Right now I'm waiting... waiting for downloads of Daniel Pinkwater books & podcasts to finish, waiting for my wife to finish watching Bones (which I would love were it not for all the disgusting dead bodies), and, I guess, waiting for an absolution that will never come. So I might as well do a little more catch-up posting.
Shockingly, my first topic is about Doctor Who. I'm on the mailing list for the DW Wobble Head, where Al of Pins and Vids fame and his pal Mark are reproducing the mechanism to make the Dalek head move as it did on the prototype games. They say they're really close to finishing, and I potentially have the tough choice of whether to spend $275+/- that I don't have on this thing they're unlikely to make again, or... well, let's face it, if you've read more than three posts you know that my ability to piss away money I don't have is the envy of the Bush Administration. Purchasing is pretty byzantine... basically, they're making 10 sets, and the 40-odd people on the mailing list will be offered a chance to buy in the order that they expressed interest. So without getting too mathy on you, I should have roughly a 50% chance of getting the call to adventure. I feel kind of obligated to go for it since I believe in my heart of hearts that my cabinet was a prototype at some point, and it longs to return to its divine state of being. I am but a humble vessel in its quest for enlightenment.
Here's how I justify funding it: Right now I owe my family about $700 for purchases, plus a few bucks here and there -- for example, I just bought a Pin*bot skill shot ramp on eBay for about $18, which isn't included in the total -- so as long as I keep the total I owe under a nice, round, arbitrary amount like $1000, I should be OK.
Well, my wife finished Bones but now she's watching Battlestar Galactica, which I like but I've only watched the first two episodes and I am so anal about watching things in order that if I even walked into the room while episode 408 was on my head would explode. I mean, I'm working my way through Thunderbirds on Netflix, and I'm watching it in order even though it doesn't involve any kind of story arc or character development to speak of. I'm also watching Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot, which is at least marginally serial... and I'm also submitting episode summaries as I watch them to IMDB. When I was a kid, I only got to see Voyage Into Space, so I'm having great fun watching the entire series.
OK, I'm trying to think of stuff that is less pinball-related than this, and I'm having a difficult time doing so. My apologies to the hard-core.
Hey, this has nothing to do with pins, but is cool for me... I had a question answered by The Straight Dope Advisory Board! It's not as cool as having my question answered in the column, but it's the next best thing. There's even a little discussion topic devoted to the answer to my question. Cecil actually answered a question of mine about 10 years ago, but I asked it under my real name so I'm not going to link to it. See if you can guess which one it is!
Well, BSG is almost over so I'll probably rejoin my wife.
Wait, I thought of a short pinball thing! I have finally, against all odds, got Quicksilver in service again. It has been unplugged lo these many months because I wanted all of my games to be plugged into real surge protectors, not just power strips. I bought a big 'un for the four games downstairs and a smaller one for QS in the living room, but the surge protector required a three pronged outlet and our house, built on or about my birth year, is strictly two pronged. So, over Memorial Day weekend I cleared off all the crap my family has been leaving on the game, swapped the outlet (over the course of two days -- yeah, I kind of suck at this stuff, but I did it right, the ground actually works and everything), plugged the protector into the wall, plugged the game into the protector, and played a fun ol' game. So, I've got my one fully working game up and running, and that's always a good feeling. ^_^;
Friday, May 30, 2008
Sunday, May 18, 2008
The Pinball World Tour: Rockin' the Free World!
So, the Pinball World Tour 2008 officially concluded a few weeks ago, but I am fundamentally lazy and easily distracted. Usually things like chasing after the dog take precedence over blogging. ^_^;
Stop 1: Continental Bar & Grill, Arlington, VA - The tour started modestly with a visit to the bar near my work. World Poker Tour was gone and Spider-man was in, so I played a few games of that.
Stop 2: Game Time, Cockeysville, MD - This used to be a pool place where Mike and his 24 sons fixed games. I had been there to play pinball a few times, but it never seemed to be formally set up for pinball playing. Now it's basically a pinball store where you can play the games for an hourly fee. There was a pretty good selection of games, mostly from the late 80's on. I played Apollo 13 until I got the damn 13 ball multiball. I also got a chance to play Wheel of Fortune, which I figured would relieve the pressure to play it at later stops on the tour. Overall I was surprised that the games weren't all in amazing condition... I would say they were in decent pinball show condition, but not retail sale condition. Anyway, I had fun.
Stop 3: The Pinball Hall of Fame, Las Vegas, NV - I had to go on a business trip to San Diego at the end of last month, and when I found that I could fly into Las Vegas, drive to San Diego, then fly home from there cheaper than a round trip to SD, I was there. I took an early flight out and arrived in LV around noon. It took an hour or two to get my rental car and find the Hall of Fame, and I stayed for the next 8 hours or so. What can I say? It's awesome to have that many games in one spot. I played several games of the Pinball Circus, at right. After the initial shock of being there wore off, I started methodically working my way up and down the rows of games in a desperate attempt to play them all. Sadly, by the time I got the the last complete row I was about ready to fall over from exhaustion, so I started only playing the games that I hadn't played before or were really interesting. I managed to play about half of them, and if take into account the fact that a bunch weren't working, I'd say it's more like 75%. I supposed I should cut them some slack because they have 140+ games, but there were a few games that had some major problems... the Funhouse, which according to the sign had new more powerful flippers, actually had really weak flippers. I should have expected it, but Tim & Co love their crude and terrible puns (the sign describing Roger Sharpe's Sharpshooter labels it "Sharpe's Hooters"). And I did see The Hippie and I spoke briefly with Tim Arnold... I asked him how the search for the new building was coming along and we chatted about that. Overall, I had a good time and wished I could have stayed longer. I spent the night in a Motel 6 on Fremont Street and lost a few hours and about $35 gambling. I got up early the next morning, stocked up on Monster Energy Drinks and drove across the desert in a mad dash to get to San Diego Airport before 2 PM to avoid getting charged for a second day on the rental car. Here's the tragedy: I had my iPod, the car had an auxiliary jack, I had the cable to connect the two, BUT I obviously haven't ripped my copy of Wall of Voodoo's Call of the West album and didn't have the song "On Interstate 15", which I had been hoping to play while driving on Interstate 15. Bad luck there. I did pass by Calico Ghost Town, which my family would go to every few years on vacation when I was a kid. I had lunch at an In-n-Out Burger, for which I'd been feeling the In-n-Out Urge for my last several trips to California but had not had the opportunity to act on. And on the way to SD, I stopped in at:
Stop 4: Round Table Pizza, Rancho Bernardo, CA - I got this place out the the Visual Pinball forum pinball listings. It was right off the 15, and though they didn't have T2 and ST:TNG, they did have an Addams Family in dirty but playable condition.
