Last game of 2012 : Gravitar

ballytablewiz

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Well the other day I responded to one of those "too good to be true" CL ads, and it was indeed true! I know the rest of the locals are super jelly :D

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It works, but the monitor has occasional blooming (replace:zd902). Sides are pretty damn nice, just a small amount of roughing near the bottoms and about 1/4" of swelling here and there. There is a hairline fracture on the upper corner (other side, not photo'd), but no separation, and it's not the control panel corners, so w/e. Monitor has very light Gravitar burn and NO spot killer holes :) Has just under 20k ticks on the meter, a token mech(?!), and is completely numbers matching (cab, monitor, ARII, PCB). Previous owner has had it for 10 years, gift from his father who bought it from a bowling alley. I'm thrilled.
 

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Now of course, one of the first things that came to mind was how to work this Major Havoc PCB I have into the picture. And Takeman's upcoming CP run immediately rushes to the forefront. But alas, there is a few deal-breakers involved that obviously nobody else seems to care about :

☼ Where do you think you're getting roller controllers? They're sold out everywhere, including the manufacturer, Satan (RAM).

☼ You may have to modify your main PCB to even accept a roller in the first place (R186). Unless everyone has dedicated PCB's, which I sincerely doubt.

In any case, building up a $500+ control panel doesn't sound like a good time to me (read:my wallet), so I think I'll be converting an existing spare used panel for spinner use - like Atari intended :)
 
Gorgeous game! Gravitar is one of those games I'd love to have, but have never played one in person. Pretty underrated too!

The closest I've gotten to it is a number of Atari compilations for consoles and Gravitrex for the Vectrex. Maybe one day...

Congrats on the score!
 
Like Black Widow, I find Gravitar to be very very challenging but it keeps you coming back. A great game for the last grab of the year.
 
I picked up a Gravitar a few months back and absolutely love it.
I was ready to have one shipped from Idaho but found one locally.:)
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gravitar kicks ass. I got one about 2 months ago as well. I happen to have a major havoc as well (tempest conversion) and I love MH. After playing gravitar though it is a game I would never convert to anything else.
 
...After playing gravitar though it is a game I would never convert to anything else.

Agreed. That's why I'll be using (2) separate control panels and swapping games at will :)

Never heard of modding r186 for the roller. If anything changing the crystals.

Crystal speed is for Amplifone VS WG6100.

R186 : "Resistor R186, a 1k ohm 1/4 watt, is missing on some Rev B Kit
boards. It is located near the LETA chip (137304-1001) at location 12N,
underneath the Quad Pokey Adapter board on the main logic board. The
symptom if the resistor is not loaded is very slow movement of Major
Havoc by the Whirley-Gig. The added resistor doubles the response."

Not like adding a resistor means jack to me, but most users can't even handle a RatShack iron, let alone solder their MH PCB. Really it comes down to price, and to a lesser extent, availability. Even if I could buy a roller, I sure as shit ain't dropping $200 on one (and that price is extinct now that they're OOS, so even more in the future) - it's a 2-way controller FFS.
 
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