Tag: repair log
-

Ms. Pac-Man with no “Sprites” (Ghosts, Ms. Pac-Man)
So, a gentleman reached out to me right before my fusion surgery asking me to have a look at his Ms. Pac-Man game. It was not showing sprites but was otherwise behaving correctly – it passed self test, and you could still see dots being eaten during attract mode, etc. Initial instinct was something wonky…
-
“Untested” Ms. Pac-Man PCB – Repaired
Ordered an untested Ms. Pac-Man board off eBay for a fair price. As an aside, remember that “untested” means the exact same thing as broken, especially when dealing with older hardware. Older hardware (games) should be presumed to be broken unless proven otherwise, so bid/price accordingly.
-
New Pinball Trips GFCI but not a Normal Outlet
So, a friend of mine had an interesting problem, he purchased a brand new pin that obviously tested and worked well before it was shipped to him, but as soon as he plugged into a GFCI socket in his garage, it tripped the GFCI outlet. They came and got the game, treated it again, said…
-
Dead Gorf
So I found a dead Gorf on Craigslist. It was an older ad, but was still available when I inquired. Dude I picked it up from had done some pretty impressive restorations on some other games. Anyway – it was dead alright. Shows a blank screen that looked overly blue due to how the monitor…
-

Bringing Joust Back to Life
So it came to pass that I ended up with three cabinets for $100 each. A Great Golf in a Midway cabaret, some Toaplan run-n-gun in a Taito Qix cabinet, and… A Joust(!) in its original cabinet. I agreed to purchase all three sight-unseen. When I get them all home, the golf game worked except…
-
Joust Showing 1 3 5 and a REALLY Effed-Up Screen
[This was extracted from a large article about getting a dead Joust operational. I thought it made sense to put this part in its own post to help anyone else with a similar issue. This post may reference content from an earlier post, so keep that in mind when reading.] So at this point the Joust will…
-
Joust With an Input Problem – 1st Player Always Runs Left
[This was extracted from a large article about getting a dead Joust operational. I thought it made sense to put this part in its own post to help anyone else with a similar issue. It may reference content from the previous two posts here and here.] …So now I have a Joust that boots correctly…
-
Hopper Error (HE) on Sammy Aladdin Pachislo Machine
I picked this one up last year with a generic E1 error code for $50. Reseating all connectors and performing a master reset (reset key in and turned, internal power switch cycled, reset key removed) brought it right up. Been working fine for a little over a year then the hopper quit working. Display would…
-
Dig Dug with Floating Pins
Going through my boards, I came across a second Dig Dug board. This one boots to static garbage and no sound. Watchdog is barking. Removing one of the CPUs gets different garbage. Tried replacing with a known good one, no change. Checking the pins shows me that a couple of the data lines, from…
-
Roc’N Rope PCB Issues
Got an interesting problem with a Roc’N Rope board that I recently connected up to the new JAMMA test rig. It has all its sounds, and plays correctly, but the text and tiles (e.g. the title graphics and the graphics used to build the levels) are all upside-down! When the screen is flipped for cocktail…