Arcade Resources
Re-attached harness connector to Dig Dug
Since my brother in law was down this weekend, I took the initiative to have him help me look at the edge connector for the Dig Dug in the garage.
I had unplugged the Dig Dug harness to solder on that new finger and forgotten which was the connector went back on. I knew that if I put it on wrong I could fry the board, so I had delayed figuring it out. But I had an idea. I should be able to test voltages in the connector, and compare them to a pinout to check and see which direction it should go.
Like the other Dig Dug, the pinouts seemed to be very inaccurate and we were having problems pinpointing a direction. Then, we noticed that printed very tiny on the connectors, were the letters and the numbers for solder and component sides of the board. I had no idea. If you look very close to the connector on the back where the wires go in, you can see the raised printing. Fortunately the Dig Dug PCB had letter and number markings on it as well.
So, even though I had solder the finger board replacement upside down, I was able to easily figure out which way the harness was supposed to go. We powered it up, crossed our fingers….
And it worked fine. So, the plan is to list it on ebay. I have my costs, they were higher than I wanted, and I worked really hard to keep them down.
I just need to wait to make sure the demand is still there. I may wait a month or so before listing it.
Removed Wells Gardner 19K4635 from the Wizard Of Wor
After we got home last night, I got around to taking the Wells Gardner monitor out of the Wizard Of Wor. I took some photos, and labeled the one hook up in particular. Still no expert, I need to help remind myself.
It has been over 95 consistently the past week, so I am not sure when I will get the motivation to go out into a sticky garage, heat up an iron, and switch out the caps. But, hopefully soon. It would be good to get on with the simple task and onto figuring out any sound issues with the game so I can sell it.
NOS Circus Charlie
On the klov forums there was a poster that claimed he had a NOS set of Circus Charlie sideart. This got posted in the forum that got start in 2006 about a guy looking to reproduce the sideart from another set of NOS sideart.
He basically hinted at the fact that it was for sale, and he was taking offers. I posted that I wanted to get some photos of it before he sold, but I am not holding my breath. Ideally I would like scans if it is NOS, but the chances of having him do that are slim to none.
There has been a lot of activity about Circus Charlie in the last two days. One of the collectors who originally spurred me on to think about reproducing it decided to put his machine up for sale instead of finding artwork for it.
Oh well. I have 2-3 guys already that have said they will take photos of the sideart for me. So, if I want to still pursue tracing it, I can and then find out who might want a set. Hell there is a thread already containing the names of those interested from when the guy who was going to produce a set had asked on the forums.
Cap Kit for Wizard Of Wor
I finally got the capacitor kit for the Wells Gardner monitor today. Last week, when I had the whole week off I had intentions of going up to get the Wizard Of Wor Cap Kit, but wanted to combine a trip with something else, or take a bike ride. Well, needless to say, I never got around to it.
So, I got stuck with it this week, and it involved two long trips to Meunier (Indianapolis) to get it. One day to drop off the list, and then another day to go get it. It was significantly cheaper than getting it online though. I think without gas it cost about $6.75, and if you count my gas, maybe another $2. Not to mention, they didn’t have one of the caps, so I had to then run over to King’s Electronics down the street and get the last one. (Their prices suck, usually they are about 3x higher than Meunier)
Now it is Thursday, and I don’t know when I will get to do it. It is so hot outside and we have guests this weekend. Hopefully I will get to take the monitor out of the Wizard Of Wor at least and discharge it before the weekend is up.
Reproduction of Circus Charlie Sideart
I have seen two posts in three days about having some reproduction art done for this game. I know very little about it, but thought maybe I should capitalize on that and work on making some vector tracings.
There are very few collectors listed on VAPS with this game, but I emailed the few that listed as having a dedicated upright cabinet.
I have heard back from two of the three I have emailed, hopefully I can get some good photos.
Talking to another reproduction artist in email today, it sounds like he scans in sideart when possible in a ton of pieces and then puts it back together. I hadn’t thought of that, putting the game flat and going to town. That is a ton of work, although it probably gets you the most accurate without distortion. He said that he will mail his scanner to people though. What a process. What if they don’t have the software? You have to have a really willing soul to help you out with that, and a deep bank account.
Most of Pengo Sideart Traced
I had emailed a contact about getting some vector Pengo art that I thought they had. It appeared to me as if they had traced the cardboard bezel at one time, and I thought it would be a good place to start to get some vector versions of the ice mountains, sno bees and the Pengo character himself.
But come to find out, the image of Pengo bezel I saw was just a nice raster scan. So, knowing that I already had some different pieces of the sideart traced from other individuals (Pengo character, Pengo Lettering, Sega Lettering), and seeing that the artwork was fairly simple, I decided to see if I could crank through tracing it in one night.
I got through all of the major sideart details except for the sno bees on the right side of the artwork.
In one more night of work I should have the sideart decal artwork traced good enough to post an image here. Now, there will be some other details to iron out. The Pengo character doesn’t fit up with my photo (which could be due to distortion because I know the tracing is very good), there is a half tone pattern to make the gradient in the letter and the mountains in the original artwork that I will need to address, and of course the color matching.
But at least I will have the Pengo vector artwork to add to my collection. If I want to get into those details later on I can, if I find that there are people out there who want a set of the Pengo artwork I can do some reproductions. I would think there would be a significant demand, I don’t think there is any NOS Pengo sideart out there. I have found 2-3 people who have expressed some interest, Tim Hill, James Hagen and a couple of other arcade collectors in online board posts looking for sideart and control panel overlays. But we shall see.
No NOS Pengo sideart exists
This week I saw someone post about wanting some NOS Sega Pengo sideart, so I got motivated to do some vectorization of the sideart of one of my favorite games.
Last night I got through 80% of the Pengo sideart. I had taken the photos, pieced them together in Photoshop and used the pieces that were already done like the Pengo lettering and Pengo himself to start my Illustrator file.
I got through everything but the sno bees on the right. Today I was having major issues trying to get a good image of the smaller sno-bees to trace. I had taken some photos close up of the sticker and I even was able to figure out my scanner with the laptop and scan the two snow bees. But no matter what I did, I couldn’t get as exact of detail as I wanted. So, I used what I had and traced sitting right next to the Pengo cabinet so I could memorize the shape and then trace it as best as I could with what I had.
Like I mentioned previously, this Pengo sideart isn’t color matched, it doesn’t have the halftone pattern, but it is a good start to work with if I ever want to have this reproduced.
~ Update May 22, 2008: Well, I ended up eating my words. A set of new, unapplied, NOS Sega Pengo sideart surfaced. I didn’t have to wait that long, and I was lucky enough to get it.
