Tokens Only » video game

Stern Berzerk Upright ~ I

cnlmoore — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 04:08:49 +0000

It has been quite a while since I’ve had any time to post, but for good reason. I have been working on projects galore, including a game I purchased at one of the Milwaukee Super Auctions way back in December of 2006 (or perhaps January 2007). Berzerk! This classic arcade game brings back a lot of memories for me as I loved playing it as a kid. It was easy to understand, had great robot voices and high scores were pretty rare so I even got my initials on the game from time to time. I inspected the cabinet at auction and while it was working, it was obvious that a fast paint job was done to polish it up for auction. I had been on the lookout for a Berzerk UR and since I hadn’t seen one come up in a long time, I decided to pull the trigger. There was a little bidding back and forth, but I ended up winning. It fit nicely in the back of my 4 runner.

I didn’t have any other projects at the time and decided that I would do a cap kit, clean it up and even re-stencil the side art. I got started by stripping the cabinet and taking lots of pictures for future reference. Taking lots of pics during a tear down is a great idea no matter what game you’re working on. If you end up having to shelve the project you can always refer back to the pictures. The game had a Willis control panel overlay on it and a crackled original underneath. Little did I know that would lead to another whole project…

After a complete tear down I started sanding down the side and repairing the hidden damage with bondo. The wood must have sat in water for awhile because the plywood had taken on the soft, brittle quality. A pain to repair with bondo. I only managed to do a first coat on one side before I got the golden egg dropped in my lap. A warehouse raid and bulk buy 5 minutes from my old house. Bezerk would have to wait, but stay tuned!

Repair Log: Cube Quest: 011410

cnlmoore — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:00:53 +0000

Patient: Simutrek, Cube Quest UR
Technicians: ???
Problem: Game would power up, but die after a few minutes. No sound.
Troubleshoot: I was just a lucky observer with this project, so I can’t provide too many details. (I will ask and update if possible) I did get to see the huge board set and the massive cage that housed it. What a monster.
Solution: The easiest way to work on this board set was to have it out of the cabinet, but the cage and cabinet has connectors that are all dependent upon one another. Sticking your head into a dark cabinet to probe with an Oscope is not a fun time, especially when the cab is in the garage during a wonderful Midwest winter.

The cage itself prevented effective troubleshooting, it was just in the way. What to do? Build an equally complex testing harness and power supply, of course. After many days of painstaking labor to develop and build a dedicated test station for Cube Quest, the tech was finally ready to get down to business.

After only a short time, the technician was able to get the board working, as you can see. One interesting bit about this game is that it was designed to work and play even if (or should I say when) the laser disc player failed. What you see here is game play minus the laser disk effects. Still pretty cool. The next step is to restore the sound and then connect the laser disc player to see if it will all work together. Want more info about this particular game? Check out the post over at rotheblog, happy gaming!

Willis Frogger cpo

cnlmoore — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:00:34 +0000

OK, simple frog pattern on the right to mimic the original tire tracks, pointing frogs around the joystick to indicate jump direction, got it. But what’s going on with that background? Is that supposed to be pavement or some kind of Rorschach test? I keep staring at it with my eyes a little squinted, hoping the secret message or shape might appear before my eyes.

It does bear the Willis name and even a part no, so there is no doubt that this version is the actual Willis Frogger reproduction overlay. It will hop on over to the archive. Enjoy!

Arcade Obituary: Exidy’s Clay Pigeon

cnlmoore — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:00:05 +0000

Victim: Exidy Clay Pigeon upright no. 17970

This rare piece of arcade history came my way thanks to Jon Jamashid, or evil exidy on the forums. He was moving cross country and had to unload some games. I ended up with Clay Pigeon and Hit N Miss. I shipped them all the way from Florida to the Midwest because Exidy cabs are somewhat scarce in these parts. I’m a huge fan of the Exidy 440 series of games and was looking forward to installing my multi-Exidy kit into a cabinet.