Stop 5: Poway Fun Bowl, Poway, CA - This was kind of a gamble, because it was a few miles from the 15 and my rental car was going to turn into a pumpkin soon. Contrary to the VP Forums, they did not have a Champion Pub or Theater of Magic, but they did have a Family Guy and Attack from Mars, and the game room had black lights in it which made the AFM all glowy and cool. I didn't play FG, since I had just played Shrek at the PHoF. I finished my inauspicious game, gassed up nearby, and pelted down the freeway to San Diego proper.
Super Incredible Surpise Stop 6: Loew's Coronado Bay Resort, San Diego, CA - This was my destination, where my company was having its user conference. I tried to check in but my room wouldn't be ready for another two hours. So I was wandering around the hotel in my grubby traveling clothes hoping that no clients would see me and I saw a sign that said "Game Room". And danged if they didn't have a World Cup Soccer, The Shadow, and Dracula, all in playable condition! They also had some driving/fighting/shooting games, but I was stunned at the 90's Williams goodness staring me in the face. Of course, I spent most of my conference downtime in the 
game room, and even coerced my coworker roommate to play a few games. We ended up playing a lot of The Shadow, because of the three it ended up being the funnest. After the fancy dress up party on the last night, I snuck in and spanked World Cup, posting the high score... mainly because a ball was stuck and the various quirks of the rule changes made the game ridiculously easy. By the time I finished I hated the game with a passion.
Stop 7: My House, Derwood, MD - Of course, I have to count the fact that I played Doctor Who a few times. I had gotten a little annoyed the the H switch was in the non-working column, but the game apparently finally figured out the problem and modified the rules. Now when you get the W, the O starts flashing and it hitting it scores the full W-H-O value, including I am happy to say, the extra ball.
Final Stop: Pinball Wizards Convention, Allentown, PA - I'll write more in a later post on this... there was triumphantness, and there was harsh bogosity.
So, the Pinball World Tour was 8 stops, 5 states, and over a hundred games. My fingers are calloused, my wrists bleed, yet still I want more.
And finally, I had to post this most awesome eBay auction description. It reads like the opening salvo from Free Verse Arcade Poetry Slam Night. I have reduced the font size, but the shouting and singular lack of punctuation is 100% authentic. It did sell for about $600. The description is a thing of beauty.
Stop 1: Continental Bar & Grill, Arlington, VA - The tour started modestly with a visit to the bar near my work. World Poker Tour was gone and Spider-man was in, so I played a few games of that.
Stop 2: Game Time, Cockeysville, MD - This used to be a pool place where Mike and his 24 sons fixed games. I had been there to play pinball a few times, but it never seemed to be formally set up for pinball playing. Now it's basically a pinball store where you can play the games for an hourly fee. There was a pretty good selection of games, mostly from the late 80's on. I played Apollo 13 until I got the damn 13 ball multiball. I also got a chance to play Wheel of Fortune, which I figured would relieve the pressure to play it at later stops on the tour. Overall I was surprised that the games weren't all in amazing condition... I would say they were in decent pinball show condition, but not retail sale condition. Anyway, I had fun.
Stop 3: The Pinball Hall of Fame, Las Vegas, NV - I had to go on a business trip to San Diego at the end of last month, and when I found that I could fly into Las Vegas, drive to San Diego, then fly home from there cheaper than a round trip to SD, I was there. I took an early flight out and arrived in LV around noon. It took an hour or two to get my rental car and find the Hall of Fame, and I stayed for the next 8 hours or so. What can I say? It's awesome to have that many games in one spot. I played several games of the Pinball Circus, at right. After the initial shock of being there wore off, I started methodically working my way up and down the rows of games in a desperate attempt to play them all. Sadly, by the time I got the the last complete row I was about ready to fall over from exhaustion, so I started only playing the games that I hadn't played before or were really interesting. I managed to play about half of them, and if take into account the fact that a bunch weren't working, I'd say it's more like 75%. I supposed I should cut them some slack because they have 140+ games, but there were a few games that had some major problems... the Funhouse, which according to the sign had new more powerful flippers, actually had really weak flippers. I should have expected it, but Tim & Co love their crude and terrible puns (the sign describing Roger Sharpe's Sharpshooter labels it "Sharpe's Hooters"). And I did see The Hippie and I spoke briefly with Tim Arnold... I asked him how the search for the new building was coming along and we chatted about that. Overall, I had a good time and wished I could have stayed longer. I spent the night in a Motel 6 on Fremont Street and lost a few hours and about $35 gambling. I got up early the next morning, stocked up on Monster Energy Drinks and drove across the desert in a mad dash to get to San Diego Airport before 2 PM to avoid getting charged for a second day on the rental car. Here's the tragedy: I had my iPod, the car had an auxiliary jack, I had the cable to connect the two, BUT I obviously haven't ripped my copy of Wall of Voodoo's Call of the West album and didn't have the song "On Interstate 15", which I had been hoping to play while driving on Interstate 15. Bad luck there. I did pass by Calico Ghost Town, which my family would go to every few years on vacation when I was a kid. I had lunch at an In-n-Out Burger, for which I'd been feeling the In-n-Out Urge for my last several trips to California but had not had the opportunity to act on. And on the way to SD, I stopped in at:Stop 4: Round Table Pizza, Rancho Bernardo, CA - I got this place out the the Visual Pinball forum pinball listings. It was right off the 15, and though they didn't have T2 and ST:TNG, they did have an Addams Family in dirty but playable condition.
