As most of these electrolytic capacitors used non-standard values (well, compared to the past decade) it was difficult sometimes to find an equivalent (e.g. 2.2uF) so I tried to find a capacitor that was close in value (e.g. 2.5uF). There are some capacitors that are greater in voltage value or radial instead of axial because they were cheaper than the original part.

Sound Effects PCB

Electrolytic Capacitors
10uf 100V Axial (original was 10uF 64V): Mouser 140-XAL100V10-RC
100uF 100V Axial (original was 100uF 64V): Mouser 140-XAL100V100-RC
47uF 50V Axial (original was 50uF 40V): Mouser 140-XAL50V47-RC
2.2uF 100V Axial (original was 2.5uF 64V): Mouser 140-XAL100V2.2-RC

Amplifier PCB

Electrolytic Capacitors
(1) 1000uF 50V Radial (original was Axial): Mouser 647-UPS1H102MHD1AA
(1) 250uF 50V Axial (original was 40V): Mouser 75-TVA1312-E3
(1) 330uF 25V Axial (original was 320uF): Mouser 75-516D337M025-E3
(1) 400uF 25V Axial: Mouser 75-TVA1208.7
(1) 120uF 50V Axial (original was 125uF 16V): Mouser 647-UPM1H121MPD1TD
(1) ? Mystery Capacitor

Transistors
(2) 2N4241 TO-3: Very difficult to find a replacement. Can use EFT250 as a substitute; sometimes found on eBay (~US$1.75).

Motor Rectifier Circuit

Electrolytic Capacitors
(1) 1000uF 50V Radial (original was 25V Axial): Mouser 647-UPS1H102MHD1AA

Explosion Relay Circuit

Electrolytic Capacitors
(1) 100uF 100V Axial (original was 100uF 64V): Mouser 140-XAL100V100-RC

The warehouse had about five of these games which made me wonder… was it a popular game in the very early seventies? It was the only electro-mechanical (EM) game at the warehouse that was in multiples. All of the Sonic Fighters there were in various states of disrepair. They had been hacked in one way or another. I found the best cabinet, located the missing pieces, and brought the beast back to my house. Now, when I say beast I mean BEAST. These EM projection games are huge in order to have room to project different images on a screen. No 19″ monitor here! Just a 25″ x 25″ piece of frosted glass, three projectors (shots, enemy plane, explosion), mirrors, and a spinning cloud image.

After bringing the game home and letting a few months pass by, I decided to check it out. The inside was incredibly clean (these games are like time capsules sometimes when you open them). Opening it made me wonder if the last time it saw the light of day was 1971… the year I was born! Unfortunately, no 1971 quarters in this time capsule. The operator had made sure of that! At any rate, I got down to business. I cleaned all the glass (e.g. frosted glass, projector lenses, bezel) and plugged in the game. It surprisingly worked! There was no sound and the fire button was missing. I soldered in another button I hacked off another Sonic Fighter from the warehouse and looked at the speaker. It appeared that someone had tried to put a new speaker in and didn’t do a good job of soldering its wires. Some soldering (and plugging the speaker’s molex connector in) and a little later, we have game!

Playing the game, the low rumble of my jets are heard as an enemy fighter jet appears on the screen. Clouds zip by as I pull the yoke back and swerve to the right to get the enemy fighter in my sights. The cross hairs, silkscreened onto the bezel, are strange to use. I lay on the fire… in a red blur, the enemy jet explodes, my score advances to 2 and I hear, “Zzzzzzzzzip!” Man that was difficult!

I still have some kinks to work out — the firing sound seems to be a bit off and the “shots projector” is not projecting my fire. Not too bad, though. The game uses solid state circuits for the sound effects, so I should replace the electrolytic capacitors. This will be a nice addition to the arcade and will compliment the other EMs, especially Sonic Fighter’s progeny which came out five years later… F-114.

Of course, after picking up the game I opened it up to check it out, especially to see how it works. The table itself is made primarily of oak with red painted trim and painted red diamond markers. The underside, legs, and backbox appear to be made of plywood with a speckling of a couple paints. Inside the body of the game are two cue sticks as well as the billiard balls. The pool table has a backbox which mounts to the far end, providing scoring and player information. Inside the backbox, the EM components don’t look too much different than the scoring guts of Chicago Coin’s 1972 Rodeo Shooting Gallery. It’s interesting how EM technology (for Chicago Coin, anyway) hadn’t progress much in 25 years. (Allied Leisure, on the other hand, advanced EM design in the 1970s, but that topic is for another post!)

The playfield reminds me of a very simple EM pinball game. I should note that the playfield is different than the one pictured at ipdb.org. When opening the table I have, “DIAMOND POOL” is stamped on the underside.

Topside, the five bumpers are each lit by a lamp. The four drop holes are each triggered by a wire/leaf switch and can be blocked by a large sliding array of metal bars, pulled in one direction by a solenoid. I assume that when the game is credited up, the solenoid pulls the metal bars back, allowing the balls to drop through the holes. The felt is intact but very faded — I’ll most likely have to replace it at some point. I’ll probably have to make stencils, too, of the playfield designs so I can apply them after a new felt installation. There are also buttons for each player to place their ball (labeled “LEFT PLAYER” and “RIGHT PLAYER”) and two roll over buttons on the playfield.

As for gameplay, I found this information at “Ask Uncle Willy“, #15, on June 4, 1998. Someone wrote in, asking for information on Diamond Score Pool:

Uncle Willy dug deep into the Williams archives and determined that Diamond Score Pool was a coin-operated novelty pool machine made around 1956, one of a seemingly endless series of pool variations manufactured by Williams that year. After a little more digging, Uncle Willy discovered that Diamond Score Pool was the highlight of the bunch! Most of the games were little more than coin-operated bumper pool tables, but Diamond Score Pool was much, much more.

