A sad sight, neglected, messed up arcade games

[S1500]

A few weeks ago, I went to the roller rink(yes, a few are left in this country). They have a 2-player T-Mek there. Noticed on one of the screens, the image was almost 100% scrambled, full of garbage. Thought that was some sort of video effect(ie on purpose), but it was on 99%of the attract mode, except for the static text overlaid on it.

 

Kind of a sad sight to see. T-Mek is actually a good arcade game, and it's just sitting there in a messed-up state.

 

You ever see arcade games(whether now or "back in the day") that never got the proper medical care, lying in their digital feces? I mean, c'mon, fix it please.

 

It's sometimes worse for pinball machines, where one stuck 'ball means the game can sit there for weeks until a trained tech can get to it.

[supercat]

Kind of a sad sight to see. T-Mek is actually a good arcade game, and it's just sitting there in a messed-up state.

 

Unless it's a retro arcade, I would be very surprised if the owners have any intention of fixing it. Ask if they want to be rid of it. If the owners ask for a price like $20, don't try very hard to haggle them down. If the owners later happen later on to find a service manual or something else that may help you, they'll be more likely to tell you about those things if they like you.

[S1500]

Kind of a sad sight to see. T-Mek is actually a good arcade game, and it's just sitting there in a messed-up state.

 

Unless it's a retro arcade, I would be very surprised if the owners have any intention of fixing it. Ask if they want to be rid of it. If the owners ask for a price like $20, don't try very hard to haggle them down. If the owners later happen later on to find a service manual or something else that may help you, they'll be more likely to tell you about those things if they like you.

 

Sadly, it would cost me more to get the T-MEK hauled away(and somehow downstairs into my rec room) than it would be $20 to buy it(if offered). That game is freakin' huge. Fun to play though. They also had a Run & Gun(basketball game) that had horrifically messed up colors on one monitor.

[supercat]

Sadly, it would cost me more to get the T-MEK hauled away(and somehow downstairs into my rec room) than it would be $20 to buy it(if offered). That game is freakin' huge. Fun to play though. They also had a Run & Gun(basketball game) that had horrifically messed up colors on one monitor.

 

You don't know any big guys with a truck?

 

The effort of moving the machine is part of the reason I was suggesting not to get hung up over $20. I'm not familiar with the machine, so I have no idea what "huge" is.

 

In any case, the most I would expect such a rink to do would be to power off the game for awhile and see if it returns to normal. Even if it only took a technician 30 minutes to fix the game, and the think worked perfectly after that with no further maintenance, I doubt the rink would ever recoup the cost.

[Brian D. Deuel]

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

Edited July 4, 2008 by Brian D. Deuel

[RedBeard]

1) I think mostly I have only run across machines where there was either burn-in or just *bad color* on the monitor. I've also played a few well maintained pinballs, and that is a real pleasure.

 

B) Laundromats seem like especially dust (read 'lint'y) places. I guess I'm not surprised that a machine would be messed up at one of them.

 

><>RedBeard

 

 

/* No offense to anyone else, but S1500, I LOVE the picture (avatar?). Long live Bill Cosby...er I mean TI! */

[Crazy Climber]

A few weeks ago, I went to the roller rink(yes, a few are left in this country). They have a 2-player T-Mek there. Noticed on one of the screens, the image was almost 100% scrambled, full of garbage. Thought that was some sort of video effect(ie on purpose), but it was on 99%of the attract mode, except for the static text overlaid on it.

 

Kind of a sad sight to see. T-Mek is actually a good arcade game, and it's just sitting there in a messed-up state.

 

You ever see arcade games(whether now or "back in the day") that never got the proper medical care, lying in their digital feces? I mean, c'mon, fix it please.

 

It's sometimes worse for pinball machines, where one stuck 'ball means the game can sit there for weeks until a trained tech can get to it.

Which roller rink? I would go take a look at that one. I have been meaning to go check out some of the roller derby leagues they have around here, I guess there is quite a scene unless the City pages and Public Access TV have lied to me

[S1500]

Which roller rink? I would go take a look at that one. I have been meaning to go check out some of the roller derby leagues they have around here, I guess there is quite a scene unless the City pages and Public Access TV have lied to me

 

 

Roller Garden. I almost never go there(a bit far away). They closed down my childhood favorite one, the "other" Saints North in Maplewood. Roller Garden's the only one I know that has adult skating. Sadly, it's skwewed to more hiphop & r&B.

 

As for roller derby leagues, I strictly only go with Minnesota Rollergirls. Never missed a bout. I used to support & go to the Northstar Rollergirls bouts, but not anymore.

