Quick Ms. Pacman Run Through

Heres a quick Ms. Pacman run-through and pics. Its not thorough as I plan on focusing must of my attention of the Punch-Out!! first and come back to this guy later… I just wanted to document it quickly in the original condition it came in.

• All the painted artwork on the machine are going to need an intense cleaning and then lots of time spent on touching it all up.
• The bezel and marquee artwork looks good though.
• The marquee lite is very dim, need to look into finding which part is messed up and replacing.
• On the left side panel, in the lower-right hand corner, the plywood is coming apart due to wear and tear. Im looking into options of cutting the messed up part off and recreating it was Bondo, or something of the likes. (and then sanding, priming, repainting, etc…)
• Needs new t-molding. Definitely going to go with a color and not that plain black :)
• Needs new Control Panel overlay, but the controls seem to work good. Going to replace those anyways.
• There are coins stuck in the coinmech and I have no idea how to test this. I’ll research it when the time comes.
• Sound and speaker sounds good!
• The video coming from the board is messed up. I’m first going to look into any bad connections or places that need resoldered. If thats not it, I might try replacing the video addresser, or if worst comes to worst, the entire game PCB.

The full cabinet

The side art – Notice all the wear and
grime. And the lower-right corner.
And the t-molding coming off. And
the two different blues. Yay!

The messed up video output

The bezel – the underlay and marquee
look good. The control panel doesn’t.

Kick plate artwork

Look at all that wear!

A New Home!

What a morning so far! Myself and my dad went over to finally picked up both games I purchased a few days ago, and transported them back to my house. The Punch-Out!! was so heavy, but totally worth it! It took two trips, but when its abut a mile roundtrip, its really not that bad. I really lucked out on the location of this guy, and am totally stoked about what I got!

Once getting them set-up in my garage, I started a pretty thorough run-through, both cosmetically and technically (well, as much technical knowledge a n00b like me has) of both machines, and immediately started planning out what to do first. I concluded to start first with the Punch-Out!! machine, seeing how it is probably a little simpler then the Ms. Pacman, and less valuable in the bizarre case I do mess up. I don’t know too much about the machines right now, but reproduced manuals are on their way to my house now. Regardless, heres what I’ve come up with after an hour of poking around.

Punch-Out!!

• The side-panels have multiple punctures and chips taking out of the plastic coating (formica-like). I’m playing with the idea of just filling in these holes, and applying a fake-vinyl layer overtop, but that brings up the question of what is my ultimate goal of the project: complete restoration, or to have it play like new and just look good.
• The side art are just two Punch-Out!! stickers, both are scraped up pretty good. I need to begin scouring the internet for some NOS or just some replications.
• The white t-molding is cracked in some places, chipped in others, and peeling in others. Just needs a replacement. Its a thinner stripe then usual.
• Some issues with the kick plate – punctures and chips taken off. If its just painted plywood, I need to sand the paint off, fill in the gaps, and re paint. If its that plastic coating, I might go ahead and put the fake-vinyl layer on it.
• The control panel sticker is actually in good shape, minus it being completely scraped off for about an inch on the bottom curved part. Looking for a replacement.
• The two main buttons both have problems with the contacts, either being completely broken off, or not registering. Because of this, you cant actually “start” a game. Just need to be replaced.
• The Uppercut big button feels good. The contacts just need to be cleaned and tested.
• The Joystick feels grimey and sticky. I’ll probably replace this too. Its a 4 directional, blackballed joystick. I could just clean it, but I think i’d feel better with replacing it.
• The power cord had the grounding plug ripped out (what the hell!!), ill need to replace either the plug or the entire cord, not sure yet.
• The Marquees in good shape, but the lights behind the Marquee don’t light up. And they are a string of big Xmas bulbs. Don’t know if this is what its supposed to be; the instruction manual will tell all. If its not, I need to look into replacing it and with what exactly.
• The top monitor is going to be an issue. The top 1/3 of it has this whole swirling thing going on. I am unclear about what exactly the issue is, I hope it just needs a recap. Its also effecting the sound output, making the left speaker just hum loudly, and not play anything. (The top monitor controls the left speaker, the bottom monitor controls the right). I’ll have to do some more research to locate the problem. I might try switching the inputs for these and see if its in the board or the actual monitor.
• The bottom monitor looks great, and the right speaker sound great. Stoked about that!
• This did have the original coindoor and cashbox intact. The coindoor’s light both work, but missing the right mech. But upon opening the cashbox, I found about 3.75$ worth of change, the missing coinmech, and an old power supply! Score!
• I finally cracked open the back, and the inside actually looked good. The only thing admist was the Service Switch was just hanging out. Not quite sure were it goes, but I’ll figure it out.
• It looks a new power supply was installed recently, awesome!

