My lineup from the Louisville Arcade Expo last weekend...
Here is the back story. I got the Pro Tennis from a good buddy that was/is a second generation operator. Pro Tennis was the first video game they bought in the transition from EMs to video. He loved the game. Every time we were around it in his warehouse he would tell me about it, how much he enjoyed it, and even which position was his favorite to play. Eventually I ended up with it. When he finally decided to let it go I could tell it was a hard decision. He realized he would never do anything with it so it was best to let it move on. I actually had bigger plans!!
Fast Forward a few months. I scrubbed it down, blew what was easily 35 years of dust out of it, and got it up and running. I had 9 sets of controls so I was able to mix and match to get 4 clean spinners, 4 clean pots, and a clean set of carriage bolts. The tube needed a workout on my rejuvinator. It also needed some re-wire work here and there, a new fuse block, and new lamps throughout.
Off it went to the Expo. I arranged to have my buddy come out for the show on Saturday. He was in a bit of shock having been a operator all of his life and never having seen the collector side of the house. Once we made it over to the Pro Tennis he was actually looking at an old EM S.A.M.I. that an other collector had gotten from him and gotten running. I directed him to look left toward where the Pro Tennis sat. He was truly shocked. We played a round. He and his daughter right court and myself and a local left...and he plastered us!!! I had actually been playing it and felt I had gotten fairly good!! Once we were done I told him that I was giving it back to him. It was his. He did not believe it....kept asking if I was serious!!
He was amazed that every time we looked at the game, as old as it was, with later vids and all era of pins all around, someone was always playing it.
As we talked about it I assumed he had several of them and this one just happened to be the last one left. Turns out this game was the only one they bought back in the day. It was the very one he played all the time when he was younger and his father was still running the business.
It survived the weekend but developed a jump in the video. The TV (monitor) was rock solid but did have a minor fold at the top going into the weekend. I did not have time to "learn" how to work on them so I had to let it fly for the time being. I am rounding up a tube tester to check the vacuum tubes. I also got some tips from some fellow collectors as to other areas to check. I am probably going to pull the chassis and replace the caps. I am sure it full of paper caps direct wired location to location. So, for the time being its in my game room.
Do you happen to have a schematic pack with yours? I would love to get a copy if you do. Can you take a look at your game board and see if the T0-3 transistor in the power section (the bottle cap sized part sunk in the heat sink up by the edge connector) still has a part number on it? Mine is running just fine but I noticed the print is long since gone. I would like to know what goes in there should I ever have to replace it.