mcgolfpro
Member
My Story...My First Restoration - Williams Defender
This is my first REAL restoration of a classic vid. About 10 years ago I had the ultimate find, I walked into a local TV/VCR repair shop and after being told that they didn't work on sony camcorders or whatever it was I had, I looked over in the corner and spotted an old dust covered Asteroids... My heart skipped a beat, I had been to the old KLOV website and they said this was one of the ways you find these things, just stumble onto them. I asked almost like I didn't care at all, "Is that for sale?" He replied "You want it???", "How much" I asked... and then I waited for the shoe to drop... He said "It doesn't work" I was a little disappointed then because I don't know crap about electronics, but I figured It was probably a good time to learn... I said "That's ok, how much?" He replied "It's my son's and I'm tired of it being in my shop, If you want it..TAKE IT" the jig was up at that point I couldn't hide my excitement.. "I'll be back!" I yelled over my shoulder on the way to go get my pickip and my brother in law to lif the beast...Asteriods was heavy... We got it back to my place and plugged it in, nothing, took the back cover off, found a toggle swith somewhere, flipped it and nothing...about that point I noticed the button plunger that would be pressed when the back cover was on, held it down and it came to life...It played perfect... I spent the next couple of months doing what I could, putting in coin mechs, cleaning things up, I didn't paint over the side art, but i do remember doing a cheesy black paint job around it, replaced T-molding, and I think I painted some of the silk screen on the control panel black...A TRAVESTY I know... The game went TU a few months later and I had no idea how to fix it, I got a multimeter out and tested what I could, but I really had no idea...
Finally I made contact with a dealer in Portland, Oregon about 3 1/2 hours away, he had a full size Missile Command and I told him I had a non-working Asteroids he said bring it down and we could work something out...I loaded it up in my wifes mini-van (It rains in Portland!) and hauled it down, we got it out and set it up in the guys showroom, plugged it in and it returned to life!!! I should have packed it back up and left, but I opted for the Missile Command - That WAS MY game when I was growing up! I think I gave him a hundred bucks or something like that for the trade and was happy for a short time, after I got it home and the euphoria of having my own missile command wore off, I started to notice the tracball was lagging and a little sloppy, I did some research, replaced some bearings but it still didn't work perfectly...So I called the guy in Portland, he said bring it back down and he would get it going for nothing...I then asked what abouot getting a defender? He said he had one he would trade straight across for it, but I would have to wait while the PCB main board was being repiared. So I waited, and waited, and waited it was almost eight months later when he said the machine was ready, I drove down dropped the missile command off and started to play my defender....but more problems the sound was off, another glitch I can't remember...I pointed them out to him and he agreed it needed more work...It was December, I was leery of waiting more months, and I asked how much would he give me to just walk away, he said $600. Christmas was coming, I had a wife and a toddler at home, $600 was a lot of money then so I took the cash and got out of the classic vid biz....
I never forgot about them though, they hooked my when I was a kid and they had hooked me again in a different way after opening the back of my first Asteroids. I looked around here and there, but the time wasn't right. Finally I happened across a Defender on an old defunct Craigslist ad - the search still had the summary on searchallofcraigs.org but the original ad was gone. I was able to see the phone number called it and, I was going to be up in Seattle anyway, so I called my best friend from high school- HE was a defender master, he has flipped it over on more than one occasion and could play for hours on one quarter...Told him I had a line on a Defender, it was working perfectly the owner said but the cab needed some TLC. He said something like "You name the Time and Place- IM THERE!" So we made our way to Sedro Wooly, Washington for THE machine. It was in a dump of a house... Kids running around, the Mom was over an hour late for our meeting time, I figured sweet this was all going to add up to less $$$ to pay for the machine. We looked it over, it started up nicely...I had done a little research online, I ran the RAM and ROM tests it all came up good, played well, I looked for the battery holder and any corrosion, batteries were left in, not much acid leak though so I waited for the Mom to get home figuring this would be an easy negotiation, SHE wouldn't budge...She called her ex-husband who she said owned the game, and when she came back from talking to him on the phone- she was almost in tears! RU kidding me! So my buddy and I looked at her and forked over close to full price- I'm too embarrased to say how much, After making $500 on the Asteriods/Missile command deal ten years earlier, I was still very safely in the black. (that's what I told my wife too).
It made the trip home intact, but it would only start up in book-keeping mode, I could manually advance it to play, but once powered off- back to book keeping. I looked online, found all the post about being a battery issue, but it didn't do it when we first looked at the game and the batteries were corroded.
So after playing for a week or so, I decided to get started on a complete and original restoration to the best of my ability. Here is how it looked when I picked it up.
