Gamepark GP32 handheld for sale

[Gamepark GP32 handheld for sale]

FWIW,

 

I'll vouch for the seller. He's good people, and will only have quality stuff for sale. Known him many years.

 

Good luck with the sale. Great piece, great seller.

 

CN

[Data Age Record?]

I was reading Electronic Games magazine last night and found an ad for Data Age. The ad says you got a free record with a "recording experience" if you asked for it at any Data Age dealer. It was free. I suppose that shares with us the level of quality.

 

Does anybody have one of these? Apparently there is a documented connection between this and the software company (unlike a certain "Music Machine" record I can think of..... ).

 

Thoughts/berating welcome. I am always amazed as long as I have been into the 2600 there is still stuff I don't know about.

 

C

[A game where you put out fires?]

Was it related to the movie of the same name? I remember my mother not letting me get it because of the name. That was scandalous back then! I have since been allowed to add it to my collection

 

C

[More new Purchases!]

Great deal! Thats amazing. You have the Pacs to check each other off of. Boards are completely interchangeable.

 

Vector monitors all need the solder reflowed and lately the big blue cap is keeping many of them from firing up. Not hard fixes.

 

Centi's came with Go7s most of the time. Flyback, HOT and some fuses and you are in business. Give the WWF to a pal that helps you move them all around and you are good to go. Oil up those trackball bearing rollers (they won't feel right otherwise) About 200 in overlays and supplies and you could EASILY make some money come holiday time.

 

Man do I miss doing this stuff now. Seeing a deal like this makes me want to buy bulk again. SOOOO worth it.

 

C

[My new acquisition!]

Looks like its in great shape! Way to go! That is a great game on the TurboGrafx (although I guess thats Galaga 90?) but I am sure you'll have a blast with that. Very cool.

 

Looks like it would be an easy swap for some other Jamma-goodies if you wanted?

 

 

Cassidy

[Computer Space Monitor Repair and info]

I am guessing this is not "hot arcade repair info" for the average gamer but I figured I would add the following for future searchers looking to mod that tv from ebay.....

 

On an SF chassis, WITH the audio card:

 

Black wire from Computer Space goes to pin 9 on the audio card

White Wire from CS goes to pin 8

Red wire from CS goes to terminal pin 11 of the vacuum tube 15BD11

 

 

This is all assuming you have cut the white RF cable that runs between the tuner section on the monitor and the actual chassis. That disables the tuner section and allows the pin 11 to carry all your video and the pin 9 on the audio card to handle sound. The pin 8 is a shared ground.

 

 

Again, I am not thinking this is common need info but maybe this will save somebody the month it took me to compile it all

(honestly, probably help me out sometime rather than have to find whatever I wrote down somewhere).

 

Cheers,

Cassidy

[Computer Space Monitor Repair and info]

ComputerSpaceFan, feel free to copy this to your website. PM me and I will give you a word version of it…..

 

 

For those souls who keep the embers alive on the bronze age classics, I have a tale to tell.

 

After 8 years of ownership, my Computer Space 2 Player is going to a new home. It will be a home equal (likely better) than I to appreciate its splendor and significance in the game timeline. I have done some repairs to get it ready for its journey. To understand Nutting games is to know that tinkering is constant and “working” is a term best used to describe a game one day rather than in general. In other words, it’s a sports car that at best is tempermental. When I fired it up a few weeks back I noticed a tick associated with the flyback on the television. Remember, this game uses a tube-type television (vacuum tubes, that is) for a monitor. Turned out the tick was an internal short across the secondary windings of the flyback itself. Great. I knew what was wrong but it’s not exactly easy to find the part somewhere at Best Buy. Research ensued. Here is what I found.

 

The original television GE model was called a Venturer III. This hybrid television used transistors and vacuum tubes together on one single chassis. Very cool, very easy to work on, odd in the annals of tele history. http://www.rwhirled.com/portacolor/GE-SF.htm is a site that covers the details. At least now I know what I needed to hunt down.

 

 

 

By the way,

http://s88.photobucket.com/albums/k169/c4b...mputer%20Space/ is my photo hunt as I progressed if you are interested…

 

So I had a radio newsgroup guide me to find that the chassis type in the television is the part I needed to focus on. The chassis is called a “SF” chassis. Perfect. So theoretically, I needed a flyback for a GE SF chassis. As I learned, GE television parts are not desired like the RCA counterparts so nobody kept them. On a suggestion from the radio forum, I began to hunt down a fully working television to get the parts from. The chassis I have in the game is a S-2 version but I was assuming that any SF chassis had more or less the same layout. Here comes the ebay part…

 

I found this television on ebay for 10 bucks (see the picture at the bottom of this post). For a while, you can see the auction if you search Auction number 320198768504 . Working but not able to get in a channel, it seemed like the perfect donor, if stuff was close enough to fit. It’s a 9 inch screen, hence the SF-9 model number. My game is a SF-15 (I am guessing for the 15 inch tube) Emailed the seller (turns out to be a great guy) and took some internal pics of the game. I saw the flybacks looked similar so I was in. The blue one on the right is the original, the white one is the 9 inch set flyback. Same identical size and footprint, only in MUCH better shape!

