Common Ms. Pac-Man issues?

jcroach

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I have a line on a Ms. Pac-man for a very good price. What are some common problems that I should look for in a Ms. Pac-man in deciding to buy it or not? Any particular components fail more often than others? Any hard to find replacement parts?

Thanks!
 
Out of all the games you could ever hope to buy, Ms. Pac-Man is quite possibly the easiest one to fix. Every single part is readily available, and the electronics are SUPER simple.

Common failures are the fuse holders in the bottom of the game, and the edge connector that plugs into the board. And, of course, common monitor failures that all games have.

The game PCB itself is simple, faults there are usually 2114 RAMs, ROMs, etc. Sometimes you'll have a more complicated fault, but they're still not hard to fix. Well documented. Easy to get replacement boards if you want, and everyone fixes Pac boards. Expect to see the edge connector all burnt up, it's pretty common too, but again, not hard to fix.

And Pac games are exceedingly well documented, and the manual has all the wiring diagrams and everything - it's very, very clear.

As long as everything is complete, buy it! There's nothing you can't fix on that game.

-Ian
 
well that guy it's pretty much right as from what I keep reading there were so many Pac Man and Ms. Pac Man machines made we are not gonna run out of parts anytime soon.
 
Good points mentioned so far, I also check to see that the joystick turns freely in the grommet, if it's rusted in place, then I know I'm probably going to end up replacing it when I replace the overlay.

The cabs are plywood so they hold up well, but some had particle board bottoms in them, check that it's not water damaged. The other issues are mostly cosmetic- hand wear, faded pink on the cab and marquee, flaking bezels, etc.
 
I think the most common issue isn't even related to the game boards... the monitor.

Usually just capacitor issues (take out the old ones, put in new ones).

As far as the boards, I think just about every problem with the game has been studied and solved. There are even websites that have pictures of most of the problems and a quick description of how to fix it.

http://www.arcadegameover.com/pactrouble.html
http://www.mikesarcade.com/arcade/pacfix.html

But, that said... a lot of the problems with the game are actually power and connector related. The fuse holders suck on Pacs and the boards edge connector isn't too much better. Hell, even the main transformer in my cabinet sucks; about once a week I have to hit it a few times with the back of a screwdriver to make it stop humming.
 
Placing value on a Ms Pac cab is all about the cabinet, not about the game. Sure, the game is either working or not, but it's the cab that makes the difference. Side art, marquee, bezel, wiring inside, dust, water damage, touch ups, all need to be considered.

I've seen pacs sold from free to $2000. It really depends on the cabinet.
 
Next month, I will have had my Ms. Pac for 10 years. She's been so good to me, I should take her out to dinner to celebrate. In that time, I have had one PCB problem (a motion object RAM problem, but I just swapped the board as I had another one) and a monitor problem. The GO7's flyback farted out but, that isn't really that bad.

I got my Pac-Man about a month after I got the Ms. Pac. Its been a very good game for me. I've had an issue or two with the "hum bar", related to the edge connector and fuse block. The WG4600 has been a great monitor. It has some burn but has been fairly trouble free. I capped it a couple of years ago, to find that the original caps had not been replaced yet. There were no major issues with the picture, either.


As mentioned, the great thing about Pac and Ms. Pac is that parts are so readily available. So many of them were made (and unfortunately, a lot were converted) that there are a ton of original and replacement parts around. E-bay usually has a ton of stuff like that.

They aso make great starter games because of how easy they are to fix. There are many original and aftermarket conversion kits for the PCB so it is relatively easy to make them play different games without having to rewire or substantially modify anything.
 
I can't remember who makes it but the 96-in-1 gets the most attention around here. One of the guys here makes a 6-Pac kit. Sometimes Two Bit Score's "Super ABC kit" shows up on E-bay, as well as Clay Cowgil's "Clay's Multi-Pac". The most abundant of the kits from the 80's is the Pac-Man Plus kit made by Midway. There are several speed and maze mods as well as a few kits that play non Pac-Man related games. The Pac-Man PCB is one of the most hacked boards in the arcade industry.


http://lawnmowerman.rotheblog.com/ has a list of some of the better known mods, hacks and kits. It is about 1/3 of the way down the page.
 
http://lawnmowerman.rotheblog.com/ has a list of some of the better known mods, hacks and kits. It is about 1/3 of the way down the page.

Thanks for the link. It's ironic, the operator of that domain is the person who has the game for sale.

I'm on the fence on this one. Seller says "I powered it on last night. Monitor works, the game came up, booted just fine, and then went into some graphics loop. Definitely looks like a board issue."

Thoughts on what might be causing this problem and the expense to fix it?
 
the game came up, booted just fine, and then went into some graphics loop. Definitely looks like a board issue."

Thoughts on what might be causing this problem and the expense to fix it?

Could be a hundred different things on the board. I can't give you any real specifics without seeing a photograph of the screen, or a better description of the problem.

These boards aren't hard to fix. It could be something as simple as a bad socket, or it could be as "complicated" as a bad TTL chip somewhere.

Worse comes to worse, buy another board. What's a Pac board go for these days? $50? $75? Don't know, but they're real common. As others have said, the value in this game is the cabinet. If the cabinet is in good condition, the electronics are easy, easy, easy.

-Ian
 
Could be a hundred different things on the board. I can't give you any real specifics without seeing a photograph of the screen, or a better description of the problem.

These boards aren't hard to fix. It could be something as simple as a bad socket, or it could be as "complicated" as a bad TTL chip somewhere.

Worse comes to worse, buy another board. What's a Pac board go for these days? $50? $75? Don't know, but they're real common. As others have said, the value in this game is the cabinet. If the cabinet is in good condition, the electronics are easy, easy, easy.

-Ian

I asked him for a screen picture. I'll post it when I get it. Thanks for the encouragement Ian! I even told my wife about the issue and she didn't balk at the idea of me buying a non-working game, so that's a bonus!
 
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