Two players each play from behind the foul line on the same side of the table. The spot the ball is placed on for the shot lets the machine know who is shooting (left side for player 1, right side for player 2.) The players take turns using a short pool cue to shoot the cue ball around a single lit bumper and against the back wall of the playfield, trying to land the ball in one of 6 holes, which award varying point values. There are two diamond-shaped rollover buttons on the playfield which double or triple the value of any shot that crosses over them and then lands in a hole. (Uncle Willy determined the above by reading a February, 1956 trade newspaper description of the game, and inferring some things from an old publicity shot of the game. Please don’t hold Uncle Willy’s feet to the coals over any minor inaccuracies, OK?)

I asked the seller of the game I have as to its origin and all he knew was that it came from a retiree in Columbia, CT. On the front of the backbox I noticed that two pieces of paper were taped to it. One paper looked like it outlined scoring. The other piece of paper listed the “Table Records“, a high score list possibly written by the last owner. The first high score was recorded December, 1976. The most recent high score was by “Moose” in 1985. Go Moose! I most likely won’t get to restoring this game any time soon (too many arcade projects in the pipeline) but I am looking forward to it! This game is a keeper.


Arcade Stats:
Manufacturer: Williams
Year Released: 1956
Cabinet: Bumper Pool Table
Type: Electro-Mechanical
Coin Counter: None
Serial Number: None
Model: None
Tony's First Quarter: Tony's Arcade
Tony's Arcade: Yes (July 2009)

Allied Leisure Theory of Operation and Assembly Instructions (5MB)

Allied Leisure F-114 Schematics (2.3MB)

I discovered that F-114 was a hybrid game in the sense that it employed both EM and solid state electronics. It was manufactured by Allied Leisure Industries (also known as “Allied Leisure” or just “ALI”). I never heard of Allied Leisure but I was very familiar with the company they became — Centuri. Centuri made some of my favorites: Phoenix, Vanguard, Gyruss, Eagle, Time Pilot, and Track & Field. According to centuri.net, in 1979, Allied Leisure was sold to an investment company. As part of the change in hands, its name was changed to Centuri. By 1979, most of the founding members of Allied Leisure had moved on to other endeavors. The memorable, popular Centuri games were a significant change compared to the company’s beginnings in EM and black and white games.

Allied Leisure started its business around 1969 and primarily manufactured pool tables, kiddie rides, and EM games. In 1973 they released Paddle Battle as their first video game to respond to the Pong craze of the early 1970s (GameRoom Magazine). So, what about F-114? A game designer that worked for Allied Leisure, Jack Pearson, contributed to the development of F-114. In GameRoom Magazine, Pearson said, “F-114 was another projector game like Crack Shot and Rapid Fire except you were sitting in a chair and you could pivot your chair around in order to follow the targets. That would be what they would call today a “premium” game – a $8000 or $10,000 game.”

Wait a minute — a $8000 or $10,000 game? In 1975 dollars? If so, that is a pretty high price tag since Atari Asteroids went for around $3,000 in 1979. If a F-114 was purchased for $8,000 (a “deal”?), the game would have to gobble up 32,000 quarters for an operator to pay off the game. I needed to check the coin counter on this thing (by the way, it was 37891 coins and set for one coin per game — that’s $9,472.75). Anyway, I decided to do some more searching on the Internet to see if there were people out there that remember playing F-114 back in the day. Here’s what I found:

On Sept. 22, 2005, someone posted this off-topic post in rec.games.pinball [pdf]. The thread was originally about MCI’s “The Safe” (which I saw at Fun World in Lake George, NY), but as reminiscing about pinball and arcade games usually wander like a ball bouncing off bumpers… Here’s what started the off-topic:

What was the game where you sat in a swivel chair and tried to shoot at stuff (enemy planes I think) that were projected on a semi-circular screen that was around you?

It was huge, but MAN was it cool when I was a kid! Probably either Chicago Coin or Allied Leisure. They were the only ones who made games that were so big that they should have had wheels and a hitch on them so operators could just tow them around!

“batman” from Spring Lake Arcade in Rhode Island replied with this post:

Allied Leisure F-114… I still operate one! Originally, the seat moved via a motor that was controlled by the joy stick. Kids using their feet stripped the gears and blew the motors. The game is more fun moving the seat using your feet, so they eliminated the motor. It’s quite a game. It has a motor driven annimation that similates clouds going by. Has machine gun sounds, explosion sounds, red explosion annimation, and an 8 track tape that simulates jet age dog fight talk, kind of like top gun.

Also, this message (my favorite) later in the same thread from Pin Geek:

I swear, when I was a kid, that giant screen looked huge. Reminds me of the Atari 2600 at JCP [J.C. Penney] on a wide screen. You should have seen the size of those planes and tanks on “Combat.”

An 8-Track tape for sound? A moving seat? Projections? A “premium game”? I was hooked. Having been bit by the EM bug with Rodeo did not help. I went back to the warehouse and negotiated a deal on the F-114. In talking with the operator’s son about this particular F-114 in the warehouse, it turns out F-114 was one of his dad’s favorite games. I wasn’t surprised as there were parts of two other F-114 games in another one of their warehouses. The operator’s son remembered that his dad had plans of stenciling “F-114″ on the sides of the game. Sure enough, “F-114″ was stenciled on one side of the game but not the other. I found a picture of F-114 at Shaggy’s Pinball Repair site where it looks like the side art has a “F-114″ logo on the side that matches the marquee’s font. Maybe the operator got an early run of F-114 cabinets that were missing the stenciling.