 

 

Fast forward to disassembly day, and you are good to go. The flyback is a straightforward swap, with two wires that connect to the rear most vacuum tube. They were tricky to remove but not impossible. Turns out the game worked great with the replacemet flyback. Could not be happier.

So in closing, Computer Space (one and two player version) used a GE SF based television. The units are interchangeable to a large extent with any SF chassis based television. Rather than trying to hunt down a complete tube set, I would suggest finding a working SF based television and doing some swapping around. This tv is available and identifiable by its numbers on the back. From what I have seen, the actual model number is not as important as that chassis is. The SF chassis version 2 has a separate audio driver board that Computer Space accesses directly. The version 3 that I bought on ebay is missing that board and I have not gone further to find out where they relocated it in the system. Would not be that hard, I just don’t care enough.

 

Keep the old ones running if you can. Hopefully this will help somebody save some time.

 

 

Cassidy

[EDITED: dead machine, help trouble shoot?]

IIRC,

 

Outrun is one of those machines that has a self-destruct ROM set powered by a backup battery. Without the battery on the board you are in deep on the repair. If you have a good power supply, monitor, etc. and its the board that is not working, check out:

 

http://www.segaresurrection.com/

 

They have a solution, not tested it as all the ones I ever got were running and I had them on location making money. It looks like you got a good deal on it. I have gotten them for as little as 100 working and paid as much as 800 for one on location (of course that came with the location too ).

 

Good luck, great fun game to have.

 

 

BTW, if the springs on the steering wheel break, reuse the spring ends, fish them around another loop of that spring (or get a new spring about the same size at Home Depot and cut the extra off) and you are good to go. I used wheel bearing grease on the slides for the steering "shake" assembly versus something like WD-40 because I wanted it to stay on there. Keep that fan in the back going if you plan on running it much. I have seen them overheat with that fan burned out. Radio Shack or some online places sell PC fans you can replace that one with.

 

 

Cassidy

[Omega Race and Tapper]

I don't know why Omega would be a hard one to find. There were tons of those machines out there, should not be too bad to find. I have had a few with acid damage, but none that crippled the board. I have had to reflow the solder on the main pcb connector (they have a toaster style connection like Space Invaders) that goes sometimes. I know that board is sensitive to -5 Volts being out too. Be sure you get a good power supply before you fire your board up Easy enough to diagnose video ram, though. Swap chips if you have garbled on-screen graphics until you find your culprit.

 

As for a Tapper bezel, try quarterarcade.com. I would imagine they could get you one if not something they have in stock.

 

HTH

C

[Picked up 2 cocktails: Asteroids Deluxe and Missile Command]

I would not recommend doing the pot with the board attatched until you have bench tested the voltage with the board out. I burned up two Black Widow boards that way. Those pots are jumpy as they get old and dirty and you can indirectly cause full 12 volts to flow if you get a dead spot in the resistor.

 

Just my .2 on that one.

 

 

C

[Picked up 2 cocktails: Asteroids Deluxe and Missile Command]

I am guessing nothing is smoking but thats one way to tell what is causing it.

 

I have seen that resistor blow if there is too much resistance on interconnect cables (multi board games like Battlezone, Star Wars, etc) but never on a single board game. Make sure you have GOOD contact on the edge connector (no burned up crap like Pole Position was famous for).

 

I would probably pull all of my socketed chips and try firing it up again. Fire it up and see if you have 5V with just the soldered chips on board. That way you could put one at a time back in and find your baddy...

 

Obviously you'd shut it off between installs You're making progress, way to go!

 

 

C

[HELP! My Crystal Castles keeps resetting! Does anyone have any ideas?]

Sounds like the watchdog circuit is resetting on the board. I would start by cleaning the edge connector on the board with a pencil eraser, making sure you have good clean contacts. Next, I would reseat all of the ROM and RAM chips that are in sockets. Missile Commands were famous for having crappy chip sockets that cause it to do the same thing.