Stop 5: Poway Fun Bowl, Poway, CA - This was kind of a gamble, because it was a few miles from the 15 and my rental car was going to turn into a pumpkin soon. Contrary to the VP Forums, they did not have a Champion Pub or Theater of Magic, but they did have a Family Guy and Attack from Mars, and the game room had black lights in it which made the AFM all glowy and cool. I didn't play FG, since I had just played Shrek at the PHoF. I finished my inauspicious game, gassed up nearby, and pelted down the freeway to San Diego proper.
Super Incredible Surpise Stop 6: Loew's Coronado Bay Resort, San Diego, CA - This was my destination, where my company was having its user conference. I tried to check in but my room wouldn't be ready for another two hours. So I was wandering around the hotel in my grubby traveling clothes hoping that no clients would see me and I saw a sign that said "Game Room". And danged if they didn't have a World Cup Soccer, The Shadow, and Dracula, all in playable condition! They also had some driving/fighting/shooting games, but I was stunned at the 90's Williams goodness staring me in the face. Of course, I spent most of my conference downtime in the 
game room, and even coerced my coworker roommate to play a few games. We ended up playing a lot of The Shadow, because of the three it ended up being the funnest. After the fancy dress up party on the last night, I snuck in and spanked World Cup, posting the high score... mainly because a ball was stuck and the various quirks of the rule changes made the game ridiculously easy. By the time I finished I hated the game with a passion.Stop 7: My House, Derwood, MD - Of course, I have to count the fact that I played Doctor Who a few times. I had gotten a little annoyed the the H switch was in the non-working column, but the game apparently finally figured out the problem and modified the rules. Now when you get the W, the O starts flashing and it hitting it scores the full W-H-O value, including I am happy to say, the extra ball.
Final Stop: Pinball Wizards Convention, Allentown, PA - I'll write more in a later post on this... there was triumphantness, and there was harsh bogosity.
So, the Pinball World Tour was 8 stops, 5 states, and over a hundred games. My fingers are calloused, my wrists bleed, yet still I want more.
And finally, I had to post this most awesome eBay auction description. It reads like the opening salvo from Free Verse Arcade Poetry Slam Night. I have reduced the font size, but the shouting and singular lack of punctuation is 100% authentic. It did sell for about $600. The description is a thing of beauty.
pin bot pinball machine williams
THIS IS A PRETTY NICE ORIGINAL WILLIAMS PIN BOT PINBALL MACHINE I BOUGHT IT ABOUT 7 YEARS AGO HAD IT PROFESSIONAL SERVICED AND CLEANED PLAYED IT AND KIDS FOR ABOUT 2 YEARS UNPLUGGED IT AND JUST LEFT IT IN CORNER IN BASEMENT ABOUT 6 MONTHS AGO FIRED IT UP THE RIGHT FLIPPER STARTED ACTING UP BUT STILL WORKED THEN IT STARTED RESETING ITSELF WHILE YOU WERE PLAYING IT THE SERVICE MAN CHANGED THE BATTERY PACK IN TOP AND NEW BATTERYS 7 YEARS AGO DONT KNOW WHAT IT IS OR IF ITS IT SIMPLE LIKE THAT OR NOT .KIDS LOST INTEREST AND IM READY FOR A DIFFERENT GAME IT HAS VERY GOOD RAMPS TO PLAY AND A ROBOT LIKE IMAGE MUTLIBALL ETC VERY FUN IT STILL HAS COIN CHANGERS AND KEYS BUT YOU CAN MANUELY ADD CREDITS EASILY SO ITS VERY NICE BUT A FEW BUGS GLASS IS GOOD ETC. LOCAL PICKUP IS RECOMENDED, BUT I WILL WRAP IN BLANKET AND PALLET FOR YOU IF NEEDED AND I CAN HELP LOAD TRUCK BUT YOU NEED TO ARRANGE FREIGHT HAVE FUN THANK YOU !Thursday, May 01, 2008
Ecce homo, ergo elk
The Pinball World Tour has officially started, but let's clear away the auction business first.
I've had some good weeks and bad weeks on eBay, some struggles and triumphs, some pride and prejudice, some sense and sensibility... but luckily, no crime and punishment (yet). I started off the eBay season at the beginning of March with my usual collection of pinball stuff and bizarre junk from the 80's that I never threw out. Since I got the populated Centaur playfield,
I decided to sell off the bare playfield and stuff I bought for it. I figured that if the "crazy eyes" Xenon could get over $100 (twice!) I could probably get twice that. What I discovered was what I thought was a good deal at the time turned out to be way more than the market would bear at resale time. I put the playfield up with a $200 reserve and the first time around it got up to just over $100. See, having a certain amount of integrity meant that I wasn't going to post a blurry picture of the front and back like so many eBayers, but rather posted high res pics plus closeups of the flaws... and boy, in retrospect there were a lot of flaws. There was the touchup done on the whip handle, there was wear along the ball launch path, the right cheek of the drain babe's butt, and the captive ball captive's junk. It just was not worth the ~$340 that I paid for it... if only I could have gotten the guy who bid against me and some other clown in a bidding war, it would have been great. Anyway, I couldn't take $100 for it, so I relisted, it went for $150, and after a little thought I sold. I just shipped it off today. As far as the parts went, I was generally disappointed. I paid about $100 for them, and I think I made around $40-50.
On the plus side, I disassembled the parts from High Speed and made a killing. Of course the game didn't work when I tested it, and I tried booting the CPU board but it had too much battery damage. As I mentioned, I did find the working alphanumeric display, but everything else had to be sold as untested. Still and all, I cleared $275, with the bulk of that coming from the police light topper ($112.50) and the display ($69). Even the non-working displays sold for $4, and I was brutally honest about the fact that they had been tested and found wanting. The awesome HS sales combined with some unexpected vintage computer ad sales ($108 for an IMSAI catalog? Yeah, baby!) to propel me within spittin' distance of a $500 week, my second best ever (first would be hard to beat, $565 for a copy of the Apple II version of Ultima with all its packaging).
