Tony's Arcade

I replaced the picture tube in the Star Castle a couple of years ago and thought I should post the details here. I had no idea I could purchase a brand new tube for Star Castle until I saw a post on the newsgroups from 1997. For US$108, it seems like a pretty good deal. The old tube worked alright; the vectors were getting a bit on the “soft” side, and the tube took a longer than usual time to warm up. It was time to put some more life back into Star Castle and bring it a step closer to the “ultimate state.”

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I received my repaired Star Castle MPU board from Mark Shostak, and plugged it in with the sound board I had repaired. After installing the speaker I mentioned in my last post on this subject, I noticed that a few sounds were missing. Ugh! So, I busted out the Star Castle Operation and Maintenance Manual. The sounds that were missing were the “Soft Explosion,” “Loud Explosion,” “Thrust,” “Sheild,” and “Fireball.” Looking at Block Diagram One, I noticed that all these sound effects are related. Also, the “Background Sound” was staying at a constant high tone, instead of lowering its frequency to a low pitched tone when you begin the game.

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Well, I finally decided to tackle repairing one of the two Star Castle sound boards that I have. This, of course, after a lengthly ordeal with trying to fix my Star Castle mainboard. I decided it was time to put that project down (and most likely have Mark Shastok of Cinelabs fix it) and start the nagging sound board. One of the sound boards I fried because I accidentally plugged the power/speaker cable in upside down. The other board I acquired through eBay a few years ago, and never had a chance to troubleshoot it.

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I read on rec.games.video.arcade.collecting that someone in Maine had to get rid of a few broken arcade games. One of them was, (dramatic pause) Star Castle. A few e-mails and a week later, Doug E. Fresh and I hopped into my brother’s pick-up truck and drove 4 hours to Maine. Seeing the Star Castle brought back all the memories of being a child again, hanging out with my 11-year old peers at Great Skate. I could almost smell the popcorn and hear “Down Under” in the distance. Even though it was broken, I didn’t need to turn it on to hear its sound effects. We loaded it up and headed back.

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