 

For the last two years I have also seen a great number of Atari games need the big blue capacitor changed in the bottom of the cabinet. I am not saying that is whats causing your reset but dirty signal can trigger the watchdog to reset as well. They are going on 30 years old now and I'd be willing to bet that one has seen less than perfect operational conditions over that time. Worth the few bucks from an online place to buy one.

 

If you do use a voltmeter, find what the 5 Volts looks like across a chip. Its a matter of touching the leads to some test points on the board (should be marked) and seeing what you get. If you have between 4.99 and 5.05 (give or take some) your power supply is fine. AR2 boards are a bit harder to bypass than some other games (say your Street Fighter for example) so the Atari ones are not as easy as some others. They integrated some audio parts into the power supply boards. Not saying they don't blow but the Ataris I have worked on over the years are far more likely to have a burned connector than a bad power supply (Midway, Taito, modern games, etc. all tend to have more power supply issues).

 

Start with your basics and work up. Great find by the way

 

C

[Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, Timewarp, 3 in 1 cabinet?]

I am on so many blasted mailings that they just sort of show up. Does anybody have a particular company they like to attend? I think Superauctions used to the do the Winston-Salem auction. Most of these companies cover a broad area of the country (like Chicago to NYC).

 

I know that a few of the venues have schedules (so the equestrian center in Baltimore for example) posts their events. You can check their websites for upcoming shows. I also used to follow RGVAC and see what was happening in my area too.

 

HTH,

C

[ARMOR ATTACK COCTAIL CABINET WORKS!]

Chances are the monitor needs a cap kit and a reflow of solder on all the connectors. Often makes you wonder if thats the reason it has been sitting since the 80s? If you want top dollar, I may wait to list the auction until after Labor day, just my .25 though; summer prices are always down.

 

Very cool find. Never worked on a cocktail one, only the uprights. Cinematronics stuff is all weird to tinker with, very neat history for a company. Goes to show why we now have development teams versus a single person with all the knowledge in a field...

 

C

[NTSC Games on Pal System]

Let me re-word that...they play color games that look to be close to the original colors. I have not had a vision check in a few years but I do instruct high-speed driving (vision is pretty good ).

 

Man you are spending a lot of time defending that it all won't work and you've got people showing/telling you it does. Whatever works works...

 

 

C

[Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, Timewarp, 3 in 1 cabinet?]

No, it was legal. I played a few of them, only one ever in an arcade (the rest at Philly Classic and CGE type shows). The piece was smaller than you would imagine but play value was great. Even had instructions to help you play if you wanted (I needed it, those games kill my quarters instantly....always have!). Bluth agreed to re-release it and it did pretty well from what I heard. Ran a hard drive instead of some other oddball config but worked well.

 

http://mtvgames.typepad.com/mtv_video_game...etro/index.html

 

March 21 has an entry and pic about it...ftwiw

 

BTW, I am sure they are available at auction. Play value would be limited in a single location. I'd wait until fall and hit the September/October auctions.

 

 

C

[NTSC Games on Pal System]

My NTSC TV and NTSC console will in fact play color correct PAL games. Its about 8 years old (51 inch Panasonic) but it does tend to pinch the picture in the center. Some games, like Obelix, display too low on the screen to actually play, most are just fine.

 

Fatal Run, Cakewalk, RS Soccer, even some 32 in 1 Activsion action all work just fine. Its the only TV I have that will do it, if you run it through a VCR to an RCA input it will not work; just through the tuner. I think its trying to capture and lock on to the signal through a digital tuner. Thats what I have tought anyway

 

C

[FA: 1974 Atari Coin-Op "Touch Me"]

Thats a deal-maker with the base being disassembled and shipped flat. I will definately be watching this auction now

 

I just shipped a 100 pound oversized package (two GIANT boxes) to LA from DC and it was like 128 so I think you are right on for shippinig. FedEx does a good job with it too. I am USPS fan most of the time but not for the big stuff.

 

The funny thing is my wife will be in Appleton this week. I just don't think the airline would like a Touch Me on the plane (carryon restrictions?).

 

Thanks for the effort. What a great piece of Atari history.

 

Cassidy

[FA: 1974 Atari Coin-Op "Touch Me"]

Wow. I was looking for one of these for years. Would love to get that one. I am going to see if he will ship. I have only seen two in person, never one with the original stand. Why has this thing not met opening bid?

 

C

 

BTW, you know Baer took this idea and developed it into Simon. Funny how Bushnell took Pong and Baer took this. There is a Simon for sale today at Target. I don't know there has been a year without it. Can't really say the same of Pong

[Free Arcade Parts in No VA/ DC area]

All,

 

AA folks get first dibs....I am clearing out some stuff. Not interested in shipping but I will MORE than make it worth your while to come up.

