Gremlin Tenpin wall game

[Garagely]

Picked this up. Came with one remote, an extra set of PCBs and the manual/schematics. Doesn't play yet, haven't looked at anything yet. Sound is out, power switch toggle broken but it powers on as soon as you plug it in, controller in unknown state, I heard it didn't work. Game turns on but I don't think it goes into a proper attract mode, I think it just lights up and isn't actually operational. There's very little info about these that I've found so far so if there's interest I'll post pictures as I clean and restore it. If any experts want to explain anything to me, I know nothing about this and want to know everything. Is the styrofoam under the main screen that surrounds the lights supposed to be glued to the underside of the screen printing? Because it is, is that correct? Seems wrong.

 

[rod90]

The Gremlin is more complex than an earlier Midway version. The Styrofoam focuses the light beam and did not originally stick to the lid. My history is on the Midway version buy I can help where I can.

 

[Garagely]

Thanks, it's weird to me that it's so obscure. And when I look up the Gremlin games, it seems like the other titles pop up in results or videos, but not so much this one.

 

[Garagely]

Tenpin

This site above looks like the only online resource for this game genre and it looks like no one has really preserved any info on Tenpin in particular. They only wrote like 3 or 4 sentences about it with one stock photo ~20 years ago and that pretty much makes up the entire library of info on this title online. I'll probably try to document what I can here.

It said somewhere that these games over time were mostly being tossed out once the remote control box was lost, broken, or stolen, which must have happened easily, so that's supposedly the fate of all the wall games? VAPS says I'm the only person claiming to own a Tenpin, I found some forums from years ago where people mention they might have one on a warehouse shelf maybe, but no one is working on them or sharing photos, so I'll try to do that here.

I don't have a coin box for it, if anyone has any parts at all let me know. This thing is literally just one huge 5'x3' PCB on back, it's amazing, I'll document when I can to show it off to the disinterested hordes but I'm battling a busy schedule these days and there's really no time for obscure BS like this but I'll force it eventually.

 

[rod90]

People have retrofitted key fobs for these. Also, hand triggers are also used.

 

[Glitch]

Tenpin

This site above looks like the only online resource for this game genre and it looks like no one has really preserved any info on Tenpin in particular. They only wrote like 3 or 4 sentences about it with one stock photo ~20 years ago and that pretty much makes up the entire library of info on this title online. I'll probably try to document what I can here.

It said somewhere that these games over time were mostly being tossed out once the remote control box was lost, broken, or stolen, which must have happened easily, so that's supposedly the fate of all the wall games? VAPS says I'm the only person claiming to own a Tenpin, I found some forums from years ago where people mention they might have one on a warehouse shelf maybe, but no one is working on them or sharing photos, so I'll try to do that here.

I don't have a coin box for it, if anyone has any parts at all let me know. This thing is literally just one huge 5'x3' PCB on back, it's amazing, I'll document when I can to show it off to the disinterested hordes but I'm battling a busy schedule these days and there's really no time for obscure BS like this but I'll force it eventually.

PCB is pretty big, I have a Trapshoot wall game. Windex bottle for scale:

 

[Garagely]

Nice! I love how the regular full size game PCBs are just treated like daughter cards for the main light board, it dwarfs them.

 

[Garagely]

Cleaned up both PCBs and the header pins, straightened up a lot of bent transistor legs and retested the PCB that came installed with the game when I got it. The game acted slightly different and after turning on and off a few times I actually watched the guy roll the ball and saw it roll down the lane, just one time, hopefully demo mode kicking in, but then it seemed to freeze again. Sometimes now new areas light up and old areas that used to be lit go out, and cycling the power on and off sometimes changes which lights are lighting up so I need to dig in further. In the middle of testing I decided to lift the 4 socketed chips on the board that came installed in the game to clean them up and reseat, but 3 of the 4 chips had corroded legs that broke off as I gently removed them. Luckily I do have the extra board with chips in great shape so I swapped the socketed chips but found no change in results during testing. So unfortunately my extra board is already missing 3 ICs. Next step is to start checking voltages. I didn't check the backup board for functionality yet but I'm trying to stick with the original board first, hoping it's closer to working, but the more I think of it now maybe I should just swap boards since my backup board definitely has sturdier chip legs and maybe had a better history! That's probably a good clue I should follow.


The board that came installed in the game is serial number 418, and the backup board is number 480. What were the production numbers?

 

[Glitch]

The board that came installed in the game is serial number 418, and the backup board is number 480. What were the production numbers?

Don't think you'll find much info in numbers as record keeping wasn't all that great back then (or simply lost over time).

Allincolorforaquarter has a little history on the Gremlin wall games here:

The Ultimate (So-Far) History of Gremlin Industries Part 1

After a few digressions, I thought it was high time I got back to my main topic - the history of the coin-op video game industry. Since I c...

allincolorforaquarter.blogspot.com

 

[Garagely]

I read through that page while I was still deciding if I needed to pick this thing up, great history. I just wish I could locate a decent video of an operational Tenpin so I could at least get a clue of how it's supposed to behave, but still found nothing so far. I'm disappointed with the internet more and more each day. I'll keep testing and try out that other board later on or tomorrow.

 

[Glitch]

ArcArc has an pretty detailed operating/service manual if you haven't found that already:

https://arcarc.xmission.com/PDF_Arcade_Manuals_and_Schematics/TenPin_Operating_Instructions_and_Service_Manual.pdf

 

[Garagely]

Thanks! It came with the full manual with schematics and I checked, I have all those pages including the random extra inserts, thanks for looking out! I swapped the socketed chips back into my backup board and plugged it into the machine. I'm thinking that this board "#480" is indeed the better candidate to use moving forward, it still doesn't light everything up but I think it is at least trying to enter a normal attract mode. When it powers on, the main "Tenpin" logo lights up for a few seconds and then turns off as the bowler's arm appears and the triangle indicators on the bowling lane begin to trail back and forth, seems like a demo. I think the speakers are shot but they also have hanging wires so I have no idea what to expect yet on sound, silent for now. The controller did nothing with new batteries installed, but perhaps it is waiting for a coin up first anyway?? Lots of issues to track down.