I haven’t acquired any new cabinets for some time now. In fact, I’ve thinned the herd significantly over the past couple of years, after downsizing my living arrangements. So much so, that I’m down to three key cabinets from twelve. These are ones that I really want to keep long term. You can’t take them with you!
So a recent arcade raid (more on that in a future post) turned up a nice Taito upright Space Invaders. I had no intention, or space for that matter, to take on another project, but it struck me in all my years of collecting, I’ve never owned a Space Invaders cabinet.
The Taito Space Invaders upright cabinet – released in Japan in April 1978 and designed by the quietly brilliant Tomohiro Nishikado – is the video game that arguably started it all. Built around custom hardware Nishikado engineered himself, the upright version sat alongside the now‑famous cocktail tables that filled Japan’s “Invader Houses”.
But it’s the upright that most people picture when they think of the game that changed everything. Exact production numbers are maddeningly elusive, but according to Wikipedia:
The company produced 200,000–300,000 units for the Japanese market by June 1979 and increased production to 25,000–30,000 units per month with Taito projecting to manufacture 400,000 machines in Japan by the end of 1979. By the end of 1979, an estimated 750,000 Space Invaders machines were installed worldwide, including 400,000 in Japan and 85,000 in the United Kingdom.
Space Invaders became a global phenomenon almost overnight, reshaping what an arcade was, and cementing Taito’s place in video‑game history.
The example we found in the barn was in remarkably good shape.
This was one of about 20 cabinets we pulled from the barn, and after a bit of thought, and never-ending badgering from my collector friend on the day, I figured I should take this one home and keep it for restoration.
Once home it was time to give the whole thing a good clean. The cabinet had stood in a rural outbuilding for over 20 years. Thankfully, the place was dry, so my starting point was about as good as it could be:
An initial visual inspection revealed a cabinet that had survived well. I’m missing a joystick top (I have a lead on one of those – new old stock apparently). Many of the cabinet bolts are rusty, but I can probably replace those with new chrome ones. There’s a couple of cigarette burns on the control panel which is to be expected, and the buttons could do with a polish.
The coin door is all there, but again has some surface rust – but nothing that can’t be easily tackled.
So time to look at the guts of the cabinet. Everything is there, apart from the cardboard “space” backdrop. A replacement has been ordered from my buddy Ollie at Arcade Artshop and should be here in a few days.
Vacuum time!
The cabinet came with two complete board sets, but neither appeared to be working:
On power up, the 3 amp fuse at the power brick was blowing. I tracked this down to the Power PCB being faulty.
Thankfully, I have a collector friend who can tackle these old boards and everything was sent to him to look at. He’s repaired one of the PCB sets and the power board and those arrived back to me this morning. This was his report:
1 motherboard, 2 sound boards and power board are done. A lot was wrong! Power board was a shorted capacitor on the 18v supply which is why it was blowing fuses. All other voltages test ok but there is one resistor that I’ve highlighted on the board that I’d suggest you swap (it’s working but seems crumbly but I don’t have any). You need a 100 ohm 1/2 watt. The other motherboard has a lot of corrosion and I don’t think it’s worth trying to repair. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if the working boards develop more faults in the future. They’ve been soaked for a couple of hours and powered on/off a few times and now seem stable.
So we now have working PCBs (for now at least!). We’re in good shape so far – the rest should be relatively plain sailing…
So I just need to find a few hours to get this up and running again. Things to do:
Source joystick balltop (found).
Source back door (found).
Replacement cardboard backdrop (ordered).
Order and replace carriage bolts throughout the cabinet.
Remove metal parts (stabilisers, coin door etc) – strip old paint/rust and respray.
Strip, clean and rebuild the control panel.
Paint – as you can see, the painted artwork is remarkably nice for an almost 50 year old cabinet, but some of the “pop” and colour has faded over time. I suspect our old friend AutoGlym Bumper and Trim Gel will get that shiny and looking like new again.
This is what we’re aiming for.
So, stay tuned for more updates – I hope to have this cabinet complete and up and running within a few weeks. Meantime, check out this fantastic interview with the creator of Space Invaders, Tomohiro Nishikado.
Thanks for checking in this week!
Tony
