I got rid of my old pickup truck a few months ago. It was sitting semi-dead on my lawn for awhile.

I have been wanting to get another (newer) truck for quite some time but can never seem to save the money long enough to do it. I decided when I sold my old one that I would get on the ball and get a replacement soon. I’ve been spending most of my free time selling loads of stuff on eBay to put towards it. Check out my current auctions.

I’m about 80% of the way there. I’m hoping I’ll have another truck in a month or two. Then I may be able to pick up some more games that I won’t have any room for. Stay tuned…

I haven’t had much to write about lately. I sold 3 games that were in my way in the garage. Now I have a bit more room in there to finish up Mappy, Pac-Man, and my Donkey Kong. Mappy is on deck to be painted very soon. I also sold my old pickup truck that was sitting dead on my lawn for quite some time. I have nothing to haul games in, but I also don’t have any room for more games right now. I’m saving up for another truck, and have been listing a lot of stuff on eBay.

We went to a great flea market in Mansfield CT. It’s held in the lot of a still operating drive-in theater. While there, we picked up these 2 stools for the arcade:

I didn’t realize it, but these are all over eBay. You can get them brand new in any color for about $100 shipped for a pair. Search eBay for “bombo stools” and get yourself some.

Q: If I install 8GB of RAM in a Gateway GM5664 desktop will the computer’s BIOS recognize it?

A: Yes

This computer came with Windows Vista 32bit, 4 DIMM slots, and 3GB of RAM as follows:

(2) 1 GB chips

(2) 512 MB chips

If you do a lookup on this by model # at just about every site that sells memory it will tell you there is a max of 4GB total, and a max of 1GB per slot. I believe this is because with Windows Vista 32bit installed by default, if you were to install 4GB, Windows will only see 3.5GB. In order to keep people from complaining after popping in more than 4GB and not seeing it in Windows, they must have listed the max memory as 4GB. However, if you upgrade to Windows 7 64bit and pop in (4) 2GB DIMMs it will recognize it and boots fine.

8Gb is probably overkill, though my computer is running faster than it was.

Here’s the exact RAM that I have installed:

http://www.crucial.com/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=BF123C48A5CA7304

Here’s some more flea market finds. I did not buy these, though it was tempting.

Here’s a Charlie McCarthy type doll/puppet/zombie. It looks like it lost its clothes long ago, shortly followed by its head. Some kind soul secured the head to its mid section with some good ol’ masking tape.

I can’t decide if this clown is more sad than creepy, or more creepy than sad. I think creepy is winning at about 58%.

Finally, we have a mixed item masterpiece. Up top is a stuffed deer head with a badly damaged and taped up nose (masking tape to the rescue again). Below is a demented version of Ronald McDonald. While you can click on all the pics above to view them larger, to get the full impact of Ronald I present to you this closeup:

1. His right shoe is untied

2. He seems to be missing his butcher knife

3. His whistle makes him look like an evil taskmaster. I bet he blows the whistle every time the fries are done.

4. Why is Grimace in his pocket?? That defies physics.

5. What in God’s name is up with his hips? He has child bearing hips!!!

I don’t think I will be able to sleep tonight.

Here you can see how the white is 3D. It sticks out about 1/16″:

Here’s some pics of it lit. My camera doesn’t do it justice:

I decided to leave the top open, so it is a bit like a sconce. Now I just need to restore the phone and I should be done with this.

Here it is mounted on the wall:

I designed a TELEPHONE sign in Illustrator for the top. Brian Jones from GameStencils.com is turning it into a real plexiglass sign that I can back light.

The phone was converted for home use before I got it. It does not require money to call out, but I’d like to change that if possible. I’d also like to put a bell inside so it rings on incoming calls. I have no idea how to work on these, so if anyone has any resources please let me know. The dial sticks, which I think I can probably fix by taking it apart and cleaning it up.

Here are a few shots of the build:

They are currently a couple of feet off the back wall. When I have them working we should actually be able to walk by them.

