up with countless games, and luckily those have gotten far less expensive. The more I think about it, the more inevitable the current situation looks.
What I did is not sound advice if you have a real job, but this is my job. As a project it is going to take up a lot of my time and resources. I am going to need help, not just from the many people supporting Aftermath (thank you), but also arcade enthusiasts in the area who do this for fun. This OK Baby is going to need a lot of love, and I can’t wait to share my progress with you.
Oh god, oh god, what have I done?
