Cassidy Nolen

Hey Steve, good to see you on again Good luck with the sale. I wish Quadrun had not seen such a nose dive (as I am sure you do too!) but it has. Yours is no doubt quite nice, and condition goes a long way. Hopefully a collector will still need a good example and offer you a fair price. Amazing what 5 years on the market does... Best to you, I will gladly vouch for him. Great guy with very nice stuff. Cassidy

It is all calibrated to work off of the 100V isolation transformer in the bottom. Fewer windings mean less output. There is unfortunately no advantage to it. The trouble is when you go to replace the light fixture and it does not turn on with the one you buy locally and wire in...thats the issue. The monitors all convert the AC current thats coming from the transformer into the DC current it needs to operate so there is no savings there either. The Japanese monitors just did things a little differently, thats all Makes it, well, interesting to work on years later. The early Atari/Meadows/Midway games used to do power supplies and audio on the monitors. Those too are different and require some additional knowledge. I think you will be in good shape with the Nintendo cab. I would also suggest you ask around on RGVAC and see if anyone has some duplicate game chips that they are willing to sell/give you cheap. Worth asking. I was part of a warehouse buy where there was a ROOM full of those chips and marquees. At the time I was not interested in them at all (still too new for my personal tastes ). C

Very nice, Wiz! I have never seen the Canadian version before. It seems you would like to know what is inside too, seeing how yours is so nicely sealed? Anybody else have the Canadian version? C

Nothing too special about them...way to go! You found one The games are interchangeable as Tempest described. The monitors are unique to Nintendo, and the monitor and marquee light run on 100 volts, not 120. Its odd, and most of the time not an issue. If you ever have to replace either it will become a problem but Nintendo monitors are pretty stout. Good luck, enjoy! Cassidy

PM sent. I have some bulk stuff (25 to 50 cart deals) I could offer you at a great price. Cassidy

Most are easy repairs. He is right, they have been out of production for some time. there are plenty of games that are not as valuable to scavenge parts off of. If you know what you are doing, I would suggest a rebuild (shotgun repair approach) kit and a new flyback. That is 99.9 of what goes wrong on those....power diodes are number one, and they do have a modern fix for that exact section. Basics first, do you have a spot killer light on the monitor chassis? If so, you have deflection. Do you hear High Voltage? Do you know how to solder? Reflow ALL the joints on the boards. Bottom line, your level of involvement will determine cost but I would be very surprized if you could not get it going for under $100. C

You can use contact cleaner to get the "jumpy" ones going. If its working, you are in better shape than most. Be prepared to do invesitagions on your own for that machine...there were so many pong clones (non Atari ones) that manuals for each model are few and far between. Basically, they need power in, video out and a working monitor....I know that is not super helpful but its the truth. Neat find, get some pics when you get it open! Cassidy

Considering Kaboom! is a "hack" of Avalanche, it is a MUCH better version of the game. As for direct 1 to 1 conversions, the Warlords upright (black and white 2 player) is not half as good a game as the VCS version. The 4 player color cocktail is a different story but the upright technically is an inferior game to the 2600 version with color and 4 players. I personally do not like the multiball in the arcade as much as the single ball in the VCS version. I think the game becomes more about skill with 1 ball and more about survival with multiball going on. I prefer the skill version. If you count the early "hacks" of arcades, Street Racer was basically a hack of 1972 (or 1973) Midway Asteroid. I think the multiple game versions make it superior. Technically, the 2600 IS the hardware in the Atari Tournament Table so there is a Video Olympics in arcade version for you Air Sea Battle is a version of Anti-Aircraft, etc. More like that but the bottom line I think is the early 2600 games were superior to their TTL arcade counterparts. C

For a while there, you could find a "ripoff" prototype version for less than the actual cart. Best Electronics put some shady carts together back in the day and sold them off. If you just want a cart but don't care about authenticity (in other words, yes its an Atari board in an Atari case but maybe not on a ROM; intsead on 2 4K PROMS) you can get one around pretty cheap. At least you could a few years back. I know those are still trolling the community.... C

310 not that long ago would have been a great deal for a manual and mint cart (I am guessing the cart is perfect inside the box). For a beat up box, eh, not my bag but I have a few beaters that I have bought, hoping to upgrade later. Will be interesting to see how this plays out (if others are found, I have my doubts on this). C

That arcade is still there in OC. It had a Galpus and a few other classics about 4 years ago (last time I stopped there). We do tend to play more games in the bars (touch screen Photo Hunt type games) when we go to the beach but that one on bayside, about 100th street, 114 sounds right. Its in the L nook of an L shaped shopping mall, all brick, right next to a pirate ship-putt putt golf center. Can't miss it. Its still mom and pop, kinda cool. As for arcades on the boards, the one across from the inlet parking center (near the haunted house) is ok. Best I can tell/figure, the owners do own the machines and then just contract out for the brand new pieces. There is one arcade (new a few years back) on the boards that was completely contracted....I am sure of it. All the pieces were premium and the overhead alone was WAY too high for someone outside the route operations size to own all the games...just too big. I should have asked about the classics, they do have those 2 EM games left. Maybe they'll have them next time I am down. Should be back that way this winter. I don't know if they actually stay open all year. Hope they do The smell, the salt, the sand; its as close to the real thing as I can get (ok the Pinball museum in Vegas is THE best you can get, just not geographically advantageous to me). C