Overall not too bad and pretty much exactly what I was expecting. Ill post the Ms. Pacman list soon! Lunch time.

The Whole Cabinet

The Control Panel

The Wavy Screen – Yuck!

Leftside Panel – Look at that nasty
puncture in the middle.

The Kickplate

Rightside Panel – Look at that totally
bogus chip in the upper right.

Modified Plug – Seriously, who does that?!?

And so it begins

Yesterday marks the first plunge I take into realizing I can make my dream happen, owning an arcade/coffee shop!! I have 8,000 ideas that I just now started writing down organizing, but basically the gist of it is initially I want it to be about 50% an Arcade, and 50% a Cafe. I want to own all the games, to cut out the price of renting from an operator, thus allowing low cost of games (hopefully everything at a quarter), thus increasing maximum happiness of all my customers. I feel like a lot of what has gone downhill these days with arcades can be easily fixed in mood, atmosphere, and just generally what you have to offer. My main two points of things I want to do different is keeping the costs low for the customer, and have it not aimed at Chuck E. Cheese style kiddies. I am not saying I dont want them there, but being an older dude in those types of establishments gives you the weirdest uneasy feelings. So basically, i’m looking to own an arcade that is like in the opening scene of Tron, where its a bunch of college kids/adults in their 20s/30s, and not tons of screaming 6-year olds running around with tickets in their hands and poop on their face from the ballpit. On the Cafe side of things, Coffee is just awesome, and naming drinks off of video game characters and situations is going to be a lot of fun!!

So I figure my first step, in addition to working a whole lot to save up a bunch of money, is buying games, tearing them apart and fixing them up. Figure out what makes them work and what exactly I am going to be dealing with here. For the past two months I have been doing an insane amount of research in my off time all across the internet. Ive also been monitoring craigslist and eBay to see what exactly the market is like out there. Yesterday I struck gold!!! I found a seller right around the corner from where I live selling some games for a lot less then they should be going for. I instantly called him, met him, and snatched them up. Just like that, it was such a good feeling (and scary, being my first purchase). But I walked away with a Ms. Pacman and a Punch-Out!! machine! Two oldies but very much goodies. Upon first lookthrough, both of the them need a good cleaning, inside and out. They need to be repainted in a few places, and maybe even a new control panel overlay for Ms. Pacman. Technically, Pacman machine is having some issues with the display, which looks like it could 284 card repair or replacement. I might need to replace the joystick too. On the Punch-Out!!, both buttons on the Control Panel need to be replaced, and possible even the joystick. The top monitor’s hold is a bit off to, so I need to fix that. This is all exciting, I cant wait!

Unfortunately I don’t think my electronic skills are good enough to start going at these things, so I am going to purchase a storage space this weekend and just put them there for the time being. I ordered a bunch of books to help brush up my skills on electronic theory, as well as easy projects that you can do with just cheap radio shack parts, so I can not only familiarize myself with general circuit board knowledge, but also brush up on my soldering skills. Im pretty good with a heavy duty 100watt+ soldering iron, but not with a smaller 30watt iron, which is a whole lot better for these things.

I’ll post pictures once I actually start restoring them and hopefully I’ll try to log everything I do. Just for my own sanity’s sake.

-Adam