An extremely rare $10,000 arcade machine saved from dump

Imagine that you are visiting your family and your niece tells you that she saw an old “Tron Thing” a few blocks away. You investigate and discover a near perfect, still working, extremely rare condition discs you can see An arcade machine from the 1980s was sitting on the side of the road, waiting to be smashed up and dumped in a landfill despite being worth about $10,000. It might sound like some made-up internet tale that’s hard to believe, but it actually happened to someone earlier this month.

released in 1983, discs you can see It was one of two arcade games produced in the middle of the road Based on You seea Disney movie about a guy who is immersed in a video game filled with artificial intelligence and cool motorcycles with light tracks. discs you can see It was released in a special “eco” cabinet that allows anyone to stand inside it while playing, allowing them to fully immerse themselves in the digital world. You see. Because of their complexity and size—they weigh over 700 pounds, compared to the average 200 for this sort of thing—relatively few of these cabinets were produced when compared to popular toys of the era. Because it was so rare and complex, it is not uncommon to find machines in good condition still working in 2023.

So with all of that in mind, you can understand why so many people panic Game author and historian Tim Laptinostumble upon story discs you can see Random machine while visiting relatives in Chicago.

In a story recently published on Arcade bloggerAnd Tony Temple He explained that during his visit, his young niece mentioned seeing “some You see Thing” sitting on the sidewalk while riding her bike around the neighborhood. Laptino got curious and hopped in a car and drove a few blocks to where she saw the machine.

As we were driving to the place, I said “What the & * @ $?! “I forget my niece was in the car with us,” Lapitino admitted. And can you believe it – there was. [A Discs of Tron enviromental cabinet] He was sitting at the sidewalk.”

According to Lapetino, As seen in the photos shared on Arcade blogger locationThe safe appears to have been dragged from the house’s garage and down the driveway to the side of the road. The locker’s owner—an elderly woman who tells Lapetino that she’s been sitting in her garage for years and only wants him—seems to have assumed that the garbage men would pull the locker away. However, it was too big for a crew to pick up, and waste management left a sticker asking the owner to dismantle it. It had been sitting there for a few days when Lapitino found it.

Get the heavy and rare arcade machine to safety

Realizing he’d found his hands, Lapitino loads the machine onto the dolls and hauls them a few blocks away to their family’s garage. It was in excellent condition, only missing some artifacts, but other than that, an internal counter indicated that the machine had been run less than 3,000 times. In this case, with nearly every original part and all lights and screen working, the machine may be valuable Up to $10,000 or more.

“This is definitely the holy grail game for me,” Lapitino explained. “I don’t own any other arcade machines, but my universe is huge You see A fan and lover of this game, this would have been my perfect game to own (someday). And here he was sitting, blocks away from where my relatives live! I don’t really believe in chance, and this is a totally crazy story.”