You KNOW you've been fanatical about collecting games when all of the sudden your phone starts ringing for no reason.
I'm at a friend's son's 4th birthday party yesterday (dlbagna) and my phone rings. It's a buddy of ours, and he's driving home from Duluth after running Grandma's Marathon...he's spotted a cab on the side of the road with a 'free' sign on it. In Dresser, WI?? Really? The town's got like 100 people, tops. "Send me a pic," I say. He does. I see Asteroids! He asks if I want it, b/c there's another guy about to take it if I don't. I tell him why not - you never know, right?
I get home, and find this in my garage:
Pretty bad water damage on the bottom, no back door, T-molding pulled off one side, and some damage on the right side waist high. I'm not very excited. But there ARE boards in it, and the monitor's there. Well, at least it wouldn't be hard to get rid of it anyway. I decide to sleep on it.
Get up this morning, and pull the board out to examine it over my wonderful father's day breakfast. There's really bad edge connector burn that's been worked on in the past. I appears that everything's been fixed, but the connector is terrible looking. I figure, "what the heck, let's see what happens" and drop it back in the cab and flick the switch.
*POP* *CRACKLE* *SPARK* *SPARK!*
Shut it off....crap. I look more closely. No fuses are blown. Turn it on again, fireworks ensue again. Hm....
I start tracing wires. Aha, found it....there are 2 AC line cords pinched underneath the power block. The wire insulation's been worn off, and the wires are grounding to each other, and against the side of the AC block. I cut the wires, spliced them back together properly, and flick the switch again.
Marquee lights up, P1 and P2 lights blinking! That's encouraging. I hit the P1 start and smile as I hear the familiar 'bum BUM bum BUM' music. I fire a few shots -- 'pew pew pewpew!' Nice! It plays.
But the monitor's not working.
I've never even SEEN a vector monitor, let alone worked on one. Looks like I've got some reading to do. I snapped a few pics the best I could of the monitor chassis and tube neck with the point and shoot camera. Perhaps that'll be enough to get a monitor ID?
I did notice a red LED lit on the monitor chassis too, not sure what that means.
So not too bad? Free water damaged Asteroids Deluxe that plays blind. Nice little project for me.
I'm at a friend's son's 4th birthday party yesterday (dlbagna) and my phone rings. It's a buddy of ours, and he's driving home from Duluth after running Grandma's Marathon...he's spotted a cab on the side of the road with a 'free' sign on it. In Dresser, WI?? Really? The town's got like 100 people, tops. "Send me a pic," I say. He does. I see Asteroids! He asks if I want it, b/c there's another guy about to take it if I don't. I tell him why not - you never know, right?
I get home, and find this in my garage:
Pretty bad water damage on the bottom, no back door, T-molding pulled off one side, and some damage on the right side waist high. I'm not very excited. But there ARE boards in it, and the monitor's there. Well, at least it wouldn't be hard to get rid of it anyway. I decide to sleep on it.
Get up this morning, and pull the board out to examine it over my wonderful father's day breakfast. There's really bad edge connector burn that's been worked on in the past. I appears that everything's been fixed, but the connector is terrible looking. I figure, "what the heck, let's see what happens" and drop it back in the cab and flick the switch.
*POP* *CRACKLE* *SPARK* *SPARK!*
Shut it off....crap. I look more closely. No fuses are blown. Turn it on again, fireworks ensue again. Hm....
I start tracing wires. Aha, found it....there are 2 AC line cords pinched underneath the power block. The wire insulation's been worn off, and the wires are grounding to each other, and against the side of the AC block. I cut the wires, spliced them back together properly, and flick the switch again.
Marquee lights up, P1 and P2 lights blinking! That's encouraging. I hit the P1 start and smile as I hear the familiar 'bum BUM bum BUM' music. I fire a few shots -- 'pew pew pewpew!' Nice! It plays.
But the monitor's not working.
I've never even SEEN a vector monitor, let alone worked on one. Looks like I've got some reading to do. I snapped a few pics the best I could of the monitor chassis and tube neck with the point and shoot camera. Perhaps that'll be enough to get a monitor ID?
I did notice a red LED lit on the monitor chassis too, not sure what that means.
So not too bad? Free water damaged Asteroids Deluxe that plays blind. Nice little project for me.