Isn't there a huge classics area at the "Sandy Point" Ohio theme park? Sandusky Point? I can't remember the name. Whatever the big theme park is in the northern part of the state, thats the one. Thought there was a good sized collection there as well. C

Wow, that is quite a find (and such a goal for yourself too)! Imressive. I traded some NES stuff for a Miner II cart, got a Roc N Rope boxed in another trade and I think I added a few lesser rarities thanks to the kindness of others....very calm year for me in gaming. $$ has been tied up in other hobbies and my thrifting between TX, WI and VA has not shown much fruit this year. Eh, I've been at it for a while. I used to always get a Christmas Eve-eve find locally, those have been a few years ago. Maybe this year, right? Hope springs eternal. C

Fair enough. I had not seen one personally without it. C

Interesting, I think it is factory sealed, just in poor condition. Look at the edges and flaps as well for wear. I do question it though. Missing a detail on the back that every Quadrun box I have ever seen has. If you have one you know what I am talking about.... Will be interested to see how this plays out. That looks like water damage to me on the shrinkwrap, could be dealing with mold. C

I'd start by tracing down which chips are my graphic roms. Clean and reseat all of them. Check for cold solder joints or broken socket legs with a voltmeter and use some good contact cleaner so you can ensure good contact. Make sure they appear to exert pressure on the legs when installed. From there, you could figure out which chip is Mario's graphics. I would imagine the rom is not masked, ie you could burn (or get a burned) a new one for it and go from there. Not spent too much time on the Nintendo stuff (other than those #@$%#$ monitors...first time I ever got cooked by high voltage was a Punch Out, ironic) so I could not tell you how their check feature works. Have you searched over on RGVAC for clues? There are some seriously smart folks on that board. Of course the folks round here are smarter C

Back in the day, I beat the Zelda games and TMNT on NES to the Cure. I think I was listening to Disentegration the first time I beat Megaman 3. Nowadays I have a laserdisc player hooked up to the gameroom stereo and I have a number of classic concerts/video albums I listed to. Bob Marley has been my recent obsession to game to (for classics). I found myself listening to the Wii's audio though when I do play that. I'll always turn the volume of Kaboom! up when I play. No music necessary on that one! Cassidy

At this point, finding a "new" monitor is just short of impossible. There might be one in a warehouse somewhere but I would say that is about the only way one is flopping around. I have seen dead tubes, flybacks and deflection yokes on those monitors but never all 3 on one Luckily there are TONS of dead black and white games around to scavenge parts from. Even Lloyd occasionally sells a dead machine but with a good monitor. My Night Driver cockpit monitor was out of a 280ZZap that was dead, my first ND monitor was from Laguna Racer, my Breakout monitor was from a Princess Pong, My Anti-Aircraft was from somwhere, etc....you get the idea. Scavenging parts from machines that nobody would ever fix is not a crime IMHO. I would rather see the hobby perpetuated by one clean working game than by two dead ones. I will also assure you value will not be diminished as it is next to impossible to value these anyway. Anything you spend time doing correctly is bette than what an operator would do. Seriously. The goal of an operator is to keep making money. The machine is disposable. I have been on both sides of that coin and can tell you it is a very different goal, you are doing 10 times what an operator would do (I have actually cut wiring out of the harness to rewire other areas because the piece was missing/broken and I had to get it working or I would lose the game location...no wire nuts, tape etc. just bare wire). Sorry I did not note the manual find, good. Glad they are still out there. A few years back there was a spies.archives site that had TONS of manuals online. Mind you this was the early internet days of game repair so one place was really a gold mine to find (heck, even MAME sites had all the roms you would ever need right online. Great for reburning chips you needed). You'll get that game going, no doubts in my mind. As for originality, I am all about keeping it on real hardware but thats the end of my authentic. In other words, if you run a modern power supply you are most likely extending the game life for many years to come. My Computer Space is running a modern supply and the graphics are bright and clear. With the original linear supply they are muted and the boards tend to glitch more (I have one horizontal index that just does not want to stay working). Let us know when you get the board...we're rooting for you! Cassidy

Great, that monitor kit is an easy one to do. Call Zanen electronics, 888-449-2636 and get free shipping on the kit. You need the X501/701 capacitor kit. I don't have a complete one here or I'd give it to you for free (I always seem to scavenge parts from my cap kits). I would hazard you against using the shoddy onboard power supply from that monitor to power your mainboard. Most games of that vintage took 16-25 V AC from the primary windings on the isolation transformer and then regulated it down to 5V DC -5V DC and 12V DC on the main PCB. I am sure you will have 7805, 7905 and 7812 voltage regulators on the PCB when it arrives. Assuming it DID use the power supply on the monitor, you could easily bypass that and go right onto the traces of the board or tap the harness based on the pinout of some known chips. For example, all 74XX (7400, 7401, 74ls01, etc) all use pin 7 for ground and pin 14 for 5V. All you have to do is figure out which traces go where, etc, for each power supply and wire in a modern type unit. The bronze age classics did not use a separate power supply (ironically, Computer Space did). HTH, hunt down a monitor manual or let me know and I can dig around here this week if you cant find one on line. C

