Heartbreak Hotel.

In a small town behind a small hotel is a not so small shack. And in that not so small shack was one of the most horrific sights of arcade related death and decay I have ever witnessed first hand. The kind of death and decay that is eventually cleared out and has a house built on it that becomes haunted by the previous inhabitants. Everyone knew about this shack containing the ghosts of arcades past. It was the kind of place you speed your step up a bit as you walk by. The kind of place that stays with you long after you see it. I first noticed this shack a couple years ago while strolling the streets of this town and deemed all the games in there as beyond salvation. About a month ago I was there and noticed that the games were still sitting and rotting and part of the roof had collapsed. It was maddening, it was sad, it was frustrating, and it was downright heartbreaking to see these classics just rotting away in arcade purgatory waiting to be saved or laid to rest once and for all. Up until now, the word on the street was that the owner did not want to do anything with these other than let them sit. Instead of entertaining people, they were entertaining the feral cats of the neighborhood (including one that looked like it was straight out of Pet Cemetery). I decided it was time to make contact and see what I could do. To my surprise the timing was right and we worked out a deal to clear out the shack. Sadly, the owner had become ill and the town wanted the shack torn down because it’s a hazard. Not exactly the circumstances I want to pick up machines under, but I was assured I would be helping them greatly by doing this. I called Dan ( Hatrick) and took him there to have a look. We were still working on the trailer full of games from Buhl but I felt this might be worth pausing for. We drove out to get a look and decided that there could possibly be a few parts in there but the amount of work involved might not make it such a good deal. Sometimes you just have to check your logic at the door and go for it and that is exactly what we did. We set a date, rented a trailer, rounded up our tools and rolled out. Here are some pics. I will see you on the other side…

Down on the corner of lonely street...


Vectorbeam Warrior and a Seawolf that have both seen better days...


Can we please have a moment of silence...



It's only fitting that the Hercules Pinball was holding the roof up...


A beam came down right on the coin door of the Hercules :


The head of the Hercules pin sits wedged in there. There was dead cat inside of the head that must have gotten trapped when the roof collapsed. It took a long time for us to get the top of the Hercules pin out. Dan had to get in there with a Sawz-all and cut away one corner to free it :



These nails were sticking through the roof everywhere making it a little nerve-wracking to be under it. We risked taking one of these to the skull for this mission. We tried to make sure only one of us was under the roof at a time (btw Dan, I would have given your DK a good home if anything had happened to you) :



We used some wooden beams to get the roof up off the Hercules while we removed it:





Hopefully this will clean up nice:


The coin door folded under the weight of the roof:

What once was a burial ground for arcade games is now just a broken down shack:



It will take us awhile to process all of this and see just exactly what we have. When all was said and done, we were tired, hungry,and sore, but at the same time filled with a sense of satisfaction knowing we did what had to be done. So how exactly does a bunch of classic pinball and arcade machines end up in this old shack? Well, as the story goes, the games were set up in an arcade in town and the building was sold. The owner put the games in this shack in working condition as a temporary home until he could find another place for them. That was about 15 years ago.
As we were clearing the place out the curious locals would stop by and talk to us. They were shocked and yet pleased that the games were finally being removed and that some parts would be salvaged. We heard lots of stories about the previous owner and what a great man he was and what he had meant to the town. What had at times felt like a huge chore was beginning to feel a little more like a privilege. I think it’s fair to say that we were the right people for the job. We cleared the place out over a couple of days and spent a lot of time reflecting on it. I am just thankful that the games didn’t all go straight to the landfill without any of it being saved. It is all a little bittersweet. As much as I hate to see machines parted out, after 15 years of being exposed to the weather I don’t think any or at least many can be saved.
I hope the previous owner can find some comfort knowing that we will salvage what we can and realize it was time to let these machines go. If only it were that easy…

The Best Laid Plans…

of mice and men often go astray. Well that is what they say anyway. But the only hitch in these plans was the one used to tow these arcade games home to get a second chance at making adults feel like kids all over again. It was a year ago that I first found out about these games. It was the usual scenario. Dusty, dirty, forgotten games locked up in a dark storage container just biding their time and waiting for a miracle. But sadly, the timing was all wrong. I had just changed jobs and winter was setting in quickly. They would have to spend another sub-freezing holiday season without much to cheer about. When I was finally ready, the owner wasn’t. Time passed and other games came along to fill the void. With winter coming faster than I care to think about, and hope for saving these games fading away, I decided to make one last attempt for a rescue. I contacted the owner. The long wait to bring these games home would soon be over.

