'Trashed' Tron Arcade Restoration!

This one is perhaps his most epic restoration yet!

Join Tod as he tackles his latest (and maybe greatest?) arcade restoration challenge -- TRON!

He starts his journey with a road trip to pick up a Tron arcade cabinet that nearly ended up in a burn pile (and rightfully so!). Missing nearly all of its major parts, Tod has to gather the required components and figure out how to put them back together into a working game. The nearly six-month-long restoration process includes woodworking, wiring, circuit board repair, arcade monitor rebuilding, polishing, painting, and so much more!

By the end of the video Tron is up and running and ready to take its spot in the 1980s-style arcade. Hopefully you will enjoy the ride and gain some helpful knowledge about arcade games and the movie itself. As always, Tod approaches his work with a sense of humor and keeps the video light and upbeat.

** If you enjoy the video, please help me out by liking and subscribing. And comments are much appreciated! **

Be sure to check out my other videos, including an epic Nintendo Red Tent restoration and a walkthrough of my extensive video game collection. Thanks!

CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Intro
00:55 - The Purchase
06:44 - Finding the Pieces
11:03 - Cabinet Restoration
20:30 - Cabinet Finishing
30:30 - Painting and Prepping
39:11 - Electronics Rehab
56:30 - Monitor Rebuild
01:09:39 - Piecing It Together
01:18:22 - Bringing It In
01:25:30 - Controls
01:34:55 - Final Details
01:45:20 - Results

Music Credits (channel licensed through Uppbeat):
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!)

Afro Cat (Infraction)

Begin (Swoop)

Break The Mold (Soundroll)

Brooklyn (Infraction)

Cyborg Ninja (Kevin Macleod)

Dream Land (ATM)

Extreme (Oakvale of Albion)

Forever And Always (Infraction)

Fractal (Moire)

Future (Matrika)

Hackers (Infraction)

Intervention (IMG)

Interplanetary Walk (Paul Yudin)

Kawaii Game (Pecan Pie)

Lazer Beam (Matrika)

Live It (Infraction)

Midnight Cruiser (Capturez)

Neurovibe (Hartzmann)

Polarity (Prigida)

Refresh (Mountaineer)

Reproduce (IMG)

Runaway (Oakvale Of Albion)

Sequence (Moire)

Shadow Runner (Mountaineer)

Space Ranger (Moire)

Summer Strut (Infraction)

Ultraviolet (Infraction)

Vacation Collective (FE77A)

Wazzup (Mountaineer)

Video Credits:
Youtube clips:

VIDEO FEVER - Games People Play from ABC news LA
9th Key Pattern

Tron--Enter the Game Grid (1982) Iamthe80sguy2 (Scanned into computer)

Tron--Light Cycle (1982) Same..

Tron meets the tower guardian , tronfanboy

TRON (ARCADE - FULL GAME) Zeusdaz - The Unemulated Retro Game Channel

[johnosborne]

I think enough time has passed that I can reveal a secret. At the time of the Movie's release, I worked in a mall across the hall from an arcade. Whenever their machines would malfunction, I would fix them. they always opened the machine doors for me and clicked off lots of credits. When the Tron machine arrived, the instructions said that they were to put it in the back room and not to put it out on the floor until the movie's opening day. they invited me over to play the game in the back room every night after closing. We played for hours every night for the next week. On opening day, everyone around me watching me play the game was amazed at how good I was on the first day!!

[ctg]

Wow! That wasn't just a restoration, it was a resurrection! Excellent work!

[woogaloo]

I really didn't expect myself to sit here and watch the entire hour and 50 minutes, but it was so well put together. Awesome job - and game at that. LOVE the movies. Awesome stuff.

[thisoldcompactdisc]

TOTALLY RAD 👍🏻😎
Kevin Flynn once said, “There’s No Problems, Only Solutions”

[Anthony-ibhr]

I remember when I first saw this movie, I thought it would be so AWESOME to live in a loft above my own full arcade. My friends would have been so envious.

[Nightenstaff]

That water damage was beyond what I would have considered saveable. Kudos to you for brining it back from it's watery grave!

[TmanT]

I am 25 years old. I love you videos. What you do for the retro community is invaluable to us, whether most people my age know it not. The same goes for the 8-bit guy, adrian black, and all the other retro hobbyists out there. Your knowledge is invaluable. I know these are just video games, but they are a key part of history, so thank you.

[magickmarck]

Tron had some of the strongest 'vibes' of any arcade cabinet! Nice work Tod!

[davebrewer]

This brings back a flood of memories. I remember watching my cousin playing the TRON arcade game at the theater and then seeing the movie. My nine year old mind was blown. I know the arcade game came out in August of 1980 (a full month after the film release) so it would have probably been September when we saw the movie. Thanks for bringing back this great piece of 80’s culture. Now, if I had just held on to all those Battlestar Gallactica toys ………

[djsit]

Today...it is truly a treasure to be able to play those old arcade games of the early eighties.For someone who is about 55 now....its very nostalgic..

[yadaroni]

30 minutes is usually my max for restorations like this, but I stayed for the whole video. A credit to the content and editing choices. It's great to see a beat up machine be brought back into service. This cabinet will sell all day long for at least $5k, so you did good as both an investment for future gamers as well as a monetary investment of sweat equity.

[mowingcowboy]

User! . You are the ultimate Game Warrior. End of Line -MCP

[thisolesignguy]

When I was a teenager, I worked at a print shop running an AB Dick 360 printing press. One of the jobs that I did was to print the decals for these Tron machines and the action figure packages. Generally, these types of artwork for machines are all done as a 4-color process (CMYK) printing but for Tron we had to print them using actual PMS colors individually. I still remember the headache I had trying to mix that red...it was worse than color matching Coca Cola red. If it was even slightly off, they would reject the entire batch of prints. One time, I had a batch of 150k prints get rejected because of 1 bad print. I had to take all the boxes home and go through them 1 at a time and pick out all the good ones, then print the remainder the next day. Luckily, I only needed to replace about 100 of them due to being the first prints off the line when the rollers weren't completely saturated.

[retrohollandia]

This is so impressive. Not much phases me anymore these days, having been on the internet for so long now, but this craftsmanship and level of bravery to take this daunting project on in the first place, truly amazed me in the realest sense of the word.

[ferrellsl]

Just wanted to say thanks for saving a part of gaming history and keeping this gem out of the landfill.

[gordondemarest]

As someone who has put countless quarters in this particular game, I can say that watching this video was extremely enjoyable! I don’t normally watch videos that are this long, but I simply could not look away! It definitely brought me back to my days of managing an arcade. You’ve got quite this collection there!! Thanks for sharing!

[Stoobers]

One of the iconic arcade machines of my day, I'm insanely jealous of your abilities to get this from a messed up carcass to a cabinet that wouldn't look out of place in the mid 80's when I played them to death. Much respect man.

[Xaito]

Beautiful! It's so cool that people keep these important pieces of game history alive.

[SamsonIbarra]

Clicked on this thinking it'd be a short 5 minutes or so. Stayed glued to the tube watching this to the end and enjoyed it thoroughly. Thanks for taking the time and effort documenting your restoration adventure for us all. Absolutely amazing! I wish you luck in future restorations and banana production.

[mrlister]

Honestly, that is the best restoration video I have ever watched.
I am an avid Tron film follower and to watch you practically rebuild it from start to finish was amazing.