I had a bit of a scare yesterday. I left Crystal Castles on during the day while I was working. I had music on turned up a bit loud, and thought I heard a pop. I figured one of the cats was messing with something, and looked over to see smoke pouring out of the top of Crystal Castles!

I grabbed the fire extinguisher, but didn’t need it. I shut it off quickly, and opened the back door and didn’t see any flames. I opened up the windows to let the smell out, which took a long time and made the basement pretty cold.

The cause was the old flyback in the monitor (a GO7). It cracked open in the middle:

I had a rebuild kit for it that I was planning on installing soon. I installed it tonight and got it up and running. The pic looks noticeably better than it did before it went kaboom.

I finally got my initials (actually my nickname) on the first level by getting the high score. I thought it wasn’t saving high scores when powered off, but it seems to be saving them OK now. Here’s what it looked like pre cap kit. It’s hard to see much of a difference, but it is noticeable in person..

The replacement coin door came in today. It’s in great shape. I should be able to get around to installing it this weekend.