I decided to bring my friend Dan in on this one as there was a Star Wars arcade in the mix and I knew it was the game that topped his want list. There were 9 games in all, with Star Wars and a Space Ace taking the top honors and a Space Invaders, Star Trek, Tournament Cyberball, Omega Race, Shinobi, Sprint 2 , converted Mach 3 rounding out the roster. We picked a day, reserved the trailer, and asked our bosses for a half day off work. The day came and we met up at my house, grabbed lunch, picked up the trailer, and headed off for parts unknown.
We rolled through the countryside and after about an hour and a half and 3 towns later arrived at Buhl, Idaho. Population: you. After some delicate negotiations, we paid up, loaded up, and headed for home. Dan got his Star Wars, I took the Space Ace, and we will sell the rest and split it. My amazing year of collecting just doesn’t let up. We split them up between our garages and will now begin the task of breathing some new life into these games and finding them new homes. We have each had some fast success and look forward to working on the rest.

Another batch of games saved from death and decay means another satisfying moment in my collecting career. I look out at these games stashed away safely in my garage and know that I am utterly defenseless to their charm. They hold sway over us and like trained assassins know exactly when and where to strike and bring us to our knees. These machines pulled us away from our daily lives and jobs and friends and loved ones and coerced us to drive out and pick them up. It just seems so wrong at times. I resent being at their disposal and yet I love every second of it. The best hobby in the world just keeps getting better. The best laid plans do often go astray but not on this day.
I don’t think the games would have allowed it .

Some pics for the “ pics or it didn’t happen” crew :

My Own Private Idaho...

It's been almost 5 years since I packed up everything I own, said my goodbyes, and headed for the land of Famous Potatoes. You don't even realize how hectic life is in the big city until you break away and then look back from a safe distance. Idaho has been good to me. Good for my blood pressure. Good for my soul. And most importantly, good for my arcade collecting addiction. I decided it was time to give a little more intimate look at my game room and some of the highly valuable junk that is in it.

Flanking the entry is a poster from one of my favorite horror movies, a picture from one of my favorite TV shows and a concept drawing of the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy:




The opposite side of the entrance is home to the Star Wars posters including one that was autographed by Mark Hamill, The Racer X tin sign, and one of the JBL speakers that deliver non-stop 80's hits from Billy Idol, Men without Hats and the like :




Some of the Batman artwork I have including a couple that were signed by the creator of the Dark Knight himself, Bob Kane :






"The Shelf", home to all my figurines and other random items including my old D&D handbook and an autographed picture of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark :



Another movie poster of an all time classic, my custom neon sign made right here in downtown Boise by Rocket Neon, and a glimpse of the obligatory Tron poster :



This little gem joined us after retiring from a Chuck E. Cheese. Looking right at home in front of the window is my beloved Joust Cocktail :



Would you believe this is the original painted on artwork on the cabinet? Would you believe this is the original control panel overlay ? Would you believe all I did to this game was repaint the black area around the monitor and put new orange t-molding on ? Would you believe this game came from the San Jose auction ? I was there when Scott Evans scored this gem and a few months later he sold it to me for the same price of $700. I have yet to see a cleaner original Pacman at any price :




And when the lights go down it looks something like this :





Meanwhile, on the other side of the house, my pinball parlor has slowly been taking shape and will eventually be decked out in 50's memorabilia :






So there ya have it. My time capsule,my panic room and the place I can step into anytime I need a little blast from the past or some peace of mind all rolled into one. Hope you enjoyed the tour of my game room,my pinball parlor, and my own private Idaho.

CSI Boise

Been in this hobby going on 17 years now and I must say, this has been one of my most rewarding and fulfilling years for collecting since I brought home a Space Invaders back in 1993. Since Mother’s Day of this year I have had quite a streak of finding and restoring games while also working on the game room to get it ready for all of these new acquisitions. I was ready to put the brakes on any new games until I had all of my current projects finished. I then heard about a dead Star Castle just down the road from me (everything in Boise is just down the road if you haven’t figured that out by now ) and I had to have a peek. Once again, me and the R2 unit rolled out to investigate.

It was another unseasonably warm day in Boise as we arrived on the scene and took notes of the surroundings. The garage door was open and the victim was sitting in the left rear corner of the garage. We were instantly greeted by a woman identifying herself only as Judy as we strolled up the driveway. A few other collectables were strewn here and there throughout the garage including a Gottlieb pinball and an organ from the 1800’s. I took a statement from the lady. She insisted that the kids were just playing the game one day and it died. There was no evidence of foul play so I took her at her word. “Approximately how long ago was that Ma’am? “ I asked. “About ten years” she replied. The spiderwebs inside the game seem to substantiate that claim. The trail was cold by now and we would be on our own to determine what killed this machine. I asked if it would be ok to plug in the game and she obliged. The only sign of life was a flash of the LED on the motherboard when I powered on the game. No picture on the screen, no sound from the speakers. For all intended purposes this game was D.O.A. Time to draw a chalk outline around this one and slap on a toe-tag.

