Friday Score --- Free Dedicated Space Ace

Walkamo

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Ok,

So I work for Pioneer Electronics in Long Beach, Ca.. This past Friday was our last day in our current office and we move into our new office on Monday. Friday we were cleaning out some of our old storage areas and buried in the back I found what I thought was an old filing cabinet under a tarp, however when I pulled off the tarp I found a very nice dedicated Space Ace. I plugged it in and it made a couple of noises however the score display showed some numbers and letters. You could see the monitor was on, however no video.

Since it did not work they let me take it home. I immediately loaded it up and drove it home at the end of the day.

When I got home I opened up the back and as you see from below there are two sets of boards in the cabinet. I disconnected one and hooked up the other. Now when I fire it up I get the same sounds, however the displays look normal (Dashes where the scores go and 00 for the credits). I can add credits, so I believe all of the boards are working.

The LD player (LD-V1000) does not have a disc in it and the players does not appear to work. It does power up, however when I put in another disc in, it never spins up..

I am going to bring the LD player over to our Service Center to see if it can be fixed (not sure we keep parts for a 25 year old LD player)...

I have attached some pics below...

The side-art needs to be replaced, however all I can find it the black version. This model has silver artwork...

I am pretty sure that I want to get this working...

Chris
 

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Oh yeah, now I remember. I asked if they could store my game for me when I was there back in '87 and they said they would. When I went back to get it they couldn't find it. Thanks so much for finding it for me. Can I send a truck to come and get it? Thanks
 
Oh yeah, now I remember. I asked if they could store my game for me when I was there back in '87 and they said they would. When I went back to get it they couldn't find it. Thanks so much for finding it for me. Can I send a truck to come and get it? Thanks

LOL That was nice...
 
WOW, nice. Insanely jealous. No laserdisc is a big bummer though, but sounds like you have at least one good main board.

Does the player make any noise at all? Is it getting power? I don't think that the LD-V1000 player will play until it's issued with a play command. Check this out... http://www.d-l-p.com/tech/docs/bootswitch.asp

The ribbon cables from the motherboard to the laserdiscs are flaky in these games, and if this cable is bad that could be why the player isn't starting. So that might be a good place to start.

If the problem is the player and you can't get it repaired, then you can get hardware to replace that player with a more modern one. Or if you are desperate and can't find a laserdisc, the player can be replaced with a modern PC.

Interesting that it has two complete game boards in there, guess the 2nd one was installed as part of an attempted repair at some point?

- James
 
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I love hearing about these awesome Scores on this forum.. Congrats!! Nothing like getting a good deal like this!!
 
Sweet! I have actually never seen one dedicated, always converted. You HAVE to get that baby working! Congrats!
 
Nice score! Good luck with it! It even has the raised panel coin door that everyone loves too!

Yeah, this cabinet is also known as the "inverted" Space Ace cabinet. The reason for this rather than calling it "dedicated" is because many Space Ace machines were also "dedicated" in the Dragon's Lair style cabinet. Originally people were calling this machine "dedicated" and any Space Ace that was in a DL style cabinet was being called "conversion". This was proven to not be accurate so the "inverted" name was given to this style cabinet. (inverted... because a DL cab has sides that taper back while this cab has sides that taper forward)

Strangely I have a photo of a Dragon's Lair in this style cabinet, which continues to be a mystery to most LD game veterans.
 
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That's amazing. What a score!

I think you need to make room for it by selling me your Elevator Action. ;)
 
You just never know where someone will find the next stashed game(S)....:D

Apparently they weren't all put in old barns...:rolleyes: Which is good news since that DL looks to be in great original shape..don't replace any artwork on that unless your using original NOS artwork and be careful since there are a lot of fakes with this art from what I'm told being sold as nos when its not.....
 
WOW, nice. Insanely jealous. No laserdisc is a big bummer though, but sounds like you have at least one good main board.

Does the player make any noise at all? Is it getting power? I don't think that the LD-V1000 player will play until it's issued with a play command. Check this out... http://www.d-l-p.com/tech/docs/bootswitch.asp

The ribbon cables from the motherboard to the laserdiscs are flaky in these games, and if this cable is bad that could be why the player isn't starting. So that might be a good place to start.

If the problem is the player and you can't get it repaired, then you can get hardware to replace that player with a more modern one. Or if you are desperate and can't find a laserdisc, the player can be replaced with a modern PC.

Interesting that it has two complete game boards in there, guess the 2nd one was installed as part of an attempted repair at some point?

- James

The player does power up, however the disc never spins... I had also read that it needs to be issued a play command as well. I even replaced the control cable with another in the cabinet and it does not spin up. Figured when the game booted up it will try and spin the disc...

I am going to bring the player to the office later this week (Traveling right now) and see if I can get the player going.. Then I have to find a disc.. Quarterarcade has one, however they want $200.00 for it....

The second game board looks has a different ROM version written on it. There is also a long plastic IC holder tube with a bunch of different chips in it.. Not sure what they are.. I will post pics of those when I get back..

Chris
 
I just got back from checking under every tarp in our warehouse... nothing but ghost turds... darn! "Congratulations" somehow seems understated.
 
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