 

25 inch Wells tube and frame. I will incluce a repairable 7000 chassis, you could have a 25 inch monitor with no burn for the cost of a cap kit and whatever random part is bad on it.

 

At least 5 WG 4900 chassis

Isolation transformer board out of an Atari vector color arcade (Star Wars, etc)

Random chips and PCBs

2 or 3 Atari ARII boards

Bally power board

I am also sure I have a few Electrohome GO7 chassis.

 

 

And whatever oddball chips,monitors, cables, etc. we can find for you. Its really just time to clean house. If you are just ramping into games this is a goldmine. I think I have a few coin doors for you too. Few coin buckets as well if you are interested. Not a hoarder, just used these parts to service games when I was really into them.

 

If you want to kick a few bucks at me for it, great. If not, its no longer in my garage! PM me if interested. Again, not going to ship.

 

Thanks,

Cassidy

[Do you try to get boxes for your 2600 games?]

Complete in box here too. I love the look on the shelves. Its more than just the 20 minutes a week I get to play. My basement reminds me of simple times. Games were all about the buildup, because there wasn't much in the way of graphics. If you cared about the Yar or the Rassak or something else you would play the game. It competes in my mind with the arcade art.

 

I have more in my Quadrun box than I paid for my first car...

 

C

[Where I can get Boxes n' manuals?]

That second one is going to be pricey

 

Mind you, sometimes the box triples or even quadruples the price

 

Might end up buying the whole thing boxed and selling a loose cartridge afterwards.

 

Cassidy

[Did anyone notice...]

ET on DVD? LOL. I remember what a big deal it was when they released it on VHS for....are you ready.....$80 bucks. Remember, the original movie clubs were big money because there were no ads on the videos and parents would kill you if you broke one....the local Erol's Video Club was a special treat. Only the rich kids in town had parents that were members. It was like 400 bucks to join and movies were crazy, like 6 bucks a day? Thats what number sticks in my head...not sure.

 

I will say that I own it on Laserdisc That came out a few years later at a much better price...I think it was only 49.99

 

C

[My 2600 Portable Project is complete!]

AFAIC, its done. If a new owner wants to stain it, so be it (I had an interested party to purchase it). I wanted to leave it rough, as I have so many hours in the machine work to have something go wrong on a stain job. Its my first one, would consider another material for a second but this one is complete

 

BTW, you can read the engraving perfectly in person. Hard to see it with my flash on the camera.

 

Thanks for the encouragement guys. I am just happy it works solidly. Showed it to some friends last night, they loved Breakout on it. Very clear picture...best I have ever seen for a 2600 game!

 

C

[My 2600 Portable Project is complete!]

Well, I finally did it. VCF 2.0 is done. Named of course for the VCS and Flashback 2, this marks the end of a 2 and 1/2 year project for me. Here were my goals….

 

1. I wanted to use the Flashback 2 rather than a traditional 2600. I hate the idea of hacking a working system apart…mind you I have NO problems hacking a dead one for the cart connector!

 

2. I wanted a true backlit monitor, not LED. I don’t like the splotchy light they give off as much and I figured while I am at it…why not?

 

3. Big 5 inch monitor….again, why not?

 

4. As much of it made of oak as possible.

_______________

How did I do?

1. No problemo. Thanks the genius of Curt and the team on the FB2, hacking the port was a cakewalk (that reminds me…wonder how that game looks on here…). The hardest part for the FB was that in order to make it all fit in a thin spot, all the capacitors had to be swapped to the other side of the PCB. That left the crystal and the regulator on there, no problem, the board flexes some. All contacts were jumpered of course to remote switches. Microswitches work well to make contacts with a positive feel.

 

2 and 3. Found some X-box monitors that would be good to start with. They have the controls for volume and brightness right on the front and those features were retained. Monitor took some time to mill correctly around but now I have it down. Backlight was kept, if it worked for TG Express and Sega handhelds, its good enough for me!

 

4. Oak to be had all around. My d-pad, buttons, even the knurled knob on the paddle is all solid oak. I suppose it would survive a good drop, just not termites!

____________

After no less than 10 different designs I started to get the hang of the software package Mastercam. By now I get it, I certainly did not the first go-round. The goal was to create an easy to replicate design that can be milled perfectly from the start…in other words, have the parts available in kit-form for folks to assemble their own.

 

This one is now complete with a 1000ma battery (not sure yet how long it lasts on a charge, I am guessing around an hour), 5 inch screen, all oak controls and a built in charging jack, the system is a solid one-piece design. It can be opened for maintenance if need be but I do not expect it should need it.

 

Cheer or jeer accordingly. BTW, Warlords rocks on a portable!

 

 

Cassidy