Pinball Repair says that F-114 is “one of the largest arcade games ever made”. No doubt, in terms of EM arcade games. F-114 is very large but fits easily in a six foot trailer and isn’t too heavy to move around as it comes apart in two pieces. I am looking forward to restoring this piece of arcade history from Allied Leisure. F-114 was one of Allied Leisure’s crown jewels being a “premium game” that pulled out all the stops — five slide projectors, a swivel seat moved by a motor, a button joystick that moved the chair as well as crosshairs, and a giant, curved front projection screen. To add to the visual excitement, there were lights that flashed on the huge control panel and back of the chair. For audio, there was an 8-Track tape and solid state sound effects board with three speakers — two by the pilot’s head (wired to the 8-Track player) and a large speaker by the screen for the explosion and gun sounds. Surround sound! The game is in pieces, so now it’s time to put this baby together!

This has probably been the most time consuming game I’ve worked on and yet the easiest. Rodeo was my first electro-mechanical (EM) game that I restored and was a lot of fun. Don’t get me wrong — the restoration process had the requisite headaches that come with restoring any classic arcade game. Compared to solid state games, repairing an EM game was like looking at giant logic chips that you could see working. Watching the score reels reset to zero was like watching electrons moving along at five volts, except at 110 volts with solenoids ker-chunking circuits through different states! I’ve been told that most arcade hobbyists like restoring EM games because all the workings are “there”. I know what they mean — you can see what is stuck, what is dirty, and what is gummed up. No logic probe or oscilloscope needed — it’s great.

MEAN GREEN

After reading the very thorough and excellent EM restoration guide at This Old Pinball, I decided to get two of their videos. I ordered TOP #2 (EM pitch and bat games) and TOP #8 (EM ball bowlers and shuffle alleys). TOP #2 was great for overall EM restoration and TOP #8 was good for restoring Chicago Coin EM games. The TOP guys loved using Mean Green to clean almost everything. Mean Green is a degreaser. I found some in stock at the local Family Dollar.

I followed TOP #2′s recommendations for cleaning the mechanics. I went through all the stepper and contact plate assemblies and cleaned them with Mean Green , Scotch Brite pads, and paper towels. Cotton swabs helped when cleaning the solenoid sleeves. I also cleaned all the metal pins on the bakelite connectors with fine grit (around 200 grit) sand paper. The cleaning took many hours, as I had to take a pictures of each unit, disassemble them, make sure I counted the number of spring windings when taking off springs, clean each component, and re-assemble it according to the pictures. I also cleaned all the leaf switches with flexstone from the Pinball Resource.

I cleaned the outside of the cabinet with Mean Green. There was a lot of dirt, grime, and old cigarette smoke on that cabinet! The dirt was thick from being in that old barn for 20 years. I didn’t use the Mean Green inside the cabinet as the inside artwork was too delicate. I did, however, use Mean Green sprayed on a paper towel to clean the trip targets (the “bad guys”) and the carousel targets. I was amazed at the difference before and after cleaning with Mean Green.

To clean the plastics, I used Novus #2 plastic polisher. I found it at my local Harley Davidson store.

Flash-O-Matic

The flash and miss shot unit was stuck and I didn’t know why. I found out the answer after watching TOP #8 — the cork that was attached to the friction plate (5) on the “Flash-O-Matic” should slide freely when the armature (8) stops the ratchet and finger assembly (20). (The numbers in parentheses indicate part numbers on page 17 of the Rodeo parts catalog.) The cork uses friction to spin the Flash-O-Matic ratchet and finger assembly unless the armature is engaged to brake the ratchet and finger assembly. A little twisting pressure with my hands and the cork was no longer stuck.

Missing Fingers

The shot count stepper unit wasn’t working properly. I found some broken fingers in the bottom of the cabinet. Upon closer inspection of the stepper unit, it looked like it was missing some of its fingers. (The “fingers” are metal tabs of varying length with a rounded button on the end that move over a contact plate assembly to close circuits.) I purchased the schematics and parts manual from eBay and those documents didn’t help too much. By purchasing some Chicago Coin stepper units from eBay, through trial and error, I was able to figure out the correct configuration of the fingers on the shot count stepper unit. Even though the eBay stepper units were older (maybe from the 1950s or 1960s as the fingers and button contacts were wider) I was able to use them with the Rodeo shot count stepper unit. I had to bend the wider fingers just a little bit so I could retrofit them properly.

Some of the traces were worn on the unit. To repair them, I used desoldering braid from Radio Shack. Using a good amount of solder to soak up the braid and solder it to the worn spots did the trick!

Below is a picture of the completed shot count stepper assembly to display the finger configuration. Note the three repaired circuit traces on the bottom. The transplant fingers (from the older Chicago Coin stepper unit) are copper in color. The fingers are different sizes, so it was a matter of trial and error to figure out which length was the right size.

Sealing the Glass

I wanted to seal the artwork on the glass marquee as the paint was already peeling a little bit. To make sure I didn’t spray anything on the part of the glass to view the targets, I cut a paper template and taped it in place. I also cut some small paper rectangles to block the score windows. To seal the artwork, I used Krylon Triple Thick as suggested by This Old Pinball. I had to order the Triple Thick from an online retailer as I couldn’t find it locally. When I sprayed the first coat, I used the “Saran Wrap Method” to push down any curling artwork while the Triple Thick was still wet with Saran Wrap. After the first coat dried, I removed the Saran Wrap. The artwork stayed in place and was firmly pressed against the glass. I couldn’t believe it.

New Stock

The gun stock was very beat up and had lots of graffiti in it. I took apart the gun and handed over the stock to my buddy, Doug. He is great with woodworking and made the stock look like new. Doug first used a coarse sandpaper on the stock to remove the varnish, stain, and carved graffiti. Then, he used finer grits of sandpaper to smooth the wood on the stock. To stain, he used a “gun stock” color of stain then applied a coupe of coats of shellac. After the shellac had dried, he rubbed the stock with beeswax. Like I said, he is great with woodworking. The stock looks brand new and add so much to the game. I hate guns but in the name of classic arcades and woodworking, I was stoked.

