This topic has been given a lot of coverage in the various newsgroups and arcade collecting forums. I’ve done lots of research and read all the comments I could find. I’m also lucky enough to have a good friend that knows a great deal about electronics and was kind enough to share the pros and potential cons of bathing them. After talking with him I decided to give it a go.

I neglected to take a couple of before pictures to show the nasty grime covering these three G07 chassis, but we’ve all seen similar parts. Any arcade pcb’s that have been sitting around in a warehouse for 20 plus years are bound to be covered with crud. Makes it hard to see what you’re working on when trying to do repairs and sometimes a standard cleaning just doesn’t do the trick. So into the dishwasher they go! Read the rest of this entry »

Well, perhaps not exactly NOS as I just pulled it from the game I’ve been working on. I figured that since I spent the time to clean it up I might as well take a few pictures and add it to the archive for future reference. Hopefully it won’t be hanging around too long as the Tapper will be hitting the auction block once it is up and running.

This marquee is reverse screened on glass and in great shape overall, with none of the typical flaking frequently seen when artwork is printed on glass. It was a little difficult to photo graph and even harder to scan. The reflective quality of the glass was creating some weird shadows during the scanning process making the scans worthless. Anyway, a nice marquee for a great game.

I’ve added another Willis overlay to the growing archive, this time the 4 player version of Atari Football. A big thanks to Jeff of rotheblog for this one. Now Atari is famous among the collecting community for fabulous cabinet artwork and the Atari Football cocktail cabinets were no exception. I had a chance to see and play a HUO example at a party not so long ago and it was amazing.

The artwork and color scheme on that game exude 70’s funk and I love it. The cp artwork was originally screened right onto the metal panels, just like on Asteroids and Missile Command. Unfortunately that means when it wears off, its gone forever. So besides being a replacement overlay and not a metal panel, the Willis piece just doesn’t fit well with the Atari cabinet artwork. Sure, the big “football” and a bunch of football players make it obvious what game its for, but so boring. Still has all the earmarks of a quality Willis piece and makes a nice addition.

• Ordered food at El Tizon @ 90th and Harlem, then walked next door to play PinBot, T3, Junkyard, Jurassic Park and a few others. FUN! #
• My youngest gave me his crappy cold, just in time for my 10 hour school day. Fantastic. #
• Sick day today so I spent some time lining up posts for the next week or so on the blog. Asteroids speaker hum is driving me crazy… #
• Asked Jonathan if I could give him his cold back and he says, "No Daddy, those coughs are yours now." Nice. #

I purchased this one from a fellow collector along with a handful of other Willis overlays. I’ve seen it in pictures on other sites but have never had a chance to examine it closely. It is supposedly for crystal castles by Atari and I have no reason to doubt that. One thing is certain though, it isn’t a Willis product.

Besides lacking all of the usual clues that identify a Willis overlay (can you name them all yet?), it is one flimsy piece of art. Cheaply made and probably one of the thinnest overlays I have in the archive. Read the rest of this entry »

Willis made a few different overlays for Atari games, the Asteroids cocktail table being one of them. This overlay has very simple styling, partly taken from the very understated original control panel overlay. The artist added some color and shapes to create an overlay that works well with the cocktail table, in my opinion.

Now I’m not saying that it’s super fantastic or anything, it just works well and looks better than the original in this case. Quality materials, die-cut button holes, part numbers and copyright info all in place. Another piece for the archive.

Here we have the famous, or infamous, Willis Donkey Kong cpo. I think this one went a long way towards creating the bad reputation Willis developed with arcade collectors and its easy to see why.

The original control panel overlay was reverse printed on a thick piece of plexi which made it quite durable but prone to scratching or graffiti. The reproduction was made in the same way Willis made all their products, reverse printed on lexan material with 3M adhesive. Read the rest of this entry »

A long time ago I had the opportunity to work on site during the construction of the Orlando FL Disney Quest. I was a product designer at an architectural firm and my company wanted me to head down to the site and make sure the products worked right. While I was there I got to snap a few pics and recently came across this one. They had the start of a nice classic arcade.

I don’t really remember if the games were ever on during that time in the construction, but I doubt I would have had time to play them anyway. It was a short visit and I had a lot to get do.

I’ll be polite and call this one interesting. Someone decided to bootleg a moon patrol control panel overlay, using the reverse screen process, 3M adhesive and die cuts for the buttons and joystick. Unfortunately they neglected the most important part, the artwork.

I’m not sure why so much effort was put into this bootleg, perhaps it was for one of the foreign made knock-off pcb kits that were so popular with some operators. Maybe it was just for a local group of operators that had a half dozen or more Williams Moon Patrols needing fresh overlays. Read the rest of this entry »

This NOS overlay came with the batch of donated artwork from a fellow collector, check out the original post if you missed it. At first I wasn’t sure what game this cpo was for as I couldn’t find any information about Video Ware, Inc., at the usual sources. I posted a few online inquiries and quickly had an answer.

The control panel overlay is for Champion Boxing by Video Ware, Inc., licensed by Sega. This game was released in 1983 by Sega, likely in kit form only for conversions. I don’t recall seeing the game on location and considering that Nintendo’s Punch Out was released less than a year later, I imagine Champion Boxing did poorly. Read the rest of this entry »