While I was conducting my investigation, Judy told me about how her father had traded for this game many years ago for his grandkids to play. Between hearing her story, and seeing that little flash of light, I knew what I had to do. “But wait just a second Dave. This is a Cinematronics vector, don’t let your emotions get the best of you. They can be hard to find parts for and you really don’t know that much about them...”, I could hear my inner voice telling me. My inner voice was right. I had to keep my senses about me and not get in over my head. I offered her $50.00 figuring at that price I couldn’t get hurt too bad if I couldn’t get it working. She accepted. I looked in my wallet and realized that I only had $47.00 after stopping for coffee and donuts on the way there. I offered the $47.00 and a sincere promise to do everything within my power to get to the bottom of what stopped this Star Castle dead in its tracks and bring this game some justice. I think the promise meant more to her than the money and with that, R2 and I loaded up the game and headed for home.

The first thing I did was reset the circuit breakers (I had forgotten this game uses breakers instead of fuses) and turned the game on. I could here the monitor crackle and start to come alive and then after about 3 seconds the breaker blew. I decided to go online and do a little detective work. Using the Cinematronic vector repair guide, I was quickly able to determine that the X side of the monitor was the guilty party. I took the monitor out and starting metering away looking for clues. Eventually I was able to determine that the cause of death was due to a shorted heat sink transistor that looked like it took another transistor out with it. I replaced all the heat sink transistors with the upgrades recommended in the guide, making sure not to mix up the NPN and PNP transistors. I powered up the game and now had a working monitor. The game played fine with the exception of sound, or I should say lack of it. First I looked for any obvious clues and found nothing. Not a single sign of trauma anywhere. I jumpered the volume knob to make sure it wasn’t bad and it wasn’t. Metered the speaker and it was showing 1.8 ohms on an 8ohm speaker. This was not good. Using the Star Castle sound board guide on Outerworldarcade.com, I was able to determine that there were blown transistors on the sound board. I replaced those and put in a new speaker and now Star Castle was putting out some beautiful music. I replaced the marquee lamp and starter and this game was now completely back from the dead. I repainted the metal brackets around the control panel and marquee, installed new white buttons, gave it a little cleaning and another vector is now ready for duty. This game proved to be a bit of a challenge. Whenever I ran out of clues to keep me going, I would lean on the promise had I made to a nice lady who wanted nothing more than to know that her father’s game would get my best attempt at a second chance. I recently contacted Judy and let her know that this case has been solved and the Star Castle is now in my game room.

Exhibit A: Star Castle in gameroom.

Despite evidence of some cigarette burns, the game still looks nice:

After dusting for fingerprints,all I did to the coin door area was clean it:

Partners in crime:



Case closed.

Urban Legends...

We all know about urban legends. When I was a teenager growing up in the East Bay we were all aware of the urban legend about the White Witch that roamed the East Bay back roads. I would be a liar if I said I had never gone out with my friends looking for her. We spent countless weekend nights cruising along dark and windy roads hoping to catch a glimpse of her. Fast forward many years and now I had a new urban legend to chase after: a warehouse full of games. After hearing about it from a couple different people, I decided to look into it a little deeper. The rumor was that this warehouse was home to four Battlezones, a game that was high on my want list. It was time to go a little "Scooby Doo " and track this one down. With a little help from Dan (Hatrick) I was able to get a contact number for the owner of the machines and gave him a call. After talking a bit he made me an offer: get the Battlezones working and I can keep one. He said I would be able to cherry pick all of the best parts to put on the cabinet I wanted to keep. I told him I would want to see the machines before accepting the challenge. I met one of his guys at the warehouse that just happened to be a couple miles down the road from where I live. We went in and took a look around. Most of the classics were gone, but the Battlezones were still there along with a hundred or so other games sitting, collecting dust, and providing habitat for the Black Widow spiders in the neighborhood. Of course the Battlezones were upstairs. Why should it be any easier than it has to be?


All four machines were clustered together in the dark corner of the second story behind a couple other machines reminding me of a scene from “I am Legend”. They had been sitting there about 15 years. We dug them out and looked them over. They were in various states starting at fair and going down from there. Just the kind of challenge I like. I decided to go for it. We hauled the machines down the stairs, loaded them up,and took them to my garage. Maybe catching up with an urban legend wasn't such a good thing after all. Time would tell.