To match the stock in its greatness, I stripped and repainted the gun barrel and base. Since the gun and base was apart, I soaked the barrel and base in Pine-Sol overnight. The Pine-Sol cleaner softened up the paint. Then, I used a cheap wire brush attached to a drill to strip the paint off. After the parts were dry, I painted them with a couple of coats of Krylon black satin paint. I also stripped the cigarette holder. (A place to put your Lucky Strike while you shot at some bad guys and bulls. Imagine that!)

Bullseye

To finish the game, I installed #47 bulbs for all the lamps. I also installed a new power cord, which was badly needed. I’m amazed at how many games I find with power cords that are missing a ground pin. I also had to replace the two fluorescent 15W T8 18″ (F15T8BL) blacklights. Unfortunately, the game didn’t have an 8-track player like I was hoping. After reading Rodeo’s marketing flyer, it appears the 8-track player was optional and meant to play music of the owner’s choice. That’s ok — I don’t know how anyone would be able to hear the 8-track’s music above the blaring 45s in the jukebox. Now I have a piece of history — a rootin’ tootin’ EM gun game. It’s neat how it all works. As the gun is aimed, a stylus under the gun base traces around a contact board. If the stylus is touching the right contact and the target is lined up, a circuit is completed and the scoring motor advances your score. It’s like magic.

Speaking of magic, smoke, and mirrors — as you might be able to see in the above photo, the player looks into a mirror. This gives a perception of depth. All of the targets are about waist-high (that way when a relay releases them, they fall down with gravity. This gives the illusion that they’ve been hit back.) The carousel is actually at your feet in the bottom of the cabinet.

One thing I noticed off the bat is that you can’t aim directly at anything to hit a target, of course. If you could do that, the game would be instantly boring, I suppose! Instead, you have to learn where the “sweet spots” are. Overall, this is a fun game and weighs heavy on the nostalgia. As you can see below, the black lights add that special touch to make Rodeo Shooting Gallery seem like you’re in a rodeo, far, far away…

From what I’ve read in various sources, Atari Football was the first arcade game to use a track-ball. At least it was the first Atari video game to use one. (A side note — Atari Football uses the same trackball that was used in Missile Command so this article applies to you Missle Commanders, too.) On my Atari Football, when rolling the Player 1 track-ball, there were problems. Putting the game into test mode, player 1 could move horizontally left and right but vertical movement was a problem. Rolling the track-ball forward and backward would only move the player (“X”) in one direction (backward).

The track-ball works just like a “ball” computer mouse in the sense that it has an opto-encoder to determine the magnitude (speed) and direction of the ball. Two infrared emitter/detector pairs are mounted on a PCB (printed circuit board). A spoked wheel passes through a gap in between each emitter/detector pair. The spoked wheel is mounted to a roller shaft, which is turned by the track-ball when it is spun against the roller shaft. The emitter/detector pairs’ outputs are each amplified by a 2N3643 transistor. The pairs’ signals are then sent to the Atari Football CPU board. The CPU board can then compare the two signals from the emitter/detector pair to compute the speed and the direction (forward/backward) of the ball. The trackball in Football (as well as Missle Command) uses two of these opto-encoder PCBs in tandem with two roller shafts. One for the X (horizontal) direction and one for the Y (vertical) direction.

Since I could move the player in the horizontal direction, that particular opto-encoder PCB was fine. The vertical opto-encoder became my focus. First, I removed the track-ball and swapped the molex connectors for the horizontal and vertical opto-encoder PCBs. I then saw that the vertical direction now worked while the horizontal direction exhibited the same problem. That narrowed down the problem to the opto-encoder PCB, rather than a problem with the wiring harness or CPU main board. I removed the opto-encoder PCB and checked to see if the emitters were working. How can you do that with infrared LED emitters you might ask? Why, with a digital camera, as a CCD can detect infrared light! (See the above photo.) I held my digital camera up to the opto-encoder PCB and saw the emitting LEDs, plain as day.

Since the opto-encoder was telling the CPU that the trackball was rolling in one direction, rather than two, maybe the problem was with the infrared emitter/detector pair. Since both pairs are needed to compute movement in two directions, maybe one of the pairs was not working. I connected my oscilloscope to each of the two pairs and sure enough, the detector in one of the pairs was not working. I decided to replace the two 2N3643 transistors and the two 0.001uF ceramic disc capacitors in hopes that they might be causing the problems. (I substituted 2N2222A transistors [TO-92 package] for the 2N3643 transistors, by the way… it was all I had on hand and could be used as a substitute.) No change! So, I went to the Mouser website and ordered a few different “infrared interrupter” (aka “phototransistor optical interrupter switch”) items. I ordered a few to see which ones worked best.

I settled on the Fairchild QVE00118 phototransistor (Mouser # 512-QVE00118) as it had the right gap and pin dimensions. For each emitter, I had to replace the resistor that is between the +5V supply and the anode of the emitter, as the new emitter requires less voltage than the original emitter. So, I changed each of the two 150 Ohms (brown/green/brown) resistors to 270 Ohms (red/violet/brown in the picture below) to bring the voltage down to around 1.2V. That’s all the resistors I had to change. When you mount the QVE00118, it is labeled “E” for emitter and “D” for detector. It also has the positive “+” designations. Even though the Atari opto PCB (on the underside) has an “E” label — don’t let it fool you, it’s not the emitter but the detector side! It fooled me…

Atari Football is now fully working. What a great game! So much fun, especially to relive arcade football of the 1970s and 80s.