Finally, to balance the bad and the good with a dash of ambivalence, I sold some of the Doctor Who parts I got from Illinois Pinball. The first time I sold them, I got double what I paid for them, then I since that did so well I sold a second batch the next week and barely covered my costs before shipping. So the important lesson I learned is either don't sell stuff immediately OR eBay is a chaotic system that defies logical explanation. I'm not sure which is the more valuable lesson.
And to balance out my sales, I pulled the playfield out of High Speed and put the cabinet up in my first ever Mr. Pinball classified ad! (I've created an amazing simulation of it on the right.) I guess I kind of had dreams that it would draw a bunch of offers so I would have to sort out the "or best" of them, but as it turns out the only one was from a guy from Missoura who said it was exactly what he needed and agreed to pay full price. The only problem? He lives over 900 miles away. The solution? Luckily, unlike me he has actual friends, and one of them who lives only about 200 miles away from him is going to Pinball Wizards, so I will bring up the cabinet on Saturday and give it to his proxy. If you're doing the math, that means I've made $325 on High Speed, which is just north of what I paid for it, which means it, like the Doctor Who parts machine before it, is PROFITABLE!!! And I still have the backglass and playfield glass to sell! Yay for our side!
So today my wife and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary, tomorrow we're going to see a matinée of Iron Man (her choice! yes, I am the envy of men everywhere), and Saturday is the pinball show... we'll discuss all that soon with all the details of the Pinball World Tour. Sheesh!
I've had some good weeks and bad weeks on eBay, some struggles and triumphs, some pride and prejudice, some sense and sensibility... but luckily, no crime and punishment (yet). I started off the eBay season at the beginning of March with my usual collection of pinball stuff and bizarre junk from the 80's that I never threw out. Since I got the populated Centaur playfield,
I decided to sell off the bare playfield and stuff I bought for it. I figured that if the "crazy eyes" Xenon could get over $100 (twice!) I could probably get twice that. What I discovered was what I thought was a good deal at the time turned out to be way more than the market would bear at resale time. I put the playfield up with a $200 reserve and the first time around it got up to just over $100. See, having a certain amount of integrity meant that I wasn't going to post a blurry picture of the front and back like so many eBayers, but rather posted high res pics plus closeups of the flaws... and boy, in retrospect there were a lot of flaws. There was the touchup done on the whip handle, there was wear along the ball launch path, the right cheek of the drain babe's butt, and the captive ball captive's junk. It just was not worth the ~$340 that I paid for it... if only I could have gotten the guy who bid against me and some other clown in a bidding war, it would have been great. Anyway, I couldn't take $100 for it, so I relisted, it went for $150, and after a little thought I sold. I just shipped it off today. As far as the parts went, I was generally disappointed. I paid about $100 for them, and I think I made around $40-50.On the plus side, I disassembled the parts from High Speed and made a killing. Of course the game didn't work when I tested it, and I tried booting the CPU board but it had too much battery damage. As I mentioned, I did find the working alphanumeric display, but everything else had to be sold as untested. Still and all, I cleared $275, with the bulk of that coming from the police light topper ($112.50) and the display ($69). Even the non-working displays sold for $4, and I was brutally honest about the fact that they had been tested and found wanting. The awesome HS sales combined with some unexpected vintage computer ad sales ($108 for an IMSAI catalog? Yeah, baby!) to propel me within spittin' distance of a $500 week, my second best ever (first would be hard to beat, $565 for a copy of the Apple II version of Ultima with all its packaging).
Finally, to balance the bad and the good with a dash of ambivalence, I sold some of the Doctor Who parts I got from Illinois Pinball. The first time I sold them, I got double what I paid for them, then I since that did so well I sold a second batch the next week and barely covered my costs before shipping. So the important lesson I learned is either don't sell stuff immediately OR eBay is a chaotic system that defies logical explanation. I'm not sure which is the more valuable lesson.
And to balance out my sales, I pulled the playfield out of High Speed and put the cabinet up in my first ever Mr. Pinball classified ad! (I've created an amazing simulation of it on the right.) I guess I kind of had dreams that it would draw a bunch of offers so I would have to sort out the "or best" of them, but as it turns out the only one was from a guy from Missoura who said it was exactly what he needed and agreed to pay full price. The only problem? He lives over 900 miles away. The solution? Luckily, unlike me he has actual friends, and one of them who lives only about 200 miles away from him is going to Pinball Wizards, so I will bring up the cabinet on Saturday and give it to his proxy. If you're doing the math, that means I've made $325 on High Speed, which is just north of what I paid for it, which means it, like the Doctor Who parts machine before it, is PROFITABLE!!! And I still have the backglass and playfield glass to sell! Yay for our side!So today my wife and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary, tomorrow we're going to see a matinée of Iron Man (her choice! yes, I am the envy of men everywhere), and Saturday is the pinball show... we'll discuss all that soon with all the details of the Pinball World Tour. Sheesh!
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Yo, Lunchbox.
This is an interim post responding to my reader, severely bifurcated fanboy LunchboxFett. Of course, the real question that's on everyones mind is: Is he happier that SModcast is back, or about the new Star Wars TV series? We'll have to deal with that in a later blog entry.
Lunchbox writes:
Well, at least he's boy enough to admit it.
So here goes. Here we have the entire backbox. Mine is a little messier than most, because I haven't attached the Dalex board to anything... I think the wires don't actually reach high enough for me to mount it in the proper place. Then of course there are all the goofy wiring changes caused the fact that my Dalek plugs are all wrong. I've considered the fact that I may just have incorrect plugs instead of a prototype cabinet, but then I think of the fact that the holes in the top of the cabinet are different from the other one. Anyway, here's the big picture (click on the pic for full resolution):
OK, so here's the upper left hand corner. My wife's camera, which sometimes requires half a dozen shots from different angles to get a decent shot, came through for Lunchbox with some really nice pictures.
Here's the upper right hand corner.
Now we're getting to the meat and potatoes. This is the lower left hand corner, where the serious power get doled out, yo. I don't think I detailed it in the blog, but I spent a couple hours with the manual matching wire colors to plugs... it was tedious, yet highly gratifying work. To answer your question, Lunchbox, I have found errors in the manual, but the plug documentation seemed to be pretty accurate.
