720 - the ultimate aerial experience
After replacing a resistor and running a jumper wire for a bad connection on the neckboard, I’ve got the monitor in my 720 running solid. That is, until I power it down. I let it run for over 4 hours the other night and it ran fine. If I turn it off and then back on, then it shuts down within 3 seconds. But if I let it sit for about 1/2 hour, it runs fine again. For some reason the xy protection must be kicking in, which is in turn shutting down the monitor. Since it’s working fine for the most part and I’m sick of working on it, I put it all back together tonight. Here’s a shot of it up and running:
As you can see from the photo, the game needs some cosmetic work. As long as it’s working fine, I’m not too concerned with that at the moment. I’ll leave the cosmetic issues for a time when all of my games are actually working and I don’t have anything else to do…
Interview with a Coin-op Collector
For my 30th birthday I threw a party at my house to celebrate the occasion. It was also a ‘breaking in the new place’ bash since it was our first big party since we moved in. Jeremy, Louis and Jason Buchanan came from Ann Arbor to throw back a few beers from the keg and finally get a chance to check out my arcade game collection. They all had a riot. Shortly after this, Jason Buchanan emailed me and said that he was involved with a website called Classic Gamer and was interested in interviewing me for a story about collecting arcade games. So he called me up and we chatted for about an hour, discussing how I got into the hobby, my favorite games and some of my game aquisition adventures. Jason just emailed me the other day and said the story is now up on the website. Check it out here:
http://www.classicgamer.com/2004/12/article-interview-with-coin-op.html
Tentacle @ Club Soda
Last weekend Tentacle was playing a show at Club Soda in Kalamazoo. I met up with Eric at his house in Caledonia to help load up equipment and what not. I always forgot just how heavy and cumbersome some of that equipment is. Megan was meeting me over there and the two of us were going to head down there for the show. Since the tank for my window washer fluid was cracked and my window was getting dirty from all the cars spitting up salt and what not, Megan said she would drive. Ryan arrived shortly after with a crew of people in his car and after loading up the equipment, we all headed down to Kalamazoo. Sticky & I ended up driving down in the van as Sue wanted to drive down with Megan and Jenny. From hearing all the horror stories about that van, I was surprised Eric & I got down there without any problems. When Eric first said they were playing at Club Soda, I was thinking of the Warehouse, which was another club right by Club Soda. I went to the warehouse many times back in the day and even saw a couple of bands play their, like Gravity Kills.
Once we arrived, we find out that we have to bring in all the equipment thru the front door. So we park in the front and lug in all the shit, walking thru piles of wet snow. Since I came in lugging equipment, they thought i was with the band and marked me with a “B” on my hand. This got me out of having to pay admission and saved me $1 per drink. Bonus! We discover there is a back door but for some unknown reason the door guy says that they never use it or allow anyone to use it. Uh, ok. The opening band never showed up so they told Tentacle to go ahead and get everything setup. They still ended up not getting to play until 11pm. I was put in charge of advancing the DVD that Ryan put together for the show for each song. The turn-out for the show was alot lower than I thought it would be. The sound wasn’t that great either and Ryan’s mike kept shorting out. I could tell Eric & Ryan were pretty disappointed overall. During the last song Cassie and her cohort came out with whips and decided to grab me out of the audience and give me a few good lashings. At one point her damn whip was slapping me in the face and almost got me in the eye. She got me good a few times on my back. I was surprised I didn’t have marks the next day.. I’ve gotta remember to be out of sight the next time she decides to try and make me her whipping boy. Megan was kind enough to give me a head and backrub after my whipping. It’s a shame she never became a masseuse as she does a damn fine job.
Unfinished Thought went on after awhile. I was freezing my ass off while watching them. For some reason Club Soda didn’t think they needed to turn the heat on. I was starting to come down with “the sickness” so the cold wasn’t helping me at all. After loading up all the equipment back into the van, we headed back to GR. Eric & I were the first one’s back so we unloaded all the equipment back into the house. Megan, Sue and Jenny showed up shortly after, all drunk except for Megan. Sue actually got so drunk after they played at the Club that she puked, and then continued to drink. I ended up getting home sometime after 4am. I was exhausted and feeling like shit. I ended up calling in sick to work on Monday & Tuesday. Had a horrible headache that wouldn’t go away for two days, along with a sore throat. Apparently a few other people I know had similiar symptoms. I guess it’s going around.
Been trying to fix the monitor in my Atari 720 arcade game. The monitor works fine for well over an hour and then all of a sudden the high voltage shuts down and I get nothing on the screen. I’ve installed a cap kit, replaced the voltage regulator, fixed a few bad solder joints and reflowed the solder on the flyback connections and the various wires that connect to the chassis. None of that fixed it. It seems as if after it warms up, the over voltage protection is kicking in and shutting down the HV It’s also possible the flyback is bad but I’m not too sure of that. I’m running out of things to check. I’m hoping to spend more time on it this weekend. Unfortunately the flyback in the 4900 chassis (which I have a bunch of) isn’t the same for this monitor as it’s the medium resolution version (25K5515). That way I could tell for sure if it was the flyback or not. The medium resolution chassis’ are a little harder to come by.
Three day weekend is almost here. Hoping to catch House of Flying Daggers Friday night with Snook, Ryan & Don. Hopefully Marie will be feeling better so we can try and do something fun this weekend. She hasn’t been feeling well for the past two weeks. Stomach problems galore. I wish there was something I could do. She has a doctor’s appointment next week Tuesday. Perhaps they can give her something that will actually work this time.
Goodbye 2004
Eric & Sue threw a New Year’s Eve party at their house which is where we brought in the new year. I managed to drink a whole bottle of Stoli with 4 cans of Redbull. Most of our friends were there and everybody seemed to have a good time. Jack brought his poker table and a nice set of chips that he got for Christmas. Eric setup a nice spot in the basement for the card game. At one point I tried to sit down and play a couple hands but all I can really remember is that everything was a blur, making it very difficult to actually see the cards. From what I’m told, I lost the chips that Jack spotted me within a couple of hands. I don’t really remember much of what happened after midnight. We left Sticky’s house sometime around 3am. Marie was kind enough to drive Snook & I home. Amazingly enough, I woke up with no hangover - not even have a headache. From now on Stoli is the ONLY vodka I’m drinking.