...And what about the future of fixing arcades?

jcterzin

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I was driving to my studio today and along the way was contemplating on how I should go about trying to fix my pacman, where to start, as there are quite a few things wrong with it. I figured I needed to pick up a new fuse block, a harness, resolder some connections, replace some caps, fix the edge connector... and so forth among just a few things. But then it occurred to me that I COULD fix all of those things but eventually they would break again. Sure probably not in the next year or 10 even, but eventually they would.

Then what?

I have an awesome GCC laser printer I use to use to make films for screen printing. It rocked, until I ran out of toner for it. The machine was made in the 90's and I no one on earth makes toner for it anymore, believe me, no one. Now it sits in the corner while my new Epson does the work and there is nothing I can do about it.

As it is today, its hard enough trying to find a decent CRT to use, or some of those special resistors and caps arent easy to get either for these arcades. One of these days these parts will be impossible to get and these games with their original parts will be essentially large shrines in homage to the games they played because there is no way to fix them.

The games are timeless and I hardly think that they will be forgotten, but when do you say to hell with trying to fix a busted monitor, resolder and edge connector, find a rare resistor that is specific to that machine, replace a fuse block, and so forth and just say, its time to update the technology. Its time to use MAME or some emulator that is incredibly easy to run and replace. I like the original stuff, or I wouldn't be writing this, but one of these days those parts simply will not be available anymore and then what?

This is my off tangent thought for the day.
 
The whole point of having arcade games in your collection is to have the original, the way it originally was. If you just want to play the games, just build a mame machine.

As for your toner, toner is toner, if you had one of the old containers somebody could refill it.

Capacitors are used in everything, new LCD tv's have caps in them, so those will be available for a long time. A Resistor is also a very common part, and you can substitute transistors with newer transistors.

Anything on an arcade game can be remanufactured. You could even remake the PCB's if you wanted to. I don't see the problem.

Look at some of the early automobiles, they make complete cars out of just reproduction parts.

There's nothing on these that can't be repaired, even tubes could be remanufactured if they had to be.
 
Just drill a hole in that old toner cartridge and drill a hole in a new style replacement, and get yourself a funnel. :)
 
Yeah, that whole toner/ink thing is the biggest money making scheme of ALL TIME! These people are evil. They're going to burn in hell for that.
















Ink people meeting:

Bob: Hey Mark; I've got this great idea, check this out.

Mark: What's that, Bob?

Bob: You know how we're making those new printers? Well... I'm going to make a little cartridge that the ink goes in. It's got a little square indention on the side, that lines up with the carriage that the printer holds the ink in.

Mark: Yes.....

Bob: Well, we'll sell that for 4 months; then we'll make a printer that's a different color... and instead of having a little square hole... THE HOLE WILL BE A TRIANGLE, MARK!!! THE HOLE WILL BE A TRIANGLE!!!

Mark: BOB, YOU'RE A GENIUS!!!!!
 
Hate to be the party pooper but as a former laser printer tech, toner isn't all toner. There's different sizes of particles and different formulas. I've had people try this only to really ruin a printer, getting toner everywhere (which will short out the high voltage coronas) and the funniest one was when the page printed fine..until the letters started falling off lol.

The non-funniest one was the fuser that got turned into a glob of molten glop, and I had to sit there and try to scrape it all of.

Anyhow, check ebay for the toner, I know a lot of people still have ancient supplies and there's prob still stuff around. If not, pick up a cheap HP laserjet 4+ as they'll never go out of style and are extreme workhorses, unlike the newer 4000 series.
 
There is a passion for arcade games that doesn't exist for generic computer hardware.

It may come to the point where the non do-it-yourselfer has to send stuff away, but just like everything people are passionate about from Packards to Victrola's to Lugers, there will always be someone who still cares enough about bygone technology to specialize in it.
 
If you can't find a specific part for a PCB, just go bigger and start looking for a new PCB set. Sell your original to recoup some of the money, or keep it in case ROMS or something easily fixable dies on the new set in the future.

There are several expert monitor techs on the forum, start there.