This is my first REAL restoration of a classic vid. About 10 years ago I had the ultimate find, I walked into a local TV/VCR repair shop and after being told that they didn't work on sony camcorders or whatever it was I had, I looked over in the corner and spotted an old dust covered Asteroids... My heart skipped a beat, I had been to the old KLOV website and they said this was one of the ways you find these things, just stumble onto them. I asked almost like I didn't care at all, "Is that for sale?" He replied "You want it???", "How much" I asked... and then I waited for the shoe to drop... He said "It doesn't work" I was a little disappointed then because I don't know crap about electronics, but I figured It was probably a good time to learn... I said "That's ok, how much?" He replied "It's my son's and I'm tired of it being in my shop, If you want it..TAKE IT" the jig was up at that point I couldn't hide my excitement.. "I'll be back!" I yelled over my shoulder on the way to go get my pickip and my brother in law to lif the beast...Asteriods was heavy... We got it back to my place and plugged it in, nothing, took the back cover off, found a toggle swith somewhere, flipped it and nothing...about that point I noticed the button plunger that would be pressed when the back cover was on, held it down and it came to life...It played perfect... I spent the next couple of months doing what I could, putting in coin mechs, cleaning things up, I didn't paint over the side art, but i do remember doing a cheesy black paint job around it, replaced T-molding, and I think I painted some of the silk screen on the control panel black...A TRAVESTY I know... The game went TU a few months later and I had no idea how to fix it, I got a multimeter out and tested what I could, but I really had no idea...
Finally I made contact with a dealer in Portland, Oregon about 3 1/2 hours away, he had a full size Missile Command and I told him I had a non-working Asteroids he said bring it down and we could work something out...I loaded it up in my wifes mini-van (It rains in Portland!) and hauled it down, we got it out and set it up in the guys showroom, plugged it in and it returned to life!!! I should have packed it back up and left, but I opted for the Missile Command - That WAS MY game when I was growing up! I think I gave him a hundred bucks or something like that for the trade and was happy for a short time, after I got it home and the euphoria of having my own missile command wore off, I started to notice the tracball was lagging and a little sloppy, I did some research, replaced some bearings but it still didn't work perfectly...So I called the guy in Portland, he said bring it back down and he would get it going for nothing...I then asked what abouot getting a defender? He said he had one he would trade straight across for it, but I would have to wait while the PCB main board was being repiared. So I waited, and waited, and waited it was almost eight months later when he said the machine was ready, I drove down dropped the missile command off and started to play my defender....but more problems the sound was off, another glitch I can't remember...I pointed them out to him and he agreed it needed more work...It was December, I was leery of waiting more months, and I asked how much would he give me to just walk away, he said $600. Christmas was coming, I had a wife and a toddler at home, $600 was a lot of money then so I took the cash and got out of the classic vid biz....
I never forgot about them though, they hooked my when I was a kid and they had hooked me again in a different way after opening the back of my first Asteroids. I looked around here and there, but the time wasn't right. Finally I happened across a Defender on an old defunct Craigslist ad - the search still had the summary on searchallofcraigs.org but the original ad was gone. I was able to see the phone number called it and, I was going to be up in Seattle anyway, so I called my best friend from high school- HE was a defender master, he has flipped it over on more than one occasion and could play for hours on one quarter...Told him I had a line on a Defender, it was working perfectly the owner said but the cab needed some TLC. He said something like "You name the Time and Place- IM THERE!" So we made our way to Sedro Wooly, Washington for THE machine. It was in a dump of a house... Kids running around, the Mom was over an hour late for our meeting time, I figured sweet this was all going to add up to less $$$ to pay for the machine. We looked it over, it started up nicely...I had done a little research online, I ran the RAM and ROM tests it all came up good, played well, I looked for the battery holder and any corrosion, batteries were left in, not much acid leak though so I waited for the Mom to get home figuring this would be an easy negotiation, SHE wouldn't budge...She called her ex-husband who she said owned the game, and when she came back from talking to him on the phone- she was almost in tears! RU kidding me! So my buddy and I looked at her and forked over close to full price- I'm too embarrased to say how much, After making $500 on the Asteriods/Missile command deal ten years earlier, I was still very safely in the black. (that's what I told my wife too).
It made the trip home intact, but it would only start up in book-keeping mode, I could manually advance it to play, but once powered off- back to book keeping. I looked online, found all the post about being a battery issue, but it didn't do it when we first looked at the game and the batteries were corroded.
So after playing for a week or so, I decided to get started on a complete and original restoration to the best of my ability. Here is how it looked when I picked it up.
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