Stargate

I have my Defender game working 100% but I've been playing around with the cabinet. By chance I saw a Stargate game (non-working of course) come on eBay at a decent price (okay, $250) that was local, so I put in my bid and waited 10 minutes to see if I won it (I told you it was by chance). So now I'm the new owner of a non-working Stargate game.

I went to Linden NJ (about 30 minutes away) to pick up the game early Christmas Eve morning with one of my daughters. The game was in the shape it was advertised so no complaints there. We hauled it home in the Suburban (it's really good having a Suburban when you need to move video games).

So the Stargate is in the basement right next to the Defender. My priority now is to get Defender put back together, I'll deal with the restoration of the cabinet later. Since Stargate uses the same monitor as the Defender (a GO7-CBO), I was able to swap monitors to see if the Stargate monitor was working. The good news is that the Stargate monitor is good but it does need a cap kit. So the problems are deeper (I suspected that since there was no sound during the POST) and will require some work.

So I just ordered a standard set of supplies when dealing with a Williams game, first a GO7-CBO cap kit and a "get well kit" for the linear power supply. Yes, the Stargate still has it's original power supply - no switching, and I'm going to keep it that way if at all possible (by the way the supply LEDs are all lit, so the supply probably isn't the problem). I also ordered a set of RAMs, the 4116's seem to go out quite commonly with these boards.

The cabinet of the Stargate isn't too bad. Like most cabs there are big holes from where lock bars were installed to secure the coin box. I have to rework the power cord. My plan is to use an IEC power entry module like I did for the Ms Pacman.

High Score for Defender

I did some more work on the Defender game today. My first priority was to get the high score kit installed. This is another item I purchased from Bob Roberts (www.therealbobroberts.net) that replaces the three AA battery holder that comes stock on a Defender board.

Invariably having AA batteries on a board causes all kinds of problems when the batteries leak. For some boards the damage is extensive and renders the board unusable, but for mine the damange was rather minor. But the battery back didn't work as the terminals of the battery holder were corroded.

The solution is to remove the AA battery holder an replace with a CR2032 lithium holder & battery. This is relatively minor surgery. Now my Defender keeps it's s/w configuration settings and high scores. I've read some postings on the net that claim the lithium battery will be drained pretty quickly. I don't know why this would be the case. the CMOS 5101 RAM has a standby current of about 5 uA, this is probably not a whole lot more than the self-discharge rate of the lithium battery. Looking at the schematic I can't see where else there might be a current loss. I figure the battery will keep high scores for about the same amount of time as the shelf life of the CR2032, which is probably 10-15 years.

The speaker for the Defender is ripped and I have to figure out what to do, re-cone this speaker, send it out for re-coning, or just get a replacement. I can get a new speaker for about $21, but re-coning will cost at least $40. But then again a re-coned speaker is more "original".

I started filling the in the dents and holes in the cabinet. I'm staying away from any work that will commit me to totally refinishing the cabinet as I haven't decided if I want to go that far, the side art isn't in bad shape, but there are spots where it's been painted over in a poor attempt to hide scratches.

Defender lives

I got the bridge rectifier from Bob and installed it. The +5 came up immediately. I completed connecting all the components on my work table and fired up the game. No sound, but I got a "rug pattern" on the GO7 monitor. Since this game used to work I suspected that when the power supply went on the fritz it took something with it.

The most likely suspect were the 4116 DRAMs. These were a pretty standard part "back in the day". What's annoying about these parts is they require 3 voltages to operation, a +5, -5 and +12v supply. I also recall (from back when I had a TRS-80 that used these same memory chips) that these chips were finicky regarding how the power is supplied. My guess was when the +5 went out it took the RAM chips down too.

Luckily you can still get these chips, so I ordered a complete set (24, for 48K of RAM) from Bob Roberts. They came in today. I pulled all the old chips and put in the new. I turned the system on and Defender came up.

I'm not playing the game yet I still have a couple of issues to address. I need a new speaker, the one in the game has a rather large tear, though it still sounds good. The bigger problem is I need to fix the battery backup on the game. This is a common problem, when batteries leak their acid tends to corrode the board and eventually the battery holder and traces are eaten away. That's the case for my board so I have some work ahead of me to clean this up.

