Atari's Monte Carlo Restoration

I interviewed Joe Decuir back in 2005 and asked him about the Super Bug port for the Atari home computers that I had heard about:

http://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/interviews/joe_decuir/interview_joe_decuir.html

Q: You once mentioned that you had programmed a version of Atari's Super Bug coin-op for the 800, purely as a test concept. Do you recall why it was never released?

Joe Decuir: I didn't stick around to finish it. I started another company with two pals to work on modems and other communications products.

For the VCS, other than Atari's Indy 500 (1977) and Sprint Master (1988), there were also the unreleased Racer (which is strictly a vertical racer ala Monaco GP) and Activision's Grand Prix (a horizontal racer). Atari pretty much ignored doing any ports for their 8-bit computers. Besides Rally Speedway, there were a few other 3rd-party games in the mid-80s like Grand Prix Simulator and Grand Prix II, but AFAIK none of those early games were ported to the 8-bits.

3rd-person perspective racers pretty much relegated top-down racers to pit road. Night Driver was an early glimpse of that, but when Turbo and Pole Position came out, that's when it really changed. The genre had a revival with games like Championship Sprint, Badlands, and Leland's Super Off Road, showing they still had an edge with multi-player gaming, until 3rd-person racers were able to be linked up.
 
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I have been mulling over a few subtle issues with this game and today I killed two birds with ... two buttons. Well, one for now.

Been thinking I would hunt down plastic or rubber plugs of some sort to cover up the security bar holes.

This game has no free play option, let alone dip switches! Hmm, rig up a button for a coin deposit...

Heeeey, what if I found buttons to fit in the security holes for a coin up! Brilliant!

So while I start looking for buttons to fit the holes, this ugly mustard button for just fine in the key hole in the door. Unplugged the coin door and ghetto'd two wires into the proper plugs on the harness. No harm done.

Speaking of the coin door, it works, but after 10 minutes or so something fails and the game shuts off. Maybe 5 minutes later, I hear the two magnetic things release. I hate working on coin doors.
8485be5d1d12b9ac3b944eb4faa5dc64.jpg


Edit: I was wrong, the game does have a free play option, the PDF copy of the manual I originally grabbed had stuff missing from it. No need for this button stuff anymore.
 
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The magnetic coin lockouts disengage when the power is cut, so people can't put coins into the game when it's off, and they will automatically come out the returns. I'm not sure what they are driven off of exactly for that cab, but it might be once the big blue discharges past a certain point (or one of the other caps in the system, as that game uses that funky AR, with the extra cap).

If the game is dying after a given time, I wonder if something is drawing too much power, and the AR is shutting down. You might want to try measuring the current draw out of the +5, -5, and +12V supplies from the AR.
 
Control Panel Rebuild

Got around to finishing up the control panel. I already cleaned up the steering wheel assembly, but wasn't happy with the type of grease I used. It caused the steering to be too sluggish and heavy. This game needs the steering to be flickable like with Turbo.

I bought a few different types of lube & grease off Amazon and after some trial and error (and a lot of cleaning), Finish Line Bicycle Chain Lube worked the best. I hope it doesn't evaporate in a few weeks, we'll see.

Cleaned up and greased the shifting mechanism, it's working much better now. Didn't pay attention to my photos and put the one switch on the wrong spot, thankfully I tested it before mounting it back in. Also worthwhile to note, the shorter-cabled volcano button is the Start button.

All bolts, shovel connectors, etc. got the corrosion cleansing ritual, wire brush, sanding on some parts for rust removal, and a coat of paint for the outward facing bolts.

Left and right sides were chipped of the CP overlay, and a few more spots on the top. Primed & painted as little and exact an area over these as possible to prevent rusting. Looking into how I can make a tracing from my other CP to make a stencil for repainting the white line work.

Replacement digital encoder wheel thingy in place and NOS shifter bezel with painted lettering from arcadefixit.com. I also tried my hand at painting the Atari logo on the plastic center-cap on the steering wheel. I figured why not, I need to hunt down a NOS one anyway since this is also cracked. It's not the best job in the world... :D

One issue I am having is the steering wheel itself wobbles a little bit. I do not know what to tighten to resolve this. Everything screws into plastic so it's way to easy to overtighten and crack, and this already has happened on the fixed bezel piece that locked the steeringwheel assembly to the panel with the block of wood in between. That thing needs replaced as it's cracked.

I have the very long screw that goes from the center of the wheel to the far end in nice and tight as well. I just don't know what's causing the wobble.
 

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Marquee Marq and the Curmudgeons

Replaced the FS2 starter in the fluorescent fixture and it worked, original bulb and all! Wasn't expecting that. Well, it works for about 5 minutes and then flickers out.

Any suggestions on where to get a replacement ballast, or is it Ebay time? My home depot does not carry this style at all.