And finally, the lower right hand corner. Very colorful plugs, I should point out.
Now, of course, anyone who reads this blog will know that I'm clearly no expert, but it doesn't sound like your problem is plug related. I've seen crazy stuff happen when the easily misplugged ribbon cables are askew... and I hope it's as easy as that. Keep us informed, either way.
Okay Lunchbox, let's try this again. You check your plugs and make sure everything's as it should be. You then boot up your game and it gets through the test menu. And when that's done the game works perfectly and we go smoke a bowl. You got it? Now get your fat ass up there. And dude, don't forget your helmet. Snoogens.
Lunchbox writes:
Could you take pictures of the driver board and the connections you have to it? I have a manual for the game but not sure if I am missing a cable or the wiring diagram is incorrect.
When I first powered up my machine, it would reset during the test menu. I looked at the Marvin repair guides and it mentioned checking and replacing a couple of things on the driver board.
Yes I am a fanboy.
Well, at least he's boy enough to admit it.
So here goes. Here we have the entire backbox. Mine is a little messier than most, because I haven't attached the Dalex board to anything... I think the wires don't actually reach high enough for me to mount it in the proper place. Then of course there are all the goofy wiring changes caused the fact that my Dalek plugs are all wrong. I've considered the fact that I may just have incorrect plugs instead of a prototype cabinet, but then I think of the fact that the holes in the top of the cabinet are different from the other one. Anyway, here's the big picture (click on the pic for full resolution):
OK, so here's the upper left hand corner. My wife's camera, which sometimes requires half a dozen shots from different angles to get a decent shot, came through for Lunchbox with some really nice pictures.
Here's the upper right hand corner.
Now we're getting to the meat and potatoes. This is the lower left hand corner, where the serious power get doled out, yo. I don't think I detailed it in the blog, but I spent a couple hours with the manual matching wire colors to plugs... it was tedious, yet highly gratifying work. To answer your question, Lunchbox, I have found errors in the manual, but the plug documentation seemed to be pretty accurate.
And finally, the lower right hand corner. Very colorful plugs, I should point out.
Now, of course, anyone who reads this blog will know that I'm clearly no expert, but it doesn't sound like your problem is plug related. I've seen crazy stuff happen when the easily misplugged ribbon cables are askew... and I hope it's as easy as that. Keep us informed, either way.
Okay Lunchbox, let's try this again. You check your plugs and make sure everything's as it should be. You then boot up your game and it gets through the test menu. And when that's done the game works perfectly and we go smoke a bowl. You got it? Now get your fat ass up there. And dude, don't forget your helmet. Snoogens.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Beagles: Spawn of the Devil?
Yeah, so, it turns out I have a readership of one... or should I say, at least one! The last post yielded my first comment to the blog. I even waited a few days to answer it so I wouldn't appear desperate.
I was going to blow off writing, but it turns out that as time passes I just have more to write about. This entry will probably be in two parts because I am exhausted... my wife left a door open on Wednesday night, and Darwin took advantage of her generous open door policy and ran out into the forest behind our house. I chased after him on and off for about three hours and the closest I got to him was I touched him once. Then the deer he was nosing around after spooked and he took off after them. My wife and I drove around for another hour or two, and we could occasionally hear him baying in the distance. We finally gave up and spent a couple of sleepless hours wondering how we were going to get him back. Then at 2:30 in the morning he started howling outside our window. He was cold, wet, and tired out... I mean, he'd just spent the last 6 hours chasing deer, foxes, and whatever else he could find. He spent the next day pretty much sacked out, though today with the help of a muscle relaxant he's not walking like Old Man Beaglestein. I still haven't caught up on my sleep, though, and hence the foreshortened entry.
OK, so the Pinball World Tour in February of last year was awesome -- no one is disputing that. But Pinball World Tour 08, if it goes off as planned, will dwarf its predecessor in scope and magnitude. At least five venues! The distinct possibility of states! Several hundred pinball machines! The mind boggles. Oh yes, updates will be forthcoming.
Several hundred pinball machines means I need to get back some lower arm strength, so I bought a squeeze ball for the car. How difficile is it to find an adequate squeeze ball? Very. I had one that was great, but I think it expired. Then I tried a Linux penguin that I got at JavaOne a few years ago, but it was too big. I had a balloon with sand in it, which was great until it sprang a leak. So I replaced it with an excellent knobbly green thing, which I discovered was filled with little green pellets when they started coming out through a hole. A foam world tchotchke from a trade show lasted about two days... it probably would have been adequate, but the dog had chewed on it so it pretty much started disintegrating from day one. Finally this week I looked in grocery stores, 7-11s, and even frickin' Toys 'r' Us (which is too busy trying to pick up Imaginarium's failed high-end toy store business model to stock $1 squeeze toys). Finally I found some rubber balls in CVS... they're a little harder than I would like, but with less than two weeks before zero hour, the begging disallowed the choosing. I'm starting with 10 minutes on each hand per commuting direction, and I'll move up to 15 next week.
After several months of inactivity, I finally fired up Eight Ball Deluxe the other day only to find that in addition to the credit button not working, now the sound cuts in and out too. Not surprisingly the culprit appears to be that daggone J2 connector, which is just getting worse. I think I'm going to have to mount a repair effort.
I have something in my notes that says "elusive DW fix". I can't for the life of me figure out what that is. It sounds really interesting, though, so if I remember I'll certainly write a more memorable description.
I had a really good week on eBay, followed by kind of a crappy week. I'll write about that when I've recovered from chasing the dog. But I will say that I picked up another hopeless cause, a largely unpopulated Pin-bot playfield. We'll go into excruciating detail on that at a later date.
