Arcade Projects
Space Invaders Deluxe is gone.
Everything continued to work as planned, which lately, has been a real problem for me. I tried it at 4:00, and then again when the Richard Sain came by to get it.
A little bit bitter sweet since I have had it so long, and of course, one of my few working games, but feels good to have that touch more room in the garage working towards getting it cleared out for the winter.
Wizard Of Wor RAM Boards back
I got them earlier in the week, on Wednesday actually, but didn’t put them in until tonight. I had some time to kill while waiting for the buyer to arrive for the Space Invaders Deluxe, so I put them in the machine and tested it. I was so excited at the possibility of having that game fully working too and ready to sell.
Well, I got lines on the screen. I have no idea what that means, it is weird, fast horizontally moving lines. I wanted to check voltages before putting the boards in, and I got a pinout for the game, but wasn’t really sure because of the weird connections in the game if I should check them at the connection to the cage or at the connection to the one board.
I hope that wasn’t a mistake. I am going to email the guy that repaired them, he’ll probably know the problem, he is really knowledgeable. It almost looks like a sync issue, which is an easy enough fix if that were true. But it looks a little more serious than that.
Scrubbed off some more paint on the Food Fight
I was waiting for the Jr. Pac-man to arrive, so I took the time to rub off some more of the black paint from the Food Fight. I still don’t know what to do. Do I trash it? Do I try to get all the paint off and then sell it? Do I keep it at that point with all that work?
I can’t seem to sell it, so I will hang onto it for another 2-3 weekends, but soon after I may just throw it out. We’ll see how much paint stripping progress I make, and how much Food Fight artwork I reveal before that point.
Jr. Pac-man arriving tomorrow!
I knew when the truck left Pittsburgh a couple of days ago that my time had finally come, but I just wasn’t sure when.
I got ahold of Troy yesterday, and he said he was in Columbus, and thought he would be my way in the next couple of days. It sounded like he had to swing down to Cincinnati first, and since Mudmantim wasn’t going to be free until the weekend, would stop by my place next.
Well, he called tonight and said that he should be at my place by around noon or 1. I am really pumped, the timing is just about perfect. I have the day off tomorrow, and in the next couple of days I should be moving out two more games, so I should have the room to move things around and rearrange them as needed.
Got new Diodes for the G07
I got another sample from Allied Electronics, 5 of them to be exact. I had gone to Meunier downtown to pick up pretty much the same part a couple of weeks back, but was confused. The replacement part I got was rated the same, but it was physically twice the size of the diode I pulled off of the chassis. So, I waited.
I called Allied, and they gave me the information about the rating so I just had them send me a few. I assume they will work just fine. I have to figure out the polarity on the board and I should be good to go. The original part number was(_), and the equivalent replacement today is a 1N5404.
Dig Dug PCB went to garbage
Well. It has been another month.
Last month right after my brother in law and I looked at the Dig Dug, I listed it on ebay. I did some small final touches, screwed the audio board into the inside of the cabinet to secure it and glued the broken cone button back together.
Someone local to Indy won the game, and was going to pick it up on a Saturday. It worked fine on Thursday, but then about a half hour before the guy was to come by to pickup the game, I turned it on to get it warmed up to show him. Well, I got garbage on the screen. I about crapped my pants. So, I had to tell the guy how sorry I was, and that it really did work a couple of days ago, but hoped he would understand that I couldn’t sell it to him.
So, finally last night, after a long frustrating month, I decided to take a look again at the RAM error I was getting on the Dig Dug PCB to start researching the problem. I get garbage on the monitor, and then after a while it flashes RAM OL & OH.
I am hoping that there is something wrong with the audio board / power supply that is something easy to fix, or maybe it is this legendary big blue cap on the power supply that always causes weird problems. I don’t know yet, but I just know that if I have to get this board repaired, or find a new one, I might have this game until the end of the year.
Fortunately, the guy was really great about it all. He said he would still be interested if I got it working again.
Jr. Pac-man truck progress update
The Jr. Pac-man truck is now in Pittsburgh. I was blown away, it was like they totally skipped the last leg of the course up the coast.
Rick met with Troy last night, and they were talking about how to pack up the Jr. Pac. But, come to find out, Troy is going to be going to NY and NJ and then he will come back through PA to pick up the other games. So, I think I have another 4-5 days before he is back in PA. Maybe not that long…
They did have some space issues, and are renting temporary storage units. What a costly, amazing trip for this truck. But the time is nearing, a week from today I may have my Jr. Pac-man in the basement.
