$50 Craigslist Score Today

Mike Doyle

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Lenexa, Kansas
A Missile Command! The seller was a really nice guy and the game had belonged to his dad and had been in his basement since the early 90's. I told him on the phone I'd take it as is and pay his asking price, I hopped in the truck and headed out. At the half way point, I called him and let him know right where I was at and that I was still on my way. Once I got there, he said someone else had called and offered him more money, asked if he had cash in hand from me yet, ect. Pretty low, but kudos to the seller for sticking to his word.

It was really dusty and had a thick coating of smoke, but a couple of hours with some Mean Green and steel wool took care of that. While I had the marquee out, I replaced the bulb and starter. The monitor wasn't coming up and a little checking showed the HOT was out and f901 had blown so I swapped in another chassis. That's when I found out the tube had gotten necked at some point in the past :-(

Luckily I had a 4600 sitting around, so I swapped that in and had a good picture. Now the remaining issue is the trackball opto. It was getting late tonight so I decided to wrap it up for the evening and put everything inside.

Here's a couple of after shots, once the dust and tar were cleaned up, the sideart really shined:

mc2.jpg


mc1.jpg
 
HA! I saw that this morning. Wonderful price. but missile command ain't my thing and I had to work. I live in kc so it was close. Looks beautiful though!
 
For 50$!?!?Are you kidding? Why can't I find deals like this around!!? Bravo.......
 
Now with 100% working goodness! Putting the game in test mode showed the trackball motion off in both axis and a little more testing ruled out the opto PCBs.

It turns out Atari populated two sets of inputs so the same board can serve in the upright and cocktail. At C9 a 4584 handles trackball input for player 1 and the same chip is present at C11 for player 2 in a cocktail.

I removed and then socketed both chips, marked the bad one and put it at C11 as a placeholder. Then put the chip from C11 that had been lying dormant since 1981 into the socket at C9.

Powered it up and everything is fully operational. Even the trackball moves nice and smooth, kind of a rare occurrence for me personally with past Missile Commands.

Defend Cities!
 
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Sweet! An MC that doesn't need board repairs. :p Nice pickup. It's good to know there are some lister-folks out there still willing to make good on a deal.

Now with 100% working goodness! Putting the game in test mode showed the trackball motion off in both axis and a little more testing ruled out the opto PCBs.

It turns out Atari populated two sets of inputs so the same board can serve in the upright and cocktail. At C9 a 4893 handles trackball input for player 1 and the same chip is present at C11 for player 2 in a cocktail.

I removed and then socketed both chips, marked the bad one and put it at C11 as a placeholder. Then put the chip from C11 that had been lying dormant since 1981 into the socket at C9.

Powered it up and everything is fully operational. Even the trackball moves nice and smooth, kind of a rare occurrence for me personally with past Missile Commands.

Defend Cities!
 
What a nice find, really like the looks of those cabinets / artwork.

What do you plan on doing to touch up / repair the wear on the control panel ?
 
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I told him on the phone I'd take it as is and pay his asking price, I hopped in the truck and headed out. At the half way point, I called him and let him know right where I was at and that I was still on my way. Once I got there, he said someone else had called and offered him more money, asked if he had cash in hand from me yet, ect. Pretty low, but kudos to the seller for sticking to his word.

nice score.

i had seen that ad and called him up. he told me he think he had it sold. i asked him if he had money in hand. he said no but the guy had just called him asking for more directions because he was lost. i said ok, thanked him and said goodbye and he said goodbye.
didnt know it was you !

nice score.

edit update: never offered seller more money. flat out lie.
 
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Damn. All these deals lately and I'm tapped. It was hard not to make the call on this one. Glad to see another collector got it. Looks nice too. Good score.
 
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