Archive for June, 2007
Pengo sound controls inside coin door.
After talking to Rick the other night, I decided to just send him my Pengo PCB to have his tech friend take a look at it. I think Rick is really smart and knowledgeable and really trust him and anyone in his network. So, hopefully he can easily figure out what it is, if it is a RAM or processor issue or what. Hopefully it is an easy fix and I can get it working really soon with that high score save kit.
But since the Pengo PCB is now in the mail, I thought it might be time to look also into getting the volume pot replaced. Thinking I might need to place an order this week with Bob Roberts, might as well combine it all. Here are some photos of the front and a crappy one of the back of the pot I think I need to replace.
(Around page 37 of the Pengo operator’s manual it says I need a 10K pot Car Pnlmt, part no. 475-0007. I don’t know what “Car Pnlmt” means, but I think all Bob needs is the 10k portion. I don’t actually know what part in this assembly is the pot, I will have to take it out and take a closer look I guess. It looks like from the manual that the gold piece on the right is a little AMP, so the pot must be back in that wiring somewhere.)
I think I have mentioned it here, but from talking with Tim in MI, who also has this same problem, and Bob it sounds like all of the static we are getting from moving the coin door is from a bad Pot on the sound. I also turn the knob when I played the game and it wouldn’t adjust anything, just leaving the sound at the deafening high level it was at.
Visually Damaged Components
Figured out which pads I need, just basically those green scrubby pads that you can buy any off brand for. Supposedly they are great for these edge connectors, I tried it briefly last night and my jury is still out. Seems like it would be damaging, but everyone says “it seems it would be bad, but it isn’t”. What do I know?
I figured out how to get the little door open at the base of the front of the machine last night. I took out the first board I saw and lo and behold, there were some things going on. Looks like one small capacitor is blown, one resistor has a broken leg, and it almost looks like one resistor was purposefully clipped off, but should be there.
I looked at the schematic, not nearly as nice as Dig Dug from Atari, with a parts list. I don’t know yet how to identify what exact parts I need from the schematic. I am debating on just taking the board into the electronics store and having them loook and tell me based on similar looking parts on the board. But that seems like a best guess scenario.
Rick saw the Agent X kickplate finalized
Rick and I finally caught up last night, and he got to see the kickplate art for the first time. He was really impressed, which is great. I talked to him about the circles at the top and how they were right at the dimension edge for the top. He said he didn’t feel like it was that big of a detail to sweat about. He originally said to leave them and depending on sizing they may not be cut at all. He asked what I would do, and to me, even if you lined up this art side by side with the original you might notice the circle placement off a little, I would just move them down a hair so you knew they would fit within the dimensions.
He trusted my judgement and told me to go ahead. That is what I like, when someone trusts my opinion, because I do a good job and I try to make the best decision for the person who wants it. But he also made a good point that every cab could vary in size, placement, etc. etc., so not every cab is alike anyway even in color because of fading and whatnot.
So, next step, he is sending over a sample of the Cloak and Dagger art so I can color match and we’ll go from there.
Wizard of Wor Resetting
Wanted to try the game again tonight to see if I had any problems with it resetting. Well, after turning it on, that is all it did, every second it reset and the game just kept flashing, so there is something wrong with it. Some information is turning up on the Google Groups, it may not be too complicated to get working again.
I also spoke with Rick tonight, and he was fairly familiar with the hardware in these Wizard of Wor machines. Made by Midway / Bally, the hardware is very similar (which I already read) to Gorf, and apparently Professor Pac-man. He said it sounded like a Z-80 processor possibly going bad since there is already a switching power supply installed. He said it can never hurt to clean the edge connectors, all sorts of weird problems can happen there. As I had read before, and he suggested again, to use Scotch Brite pads. I have to figure out which ones. I have heard about using the magic eraser ones, but apparently that isn’t what you use for edge connectors.
Picking up the Wizard of Wor
I went today, on what ended up being a hot day, to get the game. I took a look at it briefly when I got there. The previous owner showed me that the game had problems with resetting. He started to play his game, was a minute into it, and the game reset. When I took a look at the back of the game, I noticed that the back door was loose. The top wood had splintered, so it didn’t really sit in place. So my thought is, maybe the movement of the game play moves that door just enough to hit the switch in back and reset the game occasionally.
I played the game when I got home, and it didn’t reset on me at all. I had taken the back door off and pulled out the switch, so I thought my theory seemed to be valid. There are still lines through the screen, and I am having problems locating the monitor model. It is some sort of Wells Gardener with an RCA tube. I have a number, but it doesn’t look right. It will need a cap kit, and that is an easy fix if that is all I need to do. The chassis is just caked with dust, so although whoever restored this game with a brand new control panel didn’t do much to the monitor. He did put in a switching power supply to switch out the linear one in the game.
Snow Bros.
There was an auction on ebay for this game, and we had picked up on it because the game was being sold from Flint. Curious enough to just see what the game was all about, I gave it a whirl and really liked it. Before I get into really detailed information about the game, you could just read what Klov has on the history of it here.
In the Snow Brothers game, you are this snowman type character with beady eyes and this cute peppy music. There are little platforms above your head where there are different monsters, lizards, and feline type creatures that you have to defeat.
You are able to jump up and manuver and your special weapon is a snowball. You can hold down the Fire button and charge and make a huge snowball that you can throw and knock the guys off the board. The main idea is to get on one side of the screen where you can throw the ball and knock multiple if not all of the 5-6 out, which gives you a ton more points.
Pretty simple in concept, infectious music, and a weird enough game (once you compete a level it shoots you up the screen, wiggling to the next screen with new guys.) that I really enjoyed it. I must have played for 2-3 hours once I sat down, trying to figure out how far I could go. There are a number of levels to complete.
On a similar note, there is a Snow Bros. 2, which has a similar idea of throwing snow balls, but you have to go through actual levels. This game is also entitled “With New Elves”, so you have other characters to pick from that you can use to go through the levels, each with their own distinct powers. This one was quite heavy in the Japanese Anime influences, which I didn’t like too much, but the levels were fun, and you could beat this game. You would be able to go through the levels and the game would actually end.
Zoo Keeper
A collector in Chicago that I have emailed back and forth was surprised when I had never played this game, so I thought I would give it a shot. I thought the cabinet looked nice, the sideart kind of interesting with the running lion, very detailed. Being a Taito game it is in my favorite cabinet design, the one with the nice curve on the side that flattens at the top, and bows at the bottom typically with large, bold, thick line designed sideart.
I liked this game like most of the classics, for its simplicity. I played the game for a little bit, you are a zoo keeper, of course. In front of you is a square with a bunch of animal characters contained inside. The characters bounce around and move about and you have to run the perimeter of the square around and around. Behind each step you lay a brick, solidifying the cage and the animals inside.
If the characters get out, they crawl around the outside while you are running, and you have to jump them so they don’t kill you while you continue to wall in the animals. If you hit one of the animals, you die.
I only played for a little while, so there may have been more to this game that I didn’t see. It seemed overly simple, but again, that is the beauty of it. You don’t have a learning curve, you hop in and you go, you understand instantly.