Used a metal grinder to clear up the two metal things that hold in the marquee, painted and did the same for all 5 marquee bolts. Yep, missing one.
 

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Looking good! As for the steering wobble, if those white plastic pieces on your third picture/diagram above, where it says "lubricate here" are worn, they can cause the wobble. I'm not sure if those have been reproduced, but they probably need to be for all these old Atari racing games.
 
Brought the other CP into work to attempt scanning the corners I need to cut a template. No problem with that.

Was hoping to do a full scan of it, but unfortunately there is an upward lip on the top that prevents this from laying flat. I was able to work around this for the corners, but it's just not doable with the two big scanners here, something gets in the way or prevents the lip from hanging over the side. Oh well.

You can see how the white starts nice and bright at the bottom and halfway to the top, the white starts to be visibly grey/blue from it lifting off the glass. Completely skews everything off.

Might play around with adjusting it in photoshop at some point. I'd like to be able to trace this CP in illustrator to some day get it printed.
 

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most all of our local home depots do stock the ballast for the single bulb units - so you may want to check again you may have over looked them
 
Lolwhut

I knew there was something up with these track designs...
 

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These are still a WIP, I'll finish 6-8 tomorrow and then I need to verify them against some video recordings of the tracks being played to make sure I didn't screw up somewhere. Track 3 has a long vertical stretch that I question.

Update and finished.

All 8 tracks are done. Yep, the hardest track, #8, is the only track that fully connects to itself!

I verified my mapping here is correct with in game footage. They aren't the prettiest but that's not the point. :D
 

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The power switch is in a clever location on this game, it's upfront inside the foot pedal enclosure.
 

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Grounding

A few questions on ground locations.

Following my other Atari games, I'm bolting down the two green grounds to the upward-mounted bolt on the power block that also holds the filter underneath. Need to find a replacement bolt, this one is stripped.

Need screws for the isolation transformer. From the artwork in the manual this looks like the correct direction it should be.

For the ground on the monitor cable, I connected it to this location on the chassis, is this correct? In general, does it matter where on the chassis?
 

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Well semi-bad news. Went to test voltages tonight and found that the DAP Cement I used to glue the rails onto the cabinet failed. Audio/Regulator and mainboard fell into the cabinet.

Still pulled some voltages, but unfortunately the game come up with a white screen. Didn't try to coin up.

So, I need a good recommendation on a glue to secure these rails better than DAP Cement did!
 
Don't just glue them. Use small nails or staples too. I replaced the AR rails on my Tempest, and used double-sided carpet tape (extremely sticky, you can get it at Walmart), and I used the original staples as well. (Which is how they did it at the factory, on Tempests at least.)
 
Don't just glue them. Use small nails or staples too. I replaced the AR rails on my Tempest, and used double-sided carpet tape (extremely sticky, you can get it at Walmart), and I used the original staples as well. (Which is how they did it at the factory, on Tempests at least.)

I have to look in my other Atari cabinets to see how they did it in those with nails or staples and do that on the next attempt. Ah well. Just hope nothing got damaged from this.
 
Monte Carlo is working once again.

Purcahsed some 3M 90 to use on the wooden rails. Sanded them down a few times to remove the old glue before putting on the new stuff. Was simple to put back into place since my marks were still there. Placed cement block on top, waited.

Drove two of these headless nails onto each one. My asteroids used these as well. They are not going anywhere.

Reconnected everything and got a blue playfield that was scrambled. Apparently the connector on the deflection board for color & sync needs reflowed. Bolstered the cable up with a cable tie and the video came back on fine.

I'll re-check voltages tomorrow and see what andrewb suggests. I played a quick round but I don't want to run the game until it shuts itself off, but I'm glad to find no damage to anything from the rail failure.
 
Alternative AR Board

Thanks to andrewb for working through my AR problem on this game. It was shutting down after 15 minutes. He thinks it was the 2N3055 (which tested fine) failing after it warmed up after 15 minutes.

He researched other AR II boards and found that the AR-II-02 will work just fine in this game, so I pulled the one from my Battlezone and it worked great, which is how we narrowed down the 15 minute failure. The game ran for hours just fine with the Battlezone board.

His information:

The MC AR basically just generates the -5V differently, by taking in the 6.3V AC on J9, pins 3 and 6, rectifying it, then regulating the negative half down to -5V (similar to how it makes the +12 from the 36V AC). Regular AR-II-02's just use the -22V (i.e., the negative side of the rectified 36V AC) as the input to the -5V regulator, instead of the rectified 6.3V. But they both output the -5V the same way.

Also, pins 3 and 6 of J9 on a standard AR-II-02 aren't connected to anything, so when you plug your MC into J9, the 6.3V AC won't go anywhere, so there's no danger there.

Maybe this will help get another MC up and running someday!
 
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