Parts List (Trackball Opto Board):
All parts can be ordered from Mouser
2 Transistors: 2N3643 (or 2N2222A) TO-92 Package
2 Ceramic Disc Capacitors: 0.001uF
2 Phototransistor Emitter/Detector: QVE00118
2 Resistors (one for the anode of each QVE00118 emitter): 270 Ohms, 1/4 Watt

Now that I had the Atari Football all cleaned up, it was time to install the Bob Roberts capacitor kit for a Wells Gardner V1000. Football has a huge 23″ black and white picture tube and I wanted to make sure those Xs and Os looked their best. The monitor can be removed in one of two ways. The monitor is bolted to a piece of plywood that can slide out of the cabinet. You just open the control panels, loosen some wingnuts, and the monitor and plywood monitor mount slides out. I opted for removing the glass and cardboard “stadium” bezel, then unbolting the monitor from the plywood mount and lifting the monitor out of the top. What a pain. I did this because I didn’t realize you could easily slide out the monitor from the side until later… That’s what I get for not bothering to read the manual.

Smoke

After the game had been powered on for 5 minutes, I noticed that smoke came up from the monitor and I smelled burning plastic. Great! (I am being sarcastic, of course.) I thought that I had done something wrong with my cap kit install. Fortunately, no. I let the game cool off, powered it on again, and slid out the motherboard to see if it might be the culprit. The mainboard and monitor are close together, so it could’ve been either one. Sure enough, the huge wirewound resistor that is near the edge connector was smoking. It had been dipped in some kind of black plastic hence the burning plastic smell. This particular resistor is part of the +5V regulator, so I decided to replace the regulator’s main components. Heck, since the Atari Football mainboard has two regulator circuits — one for +5V and another for +12V, I decided to just replace them both. The electrolytic capacitors in each regulator circuit needed to be replaced; after all they were 30 years old!

Another thing I noticed while the smoke was happening was the picture would jitter and I would hear a slight screeching noise (from the +5V regulator area!) at the same time. It looked like the +5V regulator was probably causing that, too. I ordered the following from Bob Roberts:

+5V Regulator Circuit
LM323 or LM323K (TO-3 Package) +5V Regulator — Don’t forget the mica insulators and thermal paste!
R37 – 4 Ohm, 10W Wirewound Resistor
C23 – 470uF 25V Axial Capacitor

+12V Regulator Circuit
LM7812CV – +12V Regulator
CR1, CR2 – 1N4001 Diode
C50 – 10uF 25V Axial Capacitor
C62 – 4700uF 25V Axial Capacitor

On my mainboard, the resistor that was smoking (R37) was actually a 20W resistor. The schematics call for a 10W resistor which I used. You could still use a 20W resistor — someone probably put it in there to make the circuit more robust to the current draw. In the photo above, you can see the new components that I installed for the +5V regulator circuit.

After “upgrading” the two regulator circuits with new parts, Atari Football was back in action after all these years! No more smoke, no more screen jitters, no more screeching.

I also replaced the 22/44 Molex edge connector for the wiring harness that connects to the mainboard. It was a pain to crimp because of many wires and small gauge wires. I will have to make another post on my advice for crimping.

LEDs

One of the red LEDs for selecting plays was not working. I replaced it and I noticed how dim the other LEDs were. Even in the dark they were hard to see against the lamps that illuminated the play diagrams. So, I changed out all the red 5mm LEDs which made a dramatic difference. (You can order the LEDs from Bob Roberts as well.) The play panel is very vibrant with the new lamps and LEDs.

Now that things were looking on the up-and-up, I tried playing a few games (yeah, I know — it’s a two player game…) The Player 1 track-ball was not working correctly. I could move the player in the horizontal direction but not the vertical direction. Next up, fixing the track-ball opto board.

Seeing the side art (below) reminds me of watching football games with my dad and uncles on Sundays… nothing like that 70s style…

I can only imagine how many Pabst Blue Ribbons and Rheingolds were accidentally knocked over and poured into Football’s trak-balls and offense/defense play charts. What makes me say this, you might ask? Well, my first tip off was the grime on the play charts as they were coated in some kind of yellowy film. Upon removing the monitor bezel, the back of the cardboard audience shroud had liquid stains. Once I opened the control panels and removed the trak-balls, I could see what these machines endured 25-30 years ago. Each trak-ball had a generous amount of black plastic chaff (from the trak-ball), hand grease, and beer residue on the bottom of the trak-ball harness. Fantastic! I broke out the Mean Green de-greaser and went to work.

Atari Football was the first (by most accounts I’ve read, anyway) trak-ball game produced. The game is made up of “X”s and “O”s, similar to a play chart in those old football movies. This game also has a few interesting highlights:

• A 23″ black and white monitor — huge by arcade standards where monitors were usually 19″
• Cocktail style cabinet where the players stand instead of sit (the base can be removed to the players can sit, but then again, you need every bit of room for the english you have to put on the trak-ball!
• Players don’t move the trackball as a precision device like in Centipede, Crystal Castles, and Marble Madness. Players must slam their hands on the trak-ball to roll it as fast as possible. This, of course, contributed to the memories of bruises, blood blisters, and pinched skin on players hands.

Cleaning Up

As I mentioned before, I began cleaning the game by removing the trak-balls and using Mean Green to clean them up. I had to take apart each trak-ball assembly so I could remove all the nastiness in there.

After cleaning, I lubricated all the bearings with teflon gel (also known as PTFE), which you can find at Radio Shack. I cleaned the trak-balls with Novus #2 plastic cleaner/polisher. After putting the trak-balls back in place, I cleaned the play charts with Novus #2 to make them look as good as new. I replaced the #44 bulbs with #47 bulbs which draw less current and are little less hot as to ensure the play chart plastics will last longer. For the carriage bolts that hold the trak-ball in place on the control panel, I used a $1.99 drill wire brush to get the rust off the bolt heads.

Ahhh, now the Atari Football cabinet is looking much better! Thank goodness noone rested their cigarettes on the plastic play display! If I saw that I would have to spike a big blue capacitor into the cardboard audience. Powering on the game, I hear the audience roaring and I see graphic garbage on the screen. Oh well — now it’s time to start troubleshooting the electronics!


