The Broken Joystick

I took my Star Wars PCB set over to a local guy named Kip today so he could check them out on his bench. Turns out the problem is with the boardset for sure. On his test bench it showed the EXACT same problem that it does in my cab. Now to get someone to fix it and I’ll have a working Star Wars again!

I picked up a NICE local Tron today. I have wanted a Tron for about 10 years to go with my Discs of Tron. I have seen a few locally but they were either too expensive or too beat up. Last week I saw one locally on Craigslist for $1900 (!!!). Only a pic or two and it looked decent – no pics of sideart but he said it worked 100%. I emailed the guy and offered him $400. We went back and forth over email – me explaining that it wasn’t worth $1900, him showing me BINs on ebay for $2200, me showing him completed sales on ebay for $800. In the meantime, the price on CL went down to $100, then $850. He told me I could have it for $650 – I countered with $600 and it was mine for $600.

So, I pick it up and it’s the nicest Tron *I* have ever seen in person. There were just a few nicks here and there in the sideart. CPO is perfect except a little cracking on the bend. The stickers on the spinner and stick are perfect and intact. Cool metal Showbiz Pizza Place asset tag on the back. The monitor is bright and clear with only a faint hint of the cone burned in on it. All lights work. It only had 14995 plays on the credit counter. I could not be happier and it looks great next to my DoT.
Pictures of my Tron

On Sunday I drove to York, SC and I picked up a Sega Out Run for $200. Took me 7 hours of driving, but it was well worth it. The game looks and plays great. I wanted a good driving game for the arcade and Out Run was my #1 choice.

While passing through, I also dropped off all my extra PCBs to the guys from Lyons Arcade. They were glad to take them and I was glad to get rid of them and have some space back in the arcade.

I sold my mini JAMMA cabinet last night. Sold it to a nice local guy and sold it with my multigame PCB so now I have to buy another one of those. Funny thing is, he bought the pachinko I saw on Craigslist a few weeks ago and is going to sell it to me for what he paid – $60! So I’ll get that next week.

I was gonna sell the Pengo but changed my mind. I decided to keep it. The good news is, I finally repainted the coin doors and repainted the bottom kick panel black so those look good now. I’ll be going to Charlotte this weekend to pickup an Out Run. I’ll finally have a good driving game!

I saw this on ebay and it was a 2 hour drive away and was at $51 with a day left. I watched it and right before the end I sniped $78 in and won it for $66.

So, for $66, 240 miles and 4.5 hours of driving, it’s mine now. It works 95% and is in pretty good shape. The left flipper is weak, it needs a new set of rubbers all around, needs new flipper buttons (faded), it doesn’t’ keep score (always says 0), and the far right drop target is always down. I’m VERY happy with it.

OK, I’m a total idiot. I was hooking up the output of my Centipede to my test rig incorrectly – I was hooking up the RGB,GND, SYNC to SYNC, GND, BGR (image above is what you get)! Once I hooked it up right I could see the game playing. No sound or mushrooms though.

I went to bed and tied it again the next day and everything worked as it should. it had sound and mushrooms. WTF? I didn’t touch it. I’m happy it’s working but worried it will die on me again. Sigh.

I also tested the monitor from the bartop and it works great and has an awesome picture!