There isn’t much new to report regarding our arcade projects, so let’s start this post with a monkey playing pac-man:

In non monkey related news….I ordered a ton of capacitors, IC sockets, and TTL chips (mmmmm….chips) from eBay. I’m tired of not having parts when I need to fix something, and figured it would be a good idea to stock up on common parts. I also got everything dirt cheap, which is always good.

When I got Breakout, I was told that the monitor kept blowing fuses. I changed all the capacitors on the chassis, and the Horizontal Output Transistor, hooked it all back up, and turned it on without the game board hooked up. The monitor powered up and the neck of the tube glowed, and no fuses blew, which is good cuz that would really blow. So, I *think* I fixed the monitor. I hooked up the game board, and couldn’t get it to show any video or make any sounds, so I’ve got more work to do. I’m pretty clueless with a lot of this stuff…my lack of knowledge tends to make this a slow process, but I’ll get it going eventually.

I also tried to figure out what was causing the score problem on Demolition Derby (see the posts in the “Demolition Derby” category). I tested all the ICs in the circuit that controls the scoring using a method described by Randy Fromm, and couldn’t find any bad ones. There were 4 capacitors on the board that looked pretty worn out, so I replaced them. I fired it back up, and it didn’t fix the problem. It did however, kill the sound in the game. So now I have 2 problems to fix instead of one. There is a giant orange 4400mfd capacitor on the board that looks pretty spent too. I ordered a replacement for that from Mouser.com.

I have a serious problem. It seems I can’t go more than 2 weeks without getting an arcade game. If someone invents a version of Methadone that works for arcade addiction, please send me a bottle.

Anyways…here is the latest addition:

I got a great deal on this along with some extra parts and 2 Coors Lights. The game works but there is an issue with the monitor blowing fuses. I don’t think I’ll be working on it anytime soon as I have too many other projects to work on. It’s now in the offshoot project arcade located in my garage. This is the type of arcade you are probably very familiar with, where every single game is non working. There was an arcade like this at the Holiday Inn Express we stayed at in North Conway. The only reason I think I can actually get this Breakout working is because I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

My wife is an enabler. Where most wives would try to ween their husdbands away from the seedy underbelly that is addiction, she just encourages it. I wasn’t hell bent on getting this one, but thought it was cool. I mentioned it to her and she had to have it, hence my trip today to pick this puppy up.

A little history behind this game…Released in 1976 by Atari when I was 3 years old, it was designed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Supposedly they took the money they made from this game and used it to start Apple Computer. If either Steve is reading this and that info is not correct, please feel free to comment. They are probably both fervent readers of our blog.