First things first. I had to decide what cabinet I wanted for myself and start moving all the best parts to it. After getting my game assembled I put the others together. There were only enough parts to make 3 complete machines so that is what I did. One of the cabinets had the 2 lower front and back panels busted out. I set it aside and went to work on the others. Using my rebuilt spare monitor, I tested all the motherboards. They were all partially working. There was only one good set of roms between the 4 motherboards. I used that set and found 3 of the motherboards to be good. I ordered the High Score save kits for those boards and went to work on the monitors. After capping the monitors and changing the chassis transistors, I had two working monitors and one that was blowing fuses. Using my meter, I was able to find the guilty transistor on the deflection board and changed it out.

Now it was time to take control of the controls. I had to repair some wiring and replace a couple bellows and the controls were working like new again. Flowed some solder over the AR-2 boards in a few places, adjusted the voltages and I had 3 out of 4 Battlezones ready to do battle again. I consider it a moral victory getting 3 out 4 working again as there weren’t enough parts to make the fourth game whole and the cabinet was busted up.

I replaced the t-molding on my game and put some new rubber mat on the step. I ended up with what I consider a collector quality game, a great learning experience, and 3 more games back amongst the living. There are still games out there in dusty old warehouses waiting to be saved. They won’t crawl out of there on their own. All it takes is a little initiative, and in some cases, being willing to believe in a local urban legend. Sometimes you find your “White Witch” and sometimes you don’t. This urban legend proved to be real and worth the Scooby Snacks it cost me to find my Battlezone.


Zoinks ! A picture is worth a thousand words...




This note gives me the creeps :




What would Scooby Doo ? He would select this shabby looking cabinet to keep for his own, and so did I :


Obviously the work of a dark and twisted mind, or a four year old :

Not looking too shabby now :




One for the money :




And two for the road :




The mystery of the missing Battlezones has been solved.

The End.

Lost in Space...

Early this morning at approximately 01:30 hours, a Lunar Lander burned into the southwest corner of Idaho's atmosphere. There was very little fanfare on this lonely stretch of highway. The event was only witnessed by two earthlings and punctuated by a lightning strike off in the distance. Me and my trusty sidekick Duke welcomed home the Lunar Lander after its 6 year mission in space. So the title is a little misleading. It wasn't really lost and it wasn’t really in space either. It was located in the Chabot Space and Science Center nestled in the hills of Oakland California. It’s mission: to boldly go where no arcade game has ever gone before , to explore new worlds, and to help future astronauts hone their skills should they be called upon to travel into space and land on the moon.

I had seen a request by the Chabot Space and Science Center for a Lunar Lander arcade game to be used in one of their exhibits. I happened to know where one was for sale at a pretty decent price. I had just absorbed several games from the seller and was trying to get them working and out of the garage. Space in my garage was at a premium with 2 newly acquired Star Wars cockpits and Star Wars and Asteroids uprights sitting in there. I was going to pass on the Lunar Lander but figured I could pick it up and loan it to the Chabot Center for awhile. I replied to the Chabot Center and told them I could help them out. I picked up the Lunar Lander and started preparing the game for its mission. My tech friend Tom dropped by to get the game working. As usual he asked,“How good does this one need to be?” I just looked at him and said “Space Shuttle”. He got the hint. While Tom got the game working and bullet-proofed, I had a custom plexiglass cover made to protect the control panel from the potentially harsh environment it would be exposed to. I delivered the game and what was originally going to be a two year mission ended up lasting about six years. The game was on almost every single day with only two complications, both motherboard related. Not bad for an old Lunar Lander with G05-801 hardware in it.

After moving to Idaho and being away for several years, I decided it was time for the Lunar Lander to come home. Tamara, the exhibits manager at the Chabot asked for a little time to have a new venue prepared to take the place of the Lunar Lander. We set the pick up time for July so I could make the Cal Extreme Show and complete two objectives in one trip down. Everything went as planned and now the Lunar Lander is back where it belongs. It felt good being able to help out the Chabot Center and then ending up with a Lunar Lander. Special thanks to Tom for doing a great job prepping the game, Tamara Schwarz and her associates for taking great care of the game while it was there, and fellow collector Frank A. for making a trip to the Chabot Center and repairing the motherboard when it gave out. I hope NASA appreciates our efforts to train their astronauts for them.