Battery backup for a Defender game is important, it's not just about the high score. Defender and other Williams games use software configuration. In other words the configuration of the machine is stored in memory (RAM), and if that memory isn't backed up by battery it will "lose" the configuration and the game will be unplayable until it's re-configured. This is a major pain in the ass to perform every time you want to play a game.

So the solution is to either fix the battery holder (AA type batteries), replace with a Bob Roberts replacement (Lithium battery) or try to find the SimTek replacement that swaps out the 5101 with an NVRAM - the no battery solution.

For now I need to move on to the cap kit for the GO7 and make decisions about how far I want to take restoration of the cabinet.

On to Defender!

The Ms Pacman is doing very well in its new home (my eldest daughter's bedroom). There was an issue where the colors of the monitor were off, but re-routing the internal power lines cleared up the issue.

My son and I moved the Defender game into the house. I then proceeded to pull all the guts out of the cabinet (it's an upright) and lay them out on a table. I have confirmed there's an issue with the power supply, it appears the 35A bridge rectifier (BR1) is shot so I've ordered a replacement (& some other parts) from Bob Roberts.

The GO7 monitor is filthy so I've spent some time trying to clean it up. I think I need to hault it out to the garage so I can use my air compressor to clean it up.

Yesterday I used a sponge and some soapy water and cleaned the now empty cabinet inside & out. There's some repair work needed on the cabinet, the previous owner had installed a standard light switch (the kind you have in your home) and cut a rather large hole in the cabinet. After these repairs are done I'm considering purchasing a set of stencils (www.gamestencils.com) and repainting the exterior.

The priority is the electronics. With the parts I ordered from Bob I should be able to get the power supply working. Once the game is operational, I'll re-cap the GO7. Then I can move on to the aesthetics of the game.

Ms Pacman Complete!

Finally, the "restoration" of the Ms Pacman game is complete and the game has been moved up to my daughter's room. I learned a lot of things in fixing up this game (such as there's no such thing as a "cheap" game when you are restoring).

Notice the 1/2 player buttons above the coin door. These are not "Pacman" authentic but were part of the cabinet as I received it. I opted to leave these buttons in place and keep them functional.

You can see in the picture that there are holes for the speakers. Once again not "Pacman" authentic, but this is how the cabinet was originally configured.

There's one thing that I did that was "wrong". Player one is to the right of the coin door, not the left as it should be in a true Pacman game. I'm also missing lights behind the control panels, another item that wasn't present in the game as I received it. I needed to get this game done so I could move onto other projects, and I can always circle back and includes lights when I have the time.

I had one major set back right before I finished everything. Upon closing up the game for the last time the neck board of the GO7 monitor was cracked. This is another indicator that this cocktail cabinet was not originally a Pacman, the neck board had left scratches on the back of the coin box frame.

This really bummed me out, I figured the neck board was shot and I had to find a replacement. Looking on eBay I saw some board sets for around $90. I opted to see if I could repair the neck board since I had nothing to lose.

Fortunately the neck board is single-sided, so I identified the breaks the traces and soldered up bridges using solid #22 wiring. This worked very well and I restored the monitor back to operation. You can see the result to the left.

While I had the system open I figured I'd address the edge connector issue. I had purchased an edge connector repair kit from Bob Roberts but since my connectors were in pretty good shape I was hesitant to modify the board. During one of the repair sessions the trace for the +7AC tore up (I'm sure it was in bad shape), so now I had no choice. Now I have solid connections as well as a newly rewired edge connector.

Now the only issue with the monitor is that the fan and transformers are unshielded so there's a slight wave. This "wiggle" isn't present when I have the game open, so I'm guessing it's due to the proximity (inches) of the components (transformer & fan) to the monitor. I don't have a lot of options in repositioning internal parts, so I'm going to live with this issue for the mean time.

The game is set to free play and the volume is at a tolerable level. So far the internal temperature seems to be in a good range and the fan, while noisy, isn't annoying. The monitor could still use a good tuning just to get the colors and sizing right, but it's playable.

Now I have to decide which game to fix next, I have a couple of options:

Defender - there's something wrong with the power supply, hopefully this would be quicky.

Battlezone - this game plays blind. I like vectors and I'd really like to get this one up and running.

Missile Command - used to work but now the screen is just showing test patterns. This game also needs some work on the trackballs, they aren't playing too well.

Space Invaders - no sound and the cabinet has water damage.

Defender is the game I have the most fun playing so I'm going to start work on getting this game back into shape. Hopefully it won't take long.

I have to get more games working. I have a self imposed limit of having only 2 non-working games, otherwise I can't acquire any new games. Space Invaders technically works, but with Defender on the fritz I have more than two (Battlezone & Missile Command) that don't work, so no more acquisitions.

For now Ms Pacman is in my eldest daughter's room. I have to admit it looks pretty good considering this was my first "restoration". This was not cheap, I'll post a complete break down of parts, but basically the sunk cost into this game is about $800. There were opportunities to reduce costs but the majority of the expensive items were related to creating an "authentic" PacMan/Ms Pacman game - purchasing overlays & underlays.

New harness

After some research I figured the most likely cause of the screen problems the Ms Pacman was experiencing. These are known as "hum bars" and generally can be traced back to poor power/grounding. The easiest solution is to replace all the fuse holder blocks to clean up connections. The second solution is to replace the edge connections.

I swapped out the fuse blocks and the problem remained, so I moved on to the more difficult task of rewiring the edge connector. Once again with another order to "The Real Bob Roberts" and I had two options in hand. One was a "hum bar fixup kit" that provided a new 22/44 pin molex connector. The second option was a completely new wiring harness.

The parts arrived 2 days later and started with the easier of the two fixes, swapping the molex edge connector. One by one I removed wires from the old edge connector and connected them to the new edge connector. For the power connectors I beefed up the wiring (to 18ga) and soldered the connectors to ensure a better connection. I cleaned up areas of the wiring where the previous owner had cut into wires to get access to ground.

This did the trick, the hum bars are gone. Based on my dialog with Bob, the harness my game has is not a standard Pacman/Midway harness, it's pretty clear someone retrofitted a Pacman upright into this cocktail cabinet.

So I'm almost ready to button up the game. I added a fan (there's a mounting for one, it had been removed) and rewired the A/C internals as noted in my earlier blog. My next task is to neatly install the wiring and install the new cocktail table glass with the new underlay. I'll include some pictures in a future post.

Getting there!

Today was a big day for the Ms Pacman day. In the past 2 weeks I've recovered the cocktail table using vinyl laminate I purchased from PartsExpress.com. For $20 you get 18 feet x 25", which is more than enough to cover the game.

This was my first time working with this stuff and it didn't come out perfect, but it's a lot better than the previous covering. I also put on new t-molding, and that came out pretty good. Overall the game looks pretty good.

Today was my big push to clean up the internal wiring. I opted to put a new power entry jack, an IEC connector. This is the connector type you see on virtually every desktop computer (see the picture).

I also added an "interlock switch" so if you open the cocktail table up the power is switched off. This is in series with a main power switch. And for added measure there's a fan, running of 120vac, to keep things cool. The cabinet has ventilation holes for this type of fan, but the fan was missing from the game.

I put everything back into the cabinet and then powered it all up, everything works! The only issue is that there is a slight "wiggle" to the display. So I've pulled everything apart and now I'm debugging this problem.

So I'm very, very close. Once I get rid of this wiggle I can put everything back into the cabinet and tie up the wiring harnesses.

So I have ordered some additional parts from Bob Roberts, the important one being a new filter capacitor for the GO7 B+ supply. I also ordered a shielded speaker, the existing speaker is unshielded and it's proximity to the monitor may cause issues.

I'm anxious to wrap up the Ms Pacman. I have several other games that need to be fixed (a Battlezone with monitor problems, a Defender with a power supply issue and a Missile Command cocktail that just isn't working any more).

Ms Pacman - as I got it

Here's a picture of the Ms Pacman when I got it. It was pretty beat up and non-working. The switcher power supply can be seen through the open coin door (pink box), it was DOA when I tested it. The original power supply had been cut out by removing the fuses and disconnecting the inputs.

I have stripped all the t-molding and vinyl laminate. I filled in the holes and repaired the wood damage with filler. Once the new laminate comes in I can begin recovering the game.

Almost there!

More Pacman parts have come in. Yes, even though the game has a Ms Pacman board, the game will have the look & feel of Pacman.

I'm putting a fan back into the cabinet. There's a spot for one and the replacement from Happ Controls fit perfectly. I have cut a new IEC compatible power jack (the kind that are on backs of most computers & appliances these days), no more ratty power cord.

The t-molding came in so I installed the molding I could, the molding around the top of the cocktail. Once the wood grain vinyl laminate comes in I can proceed at full pace.

The monitor still has the "wavy-ness", I have some replacement parts, just haven't gotten the time to fix the problem.

Ms Pacman lives!

I got to a point where Ms Pacman is "playable". The only problem left was that the G07-CBO monitor had a strong green component (as in all dark areas of the picture were green). Based on the G07 repair flowchart I found on the web I zeroed in on the green video drivers on the monitor neck board (1 transistor) and the main chassis board (2 transistors). I ordered replacements and waited. I got my replacement video driver transistors from "The Real Bob Roberts" yesterday. Rather than test the transistors I merely replaced them in succession. So I know the problem wasn't on the neck board, but it cleared up immediately when I replaced the two transistors on the chassis board.

The system is still apart, I'm trying to locate replacement wood grain vinyl (I stripped off the original). I now have pretty much all the parts to begin reassembly except for the vinyl.

The G07 still has one more minor problem, there's a slight "wiggle" in the display. I verified this is due to a problem in the voltage regulator, but now I have to figure out what component. This isn't a high priority, the game will be playable, but the engineer in me can't abide leaving a known bug in the system, especially when it's all apart and much easier to fix.

Fixing Ms Pacman

My daughter and I went down to the Philly area and picked up a Ms Pacman cocktail table. This game is 100% DOA, and cosmetically it has a lot of problems. First the top is not glass but scratched up Plexiglas. Next the previous owner was nice enough to "brand" their name into the machine veneer.

Inside is no better. When I got it home I could see that the internal power supply was there but it was cut out and a switcher was spliced in. The switcher was dead, no +5 and no +12. I decided I would try and resurrect the original a/c supply in the name of authenticity.

Speaking of authenticity I could clearly see this game started life as a Pacman. More than that, the cabinet was something entirely different, and the coin box has the words "Donkey" written on it. So the origin of this game is a mystery that I'll be working on.

Rebuilding the herd

Back in 2000 I first got into arcade game collecting. I went on a binge of buying on eBay (and some local discoveries from Craigslist) and soon had an arcade hall with over 20 games. The games I had in the “herd” included:

Asteroids, Blasteroids, Moon Patrol, Battlezone, Lunar Lander, Space War, Phoenix, Xevious, Donkey Kong, Space Duel, Centipede, Tron, Galaga, Afterburner, Choplifter, Space Invaders Deluxe, and Missile Command.

I also had a Skee Ball and a pinball (Comet). Then I ended up moving a couple of times and the effort of storing the games and moving the games added up so I divested myself of the herd, donating a number of them to a local youth center. I kept the Lunar Lander, it was a hard find and a game that I had a soft spot for it.

Now move forward to 2009 and the arcade bug has bitten me again. My son was lamenting the glory days of having 20 arcade games in our garage, which got me thinking. After a friend helped me reorganize my garage (thanks Rick!) I had space for rebuilding the herd.

When I first started purchasing arcade games I was flush with cash from a startup venture, so I ended up paying pretty much market prices, and shipping to boot. I decided I would leverage my Electrical Engineering degree, and equipment (scopes, logic analyzer, etc.) and go after non-working games. This allowed me to avoid direct competition with “yuppies” trying to build out a game room. The onset of the recession proved advantageous, the price of video arcade games seems to have plummeted.

Battlezone

I noticed an eBay auction with a Battlezone for $250. It was “parts complete” and on top of that it appeared only the monitor was at fault (I really love the vectors and have developed some talent in fixing G05/19V2000 monitors). So I ran down to Atlantic City and swooped it up (good thing I have a Suburban).

Missile Command

Next I saw an auction on eBay for a broken down missile command cocktail. No top glass, no logic board, sitting in a warehouse in Pennsylvania (TNT Amusements). For $119 it was mine, and my son and I made the 90 minute trek to pick it up. We wandered into the wrong office at TNT and ended up in one of their warehouses. It was heaven, hundreds of games all over the place. After we pulled ourselves back to reality we asked Todd (the proprietor) and went over the warehouse to pick up the game. Todd had graciously offered to sell us a non-working Missile Command board for $50 but unfortunately couldn’t find it. Looking around he found a box of boards and located a Missile Command board that was “missing parts” and let us have it for $10. I figured this would allow me to hit up Eldorado Games for a swap in the event I couldn’t fix the board.

We got the system home and cleaned it up. I looked at the board and did some research, it appeared only the cpu (6502) was missing. I pulled out my spare 6502 (we all have spare 6502s don’t we?) and plugged the board in – it worked!

Space Duel and Breakout

Next I found a Space Duel cocktail (working) in the arcade collectible group. After agreeing to $250 for the Space Duel I was asked if I wanted an original Atari Breakout (working!) for another $50. I agreed on the spot and once again my son and I made a journey (+2 hours) to pick up the games. With a little work we could fit both games into our Suburban (I love my Suburban!!!).

Defender

Another eBay auction for a non-working Defender I was able to win for $200. This was a relatively close pickup, about 15 minutes away. My son and I got the game, and the owner (Steve) said he thought it was just a power supply problem.

Sure enough after we get it home and cleaned up we notice that there is no +5v or -5v. With some help from Bob Roberts we got a “Williams Power supply get well kit” and replaced all the power caps associated with the regulators and both 723 regulators (now with sockets).

Well we got back +5 but -5 were still missing. A quick look at the schematic shows that the -5 regulation is pretty simple, there are a bridge rectifier and a regulator (7905), so I ordered them both. While I was at it I ordered some buttons so we could clean up the control panel.

Bob was kind enough to ship the parts out before he received my check (he is just too much!), so we got the new parts a few days later. I took a chance and replaced only the 7905 (the rectifier would have been harder to remove). Defender is now working.

We still have an issue with the battery backed memory, but the game is working. I opened up the marquee and discovered that a 60w incandescent bulb was in use and the fluorescent light had been cut out. A trip to Home Depot netted me a new magnetic ballast and a new 15” T12 tube (yeah, early defenders used 15” tubes, not the 18” that is more commonly used).

July 19^th, 2009

Battlezone

I’m on to the battlezone. I did some sleuthing using my oscilloscope (another eBay acquisition several years ago). I verified that the power supply is okay, got all my voltages. I have a plug head that I made up for my Asteroids game to look at the X&Y signals to the monitor (yeah there’s an XOUT and YOUT test point on the boards but this was right in the oscilloscope probe bag). It appears that X is not working, and this can b seen pretty well by putting the oscilloscope in XY mode. This won’t work with the 19V2000 as the spot killer circuitry comes on and kills the display since there isn’t enough activity on the X signal.

October 2^nd, 2009

Ms Pacman

I got a new addition, a cocktail version of Ms Pacman. Technically it’s not mine, it’s for my daughter, but it’s not working and needs a lot of cosmetic work before she can take possession, so for a little while it’ll be mine.

Space Invaders

I have been looking for this game for a number of years, it’s not that rare I just wanted to get one as cheap as possible. Turns out an eBay auction for a “water damaged” upright cabinet with a low price went in my favor, so now I have to go and get the game.

Welcome

Welcome to the future home of My Garage Arcade. I'm rebuilding the herd of arcade games and right now I'm up to 8 games in various state of repair. The games I have right now are:

• Atari Lunar Lander
• Atari Missile Command (cocktail)
• Atari Space Duel (cocktail)
• Atari Battlezone
• Atari Breakout
• Midway Pacman
• Taito Space Invaders
• Williams Defender

I'll be writing up my trials & tribulations in acquiring these games and restoring them.