I don't usually post in these threads here, because, frankly, y'all seem to get much more cool stuff than I do.
However, I got something really cool this month. In a way, it's been a dream item of mine, although, I didn't really know that this particular machine existed until about a month ago.
A Nintendo "Red Tent" arcade machine from the Vs. Dual System line. This thing is awesome, it's got one of these screens going down each side. Some games work together, so you can play 2 (or, in the case of Tennis, four players!) on each side. You can swap out the ROM chips inside to support different games. It came with Vs. Mach Rider and Vs. Golf. I drove roughly 27 hours in two days to pick it up and bring it home.
But, it gets better!
Serial Number Plate:
It's number 00069! Jokes aside, it's a really, really early system.
My own, working, 100% legal, Vs. Super Mario Bros. game!
This is what I've wanted all along - a playable copy of Vs. Super Mario Bros. Nintendo has failed to placate me by releasing this on the Virtual Console and those dirty repo sites have been taunting me with it forever... but, finally, it's all mine!
But this is when it gets fun. While I had the machine "apart", pulling the board out, I found a little packet of index cards inside...
Appears to be a log of some sorts that the original owners would use to record repairs and such done on the machine. The date on the first entry? 3/20/1984. KLOV lists the machine as coming out in 1985, but that is incorrect. I shot out a few e-mails and got an answer from someone who knows their stuff - Nintendo debuted these machines in Chicago in February 1984 (along side Punch-Out!!). This means the shop that got this originally (and, sadly, I have no idea how to track that info down) got this machine after it had been available for, at most, 48 days. It pre-dates the NES release by about a year and a half.
Really proud of this bugger. Who wants to make a cover for it? How many UGCs will I need to cut/glue together?
