Randy Fromm inspired free Sunday

Status
Not open for further replies.

channelmanic

Well-known member

Donor 3 years: 2011-2013
Joined
Apr 5, 2008
Messages
17,110
Reaction score
1,093
Location
Texas
Rating - 100%
166   0   0
Hey guys...

You were talking about chip pullers and the types of them...

Well, here's your chance to get a free chip puller... not the cheap kind like this:

5.jpg


But, the good kind like this: http://parts.digikey.co.uk/1/1/2491-tool-extractor-ic-dip-24-40pin-ex-2.html

EX-2.jpg


All you have to do is write the best "why Randy should embrace the hobby community" post by 5pm CST today. :)

Second place will receive a Jensen 47B723 soldering iron with a chisel tip and the 25w heating element.

These items are courtesy of the guy I bought the Pace solder station from on Craigslist.

RJ

PS: Randy Fromm DVD Set For Sale: $100 - Comes with all the DVDs and the book. Learn from the master himself!!!!

:D:D

PPS: Well, not really... This was so Randy would find it by searching for sale ads for his stuff... I really don't have a set for sale.
 
"Why randy should embrace the hobby community":

Because we are taking over the world and will soon make up the lions share in arcade owners!!!! I personally own over thirty arcade games now, and I am just one of hundreds, if not thousands doing this all over the world. Seems to me you burn bridges with us, you take the chance of taking food out of your own mouth as we are slowly becoming the main customer base. Theres my two cents! -Jason
 
I asked my 3-year old son why Randy Fromm should embrace the hobby community and he replied with "I wanna watch spongebob squarepants". That good enough? :)
 
Well, I think Randy ought to embrace the hobby community due to the following reasons: This hobby is definitely growing. Simply put, as games become cheaper, the option to begin collecting gets harder and harder to resist! We're not a highly exclusive group like in the mid-90s. We don't have to pay hundreds of dollars for a single machine. You can get started into this hobby with really any price in mind, and that's why it is so appealing.

As such, there are tons of new members joining the arcade collecting community - some as young as high schoolers. These guys aren't going to have the inherent knowledge of how to fix up machines and get them running. And in fact, more and more arcade games will be dying and malfunctioning as time progresses.

So we have a bunch of new collectors, and a bunch of broken games. All we need next is a bunch of knowledge.
 
"Why Randy Fromm should embrace the hobbyist community"

We all are children. Children at heart. Everytime we scoure Craiglist or hear from a friend of a friend about a game for sale, our eyes light up as we flash back to a better time in our lives. A time when walking into an arcade swarming with attract sounds, or the Mom-and-Pop store where from a far corner a backlit marquee filled us with excitement and happiness. A time when a pocket full of quarters and a handful of dollars from Mom's purse would keep us engaged and entertained until she was done shopping. This was a time in our lives we will never get back, but one that we can relive through these games. A simpler, better time.

A new time, for us, our children and grandchildren.

We are the torchbearers, passing down the knowledge and experiences we have of these wonderful machines to new generations. We are all doctors, resuscitating the nearly dead and mending the wounds the years have inflicted on these machines of our youth. We are the guardians charged with keeping the past alive and preserving them for the future.

Randy, we are not Ops. We do not view these brilliant works of engineering skill as merely money makers, to be disposed of after they have ran their course. We are hobbyists, sharing our love of these machines with each other, and the world. We care for these machines. We put our heart and souls into them, along with our time, energy, money, blood, sweat and tears. We are all these machines have left. We are their caretakers, their liberators, their saviours.

*starts playing Sarah McLachlan music in the background*

Embrace us, Randy. We are your future clientele. Because in this day and age of game consoles, eventually these machines will disappear without our intervention. Won't you please help us today, to preserve these magnifigant machines for tomorrow, and years to come?

-Rob
 
Last edited:
Randy I'm sure has made more than enough bank off his expensive classes and yawn inducing dvd set, why not be a nice guy and let those who own what they own, do what they want with it? Those nice guys at Arcade Repair Tips are always doing whatever possible to help out anyone interested in this hobby. And their vids are interesting/amusing as well as very informative.


I don't doubt his dvd's are informative but I looked into taking his classes just for giggles and it was expensive as hell.

(btw that chip puller is BA, thanks for the link, i'm gonna bookmark that link)
 
Why Randy should embrace the hobby community?

I started writing this nice thing about helping others, more profits, etc.. but
to be honest I think Randy is aware of all that. One doesnt have the forsight
to make a series of repair videos back in the early 80s and milk them for
30 yrs without thinking about all the ways to exploit them.

These are my thoughts on whats going on inside his head.. all conjecture..