Arcade Stats:
Manufacturer: Atari
Year Released: 1979
Cabinet Date of Manufacture: January 23, 1979
Cabinet: Stand-up Cocktail
Monitor: 23-inch Vertical Black and White Raster
Coin Counter: 8590
Tony's First Quarter: Tony's Arcade
Tony's Arcade: Yes (October 25, 2008)

As part of the warehouse raid, I was able to get my hands on a game I first saw back in 2001. The Pole Position cockpit! In the last (and first) warehouse raid I participated in 2001, I saw the fabled cockpit which I never saw as a kid. Cockpit style arcade games were stuff of legend in my part of the state because of cost and probably weight and coins per game (50 cents)! I, living in an apartment in 2001, had no room and there was no way I was going to get that thing up two flights of stairs! Instead, I settled on a Pole Position II upright which has been in my arcade until recently. When I saw the Pole Position cockpit in the 2008 warehouse raid, it was time to get my grubby hands on it and sell the upright!

In the 2008 warehouse raid, I had my choice among FOUR Pole Position cockpits. The first three had been pilfered — the boardset was missing. The fourth Pole Position cockpit was a jackpot, not only was it complete but it had the Pole Position II boardset and the Pole Position II monitor bezel. The Pole Position cockpit has a few added bonuses over the upright cabinet. The cockpit has four-speaker “surround” sound (a mono audio source sent to two speakers in the front and two in the rear with four (ha!) volume knobs behind the coin door). The cockpit also has a brake pedal, unlike the upright. At the back of the cockpit, a curved tinted plexiglass allows onlookers to see the action. This cockpit has a 19″ monitor, standard with Pole Position cockpits. I lucked out — someone replaced the 19″ monitor recently and I had a “like new” one in there. I’ve read stories about Pole Position cockpits in the wild having a 25″ monitor but that was operator add-on thing.

The first thing I did was clean up the cabinet. I had to vacuum lots of fine beach sand out of the pedal floor area, probably from the game’s days at Misquamicut Beach, RI. I then got to work on the electronics and did the basic stuff. I installed the Bob Roberts Atari Audio/Regulator (AR) capacitor kits on the two AR boards. Then, I installed the Bob Roberts Atari AC Power Supply Repair Kit. This kit replaces the “Big Blue” capacitor, bridge rectifier, fuse assembly, and AC cord. I also had to purchase an extra “Big Blue” capacitor, as Pole Position uses a second one of these mammoth capacitors.

I powered on the game and saw a whiff of smoke from R29 on the “B” (bottom) AR board. Looking at the schematics I saw that R29 goes to pin 3 on J7, + sense. I wondered if the video board was getting +5 volts… the “B” AR board supplies +5VDC to the video board. Looking up at the video connector, I saw that the +5V wires were hanging off the connector. Examining the connector closely, I saw that someone had replaced it with a solder-type edge socket. They didn’t put any strain relief on the wires going to this connector, so three wires had broken off. (Actually, it was quite the hack job and I was wondering what kind of rush the tech must’ve been in. Beer?) I replaced R29 (a 10 Ohm resistor), reconnected the three wires (two +5VDC lines and Ground) to the Molex 15/30 edge connector, and powered on the game. No puff of smoke! Made sense — R29 is connected to the +SENSE line on the video board. Since the video board wasn’t supplied with +5VDC, +SENSE had nothing! I looked at the screen and there were white numbers and letters on a blue screen. Yesssss! Progress. Then I had a black screen every subsequent time I turned on the game. D’oh! Oh well. Using my multimeter, I saw that the video board wasn’t pulling +5V any more. That connector going to the video board was very loose and cheaply hacked together. I installed a new 15/30 Molex edge connector from Bob Roberts and saw my problem. I had connected the +5V line to pin “8″ instead of pin “B” on the video board’s edge connector. (My fault! The schematics I have are shrunk down to an 8.5″ x 11″ paper so the “B” looks like an “8″.) Pin 8 is unused but is connected to ground — that’s why I had no power, I had created a short! I moved the +5V line from pin 8 to pin B and I had power again to the video board but still random characters al over the screen. Onto troubleshooting that!

Here are the vital stats for the new racing game addition to Tony’s Arcade:

Arcade Stats:
Manufacturer: Atari
Year Released: 1983
Cabinet: Cockpit
Monitor: 19-inch Horizontal Color Raster
Coin Counter: 170690
Serial Number: SD0325?
Model Number: 38103
Tony's First Quarter: Great Skate, Norwich, Connecticut (Upright)
Tony's Arcade: Yes (October 25, 2008)

Chicken Coop

After making the necessary arrangements, a good friend and fellow pin geek, Rob, and I climbed into his dad’s moving truck. Drinking coffee (it was early) as Rob drove, we traded tall arcade tales from our childhood, “Yeah, and when we were nine this kid Chris could play Crazy Kong, cuss you and the game out, eat pizza, hum “Electric Avenue” all at the same time and still get the high score!” We drove to not one but THREE warehouses of arcade games and pinball machines. Our minds raced as we thought of what gems these warehouses might hold. Our first stop was at a small farm, where the warehouse was actually an old, abandoned chicken coop. I looked around to see many video games and shuffle alleys from the late 1970s. My jaw dropped at how pristine the artwork looked on many of these games. It was as if we walked into a lost mine and there was the DeLorean from “Back to the Future”, covered in dust and waiting for us to drive it away.

Tony: “Uhhhhh…”
Rob: “Three Atari Night Drivers?”
Our Guide: “Yes. See how they look like they were never on location? The operator that is selling these used to buy two of each game — one for the location, one as a spare.”
Rob: “Where were the locations?”
Our Guide: “Misquamicut beach. He used to take care of ALL the arcade games for Miquamicut in arcades, bars, restaurants, laundromats, you name it.”

