Recently, my uncle Bill was killed in a freak accident while driving down to the Miami Boat Show. Bill was the most interesting man that many people get to meet, with an interest in details bordering on the obsessive. In his eulogy, I spoke about that interest in details and how it applied to everything and everybody in his life. He saw a genuine beauty in those details.

Nowhere is an eye for details more critical than in the replacement of a playfield in a pinball machine. Literally thousands of components need to be transplanted from the old playfield to the new playfield. It is, at best, a painstaking process and perhaps not the best fit for my more typical approach of "fix the damned thing now!"

After years of waiting, I received an email informing me that the reproduction playfields were finally ready for my Flight 2000 pinball machine. It was the first pinball that I bought and is the only pinball machine in the house today. I love the game play and love that the kids will play it if it is powered up and they walk by. I bought the machine for a decent price (C$475?), even considering the condition (playfield worn to the bare wood, broken targets, random resets, etc.). I spent the next two weeks opening her up, polishing every nook and cranny and retouching the smallest imperfection as best I could with my limited skills. Unlike most in this hobby, I like to keep my machines, not roll them over (mostly because I am a shitty salesman).

So, when I read, back in the November 2005 issue of GameRoom Magazine, that there was this new company producing new pinball playfields and that one of the titles that they wanted to do was my beloved Flight 2000, I knew that my ownership of this game had just become an personal odyssey. F2K is a B-Title at best and in good shape rarely commands about $600.

A new playfield, should they actually make them, was going to run about $600. Add to that a new set of plastics at $180 and, hopefully a new backglass (mine is horrible) and we end up well over a thousand bones, not to mention dozens of hours of time and effort, to restore a machine that I can never make my money back on.

As a number of people noted, this is exactly the type of financial transaction that Bill would think was a good idea!

So, I have bit the bullet and completed my preorder for a brand new playfield and new set of plastics with  an eye to doing a complete transplant in the spring.

It is going to be meticulous, frustrating and painstaking, but I am going to try to see all of those nit-picky little details through Bill's eyes and celebrate the beauty of the restoration.

Or I'll take his target rifle and shoot it full of holes.

Who can really be certain ?

 

My poor Williams MultiGame has been out of service for some months now due to monitor woes -- the game was playing blind and I couldn't figure out why.

So, I pulled the monitor chassis and tested everything I (well, actually, Randy Fromm) could think of.

No joy.

It's a Wells Gardner 4900, which has that big ass D-battery looking cap on it. I figured "What the hell ? I've got spares from a recent DigiKey order, let's replace it."

So I did ... many months ago.

Never got around to reinstalling the monitor.

Mrs Cheffo has been telling me that I need to spend more time doing "Cheffo" things and I can't think of anything that qualifies more than a rousing game of Robotron, so, tonight, I hooked the monitor back up.

No joy.

I review the "Out Of Order" worksheet that I attach to games when they go down (Yes, I have lots of worksheets -- thanks for asking!). My notes say that input AC voltage was fine.

Maybe I was wrong, although blowing a measurement for household voltage would be a really stupid mistake.

I had made a really stupid mistake.

One 3Amp fuse later and we're playing Robotron.

I need to listen to Mrs. Cheffo more often.

While it may seem self-indulgent, I have been asked a number of times recently what I am reading, so I'm going to tell you.

I tend to flit around on subject matter, although I seem to settle in and read the Lord Of The Rings about once a year or so.

Recently, I have spent time with:

• The Wise Heart by Jack Kornfield (Buddhist psychology)
• Form & Void by Dave Sim & Gerhard (Cerebus the Aardvark)
• Dust of Dreams by Steven Erickson (Malazan Book of the Fallen)
• The American Night by Jim Morrison (more of his intellectual meanderings)
• Supernatural by Graham Hancock (more of his mystical explorations)
• The Book by Atari (Atari's guide for arcade game repair)

So there you have it -- nothing earth-shattering or profound, just stuff that is interesting to me.

Yesterday marked the first time I have received an Incident Report for an altercation involving one of my kids. To make it a banner day, I got one for each of the boys.

Now, in both cases our kid was the victim, but the differences between the two reports reveals the inanity of trying to use a single administrative procedure in dealing with the acts of children.

The first report had to do with Gilby, who is in the first grade and is as sweet and sensitive as can be. He was playing with his friends at recess and the pocket on his sweatshirt got ripped. Normal stuff that happens with boys and physical play. I was greeted by the Chairperson of the school and Gilby's friends who apologized to me. Seems to be an somewhat over-the-top response and I shook both boy's hands and let them know that everything was fine and thanked them for their apologies. Gilby wasn't sad or mad and even told the boys that "my Dad can use a string and fix it" (Cheffo's gots teh skills!).

Complete administrative overreaction.

On the flip side, the report involving Kevin was the 17th such report involving violence for the offending student since March 2nd, when he was allowed to return to school after being expelled for similar behaviour.

17 incidents of violence in less than two months!

That boy wasn't made to apologize to me (which I expect would have been far more effective than the two days of recess that he has to give up) and there is no reasonable plan to remedy the situation going forward. The same old administrative routines haven't worked and, I would suggest, have likely contributed to his bad behaviour. Somebody is going to get seriously hurt.

Total administrative failure.

Maybe it is time to get this kid some help ... or his parents some help ... or at least keep him from wreaking havoc on the other kids.

Administrators need to learn that kids are not appliances and that the rubber-stamp-and-form approach is just silly -- the kids understand that -- why can't the adults ?

I haven't updated in a long time -- due entirely to work/$$$/space constraints.

I don't have the time, cash, nor space to entertain another coin-op project.

What I do have is the entire run of GameRoom Magazine in digital format.

It is the sweomes!

While I have every print issue of GRM since I started subscribing, which was prior to Kevin Steele's reign, I haven't been able to get back issues for all of the backs that I have wanted. I did get some of the more interesting series of articles, like the two-parter on Exidy (can you say Crossbow !!!!) and the two-parter on myriad Star Wars games, as well as past articles about Tron (man, do I need to get my butt in gear and get that running before December!).

What I had missed, even with my digging into the back issues, were the initial articles by industry vets like Dick Donlan. If I had read those articles when I first started out, my life since would have been easier and my games would be the better for it.

I've been reading and re-reading and, while there are different generations of the magazine that will appeal to people with different interests (Jukes, Pins, Vids, Vendings), the fact remains that I absolutely, relentlessly have to have GRM in my collection of coin-op reading material.

So should you.

http://gameroommag.com

You know you want it ...

Due to Survivor and Olympic hockey, I wasn't able to get the 440 kit installed last night. BUT, I was able to get it installed this morning, so that the boys won't be disappointed when they get home from school.

Ready To Be Made More Bueno	More Bueno
Welcome To The COLLEX'N	Make Your Choice
Crossbow
Cheynne
Catch-22
Combat
Crackshot
Chiller
Clay Pigeon
Hit 'N' Miss
Who Dunit

And, yes, Chiller is really THAT creepy ...

Last night I spent 4 hours working on Unknown-1 (ProTip: The polarity for C312 is misprinted on the solder side of the board. It is correct on the parts side of the board), only to end up with things worse than when I started. It's bad enough that DigiKey shipped the wrong 820u capacitor (which I managed to make fit) and that I totally missed a big 220u that I don't have a replacement for, but the hula remains and now I have convergence problems. I guess it's about time that I learned to properly set the convergence, but that definitely wasn't on my roadmap when I decided to fix Unknown-1.

The good news is that the doorbell just rang and I found my friendly neighbourhood Canada Post man smiling -- "This one is actually for you and they didn't ding you for any taxes or duties". Normally, the packages are for Deb and come with taxes owing. He caught the "little kid seeing the Giant Tinkertoy set at Christmas" gleam in my eyes and said "I guess you've been waiting for this one."

Damned right I have.

Without further adoo, I present Exidy 440 COLLEX'N kit, serial number 027, resting on the kickass t-shirt that Mike sent with the kit.

It is going to be a really long day ... today is feature-lock day for the next version of VirtGate and I promised that I would let Kevin (and Gilby) help me install the kit.

This fun will have to wait until tonight, which is, I guess, good news, since it gives me time to pick up the "6-pack of your favourite beer" that Mike recommends as part of the installation process.