Randy is old school. His website looks like its from late 90s. I'm betting he
was about 30 yrs old in the videos.. now 60. Maybe at one time arcade stuff
was cool to him but he's obviously lost his passion. It became a job. A slowly
dying job at that. His income is probably dropping and he sees no value in the
hobby community because he cant relate. He clings to operators and industry
people because like him.. they to see it as a 9-5 job... they can relate to him.

We on the other hand are passionate about these games. This reminds of the
good old days where money was flowing in and he was a rock star in the
amusement industry. While he may never be a rock star in the amusement
industry again He can be one in the collector community if he reached out,
but he wont.

He doesnt think the collector community is worth his time. He's obviously not
interested in money because any fool could see the market here. Arcade
collectors are not poor people typically and there are a crapload more of
us then operators these days.

Maybe Randy just wants to be left alone to die in obscurity rather then
embrace something new.
 
"Why Randy Fromm should embrace the hobbyist community"

With arcades closing, casinos moving away from coins and crt's being replaced with lcd's.
what else is there to repair? With the hobbyist collecting games and restoring them there is a whole new world of people to teach. Most of his lessons that I saw, the coin comparator, coin hoppers, how to fix crt's all of that is mostly obsolete. Why not make new friends who have arcade games and want to learn how to maintain them. Just show us the arcade hobbyist some love and teach, we want to learn.
Make new friends we won't bite. There are some that may whine a little, just throw them some cheese and crackers, they will settle down.
Here in the arcade community, Randy we will welcome you with open arms...
icon12.gif
 
I think think Randy should support dealer, community, and whoever what's just knowledge on arcades or whatever it is. This day and age things will come and go. Look at the arcade scene now. It was once so popular that there was an arcade room in all malls and just about everywhere. No you just see them in bars, laundry mates, and other places. The bad part is everybody is broke or going broke because of the economy, lost jobs, etc. And he should know that first hand. If he's looks back 10 to 20 years ago. When his business was probably booming. Now he gets work but not like he did. Cost have gone up but wages either stayed the same or gone down. He needs to realize not to just help certain people or business. He needs to expand his business to help, sell, or whatever he is capable of doing for everybody and everything. Sad part is people are looking for one stop shop places not to go here and there for shit. And all of you agree with that I would think. Look at kroger grocery stores. They used to sell just grocery's, but walmart, super target, etc. Made them sell more than just grocery's. It's sad that the everybody is hurting, but it is the way of life and people compromise on those situations or deal with at hand. Good luck to you and your business. And with everybody that owns a business at that matter.
 
"why Randy should embrace the hobby community"

This will probably run long but I'll try and keep it simple. In short it's a good business decision if he plans to stay in this line of work/industry. Now if he's independently wealthy and just continues hosting training seminars for fun or out of boredom then I guess it doesn't matter.

The way I see it the info Randy provides in his DVD's and seminars is based upon the idea that arcade games will fail and need to be troubleshot and repaired. To do this you have to know about electrical theory, be able to diagnose an issue by symptoms and know where to start and how to track down potential issues. These are all legitimate and necessary skills to keep a game original and up and running. Especially when it's cheaper to repair a single part or small section of parts weather than replace. And especially when there is enough demand and skilled repair persons to do this work. This of course makes total sense to a hobbiest like myself.

Randy of course choose to cater to the arcade/amusement industry. This is of course his choice but it poses another question. Is there a true need for skilled repair persons for modern arcade games? While I will point out that it will always take a certain type of person with the knack to fix these things i think my real point is that the skill level necessary to fix modern machines is and will be far less that what was/is needed for machines that use older components such as CRT monitors and a variety of powers supplies that are not switchers. It's truly impossible to deny that computers are everywhere in the modern world and we have become a society that throws away and replaces rather than repairs. Now surely I'm not implying that anyone would simply throw away an expensive new arcade game rather than fix it. Sure these games will still need repairs. Have you opened up a modern arcade game and really taken a look inside though? I've seen a few. Seems the trend is flat screen LCD monitors and more or less computers with dongles rather than the typical motherboards of the past. The power supplies are more or less ATX style switching power supplies. My point is that there are less and less truly serviceable parts in modern games. While some things can be fixed with a bit of soldering or replacing a component or two by and large the fixes in many modern games simply boil down to replacing the bad component all together rather than repairing them.