And here we were, 90 miles from Misquamicut Beach, standing next to some games that I probably played in my youth. I used to frequent Misquamicut with my family and I have many good memories as a kid playing arcade games there, like SubRoc-3D. As I stumbled around the chicken coop, my mind thought, “Wow, wouldn’t it be great if there was a Space Encounters here? The one I currently have is so incomplete.” I then walked smack into a perfect-looking, dusty yet complete Space Encounters. I thought again how cool it would be if I found a Kee Games Tank. You know, Kee Games… run by Joe Keenan, Nolan Bushnell’s buddy? The company Atari created in the 1970s to “compete” with itself so they could get around distribution rights. The company that made a very profitable game for Atari that ended up on the Combat cartridge for the Atari VCS. I turned around and there was Tank II. Dare I thought of Space Wars? Our guide said that last week someone came and picked up four Gorfs and two Space Duels. I was crushed.

Pins

Rob was sweating for pinball games. I heard him murmur, “Pinball. Pinball! My precious.” So it was time to load up two Asteroids, Space Encounters, Tank II, and hit the road for warehouse number two. The second warehouse was huge compared to the chicken coop and had the pinball games… but not as many as we hoped for. Most of the games here were conversions and “newer” games from the 1990s. Drab, black cabinets housing 25″ monitors with peel-and-stick sideart over peel-and-stick sideart. There were Buck Hunters, Street Fighters, and even a couple of intact Klaxes. I saw a converted Kangaroo, Root Beer Tapper, and a Bud Tapper. It was like seeing three old friends where the years have taken their toll. There were a few pinball bodies here but the heads were missing. Our guide mentioned that the heads were in warehouse #3. So, Rob picked out a Williams Firepower II and a Gottlieb Close Encounters with an extra body. I picked up a Williams World Cup. Onto Warehouse number 3.

Hurricane

Warehouse three promised to be better than the last two — it had the missing pinball heads, it was heated, it had electricity, and it hopefully had more classics. Those benefits came with a price. As we entered the warehouse, it was like a hurricane ripped through. Circuit boards were piled in a side room, video games, hockey games, shuffle alleys, and Rowe CD jukeboxes were crammed against the wall, four deep. Rob and I looked at each other in disbelief. We were already in this raid for four hours and this stop on our journey was going to be the most time consuming. Nothing was organized. Rob, with the help of our guide, somehow found the missing heads for our pinball games. I told myself to think about what games I’ve been searching for the past five years. Maybe they’re here. Looking around the wake of Hurricane Evil Otto, I thought of:

Atari Football…
Pole Position Cockpit…

…and there they were.
I also thought about an electro-mechanical (EM) game, Dune Buggy, that I always thought would be impossible to find. It was a game where you drove a matchbox car dune buggy around a course, listening to surf tunes from an 8-track tape. I looked behind some jukeboxes and saw an EM-looking game, upside down, with its legs up in the air. I looked over to the left… a Sub-Roc!! Hey, maybe that’s the one I played in Misquamicut as a kid. I squeezed through those jukeboxes and saw… could it be? An upside-down red and white sideart of two people driving a dune buggy. I nearly fell backwards into an empty Big Buck Hunter.

Seven Hours Later…

So, after spending three hours at warehouse number three, Rob picked up his missing pin heads and an Asteroids cocktail. I got that Football and Pole Position cockpit as well as… Dune Buggy. We had spent a total of seven hours, plundering three warehouses full of childhood memories. I couldn’t have done it without Rob. He helped me dig out (and unload!) all of my treasures, spent seven hours on a Saturday in the name of classic gaming geeks far and wide, and provided the moving truck to boot. The good news is that Rob and I have some “DeLoreans” we’ll revive so kids — old and young alike — can yell at, button smash, shake, and nose thumb.

I decided to be on the lookout for an EM rifle game. I remember playing those as a kid and (since I was 5 years old) not knowing what I was doing. Two Guys department store in New London had Haunted House, which I would have my dad help me play. That was an eerie game, with an 8-track player for sound effects!

A couple of months ago, I was looking through Craigslist and found a Chicago Coin Rodeo Shooting Gallery for sale. I drove up to the northwest corner of Connecticut to take a look. There it was, sitting in a barn and covered with dirt and dust. I asked the owner about the game and he said he has another one in his game room — the one in the barn was there for parts should the one in the game room break. He said all the parts should be inside the Rodeo, as he never had to open it. There was a EM Bally Freedom pinball next to it in worse shape, so I negotiated a good deal for the Rodeo and Freedom! When you have the arcade collecting bug… (The Bally Freedom was there for “extra parts” as well.)

I trucked the Rodeo and Freedom home and looked it over. There was graffiti carved on the gun (like, “1979 Coleen“) and on the back door, my name! I guess this game was meant for me… YEE-HAW, COLEEN!! I ordered This Old Pinball‘s #2 DVD, “Hardball in Detroit”. This particular DVD details restoration of EM games. After watching the DVD a few times, I got to work on the “best darn gun in the market”. The game was filthy (after all, it had been in a barn since 1988) and Mean Green cleaned it right up along with a shop vac. Next up, going through all the EM workings with a fine tooth comb and Mean Green!


Arcade Stats:
Manufacturer: Chicago Coin
Year Released: 1972
Cabinet: Upright
Type: Electro-Mechanical
Coin Counter: 119,725
Serial Number: None
Model: 404
Tony's First Quarter: Tony's Arcade
Tony's Arcade: Yes (April 2008)

At the moment, my Seeburg is having some issues (looks like I’m going to have to clean the whole mech!!) so I decided to take a peek into the Space Encounters. This game is missing its monitor and looking closely at the motherboard, it appears the ROMs have been hacked a bit. It looks like 20 or so traces were rewired with jumper wires. I replaced a blown fuse and fired the game up. I could hear a high pitched noise plus the “wooshing” background wind sound. This kind of sounds like the “bit error” problem I had with Space Invaders. Looks like I have my repair work cut out for me. Before I do any more troubleshooting, though, I’ll have to track down a black and white monitor. The yoke grips are missing but it looks like I can use bicycle grips (remember the BMX ones from the 80s?) as a direct replacement.