I was going to blow off writing, but it turns out that as time passes I just have more to write about. This entry will probably be in two parts because I am exhausted... my wife left a door open on Wednesday night, and Darwin took advantage of her generous open door policy and ran out into the forest behind our house. I chased after him on and off for about three hours and the closest I got to him was I touched him once. Then the deer he was nosing around after spooked and he took off after them. My wife and I drove around for another hour or two, and we could occasionally hear him baying in the distance. We finally gave up and spent a couple of sleepless hours wondering how we were going to get him back. Then at 2:30 in the morning he started howling outside our window. He was cold, wet, and tired out... I mean, he'd just spent the last 6 hours chasing deer, foxes, and whatever else he could find. He spent the next day pretty much sacked out, though today with the help of a muscle relaxant he's not walking like Old Man Beaglestein. I still haven't caught up on my sleep, though, and hence the foreshortened entry.
OK, so the Pinball World Tour in February of last year was awesome -- no one is disputing that. But Pinball World Tour 08, if it goes off as planned, will dwarf its predecessor in scope and magnitude. At least five venues! The distinct possibility of states! Several hundred pinball machines! The mind boggles. Oh yes, updates will be forthcoming.
Several hundred pinball machines means I need to get back some lower arm strength, so I bought a squeeze ball for the car. How difficile is it to find an adequate squeeze ball? Very. I had one that was great, but I think it expired. Then I tried a Linux penguin that I got at JavaOne a few years ago, but it was too big. I had a balloon with sand in it, which was great until it sprang a leak. So I replaced it with an excellent knobbly green thing, which I discovered was filled with little green pellets when they started coming out through a hole. A foam world tchotchke from a trade show lasted about two days... it probably would have been adequate, but the dog had chewed on it so it pretty much started disintegrating from day one. Finally this week I looked in grocery stores, 7-11s, and even frickin' Toys 'r' Us (which is too busy trying to pick up Imaginarium's failed high-end toy store business model to stock $1 squeeze toys). Finally I found some rubber balls in CVS... they're a little harder than I would like, but with less than two weeks before zero hour, the begging disallowed the choosing. I'm starting with 10 minutes on each hand per commuting direction, and I'll move up to 15 next week.
After several months of inactivity, I finally fired up Eight Ball Deluxe the other day only to find that in addition to the credit button not working, now the sound cuts in and out too. Not surprisingly the culprit appears to be that daggone J2 connector, which is just getting worse. I think I'm going to have to mount a repair effort.
I have something in my notes that says "elusive DW fix". I can't for the life of me figure out what that is. It sounds really interesting, though, so if I remember I'll certainly write a more memorable description.
I had a really good week on eBay, followed by kind of a crappy week. I'll write about that when I've recovered from chasing the dog. But I will say that I picked up another hopeless cause, a largely unpopulated Pin-bot playfield. We'll go into excruciating detail on that at a later date.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Here's what I should have given up for Lent...
Playfields, of course!
I could not resist the urge and ended up getting an unpopulated Funhouse on eBay. Of course, "unpopulated" here means "virtually impossible to complete without throwing more money than a new game would cost", but as usual I couldn't resist. It's in surprisingly good condition... a few minor wear spots, but mostly just grimy. And unpopulated.
So while I'm wondering how I'm ever going to get the parts for this, a guy from Romania who posts regularly on Mr. Pinball classifieds mentioned he had a bunch of parts from a Funhouse that he parted out. So I asked for a few parts, we haggled a bit, and we completed a sale. I got the wiring harness, the two plastics with lights, the clock and gangway light boards, and Rudy hideout and trapdoor mechanisms. Obviously the real money pits will be Rudy and the ramps, but this is a good start. And I can probably repurpose a bunch of the Doctor Who parts (like slingshots, bumpers, ball trough) for this. Let's put it this way: Things could be worse.
Hey, here's an interesting fact about Funhouse that I could only find out by looking at an unpopulated playfield: There's an Interstate 70 shield and the phrase "Feel the Power" in the pretty much hidden upper right corner, obviously a reference to Whirlwind!
And then another fine eBayer posted a populated (*shudder*) Centaur. It was not in as good a shape as mine, but it was fully populated (*shudder*). Resistance was pretty much futile and it ended around 10 AM on a weekday, so I bid strategically and won. 
As you can see, somebody tried and failed to touch it up, it's missing its plastics, I don't think it has correct targets, and if you look carefully at the wiring harness, all of the plugs have been cut off (the auction said it was missing one, but I think that was an honest mistake... it is completely emasculated). Certainly less of a challenge than the unpopulated playfield, so I took the path of least resistance. The current plan is to scan the nice playfield so I can attempt to touch up this one, then sell the nice one on eBay. I've already started selling the Centaur parts I got, and it looks like they're selling for a pathetic fraction of what I paid for them... desperation always up the price of anything. We'll have a full report on that later.
After a few unsatisfactory eBay auctions for the plastics, I bought a new set from Illinois Pinball for $100 bucks. They are super nice, and since I don't care about NOS or original parts, they will no doubt make this game look a lot nicer.
What does this mean for the bottom line? Well, I owe the family almost $1000. That's a little extreme for a guy who's supposed to manage on $20 per paycheck and has already spent his bonus and tax refund.
Well, help is on the way, because the start of Spring means the start of eBay season. In addition to the Centaur parts, I'm also selling the boards and stuff from High Speed, which so far have attracted lots of watchers and a few bids.
The coolest thing was as I was testing everything the High Speed parts, the one thing that worked great was one (and only one) of the displays. Since I don't have another System 11 game, I plugged the displays into my Black Knight to see if they would work. The one that did was one of the two alphanumeric displays, which I found were plug compatible with the plain old numeric displays less the extra segments. Also, the player 4 plug is situated so you can attach the 26 pin cable to it with the 6 extra sockets hanging off the end. The picture on the right is what I got.
Well, knowing it was working meant I had to come up with a hair-brained scheme to test the other segments. My first attempts at using wires to jumper between the connector and the 6 sockets didn't go anywhere... I had a pretty good idea of where things had to go by reading the schematic, but I had to get everything there.
My bright idea was to run wires from the segment plugs from player 3 to the new segments in the 26 pin plug. The six new pins were easy to find, but it turns out that the unused pin 5 in numeric world is used for a segment on Planet Alpha.