To be fair there are probably still more games on location that still use CRTs and repairable components than there are of the modern style games I mentioned. But that is only true for today and it will only be a few short years until the opposite is true. Let's face it, we are in a time when almost any 10 year old can set up and use a computer. So swapping out a lcd monitor or a power supply in a modern arcade game will really not be a job for a skilled technician. The trends are simply moving away from serviceable parts. It may not be cheaper to buy the replacement part than it would be to fix the bad component but the parts are made so low quality and designed so compact and in a manner that they often can not be repaired or no tech in their right mind would waste the time to do so. Like most things in the modern age they are disposable by design.

So with the trend leaning toward replacement rather than repair who has a need or desire for the info and knowledge that Randy Fromm offers? Is it the amusement industry? Maybe at the moment but what about in 4 or 5 years? Odds are the seasoned techs will already have the knowledge necessary to do any repair needed and will already be employed by the few remaining venues such as casinos and amusement parks that still house the games/machines that need these repairs. So the need for the info Randy offers to the commercial business world will be less needed by that group in the future. So I ask again, who is it that can use and needs this info? The answer is simple, the hobbyists like myself that intend to keep and repair the older games that utilize the older technology that can still be repaired. We are not only the people that need this info but we want it. Randy has a name in this industry and to among collectors. Even with the internet and the wealth of knowledge to be found Randy is still in a position to be the go to guy for this knowledge. Ultimately it's his choice to do with his product and knowledge what he chooses but in my opinion he can choose to embrace the community of hobbyists and likely have a resurgence of interest in his DVD's and seminars or he can turn us away and let us find another source for the info we need. I think the bottom line is that us hobbyists will eventually find the info we need. It's just a matter of if we get it for free off the net, through Randy Fromm or maybe from a new enterprising individual that capitalizes off the potential business from the arcade hobbyist community.
 
If Randy wasn't into helping us by his knowledge of monitor repair I wouldn't have as many video arcade machines. The repair by someone else would cost money which would come out of my hobby budget. Would I have this hobby?
It would be like owning a boat (money pit). Preservation of collections like many of us have are his "bread and butter". This is a few of the reasons we need him to embrace the community.

Join us Randy!!
Looking forward to attending a seminar.
And some sort of correspondence here.
 
He JUST posted in another one of his dvd for sale threads today so I'm kinda suprised he didnt pop in here. Although I guess hes made it clear he doesn't wan't to be part of the hobby. Sad really.
 
Life's too short - we only have a finite amount of time to do everything we can wish and dream. If someone has gathered experiences and makes available this information to help others, sharing this knowledge (even for a fee) just may be the difference between enjoyment and frustration. In this realm this would be the difference between life and death for many machines, built to provide enjoyment and entertainment (for a small fee).

I'm not going to rehash many of the things already posted here, preserving history and what not. I'm not here to pile on insults, or hop aboard the bandwagons of taunting or hate. I want to learn - like so many who visit this site. We have these machines, for various reasons, that have problems. These are now longer the cash generators they once were, and because of that do not have a deep network of parts suppliers ready with the needed equipment to fix them. The knowledge needed to repair these machines is getting rarer every day, due to there not being enough 'profit' in it.

Regardless, there is a source for those of us willing to pony up the money to learn. I'm happy that Randy has this information, even for a fee. Some complain about the VHS quality of his videos - not owning a set myself would full HD make it easier to learn? My understanding is that it is just a recording of his classroom sessions, to explain the information that is contained in the books. I'm guessing that's why when I see these videos come up for sale in secondary markets I rarely see the books included.

All that said, I don't believe we need Randy to be our friend, a fellow arcade hobbyist, or a sounding board answering countless questions - we need Randy to simply understand that most of us desire to learn that which he can teach through his resources. The fact that his 'KLOV special' wasn't a sticky in a repair sub-forum seems to be a failure on the part of the community here that felt that information wasn't important enough to make readily known.

I can probably relate to Randy and understand why he distances himself from our hobby - I'm in the IT field and the countless questions I get from family, friends, acquaintances can get tiresome. I imagine an auto mechanic to get the same treatment, an accountant, etc. Just a guess, but I think Randy wants to teach to people who want to learn and are coming readily equipped for that task - not someone looking for specific directions on how to fix just the problem they are having at the moment.

I myself am getting to the point to where I feel I would benefit a great deal from these books and videos, and finding enough time to where I can actually sit down to go through this in-depth and learn. I disappointed I missed the opportunity for a discount, but I will still buy these materials from Randy because it will save me the time of having to search, surf, and read conflicting or irrelevant information in order to learn exactly what I need. Is this information worth $150? $250? $350? $900? As I'm not looking to start a business or go into another field of work based on this knowledge, I believe it still will be. As the days get shorter and professional projects wind down for the year, I'll be ready to order and learn.
 
I think he should mainly because how many new unexperienced operators are getting into the industry? He will be out of work before he knows it.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom