Archive for March, 2008

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Arcade Links for 2008-03-20

Posted March 20, 2008
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Arcade Links for 2008-03-19

Posted March 19, 2008
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Arcade Links for 2008-03-18

Posted March 18, 2008
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Arcade Links for 2008-03-17

Posted March 17, 2008
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Installing the 96 in 1 Multi Pac - Part 1

Posted March 17, 2008

One of the most popular and rich arcade game kits for most collectors is Dave Widel / Mike Doyle’s 96 in 1 Multi Pac-man kit. With just a few simple changes in the chips on your Ms. Pac-man PCB you can play 96 different games, including many different mazes for Pac-man, Ms. Pac-man, and Pac-man Plus as well as Pengo, Space Invaders, Eyes and more!

I found that purchasing the Multi Pac kit was an awesome experience. I emailed Mike Doyle, sent him money via paypal, and in a couple of days my kit arrived at my house, ready to roll. I had special circumstances because I wanted to have the kit at my house by Thursday night because I was having a party where I wanted to be able to show off my newly upgraded Ms. Pac-man machine. I ordered the kit on a Monday and I had it by that Thursday, on time to the T. Mike gave excellent communication throughout the short transaction.

Here is what you get;

96 in 1 Multi Kit Items

A set of printed instructions (PDF), a small pcb and a ribbon cable.

The instructions are written simply, and to the point. I am going to include snippets of them here to help explain the installation. Here are the general installation instructions;

Installation Instructions

Unpacking: Your Multi Pac is shipped with the 5E sub-board inserted into one of the 40-pin sockets to protect its legs. Carefully unplug it from the socket, and unwind the sub-ribbon cable to begin installation. You should start with a working Midway pacman PCB (or Ms Pac), however since none of the original ROMs or their sockets are used, on occasion this Multi board will revive an otherwise non-working board that has issues with row 6 ROMSs, or 5f. It’s worked a couple of times for me, but your mileage may vary.

Decide which board you have: The Multi-Pac supports a variety of boards which are covered on page 6 of the manual. For Ms Pac and Pac begin at Step 1, for others refer to page 8 titled: Multi-Pac Manual Addendum: Installation on boards besides Midway.

I will be upgrading my Ms. Pac-man board, so that is the PCB I will be using for this photorial. If you are still bootleggin’ like it’s nineteen eighty three, Shaft say you be outta luck in dis tutorial. But seriously, I am sure making the swap on most any PCB is pretty easy. Back to the instructions provided;

Step 1: Remove the four EPROM’s in row 6. If you have to remove the Syncbus card to get to 6E, make sure you plug it back in the same way (chip notches match main PCB).

Here are some photos showing the section of the PCB that the instructions are referring to. In the first two photos you can see the EPROMs at 6J, 6H, 6F, 6E. The Syncbus card is the elevated mini PCB with the dusty 20 year old zip tie:)

Row 6 EPROM's 1Row 6 EPROM's 2

Here is a photo showing those four EPROM’s removed from the Ms. pac-man board. Removing chips is really easy, and this is something you’ll want to do a lot. Even your grandma approves, she says practicing this activity won’t make you go blind. So do a little less of that “other thing” you do in the dark and more playing with your circuit board.

Removed EPROM's

There are chip pullers you can try and can purchase one at most any major arcade dealer like HAPP, or probably even from Bob Roberts. The main idea is to make sure you remove the EPROM, processor, or whatever else without bending the legs. A small screwdriver will usually do the trick and a little Patience, yeah, yeaaaahhhh. Just a little Patience. Here is the set of mini screwdrivers I use constantly.

Small Screwdriver Set

Step 2: If you’re converting a Ms Pac board, remove the Z-80 from the Ms Pac auxiliary board and place it in the Multi board in the 40-pin socket near the center, with the notch in the same direction as the other chips on the Multi board. Then plug the ribbon cable in the 40-pin socket closest to the edge of the Multi board, orient the cable per the diagram on page 2.

Here’s that diagram showing where you plug in the ribbon cable straight from the multi pac kit instructions;

Multi Pac Kit Diagram

I apparently didn’t get a photo of the Ms. Pac-man auxiliary board with the Z-80 processor still secured but here’s a photo after I removed the processor. Just like the chips, you will need a very small flat head screw driver and gently work the chip upwards, twisting the driver back and forth until the chip comes out.

Ms. Pac-man Auxiliary Board

Now put that Z-80 processor in the Multi Pac-man board in the open socket. Make sure to orient the chips correctly as the instructions warn. You can destroy your Z-80 processor if you power it up with the chip incorrectly socketed. But fortunately, you would just destroy the processor and not the board, and if the angels shine highly on you, you may not even trash the processor. I personally don’t like electronic risk, but if that does it for ya. Go right ahead. Just look at the half moon inset on the chip to make sure you line those moons up with the socket in the right direction. As a general rule of thumb, you can look at the direction of the half moons on the chips around the one you are pulling, but that is not a hard and fast rule. Take note of the direction when pulling an EPROM and just make sure you put it back where you found it.

Z80 Processor in Multi Board

Ok. We’re pretty far along here, there aren’t too many steps left before you have your Multi-Pac kit up and running. Check back for Installing the 96 in 1 Multi Pac - Part 2 where we’ll pull 5E and 5F and finish up installing the small graphics board and mounting the multi kit in your cabinet. And of course, enjoying your 96 different versions of Pac-man, you yellow pizza freak!

