Atari Football

Very nice!
I love that game, but it kills me to play it (now that I'm old and out of shape :)
I'm looking forward to the repro side art coming out. I also would love it if someone would reproduce the monitor surround, my original was beat and the replacement I got is not much better!
cheers
/Tim
 
Awesome restore. I loved mine but I'm the only one in the faimily who liked playing it so it was replaced to make room. If only they had made a one player version w/ a decent AI.
 
Great restore and website! I'd love to get one or at least just have one semi-local to go play once in a while. I remember having sooo many blisters back in the day from one of these! :D
 
Great website and restoration project, you're making things a lot easier for those that follow with their own Football restorations. :]
 
Nice work! I did one a couple of years ago and just got a 4 player for restoration.

A couple questions for you:

- Does you CRT have the green overlay? Hard to tell for sure from your pics.

- Finding the wood vinyl will be tough...

- Have you considered putting in a switching PS? I restored my original PS and the PCB, but it still failed over time. As this is a pre-AR Atari game, I found that going with a switching PS solves a lot of power problems on the PCB. The original design is poor.

- Don't forget to get the 'punt' roms from Steph and hobbyroms.com.
 
Thank you for the compliments! I had a really difficult in finding all of the little details and parts as I've worked on this project. So I wanted to make a site that others could use and save themselves the time. It's also a site where people can share stuff they have found.

As for the questions:

Mine does NOT have the green overlay. I haven't been able to find any lately either. I'll just keep looking.

I would love to change out the power supply. I'm afraid that's beyond my capabilities (or at least beyond me wanting to screw it up bad enough). I was going to look into the feasibility of having one of the local arcade shops here switch it out for me later in the year (when I build up some more cash).

I have pretty found the "wood-grain" side vinyl I'm going to use. It's a stuff called mila-naturel (the mahogany version). It's as close as I've ever found. It just slightly lighter in color than the original...but you would have to put them side by side to notice. The grains's normal looking, and not the real pixelated stuff that was on the original. It's wide enough too. The game is about 44 inches wide, and the fablon stuff I looked into wassn't wide enough. The roll of mila-naturel is 50" wide.

The bad part is that the manufacturer has a 5 yard minimum order. At $32 per yard, that's a little over $160 (don't forget shipping). I'm not rich on my teacher's salary, so probably won't order it until the end of the summer.
 
The bad part is that the manufacturer has a 5 yard minimum order. At $32 per yard, that's a little over $160 (don't forget shipping). I'm not rich on my teacher's salary, so probably won't order it until the end of the summer.

After you purchase, figure out how much it takes to cover the machine, and sell the balance to defray your initial expense. I'm sure there would be people here that would buy it from you.

Also to add to the comments, great site - someday I might just pick up an Atari Football myself, but I'll probably try and get a Warlords first...
 
When i get back from CAX i'll be junking one of these machines and i have a very nice cardboard bezel. The sideart specimen was pulled from my machine and reproduction is in Rich's hands. I also sent him a cardboard bezel, the more colorful control panel for repro and I've been sitting on this machine for two years thinking i would restore it some day but now that a Journey machine is headed my way, the football project will be scrapped. Good luck with your restorations boys.

BTW, my board, trackballs and monitor are already spoken for and i have no green screen either.
 
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Great restore and website! I'd love to get one or at least just have one semi-local to go play once in a while. I remember having sooo many blisters back in the day from one of these! :D

Hey Jeff...
One of these days I'll get mine back in the house and you and yours can come play it :D

cheers
/Tim
 
meauxmeaux:

If you are interested in the switching PS, PM me your e-mail address and I'll send you some pics of what I did. It is pretty easy to do. You just need a switching PS, some wires, and remove some parts from the PCB.

The parts cost is minimal.

BTW, the green overlay appears to be a prototype part that Atari tested on both the 2 and 4 player XOs. Based on the original Atari game documentation, the green film never had an official part # nor was included in production game documentation. It is noted in some internal Atari docs.

If anyone has the green overlay, detailed pics and a description would be very useful in identify a potential modern replacement material.
 
Hey Jeff...
One of these days I'll get mine back in the house and you and yours can come play it :D

Great! I can see it now... next I'll have to drive to Nevada to pick up a Football. That's how my whole Kentucky trip started... because of you and your Crazy Climber. You had to turn it on to let my son and I play... you just *had* to. ;)

J/K
 
You might be able to get one from Wizzes Workshop - they sell the Battlezone, so perhaps he could custom cut one for your Football?

http://www.wizzesworkshop.com/cart/p...p?intProdID=21

For XO, the green overlay was not a film, as was used by Atari in Battlezone and other games. It was some type of contouring gel, similar to what Cinematronics used in Star Castle and other games. The overlay was contoured to apply to the face of the CRT.

I believe that that XO was only game Atari used this type of overlay on and, as noted earlier, it was only used on a prototype/test basis and never used as a production part (i.e. whatever the results of the testing, Atari made the decision not to use it after test period ended).
 
For XO, the green overlay was not a film, as was used by Atari in Battlezone and other games. It was some type of contouring gel, similar to what Cinematronics used in Star Castle and other games. The overlay was contoured to apply to the face of the CRT.

I believe that that XO was only game Atari used this type of overlay on and, as noted earlier, it was only used on a prototype/test basis and never used as a production part (i.e. whatever the results of the testing, Atari made the decision not to use it after test period ended).

actually atari drag race has that same type of gel for its overlay. Its not thin, more like a contoured plastic that is the same size as the tube face.
 
Great! I can see it now... next I'll have to drive to Nevada to pick up a Football. That's how my whole Kentucky trip started... because of you and your Crazy Climber. You had to turn it on to let my son and I play... you just *had* to. ;)

J/K

Sorry Jeff - no Football here. Funny thing - I was at an auction (non arcade) about 17-18 years ago and there was a Football there. This was before I started collecting a few years later. We all laughed that we'd buy it and put it in our apartment, but the thing was a beast and we didn't give it much thought. It sold for $6 (thats SIX).
 
The bad part is that the manufacturer has a 5 yard minimum order. At $32 per yard, that's a little over $160 (don't forget shipping). I'm not rich on my teacher's salary, so probably won't order it until the end of the summer.

Do you have a pic or sample of it? I bought some thin vertical grade laminate for mine thats very close, but have not started on it yet because I was waiting for the side player graphics to be redone first. I might split with you if its closer than what I got.. it would also be thinner even tho what I have is pretty thin stuff..
 
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