So you found a good deal for an old arcade cabinet on Craigslist, you drive 30 miles to pick it up and just BARELY manage to get it into your truck. You drive home VERY slowly for fear that the slightest bump will dislodge it and smash your rear window. Safe at home, you gently remove it from your vehicle and plug it in, anxious for that first flicker on the screen… but nothing. The marquee is lit up. You can hear the sounds taunting you. But there’s nothing on the screen.

You take a peek inside and find that the monitor is broken. REALLY broken. The neck of the picture tube is shattered right where the yoke attaches and in an act of solidarity, your heart breaks right along with it. Nevermind the fact that you’re not going to find a replacement arcade monitor tonight. Where would you even find one tomorrow? And how much would it cost?

How about free?

The thing about the old arcade monitors is that they aren’t much different from old TV sets… or at least the tubes aren’t. The biggest difference is probably burn-in. Since arcade monitors spend their entire existence displaying the same high-contrast images, they’re infamous for having evidence of their alien-displaying past burned indelibly into them. Old TVs don’t usually suffer that fate.

Old TVs just get shoved out to the curb or listed on Craigslist with the word “FREE” somewhere nearby. A little patience, safety precautions and bravery will let you combine pieces from the discarded with the discolored to produce a seemingly new monitor for your cabinet.

How? Through the mystical art of tube swapping. The process seems a bit daunting but I just may take it on since, as you may have guessed, the first two paragraphs of this post are autobiographical. If anybody has an old 19″ TV from the 80s (it must be a normal tube, not a Trinitron) let me know.