As you can see on the right, it looks half-assed but derned if it didn't work like a charm. Whatever did in the other displays -- probably normal outgassing, but who knows -- sure didn't affect this display. It looks nicer than most of mine. And the proof is in the eBay pudding, because this item has the most watchers I've had in a while -- 32 after 4 days, and it's got the highest bids so far. Obviously I have high hopes for all my items, but some items have higher hopiness than others.
I've got a bunch more to write about, but it's late and I don't want to be wrecked at work tomorrow.
I could not resist the urge and ended up getting an unpopulated Funhouse on eBay. Of course, "unpopulated" here means "virtually impossible to complete without throwing more money than a new game would cost", but as usual I couldn't resist. It's in surprisingly good condition... a few minor wear spots, but mostly just grimy. And unpopulated.So while I'm wondering how I'm ever going to get the parts for this, a guy from Romania who posts regularly on Mr. Pinball classifieds mentioned he had a bunch of parts from a Funhouse that he parted out. So I asked for a few parts, we haggled a bit, and we completed a sale. I got the wiring harness, the two plastics with lights, the clock and gangway light boards, and Rudy hideout and trapdoor mechanisms. Obviously the real money pits will be Rudy and the ramps, but this is a good start. And I can probably repurpose a bunch of the Doctor Who parts (like slingshots, bumpers, ball trough) for this. Let's put it this way: Things could be worse.
Hey, here's an interesting fact about Funhouse that I could only find out by looking at an unpopulated playfield: There's an Interstate 70 shield and the phrase "Feel the Power" in the pretty much hidden upper right corner, obviously a reference to Whirlwind!
And then another fine eBayer posted a populated (*shudder*) Centaur. It was not in as good a shape as mine, but it was fully populated (*shudder*). Resistance was pretty much futile and it ended around 10 AM on a weekday, so I bid strategically and won. 
As you can see, somebody tried and failed to touch it up, it's missing its plastics, I don't think it has correct targets, and if you look carefully at the wiring harness, all of the plugs have been cut off (the auction said it was missing one, but I think that was an honest mistake... it is completely emasculated). Certainly less of a challenge than the unpopulated playfield, so I took the path of least resistance. The current plan is to scan the nice playfield so I can attempt to touch up this one, then sell the nice one on eBay. I've already started selling the Centaur parts I got, and it looks like they're selling for a pathetic fraction of what I paid for them... desperation always up the price of anything. We'll have a full report on that later.After a few unsatisfactory eBay auctions for the plastics, I bought a new set from Illinois Pinball for $100 bucks. They are super nice, and since I don't care about NOS or original parts, they will no doubt make this game look a lot nicer.
What does this mean for the bottom line? Well, I owe the family almost $1000. That's a little extreme for a guy who's supposed to manage on $20 per paycheck and has already spent his bonus and tax refund.
Well, help is on the way, because the start of Spring means the start of eBay season. In addition to the Centaur parts, I'm also selling the boards and stuff from High Speed, which so far have attracted lots of watchers and a few bids.
The coolest thing was as I was testing everything the High Speed parts, the one thing that worked great was one (and only one) of the displays. Since I don't have another System 11 game, I plugged the displays into my Black Knight to see if they would work. The one that did was one of the two alphanumeric displays, which I found were plug compatible with the plain old numeric displays less the extra segments. Also, the player 4 plug is situated so you can attach the 26 pin cable to it with the 6 extra sockets hanging off the end. The picture on the right is what I got.
Well, knowing it was working meant I had to come up with a hair-brained scheme to test the other segments. My first attempts at using wires to jumper between the connector and the 6 sockets didn't go anywhere... I had a pretty good idea of where things had to go by reading the schematic, but I had to get everything there.My bright idea was to run wires from the segment plugs from player 3 to the new segments in the 26 pin plug. The six new pins were easy to find, but it turns out that the unused pin 5 in numeric world is used for a segment on Planet Alpha.
As you can see on the right, it looks half-assed but derned if it didn't work like a charm. Whatever did in the other displays -- probably normal outgassing, but who knows -- sure didn't affect this display. It looks nicer than most of mine. And the proof is in the eBay pudding, because this item has the most watchers I've had in a while -- 32 after 4 days, and it's got the highest bids so far. Obviously I have high hopes for all my items, but some items have higher hopiness than others.I've got a bunch more to write about, but it's late and I don't want to be wrecked at work tomorrow.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
More +s than -s
Now here's some awesomeness: I actually fixed something on Doctor Who. The upper left flipper wasn't working, so I finally found some diagnosis time while my wife flipped (no pun intended) between Extreme Makeover and America's Funniest Home Videos before finally landing on Pinky and the Brain. Before I got too far into it, I realized that each flipper has its own fuse, so I thought I would try changing the fuse first. Looking at the manual, I swapped the upper flipper's fuse with the one for the non-existent upper right. This yielded a working upper flipper (yay!) but now the lower left flipper wasn't working (boo!). Then I said screw it, I'll just replace the LRF fuse with a new one. That didn't work. So I lifted up the playfield and checked the coil voltages with the game turned on. This showed me that the LRF wasn't getting any power, and pulling the plug from the Fliptronics board I found that there was no power there, either; it sure sounded like a fuse. Before I got into some serious diagnostic work, I took another crack at the fuses. I decided it was time to question authority, so I pulled all the fuses and popped them in one at a time to see which flippers started working. I found that the manual was playing me for a fool: Fuses F901 and 902 are the lower flippers, and F903 and 904 are the upper flippers, which is the opposite of what the manual and sticker in the backbox says. I replaced F902 with a brand new fuse and the flipper started working. I played a celebratory game and got an OK score.
So all I've got left to do is fix the switch matrix and figure out why the mini-playfield has problems. One interesting thing I noticed was while I was in the switch test: The MPF opto switch was flashing on and off... that would certainly explain why it was having problems.