This past weekend Nicole and I were in Ocean City, Maryland for a car show. While there we always hit the arcades. The one closest to the inlet parking area always had a good number of classics; Dig Dug, Centipede, Space Invaders even! They also had a number of classic pins (70's era). I always enjoyed the games and they stayed pretty packed back there everytime I would go in. This year however found a number of slot machines in its place. I have no idea what slots are doing in an arcade but I feel sure they must make more money than the classics. Sadly, they are all gone, as are all but one classic pin. The 50's or early 60's Gottlieb (with the manual ball launch ramp) was out of order and the big Cowboy gun game needed a tune up in the worst way. Now I also know an arcade up the boards around 16th street had a Hercules pinball. This time I was destined to find it. I last played that machine in college, circa 93 and I had heard it was still there. Finally we ran into the owner of the building and she said they sold it two years ago to a collector in PA that needed it to piece two others together. Funny, I missed it each time I had been since 01 and never could find the correct arcade. Last year I remembered it was WAY up the boards and we found it, just a season or two too late. I am well aware the game age for classics is past. I am also painfully aware that the classic resurgence in interest has been satiated by these %^&$%@#$ multicade boards (and mame machines) thereby keeping the profits down on the real deals. Its to each their own, but there is nothing like the real thing, whether its a classic muscle car or a classic game, to me. The one classic I did manage to find was in the Holiday Inn on 67th st. They had a Tapper! Amazing. The cab was great but the graphics board was screwy. Good thing the bars were burned into the screen, thats how I knew where to throw the beers! Another classic arcade mecca gone. I can really only think of a few that remain unaltered. The few classics in Rehoboth Beach, DE are gone now too. They have a Fishtales pin, thats about as classic as it gets.... Cassidy

Amazing you just "happened" on the machine and the board at the same time. Thats great. The only chips that you can't find readily will be any custom IC's (from Meadows I doubt it, Maybe from Midway but not Meadows. They were too small a company) or graphic ROM chips (this IS a possibility as most of the "detailed" graphics were stored on these chips, be sure you have correct voltage before you fire things up for this reason alone). Those you'll have to salvage. Basically those boards are all made from off the shelf IC's all still available (even if in small quantities). Make sure you're voltages are straight before you do much of anything. I would even suggest swapping EVERY electrolytic capacitor in the system.....board, isolation area, monitor, etc. Up to you if you just want to go standard kit on the monitor. Zanen electronics in Texas has the cap kit for that monitor. They are fairly reliable and the schematics for them are online. LMK if you can't find that one. As for the machine, go with what you would like to have...color correct or not. Heck, its yours. Gameplay appears to be like an Atari Air-Sea shooter. Can't recall the Atari name...I know somebody here will find it in a second of looking. C

I would imagine its a TTL board without a processor. Probably has a graphics ROM but otherwise the chips should be standard 74XX with a series of onboard power supply circuits (5, 12 for audio and maybe -5 for random chips). Did you find this machine or are they just online pics? Neat cabinet, easy enough to refinish and make beautiful. The plexi looks great and I am sure you could have it working with some effort. Even if the harness is missing it would not be impossible to rewire from scratch....you have what looks like a coin mech, a start button and a fire button....about as simple as it gets! C

Apparently now they have a buy it now home auction time before the actual live auction. Working clean pieces only... Worth it if you are interested. Good stuff but will go medium to high, compared to Tennessee or NC auctions. More home buyers and hobbyists than vendors. Remember, its the midgrade stuff the vendors don't need. Bottom feeder machines are cheap. Period. Decent stuff that you can still run on route (Cruzin USA, Tekken 3, etc) is the midgrade these days. Decent used to mean the front door locked and it had a steering wheel. How times have changed... www.auctiongamesales.com if you are interested. C

I'd install a new power switch...the originals are notoriously bad. Worth the time to do...I have resurrected a few with just that swap. Resistance=Heat= more resistance, etc as it gets hot. Better when it cools off... If you are handy with a soldering iron this is not a bad job. C

In 2002 I bought out an operator that purchased an Aladdin's Castle warehouse. My Centipede is from one in Winchester VA The Battlezone, Asteroids Deluxe, Star Castle, Tron, Naughty Boy, Venture (can't recall all the others) all had been stored since they broke in 1983-4. Basically these machines were in a time capsule. After fixing the various ailments I had a sweet deal on my hands.... I remember the Aladdin's Castle in Irving Mall, Texas. They had all the games back in the summer of 83 I could ever want. I think that is where I played Tempest for the first time. Haven't seen one in years around here. If I recall, the Missile Command cockpit games were exclusively built for AC's around the country. 25 inch monitor, I think. Cassidy