Going to the Cal Extreme show in the new location and picking up my Lunar Lander, not a bad way to spend a weekend. The Lunar Lander will be checked out and then retired to my game room. This machine was probably played more at the Chabot Center than it ever was played in an arcade. It was great seeing this game get another chance to be out there and enjoyed and appreciated by so many people. The mission was a complete success. It was an honor and a privilege to help out the Chabot Space and Science Center. Who knows, at the rate North Korea is going, maybe the Defense Department will put out a request for a Missile Command game. I’ll be ready.

As usual, a few photos to finish things off...


"Hey, it's not a bad gig, i get 3 square meals a day and a roof over my head" :


Not even the Space Shuttle gets wrapped up this well for it's journey home:


I had to replace the mission selection lamps and the starter for the marquee light but other than that the game passed it's post flight check list with flying colors :


A little detailing and minor adjustments and it's ready for it's next mission, to the game room :



The End.

A man walks into a barber shop

and sits down to get a haircut . He takes a look around and notices an Asteroids Deluxe sitting in the corner with a “for sale” sign on it. Wait just a minute. You thought this was one of those “man walks into a barber shop” jokes didn’t you? Well it isn’t, and he did, and there really was an Asteroids Deluxe sitting there with a for sale sign on it. Did you really think I would make a joke out of something as serious as an Asteroids Deluxe sitting in a barber shop with a for sale sign on it ? You should know me better than that by now so just settle down and let me finish my story would ya ? Ok, where I was? It was about 1989 when our previously mentioned young- at –the- time hero Miles walked into Judy’s Barber Shop in Boise. He saw the game for sale and thought it would be the perfect gift for his 10 year old son James who would soon be coming to live with him. Now most people would be content walking out of a barber shop with just a haircut. Some would be happy with a cut and a designer hair brush or bottle of fancy shampoo to rejuvenate their scalp. Not our young hero Miles. He left that shop the proud new owner of an Asteroids Deluxe arcade game. The arcade game and son James took up occupancy at the house and all was well. Miles really was a hero in the eyes of son James and the game got a chance to work its arcade magic one more time. About 10 years would pass before the Asteroids Deluxe finally had lost its luster and ended up in the family storage unit. Sadly, it would sit there for another 10 years without seeing the light of day.

The time had finally come to empty out the storage unit and this is where I enter the story. I saw the ad Miles placed on Craigslist and made the call. Luckily the Asteroids Deluxe was still available. We set up a time for the next day to meet at his house. Father and son went to the storage unit and retrieved the old arcade game from what had become a makeshift tomb. When I arrived at their house the game was sitting in the back of a utility trailer. The machine was dirty and run down on the outside, but almost seemed to be begging for one more chance to coin-up and do its thing.

We talked for awhile about the game and how much fun it was to play back when James was a kid. I promised them visitation rights and that it was going to a good home and capable hands and would be given the attention it sorely needed and deserved. I paid the asking price of $100 and loaded the game into the back of my old Ford. I circled around the end of the court and drove back by and with a smile and a wave we were off. The game was on the first leg of its journey back to reliving its glory days.

There was not much that was very deluxe about this Asteroids when it first arrived. The blacklight was burned out and the blue monitor overlay was missing, two of the key ingredients that make this game special. The overlay was cracked. There was a ton of dirt and grime on the cabinet. The monitor went from partially working to completely dead then the whole game seemed to just give out. This game needed a trip to one of those fancy day spas to bring that old glow back but seeing as no such place for arcade games exists just yet, my garage will have to suffice. It was time to do a little revitalizing on a tired game.


First I installed a cap kit, replaced the chassis transistors and replaced the blown fuses. I then looked for what was causing the rest of the game to give out. It ended up being one of the slip on connectors at the bridge rectifier under the power brick. I fixed the connection, stood back, and powered the game on. My hunch was correct. This machine still had a little something to prove. I played a quick game and went back to work. I installed a new blacklight and blue monitor overlay, a new control panel overlay, white buttons, cones , a door lock and painted the coin door and marquee brackets. I detoxed the sideart and the treatment was complete. Another classic vector saved and added to the collection. The game really has regained its luster and is ready for action. See for yourself.

This is beyond what Botox can do. Going to need a new overlay :


Looks like a deep cleansing is in order:

I sent a sample of this to the lab. I am in quarantine as I write this:


A slight build up on the mirror inside the game :



I found this power cord a little shocking. It was replaced :


Duke seems to approve of the outcome:



Not sure what is more difficult, landing a Boeing 747 perfectly in the middle of a runway or landing an overlay that has not been die-cut perfectly in the middle of a control panel:


I detoxed the sides of the game :



This Asteroids really is looking Deluxe again amongst a row of Ataris:



The End.