I got each one for $50 at an auction. They were both DOA. One had no neck glow on the monitor. It has power to it, and I’m guessing either the flyback and/or the HOT is dead. I’m going to do a cap kit and replace both and see if it brings it back to life. I had that game powered up for awhile and then heard it play blind (very loudly). The other game had a working monitor but the game board wasn’t working. It had a code 88 showing on its test LEDs. I couldn’t find any info online about that, and I don’t have a manual to go by.

I tried the PCB from the one that plays blind and that also gave a code 88 when in the other cabinet. It turned out to be a bad power supply. It was putting out only 3 volts. I swapped power supplies and the one on the right booted up to a test screen. It wouldn’t come out of test mode, and had this on the screen:

At first, I wasn’t sure what test switch the error referred to. There is a momentary switch on the PCB labeled “Test SW” but pressing that did nothing. I then realized they must be talking about the switches inside the coin door:

Both of those switches are broken. When I got it, there was a red plastic button inside the top one and nothing in the bottom one. While trying to fix this, the red button fell out. I figured I better replace the buttons and I found matching ones at Radio Shack. There were 4 in one package, (2) red and (2) black for about $4.

Someone beat the hell out of the coin door and the box that the coin box goes inside in order to get access to the game without a key. The coin door box wasn’t even attached to the coin door anymore, it was just sitting inside the cabinet. I removed the coin door and pulled the box out. Here’s what I found around back:

They jammed the box up against the inside of the cabinet, bending over the leads on the buttons and shorting them out. I replaced the buttons, and the game works fine. Its a pretty fun game, but I suck at it. My wife is pretty good however.

The steering wheel for the one on the right is worn out and wobbly even though I tightened it. It is also extremely sticky from years of pizza grease and coke. I ordered 2 new matching steering wheels.

Both of these games had tokens from Chuck E Cheese inside. One had a picture of a kid and his (grand)father next to a giant plastic Chuck E Cheese head (scary!). Maybe its a picture of you?? If I figure out where the picture went I’ll post it. Maybe we can identify them.

The one on the left was missing a backdoor, so I made one out of 3/4″ plywood to keep the cats out:

I’m working on wiring up a computer power supply for this one, and will order the parts soon to work on the monitor. I have to fix these in a hurry as they are in the way big time.

Mickey is a victim of our latest mystery project. Anyone have any clues as to what it might be?

Chat live with Steve Wiebe

On April 15th 2009 Steve Wiebe will be on Coinopspace.com, participating in a live group chat even with Donkey Kong fans and general coin-op enthusiasts.  Steve is the latest in a monthly series of live chat sessions that has seen the likes of Tim Skelly, Owen Rubin, Jeff Kulczycki and Brian Colin.

If you aren’t a Donkey Kong fan, and somehow have been living under a rock for the past two years, Steve Wiebe is one of the best Donkey Kong players in the world and starred in the movie King of Kong, a documentary about his quest for the top score.  Steve has one of the only 1,000,000 point scores ever recorded in public, and is one heck of a nice guy to boot.

Coinopspace.com is a brand new website for arcade, pinball and console enthusiasts to connect and share stories.  Coinopspace.com isn’t just a forum based website, but has every feature for sharing your collection and restoration hobby that you could possibly imagine.  There are advanced customizable profiles, photo hosting, a live chat section obviously, hosted blogs, videos and so much more.  In the coming months we hope to connect collectors with more arcade game and pinball creators to ask those questions about your favorite games you’ve been dying to know.

To participate in the Steve Wiebe chat you need to sign up for the website and then you can RVSP for the event at the following link:

http://www.coinopspace.com/events/live-arcade-chat-steve-wiebe

You can view all upcoming creator chats and events on the events page at:

http://www.coinopspace.com/events

There’s some more info on RotheBlog.com here:

http://www.rotheblog.com/2009/04/arcade/coinopspace-arcade/chat-steve-wiebe-king-kong-live/

Ask Steve all those questions you have after watching King of Kong, there may be no other better time!