[Crazy Climber]

Which roller rink? I would go take a look at that one. I have been meaning to go check out some of the roller derby leagues they have around here, I guess there is quite a scene unless the City pages and Public Access TV have lied to me

 

 

Roller Garden. I almost never go there(a bit far away). They closed down my childhood favorite one, the "other" Saints North in Maplewood. Roller Garden's the only one I know that has adult skating. Sadly, it's skwewed to more hiphop & r&B.

 

As for roller derby leagues, I strictly only go with Minnesota Rollergirls. Never missed a bout. I used to support & go to the Northstar Rollergirls bouts, but not anymore.

Ahhh, Roller Garden's. It's been 20+ years since I have been there. The first time I laid eyes on a Centipede machine was Roller Garden's. IIRC back in the early 80's the arcade lineup they had was...

Ghost's n Goblins

Centipede

Pole Position

Gauntlet

Crystal Castles

There was more I'm sure but those ones stand out in my mind, my brain starts to hurt when I go that far back for too long

Also few Pinball's, I believe one was an Atari Widebody style.

About the Roller Derby, is there any good websites to see when upcoming events are? I'd like to actually go to one instead of just saying I'm going to go:)

[S1500]

Ahhh, Roller Garden's. It's been 20+ years since I have been there. The first time I laid eyes on a Centipede machine was Roller Garden's. IIRC back in the early 80's the arcade lineup they had was...

Ghost's n Goblins

Centipede

Pole Position

Gauntlet

Crystal Castles

There was more I'm sure but those ones stand out in my mind, my brain starts to hurt when I go that far back for too long

Also few Pinball's, I believe one was an Atari Widebody style.

About the Roller Derby, is there any good websites to see when upcoming events are? I'd like to actually go to one instead of just saying I'm going to go:)

 

I remember some of the games at Saints North:

The Pit

Kangaroo

Donkey Kong 3. Okay, I guess that's it. They had a LONG row of arcade cabs everyone loved.

 

For roller derby info, go to Minnesota Rollergirls website for all schedule stuff.

[yuppicide]

There used to be a bowling alley near me. Two of them actually. The one of them was bigger and nicer. I don't recall what games they had, but I do remember one of those old Atari driving games. Like this:

 

http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9739

 

The one on this side of the highway had more games if I remember. They had a nursery that was operating in the 70's (not sure about the 80's) where you could drop your kid off while you bowled (thanks Mom).

 

During the 80's we used to hang out there a lot because the other place only had a few games and was farther away on the other side of a 4 lane highway. I called it "The Arcade of the Dead" or something.. I forget.. maybe "Ghost Arcade". Most of the games were broken and not even turned on. The operator who owned them didn't really care much. He would always fix Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom and it would usually be broke within a few days. I wonder what was wrong with it. I recall playing Mappy and one time there was a problem and somehow the game would give out free games all day. This kid told us about it and let us play. A friend of mine played it with me and the other kid wanted to play. My friend wouldn't let him play. Finally we got tired of playing and pulled out the cord. No more free games.

[DarthCalvin]

I recall walking into a big lots about 10-15 years ago and seeing a Pole Position cockpit. I was psyched, that is until I started to sit down and realized there was no steering wheel

[RedBeard]

I just had an experience with this.

 

We went to the movies for the first time in many, many months. This particular theater happens to be the 'second run' type, so maybe the game room is also 'second run', I dunno. Anyway, there were two pins (movie tie-ins, iirc... not Midway or Williams), a Dance Dance Revolution, a couple win-the-prize- crane type machines, Bubble Bobble and several Sega arcade machines. The one machine that was noticeably broken, a sad, lonely shoot-em with light guns, whose entire video was squashed into a flickering horizontal stripe about 1/4 inch tall, an ATARI.

 

><>RedBeard

 

 

/* I think it was called area 51. It was the only Atari game in the room. */

[S1500]

The negelected arcade machine has hit my new workplace. In the "breakroom", there's a snack vending machine and a Super Pac Man machine. A super pac man, not the usual Ms. Pac Man.

 

 

The dang thing is stuck in service mode. My manager said it was broken, but I know a service mode screen when I see one. You can try the different sounds in it. It's been like that for weeks. Had I any lockpicking skills, I would switch it back to regular play mode.

[DrLove0378]

I'm with S1500 on the T-MEK thing... I once came across a Mechanized Attack game for sale, 'bout a hundred dollars, and could've used some repairs... I couldn't take it, as I simply had no way to get it home -- it's huge and weighs 500 pounds.

 

I've seen quite a few neglected games in my day, though... let's see, at the local skating rink, there had been a Kaos in its original GamePlan "GPI" cabinet (not working) and a Nintendo PlayChoice-10 (single monitor) that had been there at least a decade. I had some good times playing Contra on that thing...

