SKY SKIPPER (sukai Sukippa)
I've been collecting Nintendo arcade games, toys and anything else they've made over the last 25 years, But for the last 6 years I've concentrated on there early arcade games.
I've owned all the big guns but there has always been one game that has never conjured up so much mystery as Sky skipper (Sukai Sukippa) 1982.
The reason being there is no information on this game what's so ever.
There is no known cabinets only a picture of a three different versions of the cabinet on the back of my original flyer and they are photographs NOT artists impressions like I've seen on some sheriff flyers.
So They did exist at some point but for some reason none survived the crash.
According to KLOV this game was only ever released in japan but then why is there a picture of one in a U.S upright cabernet on the back of my flyer?
It must have made it to the U.S and someone has dumped the ROMs into mame so there is a pcb out there somewhere.
But I've contacted all the "Big" time collectors who have been collecting way longer than I have and they all said they've never seen a cab or a pcb.
Until I tracked down one on the internet in Sweden which was not working due to the fact it had been factory modified to play Popeye.
The guy was working on re-engineering the game but had not worked out how.
The game was offered to me but I was reluctant to purchase it due to the complexity of getting it working With no Schematics.
Then strangely enough a month later I found a unused factory modified in the raid up in the north of england marked Popeye with the markings TNX1
I knew straight away it was a sky skipper because I had been looking at the one in Sweden in detail.
Popeye and sky skipper used completely different hard ware and the pcbs are different shape and size so that also was a give away.
This was a amazing find as it now meant having two pcbs it would be a lot easier to re-engineer the pcb back to its original form Sky skipper.
So I got my good friend working on the game straight away and he relished in the challenge and after two months he has finally cracked it.
So I am happy to announce that I now own two working Sky skipper PCBs
and the plan now is to get a project Popeye and convert the U.S cabinet to a sky skipper with the full art kit Marque,bezel,side art and control panel.
One will stay with me and be taken to events on the road in the UK,and the other will be sold with the full art kit to any U.S collector who is a Nintendo fan.
