SKL Arcades & Amusements came out today to give my broken down Super-Turbo arcade machine a sorely needed tune-up.

I have wanted an arcade version of Street Fighter II since I was a kid, and have probably checked Craig’s List and eBay listings off and on for more than ten years. I finally broke down and bought one last September from a kind but conflicted gentleman in Sacramento; his girlfriend was making him get rid of it. She had clearly put her foot down in the most convincing of ways—in that special way only a woman is capable of—and he was going to give it to me for an even $1000.

We had a very pleasant visit, but there was a recurring expression of pain in his face as we were talking, and I noticed that he became increasingly unnerved as we approached the transaction-phase of our meeting. This pain was in no ways contrived, and since I am not without empathy, I gave him $1200: an extra $200. This was still a good deal for me, and it took a little bit of the edge off the evening.

I am going to digress for a moment so I can also share that this gentleman had Stephen King novels strewn about the living room, and collectible comic books adorning the walls. This lead me to ask if he was a Stephen King fan and he responded, “I am now.” Understanding his meaning, I then asked a rhetorical question: “Is part of the deal that she also read some of your comic books?” He paused for a moment, his eyes temporarily transforming into windows that revealed the compounded depths of a man’s soul when it reaches this particular crossroad in life and must fumble a decision—no response was given.

At least it was Stephen King and not William Faulkner. He will be okay, and there is a good chance that some of the comic books will survive.

The colors in the cabinet’s CRT monitor were a little bit off, and the screen jiggled from time to time, but it was in excellent shape overall. I also received an additional board for Super Street Fighter II , the previous iteration of the game. About three months ago, the power supply burned out which rendered it unplayable, but a new $40 replacement part installed by a pair of skillful hands from SKL got the game running again in no time. Most of the display issues were also fixed through fairly simple adjustments and recalibrations. The screen-jiggle persists, however, as the monitor PCB will need new capacitors for this to be corrected. This is a relatively minor visual problem and a decent amount of time will be necessary to perform the repair, so it will be a job for another day.

We live in an era of ultra-HD displays, but a healthy and color-rich CRT monitor can still work wonderfully for gaming. I also found out that the cabinet was produced by Data East circa 1991 and it likely housed Captain America and the Avengers when it was produced.

The original battery was still in the game board, meaning that it was pushing 24 years in age! This is pretty amazing when considering that these things are supposed to be replaced every five or so years. When the battery fizzles out, the game board fizzles out with it—forever. This bizarre phenomenon is infamous in arcade gaming circles and came to be known as the dreadful suicide battery .

Given the cabinet’s heritage, and the fact that it uses the CPS-2 game boards, it might be appropriate for me to pick up a copy of Marvel vs Capcom at some point in the future. CPS-2 uses what are essentially giant cartridges and this allowed a Capcom arcade system to be transformed from one game into another without much difficulty. Other CPS-2 titles include Super Street Fighter II (mentioned above), X-Men: Children of the Atom, Dungeons & Dragons, X-Men vs Street Fighter, Darkstalkers, and the entire Street Fighter Alpha series.

This arcade machine has been and continues to be an instrument of joy—in its previous form (“Avengers assemble!”), in its present form (“Hadoken!), and in any additional forms in-between that have been lost to time.