My 440 kit is in transit, somewhere between Chicago and Toronto.

It almost would have been worth driving to pick it up in Chicago -- I've done that drive in just over 6 hours, but that was when I was young, stupid and had a fast car. Now I am old, wise and drive a frakking minivan (no way I could have fit an arcade cabinet or a pinball in the Acura) and have to be content to wait for Canada Post to deliver my kit with a smile (the Canada Post guy loves hearing the details whenever he drops off a piece of arcade history, even though he is firmly ensconced in the middle of GenerationXBox).

So ... I need some sort of arcade-related project that will be quick to finish but keeps up the momentum.

I've been meaning to do a rebuild on the monitor in a bartop that I picked up at auction some years ago for $50. The lot was listed as "HARDWARE", which is auction-speak for "the damned thing is broken". It should have sold for $25, but I was late raising my card ... by about a half-second. It seemed like a crappy result, but I ended up with a "Starburst parking lot opportunity" to get my money back. Something, however, made me decline the offer and take the little cabinet home.

Lo and behold, the damned thing worked (once the appropriate wires were reconnected) AND it had a working Team Tetris board inside. BONUS!

I cleaned it up, repainted the trim, installed new vinyl on the control panel and put on some new T-Molding. It was a pretty little machine that I would be able to turn around for a quick sale and profit.

Then I installed the Rygar board that I had previously picked up on eBay as "UNTESTED", which is eBay-speak for "the damned thing is broken". Lo and behold, the damned thing worked and played AMAZING in that little cab (thanks to a nice Wico 8-way and buttons). My little bartop was going nowhere and was doomed to be a permanent addition to the game room.

I almost didn't notice the teensy, tiny little hula that was showing up on the monitor.

Well, the hula is now little less teensy, not so tiny and I have finally decided to get off of my butt and yank the chassis for a rebuild.

I tried to identify the chassis using Bob Roberts' What's My Monitor ? page, but it turns out that it is listed as Unknown 1. I broke out my magnifier and proceeded to assemble a list of caps to be replaced ... there are 40 FREAKING CAPS -- for a little 13" monitor!! I have a spare 13" WG that came out of my uncle's exercise equipment and is pristine, but it looks really nice on my testbench, so it's time for me to suck it up and just fix Unknown 1. I see lots of soldering in my future.

To make matters worse, there were a boatload of 315V 2.2u and 3.3u caps that I didn't have in stock (nor did I have suitable substitutes), so I had to place an order with Digikey, which arrived (as expected) 1 business day later (e.g. today), but with the wrong bloody B+ filter cap (capacitance is right, voltage is fine, but the damned pinout is wrong -- so I need to finesse the fit).

Here is a picture of the biggest capkit I have ever assembled:

This afternoon was consumed with swimming lessons for Gilby, so I have some RealWork(tm) to catch up on before I can turn my attention to such recreation.

Tune in tomorrow for the thrilling, chilling adventures in soldering!

After a brief delay thanks to the family stomach flu, and a battle with the stupid cabinet trying to get the chassis back on the frame, dropping a screw down into the board sandwich, requiring me to remove the mounting racks and boards to retrieve it, I got the chassis reinstalled. I still need to tweak the contols a bit, but will wait until I have a helper nearby to help guide me ... or at least hold up a mirror.

OK, I got bored of waiting and just did the "duck into the back of the cabinet, reach around the high voltage components, turn a knob that you can't see and run around to the front to see what happened" routine. Repetitive and frustrating, but it does work.

The foldover is gone, as are the lines, waves and bizarre blob in the lower right. Yay!

It looks like Jeff over at Rotheblog may be working on some artwork, which would spare me the  embarrassment of trying to assemble my own artwork! Double Yay!

And, best of all, Mike has indicated that all paid-up orders should ship by Friday! Triple Yay!

I have made some progress in terms of vectorizing characters from the artwork fom various 440 games:

 

 

 

I am still looking for decent scans from the other games. I have Carl from Combat, but the resolution is terrible, so the resulting vectorization is crap. Also trying to learn enough GIMP and Inkscape to do something neat with the text for the marquee.