And don't give up on your game. You found a very desirable game, that's your game, now treat it right and go out and fix it. I figure, arcade games generally don't come up very often, and I've found one of the few that I really like. Around here, there's a lot of other collectors, so the chances of finding another "better" copy are remote especially for a good price. Make it "better," keep it, have fun with it.
 
There is a passion for arcade games that doesn't exist for generic computer hardware.

I agree 110% with this statement. We've already seen it where someone not just remanufactures a replacement part, but completely re-engineers it! Look at the LV2000 board for X-Y Monitors. You take the parts that are currently available, which are likely surface mount or whatever... The same parts that have since obsoleted the older through-hole parts in modern electronics... Then adapt them into their older counterparts. Or use something that's even better. Technology improves, someone will figure out how to put new components into the old games to keep them going!

Rottendog is another example of using newer/better components to keep our old games going.
 
Hate to be the party pooper but as a former laser printer tech, toner isn't all toner. There's different sizes of particles and different formulas. I've had people try this only to really ruin a printer, getting toner everywhere (which will short out the high voltage coronas) and the funniest one was when the page printed fine..until the letters started falling off lol.

The non-funniest one was the fuser that got turned into a glob of molten glop, and I had to sit there and try to scrape it all of.

Anyhow, check ebay for the toner, I know a lot of people still have ancient supplies and there's prob still stuff around. If not, pick up a cheap HP laserjet 4+ as they'll never go out of style and are extreme workhorses, unlike the newer 4000 series.

Toner - It's even worse than usual for GCC - several of their old laser printers (I used to have one) put a lot of the printer mechanism into the toner cartridge (important stuff like the imaging drum, for instance!). GCC had the theory that instead of making these parts very robust to last the printer's lifetime, they'd just make them good enough to last the life of the toner cartridge. This had the nice effect of making the printer cheaper, but it made the toner carts a bit more expensive and, you can't just refill the things because the other parts won't stand up for another full cart's worth of toner.

Chip replacements - Some parts may well become hard to source. However, there are two ways forward: You can try to get the original chips re-spun somehow (given the level of fabrication technology that is available these days, it's not hard to imagine that in 10 or 20 years, a desktop chip fab might well be in the 10-15K range). Or, you can go ahead and use the original board's schematic as input to an FPGA and re-create the whole blasted thing in a single part. This has the added advantage that once you get it working correctly, it's pretty easy to move it forward to newer, bigger, better, cheaper replacement parts.

So yea, there's always a way forward, if you really want it.
 
I am the author of several patents for printer technology for a manufacturer that begins with x and ends with x. Does that make me evil?

Not quite...unless you work for a company that begins with R, ends with h, and happens to have ico in the middle, and be the biggest poses ever that leak more toner than they put on paper.
 
Chip replacements - Some parts may well become hard to source. However, there are two ways forward: You can try to get the original chips re-spun somehow (given the level of fabrication technology that is available these days, it's not hard to imagine that in 10 or 20 years, a desktop chip fab might well be in the 10-15K range). Or, you can go ahead and use the original board's schematic as input to an FPGA and re-create the whole blasted thing in a single part. This has the added advantage that once you get it working correctly, it's pretty easy to move it forward to newer, bigger, better, cheaper replacement parts.

So yea, there's always a way forward, if you really want it.


I wouldn't worry about chip replacements 10 to 20 years from now. Why? you may ask well companies will eventually dump old manufacturing equipment to make these chips because no one will need them or buy the stuff anymore. Some hobbyist will buy the equipment and start to remanufacture the chips for other hobbyist. Or equipment will be developed to manufacture these parts cheap at home. Look at home CNC machines 10 to 20 years ago these things would have cost you $100,000 and up today you can get one for a few $1000 to the price of a new car. Or a better example go on ebay and look up Electron Microscope and see what you come up with for the highest priced pieces. The lowest set up I saw was around $1800 now think when a collage or company bought one of these like 10 to 20 years ago they cost $100,000's of dollars to millions of dollars and now are worth $2000 20 years later.
 
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