Go to Installing the 96 in 1 Multi Pac - Part 2

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Arcade Links for 2008-03-16

Posted March 16, 2008
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Arcade Links for 2008-03-15

Posted March 15, 2008
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Is Wagner Gameworks Closing?

Posted March 15, 2008

Wagner Gameworks Logo

Wagner Gameworks (Doc Pinball) is one of two or three local arcade shops that I know of that build and service coin operated machines. I think pinball is Mark’s focus because the pinball collecting crowd is bigger. He has about 10-12 pinballs in his shop at any given time, and he builds from scratch many different configurations of multi arcade game (multi-cade) machines applying vinyl Donkey Kong, Ms. Pac-man, Pac-man or other artwork of choice to the cabinets.

When I first made the decision that I was going to collect dedicated original arcade games instead of having one big ugly black Mame machine in March of 2006, the first call I made was to Wagner Gameworks in Greenfield IN. Ms. Pac-man was really the machine I was after but Mark Wagner let me know that he just sold the last of his Ms. Pac-man(s), but he had an old beat up regular Pac-man that he would be willing to sell to me for “a couple hundred”.

I waited. I wasn’t as interested in a Pac-man as a Ms. Pac and I wasn’t ready to pay a couple hundred for my second pick. But eventually I paid his shop in Greenfield, IN a visit out of sheer curiosity and I was glad I did. I had no idea about any of the electronics of games in general, and Mark was nice enough to explain a little bit about vertical vs. horizontal orientation, what a Jamma harnesses is, Simple Green for cleaning and a brief mention of cap kits. It was the first real arcade experience I had by that point, and because he made it such a positive experience he made a sale out of it. In May I took some freelance money and bought the Pac-man machine for $122, complete minus the PCB. He told me I was lucky to come get it when I did, he was about ready to take it out into the forest and use it for target practice.

I was shocked to see this ad pop up on Craigslist last week that made it appear as if he was closing up his arcade shop.

docpinball.com is going out of business all stock to be sold cash and carry over 15 pinballs in stock and numerous video games, jukeboxes, darts, and misc stock. 1 317 498 5323. over 25 years of sales and service coming to an end.

Since that first visit I have been out there a number of times, and we have started to build a little bit of a friendship. I also know that 25 years is probably a conservative estimate, that may be how many years his barn has been open, but Mark has been servicing games for quite some time.

When I called Mark to get the scoop, this is what he told me;

“We got hit kind of hard over Christmas and didn’t sell out of our inventory. We are re-grouping right now, but for all intensive purposes we are going out of business. The main line is shut off and we won’t be pre-building any new machines. I kind of thought the new website would drive in some new traffic, but it hasn’t.”

When I asked him if he still had the two Asteroids machines kicking out back from this summer, he said no. All he had out back was an Area 51 for sale. But he still has a number of pinballs to sell, which you can see at his website docpinball.com. Here’s the list as of March ‘08;

  • Double Diamond CT
  • The Who’s Tommy
  • Starship Troopers
  • Royal Rumble
  • Road Show
  • No Fear
  • Johnny Mnemonic
  • Terminator 2
  • RevolutionX

When I visited this summer, I had been talking to him about doing his website in exchange for some repair training, but I could never seem to reconcile with my schedule. Doesn’t matter, he ended up with a really nice site that should have brought him some more traffic if he invested in some SEO.

We all know that making money in the arcade business today is a tough proposition. But Mark is an awesome guy, friendly, and really holds true to his promise of explaining arcade related questions as simple as possible so you can be an “informed” customer. Hopefully this is just an attempt to sell out his remaining stock and get some cash back. My guess is that the pinballs would only be slightly discounted. But for a hardcore pinball collector in Indianapolis, this might be a great deal. So give Mark a call (317.498.5323) and see if there is something you might be interested in.

~Update 03.19.08 Whether Doc Pinball actually closes down or not remains to be seen, but here is a new craigslist posting out of Greenfield, IN. In this ad, Mark lists a number of other pinballs that aren’t on his Wagner Gameworks website and mentions that you will get some sort of a discount. He mentions he isn’t giving any pinballs or arcades away for dirt prices, but depending on what you buy, you can get a discount anywhere between 10-30%. The Ms. Pac-man multicade is the best deal in comparison, so jump on them now, the machines might not last.

discounts Pinball store closeing Pins arcades jukeboxes cash and carry only docpinball.com 1 317 498 5323 home service available. 14 pins in stock Family guy new instock reg 4200.00 sale 3850.00 revenge from mars pinball was 3600 now 3000.00 star wars episode 1 pinball was 3600 now 3000.00 all pins serviced and rate 8 to 9 on 10 scale. all games priced to sale but not give away good deals for all. Ms. pacman multicade used was 1700 now 1200.oo docpinball.com 1 317 498 5323

~Update 06.26.08 Had a really nice conversation with Mark today on the phone about this post. Wagner Gameworks is definitely not closing, but will be scaling back their operations for sure to match demand in the industry. Wagner will probably focus more now on Pinballs, which we kind of saw from the past Craigslist postings for a number of pinball game sales.

It’s too bad to hear that less focus will be on arcade games, but I am not surprised. Pinball values continue to climb, while the value, especially of arcade games in Indianapolis continues to drop. Hopefully Wagner Gameworks will still continue to do repair though on the old classics at the very least. I would hate to think that there would be no local alternative to sending off our PCB’s to El Dorado for a questionable PCB exchange…oop, I mean ‘repair’.

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