Dragon's Lair Fans - Arcade Lifestyle
General Chat => Arcade Lifestyle => Topic started by: level42 on May 01, 2010, 10:36:10 AM
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So, the plan was to move the SI to Robin's place today. Plus move the Getaway pinball to temp. storage and get the Berzerk and maybe the Video Pinball from the storage into my gameroom.
BUT, I had arranged a small van for this (the same I used for my Nintendo pick-up) but it's from a guy who does courier work, so I never know until the last moment if I can use it, and regretfully it was cancelled yesterday evening. It's not that much a bad thing, the weather sucks to move cabs around (lots of rain).
SO, I've got all day to work on machines ! (Yesterday I already did some small work, re-installed some of the metal parts on the SW cockpit and the Joust and MAN DOES IT LOOK AWESOME !!!! Pics later of course !)
The plan: getting out the Ms.Pac monitor and see if I can replace the tube ! Always wanted to try this ! :D Wish me luck.
If it won't work I'll put the brand new NIB NOS Kortek monitor in it.... ;D
If anyone in the area is bored too, come over and have a beer and a chat and see the fireworks ! ;D ;D ;D
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Have fun today. I will do a bit of gardening today, it's very nice weather over here to work outside, not too hot, not too cold. Just right.
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If i hear a BIG BANG today i call the Firefighter's ;D
Make picture's of the tube switch 8)
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i'm having an arcade day today as well, because the weather is pretty bad and we had to cancel our trip to an amusement park. well, this gives me time to work on some projects: continued painting my pac-man, re-assembled various control panels, filled holes on gauntlet, applied stencils on joust 2, applied sideart von pac-mania and did some preliminary steering wheel tests on death race :twisted:
all in all, it's been a great arcade day so far ...
@andré: if you're bored from your ms (pac-man), why not put those replacement berzerk cables in a box with a german address on top of it? ;)
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Sorry dude, im packing for my holiday...
now that is a valid excuse for not being there ;)
Im off for three weeks tomorow.. (dont know if i have internet access)
see ya !
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enjoy, etienne! may i ask where you're off to?
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Sorry dude, im packing for my holiday...
now that is a valid excuse for not being there ;)
Im off for three weeks tomorow.. (dont know if i have internet access)
see ya !
Have a nice vacation!
i´m off to the shed for some cleaning/gaming/beer drinking.......... naah, beer drinking and gaming it is 8)
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enjoy, etienne! may i ask where you're off to?
to the homeland of my wife...
Costa Rica, here i come 8) 8) 8)
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note to myself:
(http://www.ineedmotivation.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/dont-be-jealous-black-t-shirt.jpg)
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Sorry dude, im packing for my holiday...
now that is a valid excuse for not being there ;)
Im off for three weeks tomorow.. (dont know if i have internet access)
see ya !
Have a very nice trip :-* ... and do not forget to take pictures ::) :P
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Have a very nice trip :-* ... and do not forget to take pictures ::) :P
+1
and enjoy your holiday :spaceace: 8)
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Thanx everyone, i will make pictures, but i dont know if they are arcade related :)
Sorry for derailing this topic.... 8)
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Fuck, it was a great day. Info and pics later.
[Edit] Never post when you're drunk ! [/Edit]
I've done a miracle to Ms.Pac Man......see pics tomorrow !
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Of course, the day didn't go as planned, but still it was a good day...
Rob (Arcadecollection) called me to ask if he could pick up his GeeBee. Well of course so we met at Erik's storage. Because I grew to love this cab very much (I think it must be very rare, a Bertolino Namco cab is ALWAYS cool IMHO) I took some pics before I handed it over to Rob.
The cab is in fabulous condition condidering it's age. The sides are almost in perfect shape still. The only bad thing is that there is stuff scratched into the bezel and also some cigarette damage. I hope Rob can get it out with the Micro-Mesh set I suggested to him.
So, how special is this one. Well more special then you may think. First, this game was designed by Toru Iwatani, and then of course all you guys know that he was the man who would (a couple of years later) design Puckman
Now, of course I cannot be sure about this, but I have a feeling that Namco designed Gee Bee after they'd been sued by Atari, after Namco had illegally built Break-Out cabinets.
(see http://www.rotheblog.com/2009/11/arcade/rare-namco-breakout-flyer-hits-arcadeflyers-com/)
The big difference is that Gee Bee actually uses a microprocessor. The PCB already looks a bit like a Pac Man PCB (forgot to take a pic though)...
This game was licensed to Gremlin in the US AND to Bertolino in Europe.
Here's the Japanese cab:
(http://www.arcadeflyers.com/flyers_video/namco/21004601.jpg)
Note the orange CP and the typical (and highly sought-after) Japanese P1 and P2 buttons.
The Bertolino looks actually very much like an Atari Breakout when you compare them. Since Bertolino also built Atari cabs in license maybe they "borrowed" the P1 and P2 start buttons from them....
(http://gallery.me.com/andre.huijts/100675/DSCF5091/web.jpg?ver=12727868240001)
The Bertolino logo is on the Marquee and on the CP. P1,P2 buttons ans serve button are clearly Atari style. The turning knob is much bigger than the original. Of course the "usual" shiny Euro coin door, but I haven't seen a single-mech one like this before..
The blue in the marquee looks a bit darker. I love it they still have the Japanese characters in there (at least, I think so !):
(http://gallery.me.com/andre.huijts/100675/DSCF5093/web.jpg?ver=12727868270001)
(http://gallery.me.com/andre.huijts/100675/DSCF5092/web.jpg?ver=12727868260001)
(http://gallery.me.com/andre.huijts/100675/DSCF5095/web.jpg?ver=12727868340001)
The blue in the side-art also looks much darker.
(http://gallery.me.com/andre.huijts/100675/DSCF5096/web.jpg?ver=12727868360001)
(http://gallery.me.com/andre.huijts/100675/DSCF5097/web.jpg?ver=12727868380001)
(http://gallery.me.com/andre.huijts/100675/DSCF5098/web.jpg?ver=12727868400001)
The best part was when I got a call from Rob when he'd arrived home. He told me he put the plug in the wall-outlet, turned on the machine and.......it worked !!!!
Pretty unbelievable, some guys have all the luck ;)
He said the picture was still great. Hope he will make some pics of it working soon.
I played the game in Mame and it's definitely a fun alternative to Breakout, but of course it needs a real pot control to enjoy.
Rob, take good care of it !
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Rob was also kind enough to lend me a Ms.Pac Plus board (because I mentioned my current board was waiting for eproms to be reprogrammed). This enabled me to test the cab for the monitor work ahead.
The weather had cleared nicely so, let's get to work !
Well I first had to figure out how to remove the monitor. Pretty weird set-up IMHO. Compared to the (earlier) Galaxian set-up I think this cab's monitor mounting is a lot more clumsy to remove, but OK I figured it out.
I do have to say that the way the lower (black) monitor bezel is mounted is really much better than on the Galaxian style cab.
Anyway, when I removed the dark plexi I was in for a shock: I knew that there was some clear burn-in, but I didn't expect it to be THIS bad:
(http://gallery.me.com/andre.huijts/100675/DSCF5099/web.jpg?ver=12727868430001)
Not a single doubt in my mind that this cannot stay like this. My first goal was the try and exchange the tube. I measured the yoke resistance but regretfully the spare tubes I have around (from TV sets) are of a completely different resistance. Replacing ONLY the tube (and transplanting the yoke) is a possibility, but SO much harder.
And then, there was still this around in my gameroom:
(http://gallery.me.com/andre.huijts/100675/DSCF4310/web.jpg?ver=12589236870001)
Thanks to Rob I got this brand new in box/ NOS Kortek monitor for an excellent price. I have been very stupid not responding earlier because he initially had more of them for sale and we all know how rare and unavailable these are in Europe.
So I unpacked it to see if I could use it in the Ms.Pac cab:
(http://gallery.me.com/andre.huijts/100675/DSCF5102/web.jpg?ver=12727868470001)
Mmmmm, some minor differences ;D ;D ;D
(http://gallery.me.com/andre.huijts/100675/DSCF5103/web.jpg?ver=12727868490001)
MAN it is sweet to see a monitor, completely fresh, not a trace of dust, everything shiny and crisp.....
(http://gallery.me.com/andre.huijts/100675/DSCF5104/web.jpg?ver=12727868520001)
Of course I had to move the metal parts (the two bars and the metal plates that hold the inner bezel) over to the new monitor.
The metal plates that hold the bezel were very easy: They fit perfectly ! I was very happy with that because the original monitor is specced as a 19" and the Kortek as a 20", but of course the tubes are identical in size.
The support bars were a little less easy. Although the Kortek has some pretty wide holes, the bar's mounting holes (where to bolts go) were still a bit further apart. So with the help of my Dremel, I widened them just enough to fit the bars.
The rachet-set that Spyridon had so kindly sent to me from the US was REALLY handy now !!! All the US sized bolts on the Ms.Pac cab were a breeze to handle now !
I even used the metric parts for loosening the Kortek's bolts to install the bezel holder metal parts.
Anyway, here's the Kortek ready to be put in the cab:
(http://gallery.me.com/andre.huijts/100675/DSCF5105/web.jpg?ver=12727868540001)
(http://gallery.me.com/andre.huijts/100675/DSCF5106/web.jpg?ver=12727868570001)
And in she goes !
(http://gallery.me.com/andre.huijts/100675/DSCF5109/web.jpg?ver=12727868590001)
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So I temporarily connected everything. Interestingly the Kortek came with an American sized mains plug. I guess this one doesn't need an isolation transformer, but of course I'll let it be as it is. I snapped off the American plug and temporally wired it up to the connector in the cab.
The plug on the monitor PCB was a bit hard to find, it was completely at the front. Luckely it was labelled 120VAC, so I didn't have to hack anything to let it run on 230VAC.
Turned it on, hear the nice crackle sound and it worked right away ! (I had blindly hooked up one of the sync wires)
The brightness was way too high though, but this monitor has a set up pots on a separate board which is great IMHO because you can put that in your coin-door. After some adjusting I had a very nice picture. I made some pics, but because of the sunny weather they really don't show the picture very well. I hope to install everything permanently today and I will make some pics and video to show the result.
But man, would I love to have some more of those fresh brand new monitors..... :-\
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@andré: if you're bored from your ms (pac-man), why not put those replacement berzerk cables in a box with a german address on top of it? ;)
Well since we were at the storage I checked for those cables because I thought they were in my Berzerk.....but they weren't :evil:
Don't know where I put them, they're also not in my box full of Berzerk boards :evil: :evil:
Will search some more my friend...sorry....
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Sorry guys, no time yet for "finished" pics....
Did find the schematics of this monitor though:
http://www.casinotech.com/files/KT2001M_Schematic.pdf
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Well since we were at the storage I checked for those cables because I thought they were in my Berzerk.....but they weren't :evil:
Don't know where I put them, they're also not in my box full of Berzerk boards :evil: :evil:
Will search some more my friend...sorry....
Ooops, didn't know those cables were supposed to be in storage, otherwise i wouldn't have asked you that many times if you could send them over! now go find them elsewhere ;) dogs are good at finding stuff, perhaps you could "borrow" one from your neighbours ... "goodie, goodie, where are those berzerk cables?" :P
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OK, I finished up the monitor install tonight. Connected the wiring to the new signal plug (Hantarex model) and mains plug (used a connection block for this).
Turned the machine around, power up and.........
I'm in love !!!!!!
(http://gallery.me.com/andre.huijts/100723/DSCF5111/web.jpg?ver=12730945550001)
My stupid camera gives so much "halo" around high contrast stuff when not flashing, so this looks not so good, but believe me it is CRISPY, MINTY, FRESH, BRAND-NEW-LOOKING !!!!
(http://gallery.me.com/andre.huijts/100723/DSCF5114/web.jpg?ver=12730945500001)
God, I love those pixels !!!
(http://gallery.me.com/andre.huijts/100723/DSCF5113/web.jpg?ver=12730945480001)
Very nice convergence in the corners...
(http://gallery.me.com/andre.huijts/100723/DSCF5112/web.jpg?ver=12730945560001)
Maybe this flash picture (!!!!! note the brightness of the screen DESPITE the flash !!!!!) shows of the picture quality the best:
(http://gallery.me.com/andre.huijts/100723/DSCF5120/web.jpg?ver=12730945520001)
MAN I LOVE IT !!!! You guys just should see it for real to believe it. The picture is PER-FECT !
I was expecting some convergence or out of focus issues, but these Korteks seem to be very nice quality !
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Remember that I'm running a Ms.Pac Plus board in there now, so mazes and colors differ to the original here and there.
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that is great looking!!!! im glad you got one!!!!
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I'm full of regret because I remember Rob offered 3 of them initially and I was too stupid to act quickly enough to get all of them !
(http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/Smileys/donkey_kong/banghead.gif)(http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/Smileys/donkey_kong/banghead.gif)(http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/Smileys/donkey_kong/banghead.gif)(http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/Smileys/donkey_kong/banghead.gif)(http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/Smileys/donkey_kong/banghead.gif)(http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/Smileys/donkey_kong/banghead.gif)(http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/Smileys/donkey_kong/banghead.gif)
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(http://koti.welho.com/ahesso/Animation/Doublefacepalm.jpg)
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that pictures RULES, michael!!! ;D
and of course the picture of andre's new monitor rules as well. could use a new monitor on my gauntlet: shaky and FULL of screenburn!
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hehe, i like it, and obviously it goes good with hi´s story ;)
I also like this:
(http://holycrapthatsfunny.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ms_pacman.png)
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Very nice picture ....... André. Congrats with the result, it indeed looks amazing. 8)
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(http://gallery.me.com/andre.huijts/100723/DSCF5114/web.jpg?ver=12730945500001)
Nice picture but... Miss PACKMAN ?!? Should't it be PAC-MAN ?
Matteo
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No idea. It's a "hacked" version Miss PacMan Plus. Thus the different mazes. The mazes are the same in Miss Pac Attack but the speed is normal on this one.
This is Arcadecollection's board running in my cab for the moment. The EPROMS have been erased but not reprogrammed yet.
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Well today we did some moving of cabs !
I couldn't get the van so we went with plan B.
Here is the subject:
(http://gallery.me.com/andre.huijts/100675/DSCF5121/web.jpg?ver=12733538060001)
Nice and tight wrapped up. Before we did this we did an inspection of the inside. Everything is there. Moon, mirror, space scenery, original monitor WITH chassis ( ;) ) power supply and of course the original board-set, which in fact looked very good.
I am glad that I could make Robin happy with it, and I'm glad I picked it up (saved it from) the operator in Limburg. The op told me that if no-one would have picked it up, it would have been scrapped....
I didn't earn a cent on the machine, but didn't loose any money either. Plus, there's a good chance that within not very much time, I'll be able to actually play it in Robin's place !
So, let's load her up in our "Plan B" (Robin's car, and a trailer that I had lent from a friend).
(http://gallery.me.com/andre.huijts/100675/DSCF5122/web.jpg?ver=12733537930001)
We decided that the weight would keep it in place during the LOOOOOONG trip we had to do. So here are our road-trip pics:
Start:
(http://gallery.me.com/andre.huijts/100675/DSCF5123/web.jpg?ver=12733538020001)
End:
(http://gallery.me.com/andre.huijts/100675/DSCF5125/web.jpg?ver=12733538030001)
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
This MUST be the shortest TRUE road-trip ever ! (Picking up stuff from a warehouse or stuff delivered to your door is NOT counting, this is a TRUE road-trip ! ;)
We put the SI in Robins' storage and I am 100% sure he is now working on it :)
While we had the trailer, we moved the Missile Command to Erik's storage and picked up the Berzerk to bring it to it's final destination !
Safely arrived:
(http://gallery.me.com/andre.huijts/100675/DSCF5126/web.jpg?ver=12733538050001)
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What did you eat during the road trip? Seen any nice girls on the pavewalks? Got drunk? Or was it very, very boring? :D