Unfortunately I barely have space for one, let alone two Exidy cabinets, so one had to go. Lisa was a fan of the colorful artwork on Hit N Miss, so it was staying. After months of trying to sell Clay Pigeon at my cost I got zero interest, which surprised me. I wasn’t going to give it away, so I stripped the cabinet of its useful parts and offered up the empty cabinet for free. Another local collector picked it up with plans to MAME it. So while the cabinet lives on, its life as Clay Pigeon has ended.

Stash of donated artwork arrives at my door!

cnlmoore — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:30:42 +0000

I connected with another video game collector recently, Steve23, located in Georgia. I had referenced a Wico catalog, on my resource page in response to Steve’s Willis side art post on KLOV. He liked my efforts to preserve a little bit of the history behind the video game industry and messaged me. After a brief discussion via messages, Steve offered to donate a box of miscellaneous artwork to my preservation cause; very generous. The box arrived today loaded up with stuff and I couldn’t wait to dig in! Steve has cleaned out the inventory of a few old operators offices and warehouses and ends up with a lot of stuff. Not all of it is in the best of shape as you can see, but that’s to be expected from stuff stored in a warehouse for 20-30 years. I’ll clean up what I can and add it to the site as time permits, for now, here’s a glimpse. My favorite pieces have to be the tokens only stickers, of course.

Tron cpo by Willis

cnlmoore — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:04:02 +0000

The Tron control panel overlay by Willis was a decent attempt at capturing the feel of the original cabinet design in an aftermarket product. A step up from some of the random artwork jumbles commonly seen in bootleg artwork, this cpo was produced by Willis in 1983 with quality materials and an attention to detail. While the artwork is vaguely similar to the original overlay, there are some notable differences. The original control panel overlay uses red, blue and green for color and carries a number of details not seen in the aftermarket Willis piece. Yellow is substituted for green and the cross hair and spinner details are missing.

My example of the Willis Tron cpo is missing the cut out where the spinner decal most likely resided. It was probably removed during the die cut process. I’m not 100 percent sure a spinner decal existed, but I’ve seen plenty of those red top spinners to lead me to believe that they did. I checked the Wico catalog on my resources page, but it didn’t have a picture of this particular overlay inside. If you happen to own the cpo and it still has the cutout in place, shoot me a picture, I’d like to see it!

Another more important difference between the Willis and original overlay is the type of ink used in printing. The original art glows under black light and gives the cabinet its famous look. The Willis artwork has none of these effects, which I discovered when I put it to the test under black light. It just looks black. The last picture in the series is of course what the original overlay and spinner insert looks like. This reproduction is produced by Phoenix Arcade as part of the full set of Tron artwork available at the site. The artwork recreates the original black light effects beautifully and my Tron will be getting this complete restoration treatment shortly. The Willis overlay will be put back in the archive.

Reactor artwork ~ good stuff

cnlmoore — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:00:03 +0000

I’ve been working on a Reactor restoration for a friend, a very patient friend, because I think it was about an eternity ago that I started the project. I plan to wrap it up this winter and thought I would share some pictures of the artwork before it all gets applied. It’s very nice stuff. The artwork came from Darin at Phoenix Arcade, but please don’t pester him, it sold out years ago. Included in the package was the side art, control panel overlay and the marquee overlay. All produced with the top notch quality I’ve come to expect from Phoenix Arcade.

I really like the design of the side art and the liberal use of orange throughout the motif. The package fits the game play very well. Hopefully soon I’ll have this cabinet completed and ready to go. Of course I’ll have to “break it in” to make sure everything works correctly

Galaga upright no. 5922 – sold

cnlmoore — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:00:15 +0000

I got lucky with this game pickup, right place right time and all. Way back in November 2004, I was returning a Uhaul trailer to a location in Cicero after having just hauled home a load of games. I noticed some commotion in the Uhaul garage and heard some familiar sounds. I went to check it out and there were two employees playing an upright Galaga, pretty funny to see at the time because it was cold out and they were bundled up in winter gear.

