I got lots done with the 5200, and played some games as well!

The biggest deal to me was figuring out how to separate the shaft from the ball bearing in the idle assembly of my second-hand 5200 trak-ball. I don't have proper equipment for that, but I know you need some way to carefully and forcefully press the shaft out of the ball bearing (and to put it into another one), all without "mushrooming" the bearing. One morning, it came to me: a drill press vice and a piece of wood with a hole in it large enough to fit the shaft! So I bought the drill press vice (less than $18 at Home Depot, tax included), drilled a hole in a small piece of scrap wood, put one side of the shaft in the hole, and slowly closed the vice. It worked lickety split! Then I tried putting it back together using the same method, and had no problem. Woo hoo! So I'll be ordering 5 ball bearings from Best for $15, and I'll be able to get that second trak-ball running great...and then keep it running.

Next up was the regular 5200 controllers. I'd gotten 2 of the "gold" controllers from Best, but I wanted to get as many of my other four working as possible. So I'd ordered a couple of rev 9 flex circuits and four fire buttons. Using those, I was able to get two working with no problem. Then, recombining parts that were left over, I got one more going. So I have 5 5200 controllers that work! Two should work indefinitely, and the other three can be kept working through cleaning and perhaps buying a few parts. Yee ha!

So now I have a 5200 box in the basement with a working and complete 5200, three controllers in individual zip-loc bags, and a power supply. Soon my second-hand trak-ball may join them, since it seems like you don't really need two of them.

On the 7800 front, I tried out the euro-style gamepad, and that does wonders for game play versus the regular controller. I was having a lot more fun playing Choplifter! and Centipede than I had with the old "Best" pro controller that I had left over from the last time I had a 7800. So I'll be getting another one of those from Best soon, so my wife and I can play Asteroids and Centipede in coop mode.

After all that, I spent some time cleaning up my various messes. The library, where we have our game systems, had its floor almost covered with video games, controllers, consoles, and various bits, pieces, and detritus. Now there are only a few things remaining in there -- the trak-ball I'm fixing, a model 1 genesis that turned out not to be able to play Budokan, the trak-ball box, and a few odds and ends I have yet to find a place for.

So there's still work to do, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, when we'll have everything working, and we'll have tons of games to play together.

Next year: ColecoVision.