Punch Out!
Originally posted on the Arcade Crusade Website 01/23/10:
"BODY BLOW! BODY BLOW! UPPER CUT! UPPER CUT! KNOCK HIM OUT!" screamed from the center of the Family Fun Center in Montclair CA one day back in 1984 or so. Of course this beckoned me like a moth to a flame when I stepped foot in to the arcade. What was happening? Who was that?
Come to find out, it was a new game by Nintendo. Punch Out! was like no other game that had come out at that time. First off it had not one but TWO monitors stacked on top of each other. Secondly, the graphics were so large and detailed… up to then Boxing games consisted of small sprites with pretty low detail ala Ring King (King of Boxer for you EU guys)… but it was the sound of the announcer calling out your shots that was the seller… never before had we heard such authentic sounding vocals… and so many of them. The rest is history.
I picked this "Bottom of the Ninth" cab up locally for a steal. Hell, it was the first and only cab someone actually delivered to ME. Overall, the cab was in good shape, but lets face it… Bottom of the Ninth sucks… and the only games that deserve to run in these dual monitor Nintendo cabs are Punch Out, Super Punch Out, and Arm Wrestling. Even the Nintendo PC-10 system is nothing more than a NES on a timer… This cab HAD to be converted back to a Punch Out! There were lots of things that I needed to do though. This cab had been pretty much thoroughly converted to JAMMA suckiness, but hey, at least the Sanyo monitors were still there, right? I ended up picking up a Punch Out control panel with "knockout" button… a Punch Out PCB set, a Nintendo PCB cage, a complete Punch Out harness… I also got new T-Molding, repro Punch Out side art and a Punch Out marquee… but I did end up running a standard switcher in the can instead of the Nintendo switcher… The last thing I needed to get were Nintendo style microswitch holders to use in conjunction with orange leaf-switch style buttons… the buttons I used prior were just standard microswitch buttons… with those buttons in place all was A-OK for the Punch Out!
