A few years ago, hell, maybe three by now, a nearby operator gave me a bunch of cabs. Two SF Rush cabs, a Desert Tank, Virtua Racing, Outrunners, a few other machines. The two SF Rush cabs had no monitors, game boards, monitors (one had the tube but no monitor boards), shifters, or power supplies. One was missing the wheel assembly. Was probably foolish of me to take them, but it was all or nothing from the op. The plan was to keep it cheap, but annoyingly I could get a working machine from an arcade auction cheaper than I could get a damn working SF Rush pcb via eBay. A friend went to the auction and brought back a working SF Rush machine for 175 bucks, he said he'd sell it to me but when I called about going to get it he said he's sold it for double to a nearby operator, and that I understood. Um, no, not really. Sooo I scoured eBay, nabbing a part here and there when I thought it was cheap enough. Shifter assembly for 25, a complete working steering assembly for 75, more than I wanted to pay but cheap enough that I didn't feel too bad about it. I stuck a monitor in the machine, a power supply, and rigged up California Speed just to see the cabinet working. So about three weeks ago the friend scored a bunch of arcade and pinball games off a nearby rural op, when he was picking up the machines he saw an employee of the op taking arcade PCBs out and THROWING them on a burn pile! AAAAAIIIIEEEEE, no! The friend asked the op about them, the op said he had a room full of them, said the friend could just have them. Bwah. Soooo he filled his pickup bed with boards. A few days after that he sends a pic to my camera phone asking "Do you want to test this?" I check the pic, it's a SF Rush pcb. No way. "Hell yeah!" I reply and zoom up to pick it up, along with a Gyruss cab that he got from the op that I said I wanted. I removed the Cali Speed board, rigged up the SF Rush pcb, figuring no way in hell it would work. Working SF Rush pcbs popped up on eBay, usually going for 150-200, and those on the high end were usually SF Rush the Rock. I wanted to get a working board but I had this vibe of wanting to do it for as little as possible thanks to a silly desire to keep the whole "free machine" vibe somewhat intact. The cheaper the parts, the cooler I figured getting the machine going would be. I fired up CHDMAN and made a SF Rush CF card, plugged it in, powered the machine on--IT WORKS! Whoo! I have plenty of other machines and projects to keep me occupied but getting the SF Rush going just seemed like an amusing side project. Part here, part there, no hurry. I had thought of using the other SF Rush cab to make a Steel Battalion machine, rigging up the pedals to the Steel Battalion controller but that's fallen to the wayside for now (too many games, too little room. Had to rent a storage unit for the extra projects). The new still hasn't worn off the SF Rush cab, I'll upgrade it to Rush the Rock in the near future. Now if only all those free cabs weren't missing monitors, argh.
Cool that you got it working. I know from experience how much time and effort goes into getting arcade systems up and running. I've only dabbled in arcade PCBs running outside a cab, so I can only imagine how difficult it is to put together a cab from parts. It seems like it's worth it, though. By the way, what resolution does San Francisco Rush use?
Medium res. It actually has a 25" monitor in it right now, it's supposed to have a 27" but I have a shortage of working monitors. Currently have a WG U3000 chassis being repaired at www.arcadecup.com and it'll go in a SF Rush 2049 and the monitor in that will go into the revived Rush. Have like 11 arcade monitors that need repaired, argh. I'm under no illusion that saving the SF Rush was a great act that preserved a rare classic, but I did hate to see them destined for the dumpster and it was somewhat fun, seeing how cheap I could put it back together for. Such a bummer that they go for so little at arcade auctions but when parted out on eBay seem to have such exorbitant prices for the components. Worth more in pieces than complete, or so eBay sellers would have you believe, hah. It is neat to score something cheap and save it, I got a Beast Busters Second Nightmare from the op for 20 bucks, needed a power supply and monitor work. Had a "to be dismantled" post-it on the marquee when I got it. The other games the op gave me (Desert Tank, Outrunners, Virtua Racing, Winding Heat) all worked but either had monitor issues or had the monitors robbed for other games. Now if i could just score a Hyper 64 racing cabinet, I'd be pacified for a while, hah.