 

I saw some kids trying to play Gauntlet on the severely messed-up monitor -- it needed a cap kit, badly. "This is shit!" they said. That was kinda painful to hear, being a classic game junkie and all... So I asked the owner how much I could offer him for his broken-down arcade games -- he says "they're not ours." They're gone now -- I regret not asking him who owned them, so I could make them an offer. Maybe I should go back and ask him who did own the games -- surely there was some individual/company he contracted with. Who knows, it might lead to even more neglected (but still fixable) games.

 

-- Just about every After Burner I've seen in the wild, had its joystick broken off.

 

-- At a local washateria, there's a Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga, and a TeamPlay DK/DK Jr./Mario Bros., both cabarets. Both are in good repair, but it would seem that those games were neglected -- not by the shopkeepers, but by the patronage, as my high scores are still there years later. For some inexplicable reason, everyone's attracted to the 8-liners, even though they can't win any money or prizes from them.

 

-- And at a local arcade game dealer, there's an Ehrgeiz in an old Nintendo dual-monitor cabinet. Even though the cabinet and control panel have been completely violated for the conversion, and both monitors need to be rebuilt, I still want it so bad... I just don't have $600 on me right now.

 

Yes, I miss the dimly lit drug dens of the early 80s... the days where just about every mini-mart and pizza place would have a few GOOD arcade games. Should we yearn for a time when ALL the video games are safely hidden away in people's private homes? To state the obvious, playing online against someone on the other side of the world isn't the same as having people in the same room with you (or standing next to you at the cabinet,) playing the same game. (Sorry, looks like I ventured too far off topic.)

Edited September 10, 2008 by DrLove0378

[Crazy Climber]

Had I any lockpicking skills, I would switch it back to regular play mode.

I owned a super pac and I remember getting in through the back pretty easily. If you can get to the rear door, you should be able to use a screwdriver (or maybe even another key) stick just the tip in and try turning it very slowly. You should be able to feel when it will open and the back door will open right up. It is just one of those cheap style locks they use in cabinets, etc.. That is unless they upgraded the lock which is highly possible. This should give you access to the PCB. You can't get at the quarters through the back though

BTW - A Super Pac in your work breakroom!! Way cool

[S1500]

Had I any lockpicking skills, I would switch it back to regular play mode.

I owned a super pac and I remember getting in through the back pretty easily. If you can get to the rear door, you should be able to use a screwdriver (or maybe even another key) stick just the tip in and try turning it very slowly. You should be able to feel when it will open and the back door will open right up. It is just one of those cheap style locks they use in cabinets, etc.. That is unless they upgraded the lock which is highly possible. This should give you access to the PCB. You can't get at the quarters through the back though

BTW - A Super Pac in your work breakroom!! Way cool

 

Isn't the service switch toggled via somwhere inside the coin door? I also noticed there were two recessed buttons on both sides of the coin door, which do zilch when I press them.

 

I can't access the back, sadly. It's pushed into the corner of the room.

 

It's not really so much of a breakroom. It's a room for the office building(for all the businesses here) that's as big as a bathroom, housing only the PacMan & the vending machine. The building I work in looks like it was made in the 70s.

[Crazy Climber]

Had I any lockpicking skills, I would switch it back to regular play mode.

I owned a super pac and I remember getting in through the back pretty easily. If you can get to the rear door, you should be able to use a screwdriver (or maybe even another key) stick just the tip in and try turning it very slowly. You should be able to feel when it will open and the back door will open right up. It is just one of those cheap style locks they use in cabinets, etc.. That is unless they upgraded the lock which is highly possible. This should give you access to the PCB. You can't get at the quarters through the back though

BTW - A Super Pac in your work breakroom!! Way cool

 

Isn't the service switch toggled via somwhere inside the coin door? I also noticed there were two recessed buttons on both sides of the coin door, which do zilch when I press them.

 

I can't access the back, sadly. It's pushed into the corner of the room.

 

It's not really so much of a breakroom. It's a room for the office building(for all the businesses here) that's as big as a bathroom, housing only the PacMan & the vending machine. The building I work in looks like it was made in the 70s.

Yeah, the service switch is located in the front. You could unplug the PCB and plug it back in which should reset the service mode. Too bad you can't access it, would be fun to play Super Pac at work.

[nathanallan]

There's a laundromat here that has four games in there, Galaga, Ms. Pac Man, TMNT and Mortal Kombat 2 that are sitting, beaten up, controls all broken. I want the Galaga personally, and was thinking of offering to fix the other three up if they let me have that one. They're there, unplugged and doing nothing. No truck, so it would be a difficult move if they go for it.

 

Nathan