Here is the cocktail cabinet I picked up last week.

It’s actually an original Pac-Man cocktail that was converted to a Ms. Pac-Man. Everything is in great shape except for one problem… the original Pac-Man cocktail cabinets had a slightly different design than all of the other Midway cocktails that would come after it. Of the four main differences, two of them are no big deal. First, the control panels are 11 inches wide on the original machines versus 9 inches wide on later versions. Second, the corners of the cabinet itself are rounded on the original but are square (with T-Molding) on the newer models. The third difference results in quite a bit of disappointment for people who buy these machines that have been converted. The original Pac-Man cocktail cabinets had the underlay artwork silk-screened directly onto the glass. The later versions used a separate printed underlay. When people converted the original machines they had to scrape the silk-screened artwork off of the glass in order to use the new overlay… which leads to the final difference. While the glass top is the same size and shape on both iterations, the wood underneath the glass is not cut the same. If you look closely at this picture you may notice that the see-through area above the control panels doesn’t look quite right. The open area in the wood top on the cabinet is almost a 90 degree angle whereas the underlay has a more open angle which exposes some of the bare wood beneath it. I have found a source for an underlay with the original Pac-Man artwork cut to the correct dimensions to fit the original cabinets and will probably replace this mis-matched underlay at some point.

For now, the game works great mechanically. I put a “4-in-1” board in it which will let you play Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man in both normal and fast modes and it saves high-scores. Tons-o-Fun!