Vanguard is one of SNK’s earliest arcade games — originally released in 1981 by Centuri in North America. This cabinet came in needing a new monitor, a full deep clean, and a board diagnosis before it’ll play again. Part 1 of a multi-part repair and restoration series.
Why Vanguard Matters
By 1981, SNK — Shin Nihon Kikaku — was one of the few companies building both arcade hardware and software end to end. Vanguard is one of their earliest titles to reach wide North American distribution through Centuri. Finding a working cabinet today means finding one that survived 45 years of bar floors, warehouse storage, and questionable repair history.
This one needs work: a dead monitor, four decades of grime, and a board that needs diagnosing before anyone can say whether the gameplay hardware is intact. The goal in Part 1 is to get the cabinet opened, assessed, and cleaned — and understand what’s actually broken before ordering parts.
The Approach
Rob’s son Jake assists. The same methodology that works on N64 boards applies at arcade scale: logic probe, multimeter, systematic elimination. Work through it until the problem is isolated. Just at a larger physical scale with heavier parts.
Series Status
- Part 1 — Cabinet assessment, cleaning, board diagnosis (this video)
- Part 2 — Coming soon
Rob streams live repairs and builds every Tuesday and Saturday at 7pm Eastern on Twitch. The Bonus Life N64 build — a complete custom Nintendo 64 being rebuilt from scratch and given away July 3rd, 2026 — is the current main series.