I asked what the deal was with the game and one of the workers told me it had been left behind on one of the rentals. I gave it a quick inspection, it was beat from route operation, but worked just fine. I offered $50 and 10 minutes later I had it loaded into the back of my SUV. Not bad!

I already had a nice restored Galaga in my collection, so this one would either get sold or traded off. After a post on RGVAC, I quickly found someone interested in the game. Galaga was still bringing decent money back in 2004, even in this condition. I traded the Galaga for an upright Gyruss, Elevator Action, Sanyo EZ monitor and an NOS Elevator Action overlay. (later identified as a Spy Agent) I was happy with the trade as I had been looking for a Gyruss. I ended up selling the EA for $75 to another collector so I made all my money back.

You may notice the brand new monitor that’s been installed in this game. I thought it was strange that someone would spend the $140 plus on a new monitor and then just abandon the game. In hindsight I probably should have pulled the monitor…now that CRT’s have gone the way of the dodo. At least it got a good home.

Repair Log: Space War: 081209

cnlmoore — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:00:49 +0000

Patient: Vectorbeam Space War UR
Technicians: Mark H, Bill K and Chris M
Problem: Slightly shaky graphics during game play.
Troubleshoot: After discussing the problem with Mark H, I pulled the monitor and got it over to his place for testing. He didn’t find any issue with the monitor and suspected the ribbon cable, which I hadn’t brought along. Apparently the ribbon cable is a common failure point on the old Vectorbeam and Cinematronics games, similar to those crappy MCR ribbon cables that are always brittle and prone to failure. Good idea to just replace it. Here’s the old red ribbon cable attached to the monitor/pcb.

The next step was to bring my pcb over to Bill K for testing on his Cinematronics setup (Vectorbeam pcbs are practically identical), but I never made it that far. I decided to re-install the monitor and the new ribbon cable from Mark H. before pulling the pcb. Game fired up with no shakes. Here’s the new ribbon cable installed.

Solution: New ribbon cable eliminated the shakes from the vector display. Pretty easy solution this time around, now I just need to turn down the brightness!

Galaga restoration

cnlmoore — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 16:36:42 +0000

Flash back all the way to October of 2001, not too long, but an eternity when you think about the advances in technology since that time. I had picked up my very first cabinet, a Galaga UR and was anxious to restore it to its former glory. I think it is very important to document the strip down of any cabinet, primarily so you can remember where stuff goes, but also to share the details with the collecting community. I didn’t have a digital camera back then and was taking pics with my 35mm camera, a slow process.

I decided to borrow a friends digital Sony Mavica for instant results. Cutting edge at the time with its little 3″ removable disc media. Wow, what a difference, I can’t imagine using a 35mm ever again! I stripped the cab of all its parts and started to clean it up. The bottom and lower back of the cabinet were water damaged and the cab was missing a wheel, so drag damage. I figured I could just swap in some new panels and repaint/laminate. Easier said than done as Midway used these bizarre RTA (ready to assemble) connectors all around the bottom piece. I guess for ease of assembly.

I was able to find replacement RTA fasteners that were almost exact duplicates of the originals. They weren’t cheap (imports from Germany) but I was trying to repair it correctly. I cut new blanks for the bottom, back and back door. I sanded, patched and sanded the entire cab to make sure it was nice and smooth. I would paint the back components, but for the sides I was going to install some nice black laminate for durability.

I installed leg levelers and casters. I couldn’t find a spare original caster and since I only had one was forced to settle for a pair I found at Ace Hardware. I had rewired the cabinet after bringing it inside to install the artwork and Lisa was in charge of play testing to make sure it was working properly. Well, she hit level 21 and got this lovely message, “This player too hot. My electronic brain is scrambled. Immediate shutdown. Danger, danger, danger.” Then the darn game would reset. WTF is that? She tried it again and sure enough, same thing, but this time I got the pictures below. Apparently some Operator wanted to make sure you couldn’t play too long on just one quarter! Funny stuff.

I know I have more data and pics about my first restoration around somewhere, just need to dig. Until then, happy gaming.