Space Encounters was a game that also tried to capitalize on the Star Wars craze of the late 1970s. There are Tie Fighter-looking ships on the side art and in the game. There is also a drawing of a suspicious-looking fully operational Death Star on the control panel. The yoke controller even looks and behaves like the Tie Fighter controls (which is way cooler than the Star Wars yoke, in my humble opinion). You turn left and right to move your ship and push/pull the yoke assembly to control speed. Another highlight of the game is the lighting effects. Environmental Discs of Tron has awesome lighting for immersing the player in the world of Tron. Space Encounters has pulsating lights above the control panel as well as a 200W red bulb and strobe light, which light when hit, behind the marquee. (The marquee is part of a white translucent shroud that surrounds the screen and bezel artwork.) All that to add to the excitement, no doubt to lure the attention away from any graphics drawbacks with the color overlay and black and white picture tube. To see a flash video of Space Encounters in action, go to the Outerworld Arcade.

Bill remembers seeing the game in the arcades as a kid, watching people play it, and noticing how intimidating it looked with the flashing lights and flight controller. I promised Bill I will restore Space Encounters back to its full glory. You can count on it! As a side note (thanks to Bill), this is the cabinet featured in KLOV’s Space Encounters entry!


Arcade Stats:
Manufacturer: Midway
Year Released: 1980
Cabinet: Upright
Monitor: 19-inch Horizontal Black and White
Coin Counter: 42,705 (not too shabby!)
Serial Number: 1711
Tony's First Quarter: Tony's Arcade
Tony's Arcade: Yes (June 2008)

The Sanyo 20EZ is a PAIN to work on for replacing the capacitors. After pulling the monitor out of the game, I had to remove the monitor’s rear frame. I couldn’t remove the monitor’s PCBs completely out of the monitor chassis as there weren’t any connectors I could disconnect. The Sanyo 20EZ was definitely not engineered with “easy repairs” in mind! My sound board was fine but I thought I might as well upgrade it since I had the monitor out. (The sound amplifier is located on the monitor chassis.) After installing Bob Robert’s Deluxe cap kit, I hooked everything back up and Donkey Kong was as good as new. The image on the monitor was bright and crisp — it really did look brand new!

Later, I found a comprehensive guide [pdf] on navigating through the Sanyo 20EZ to replace the capacitors. If I only found it beforehand!

Fixing the Lighting

The fluorescent light didn’t work, so I needed to replace the fluorescent bulb and starter. Donkey Kong uses a different bulb and starter than most games: a F10T8/CW bulb and a FG-7E starter. I ordered both of these from TopBulb.

Now Donkey Kong has a place in Tony’s Arcade, next to one of my other childhood favorites — Pac-Man.

Towards the end of the 2007 Summer, I went to Lake George again. I decided I’d make sure to find Gaslight Village this time around. I dug deep into my childhood memories of where Gaslight Village was. I have memories of seeing Gaslight from the back seat of the car, looking out the window. I remembered blurred, colorful images of families walking outside the black wrought iron fences that surrounded Gaslight. I also remembered seeing amusement rides towering above everyone in full motion, loaded with laughing and screaming people. If Gaslight was near the road, then in the present day I should see something if I looked hard enough. As I drove down Rte. 9 towards the Lake George Village, I looked to my right… and there it was.

I decided to park in the Lake George Steamboat Company‘s parking lot off Beach St. As I pulled into the parking lot behind Fort William Henry, there they were… Arto Monaco’s buildings, faded and weathered, set behind an overgrown, black wrought iron fence. It was very surreal to see Gaslight Village — empty. I stared in disbelief, as if I was expecting that nothing should have changed in 20 years behind that fence.

As I reminisced I wondered if this was the parking lot my family had used in the 1980s before entering Gaslight’s gates. The parking lot wasn’t paved — just stones and uneven dirt. I approached the buildings and saw that part of the wrought iron fence, no longer dotted with gaslight lamps, still wrapped around most of the former park. A gate to go behind the buildings was locked — probably a way for the Gaslight employees to enter into the park long ago. I walked around the outside of the chain link fence that now surrounded most of what used to be Gaslight and only saw the old, neglected buildings and overgrown space.

Don’t get me wrong, I was excited to see the Gaslight grounds again and to see the old buildings. I had finally found the source of so many happy memories. I wondered what rides were where, including that dragon roller coaster I went on with Sonya. Where was Flight to Mars? I imagined the families and people walking around with the noise of the rides, music, and crowds above everything.

Peering to the left of the buildings I saw what (I believe) was once the open air stage. When the weather was nice, revues and solo acts would perform on this open stage. The acts also took place in the adjacent Opera House. I couldn’t see the front of the Opera house, so I decided to trek up to the Fort William Henry parking lot for a better view.

I drove back to Rte. 9 and headed away from the Lake George Village. I took a quick turn into the Fort William Henry conference center parking lot. Walking to the edge of the parking lot, beyond some trees I saw the Opera House. Seeing it so blatantly there amazed me at how I missed it when I was in the area the previous year. Taking a closer look, the Opera House appeared to be standing well in the face of time. At least on the outside.

I am not looking forward to the day where these buildings will disappear. I know they have to go. I am amazed that these structures are still standing in the absence of upkeep and the toll of New England weather. Reconnecting with my past and knowing that I’m not the only one with good memories from this place was worth the visit. It was like seeing a best friend from high school again.

I wish I had an old brochure of Gaslight Village. If anyone has one, please let me know — I’d like to scan it and put the old map and photos here. I wonder where all the rides were among these buildings. If you remember any of these buildings, please post your comments below!