Saturday Pick-up: A F.Lea

TheEvener

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It's been a little over 24 hours since I brought home a new addition to the modest arcade collection -- an original Pacific Novelty Manufacturing "Mr. F. Lea." I appreciate that this game is not exactly a classic mainstay, nor is it one that a lot of people have fond memories of playing. I only recognized it from some odd search I did of KLOV several months back. I gathered from additional on-line searching that Mr. F. Lea (1982) was the last game from Pacific Novelty, which didn't produce a large run for it. As you might know, the game has a Tron-like selection screen where your flea can be sent to one of four different games that are described as variants of Donkey Kong or Frogger, among others.

James, a fellow collector about an hour and a half southwest of Ottawa was selling it for $50 on a local forum, and although I wasn't planning on adding any more games, I had to pick it up given it was an original. Unfortunately there are some problems with the PCB, but I hope that I can manage to troubleshoot a solution.

After a nice drive yesterday afternoon, I arrived at James' house; I bought an Astro Blaster from him back in March, so we had a chance to catch up on all topics gaming-related. Then it was time to look at the cab:

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(got James kneeling behind the cab looking at fuses)

Overall, the cab looked to be in good condition; a little water-related swelling along one side, but given the original cab's construction in particle board, it wasn't surprising. No side art (the one in VAPS shows the cat in top hat on the sides) but it didn't look like it was ever added.

Really cool feature: Pacific Novelty installed the game PCB on the back door :D:

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Beastie boards, or jumper hell. This looks like a fun one to diagnose.

After some more arcade talk, it was time to hit the road with the game safely tucked in the back of the Ford Freestyle:

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90 minutes later, I arrived back at home, and waited for my friend to pop by so I could lug the cab into living room:

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I promised my wife the stay upstairs would be a short one.

Finally, a blurry peek inside. Clean and orderly:

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Given it's a project, I most likely won't get to serious troubleshooting for a while, but the kids were definitely interested. Hopefully the repair works out!
 
what in the name of junper hell happened to that boardset???????

I dig the oddball stuff like that man. I hope you can get her up and running again.
 
Bumping up an old thread with an update:

Since last September, I only tinkered sporadically with The Amazing Adventures of Mr. F. Lea (you know, chasing kids, other priorities, etc), with no success. Last weekend, with a little free time, I decided to give it another go. I took a closer inspection of the CPU PCB, tried to reseat a few chips, and then took the PCB off the back door to see if there was any crude underneath. Wiped that clean, and noticed the board looked a bit flexed, so I gently flexed it back. I plugged everything back in, and Mr. F. Lea was up and running! Given the unorthodox nature of "diagnosing" the PCB, I'm not sure how long it will last, but so far, so good!

The monitor definitely needs a cap kit, but you can still get away with a game.

There appears to be a few videos on YouTube featuring Mr. F. Lea gameplay from an actual arcade game (from what I can tell), so I'll update my thread with a few screenshots with the PCB up and running!
 

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I remember reading a review of this game in Gameroom Magazine when it was around. They actually really liked the game from what I recall...
 
That is the best when they come right back up!

That happened w my Blue Print- guy said it hadn't been running in over 5 yrs. I had it on in 15 min!
 
Pretty cool, I like the dogs on the marquee. Are there also dogs in the game?

The game is all about dogs, and how Mr. F. Lea can be friends -- at least, that's my modest take since the dog's seem really eager to hang out with the flea...

In addition to the marquee, there's a whole lot of dogs on the bezel as well as on the CPO where they point out each joystick direction.

Through the four stages of the game, you're dealing with dogs:

Photos from left to right: swinging on their tales (a la Jungle King), trying to get to the dog house at the top while avoiding rolling bones and balls (Donkey Kong), running up a dog's back while jumping over their spots (boulder scene in Jungle King), and trying to get across a lawn full of lawn mowers, and hitching a ride on the backs of dogs until you reach the dog house (Frogger).

Sorry about the picture quality of the monitor (lower part of the screen) -- needs a cap kit!
 

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Looks great, Jason!

Bring me your monitor along with the cap kit and I'll gladly fix it up for you while you play my games.
 
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Looks great, Jason!

Bring me your monitor along with the cap kit and I'll gladly fix it up for you while you play my games.

That's great Kev -- thanks for the offer and help! F. Lea will look sharp indeed
 
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