Brian D. Deuel

Hahahha! I think I'll mod my Video Pinball unit by removing the 2112 and replacing it with SDRAM and a larger crystal. Much, much, MUCH larger crystal...

I'm working on repairing one now. Non-working left flipper and no sound. I've isolated the left flipper problem to a bad resistor. I can trigger the flipper by grounding the correct pin on the selector gate IC, and jumpering the leads of the resistor does the same. I'll try a new speaker before trying to trace that issue, and see if that works. If the game chip is socketed (as mine is), CAREFULLY remove the game chip and spray some electronic cleaner into the socket. Take an eraser and CAREFULLY clean the pins on the chip, then replace it in the socket and see if that fixes your Breakout paddle lines problem. Regardless of if it does or not, I'd go ahead and replace the socket anyway (this is on my to-do list as well), but the procedure I outlined is one way to attempt to isolate the problem. The chip is a Quad And-Or Select Gate, and is most likely quite easy to find (or, at least, a equivalent can be cross-referenced). Check the resistor(s) along that circuit as well. You're probably right and one of the lines on the chip is stuck, but it's possible that a resistor could be causing this stuck signal. The data sheet for the chip is here: http://doc.chipfind.ru/html/re/scl4019be.html Gotta love old electronics. Easy to work on, as long as the chips aren't custom.

I would have dreams of finding coin-op prototypes or nonexistent games in the strangest places. One of the places was a castle-like campus with a library, although I can't say if it was a college or not (you know how it goes with dreams). There was an arcade in one of the giant rooms with a tons of prototypes of black and white Atari arcade games. The one game that I distinctly remember was similar to Lunar Lander, with black raster graphics on a grey screen (a la Sprint), where the player would fly around and collect objects in order, avoiding walls and enemies. The cabinet was similar to a Midway Lo-Boy, with lights on the bezel and control panel that simulated a real cockpit. The gameplay is similar to a Playstation game I played called Mystery Planet, in a Japanese collection called Serofans (70s and 80s arcade game simulations; a great collection if you can find it). I'll never forget that dream. I even wrote a PC port of the game in my dream, with the graphics as best as I could remember them, but lost the code years ago. Maybe I'll write a Dreamcast port someday... Info about the Serofans collection here: INFO

I was an operator and a collector/seller ten years ago, and bought a pool hall/arcade in the small town I lived in (Greenville, MI). The problem that I had keeping it open was that I had to rely on kids for business. As you all know, kids don't have any money I attempted to get a tavern license so that I could serve beer, but the township wasn't having it (even though the county was happy to take my $350). I ran it for two years, making no money but sustaining it with weekend business, until the end of summer came and the recent graduates all left town. For some reason, the next group of kids decided not to visit the place, even though I advertised and did giveaways. Not even my weekends could sustain it anymore and I shut it down. Luckily, my game sales and route kept me alive during this time, and I didn't have to put any of my own personal cash into it. It was always my dream to own a classic arcade, and I was able to live that dream (even though my arcade had a mix of classics and modern games), so that's worth something.

Didn't Atari's Hiway use a similar design for the twisting of the road? Like you, I haven't looked at the schematics in years, so I've forgotten. I do know that the game was another Grass Valley design...

I refuse to see it. I think the douchebaggery and pseudo-drama would stain my memories of the games and the great times of my youth. It's like taking the arcade games of the early 80s, where we battled the machine for a high score, and turning them into the arcade games (i.e. fighters) of the early 90s, where you battled each other. Not for me, sorry. I'd rather watch Tron.

"Highway to the Danger Zone..." Oh wait... that's not Kenny Loggins...

Shaggy, who owns the Game Grid Arcade in Utah, owns one of these games. He could probably help you out with details.

Hey now! Orca gave us the amazing Marine Boy! ugh... Time Killers. I still have nightmares of that damn attract mode blasting in my arcade, until I figured out how to turn it off. For some reason, whenever i set it to off, it would still play! I finally pulled the monitor to fix my Rally X. Jess- Did I give you that TK cab or did I end up torching it? I don't remember what i did with it. But yeah.... Orca sucked. Zodiack. That's all I need to say. Pioneers? I wouldn't go that far. Nolan was the actual pioneer. Nutting just built and marketed his game. As you said, if you look at their following games, it's easy to see why they failed. They supposedly gave us the first color video game, though (Wimbledon).

Tempest. Bar none. Nothing like playing Tempest in the dark, some 80s music blasting, getting into the zone. Nothing else like it. Tempest 2000 and it's annoyingly distracting visuals? Crap. Only the original for me, baby! Robotron would be my first if I hasn't played Tempest two years prior

S'ok. I haven't visited the site since it was sold and our freely donated information was copyrighted and we were forbidden to use it to our discretion. I hope they die.

Someday I will make it out to the show...

Billy Mitchell looks like Kenny Loggins.

Unfortunately, that's a sight that's more common than it should be. Years ago, I was an operator, and I walked into a number of street locations (laundromats, etc) that had machines that were in terrible shape. I specifically remember a Xybots machine with so much accumulated dust on the underside of the screen glass that you could barely make out what was on the monitor. I asked the owner about the game and how he's making any money on it, and he just shrugged like he could care less about the wasted electricity. Needless to say, I didn't get his business, nor would he sell the dead Pac-Man he had there. Another one I remember is a sitdown Pole Position with the typical crapped out boards and garbled graphics. Again, the owner of this location didn't care either that he was just wasting electricity. The game was totally unplayable, yet he let it run constantly. I bet it's probably still there after all these years, having gone up in smoke ages ago. However, I did run across a working Tempest in a pizza shop locally. The guy maintains it religiously; having had the monitor bulletproofed and all of the minor problems with it fixed. I drop a good $5 in it a week. He won't let go of it at any price. Good on him

I started with BAD, but changed to BDD when i matured a bit