In other news, I decided to take the day off work Friday and take that trip to Pinball Parlour than I mentioned last post. I figured it would be marginally easier to leave the dog with my wife than go while she's out of town and let the poor dog stay overnight at the vet. Pinball Parlour is only open from 7-10, so I left at about 2:30 thinking I would be there with plenty of time to get some food... but that didn't work out. There was some stuff spilled on the road north of Baltimore, the stupid EZPass malfunctioned, causing me to think I was going to get a ticket for skipping through tolls (I shouldn't since they have my license plate on file), and rush hour traffic in Philadelphia got me there about 5 minutes before 7. Thank goodness for the Nerds Rope and Beef Jerky I had on the way up.
Pinball Parlour has newer Williams games (mostly late 80's on) and a bunch of EMs from barely post-flipper to the mid-70's. They mostly work, with some bad flippers and such here and there. I'm unhappy with their unreasoned prejudice against 70's-80's Bally solid state, but what can you do. There was a kid's party in there, so when they came in and ran roughshod over the games, I retreated to the EM room. Then I would shoot the balls and finish the games that they started to cut down on the noise. The few EMs that were working were in suck shape, and I was sad that their 1948 game wasn't working either... I'm up to the late 40's games in Pinball Compendium, and it would have been cool to play one. I was also sad that their Joust pinball wasn't working -- nor was it working when I went a couple of years ago. I did play the one early 80's game they had, Hyperball. I also snuck in a few vids, like Crystal Castles (which I could finish back in the day, but not any more:( ) and Paperboy. The owner popped in at 10 and said he was staying open an extra hour. That meant I got home at 2 AM, but the drive home was not bad. Anyway, I had fun, and it was relatively cheap if you don't count the tolls.
Speaking of Pinball Compendium, the one thing I don't like about it -- aside from Shaloub's kinda artless style, which I can overlook -- is the way he fauns over everyone who talks to him. I honestly don't need to know that he worships Steve Kordek and Harry Mabs as gods every few paragraphs, and that he is so grateful that they spoke to him.
And I got The King of Kong on DVD from Netflix the day it came out. I enjoyed it, though I watched it knowing that played Michael Moore-style games with the truth (my wife wouldn't watch it because it was too biased). Even so, Billy Mitchell struck me as the sort of person that I dislike -- people who are so full of themselves, whether deserved or not, turn my stomach. Plenty of awesome extras too, though I found the commentary by the I am 8-bit guy and IGN editor extremely witless and boring, so I turned it off after 10 minutes. Regardless, the one thing it did is make me want to go to Funspot in NH -- they have a frickin' awesome collection of pins & vids, and it's just two hours away from my friend Marlin's house in Boston...! And I may have to drop my daughter off in New York if she goes to England for a semester abroad, which is just four hours away from Boston...! Maybe it's time to plan an early Fall New England romp.
And finally... watching King of Kong extras made me want to play some Donkey Kong, especially since I didn't even remember the Pie Factory level since I haven't gotten to in in about 20 years. So I fired up MAME and totally sucked at it... I didn't even make it through the second barrel level. I fell short of the kill screen by about 114 levels. ^_^;
So all I've got left to do is fix the switch matrix and figure out why the mini-playfield has problems. One interesting thing I noticed was while I was in the switch test: The MPF opto switch was flashing on and off... that would certainly explain why it was having problems.
In other news, I decided to take the day off work Friday and take that trip to Pinball Parlour than I mentioned last post. I figured it would be marginally easier to leave the dog with my wife than go while she's out of town and let the poor dog stay overnight at the vet. Pinball Parlour is only open from 7-10, so I left at about 2:30 thinking I would be there with plenty of time to get some food... but that didn't work out. There was some stuff spilled on the road north of Baltimore, the stupid EZPass malfunctioned, causing me to think I was going to get a ticket for skipping through tolls (I shouldn't since they have my license plate on file), and rush hour traffic in Philadelphia got me there about 5 minutes before 7. Thank goodness for the Nerds Rope and Beef Jerky I had on the way up.
Pinball Parlour has newer Williams games (mostly late 80's on) and a bunch of EMs from barely post-flipper to the mid-70's. They mostly work, with some bad flippers and such here and there. I'm unhappy with their unreasoned prejudice against 70's-80's Bally solid state, but what can you do. There was a kid's party in there, so when they came in and ran roughshod over the games, I retreated to the EM room. Then I would shoot the balls and finish the games that they started to cut down on the noise. The few EMs that were working were in suck shape, and I was sad that their 1948 game wasn't working either... I'm up to the late 40's games in Pinball Compendium, and it would have been cool to play one. I was also sad that their Joust pinball wasn't working -- nor was it working when I went a couple of years ago. I did play the one early 80's game they had, Hyperball. I also snuck in a few vids, like Crystal Castles (which I could finish back in the day, but not any more:( ) and Paperboy. The owner popped in at 10 and said he was staying open an extra hour. That meant I got home at 2 AM, but the drive home was not bad. Anyway, I had fun, and it was relatively cheap if you don't count the tolls.
Speaking of Pinball Compendium, the one thing I don't like about it -- aside from Shaloub's kinda artless style, which I can overlook -- is the way he fauns over everyone who talks to him. I honestly don't need to know that he worships Steve Kordek and Harry Mabs as gods every few paragraphs, and that he is so grateful that they spoke to him.
And I got The King of Kong on DVD from Netflix the day it came out. I enjoyed it, though I watched it knowing that played Michael Moore-style games with the truth (my wife wouldn't watch it because it was too biased). Even so, Billy Mitchell struck me as the sort of person that I dislike -- people who are so full of themselves, whether deserved or not, turn my stomach. Plenty of awesome extras too, though I found the commentary by the I am 8-bit guy and IGN editor extremely witless and boring, so I turned it off after 10 minutes. Regardless, the one thing it did is make me want to go to Funspot in NH -- they have a frickin' awesome collection of pins & vids, and it's just two hours away from my friend Marlin's house in Boston...! And I may have to drop my daughter off in New York if she goes to England for a semester abroad, which is just four hours away from Boston...! Maybe it's time to plan an early Fall New England romp.
And finally... watching King of Kong extras made me want to play some Donkey Kong, especially since I didn't even remember the Pie Factory level since I haven't gotten to in in about 20 years. So I fired up MAME and totally sucked at it... I didn't even make it through the second barrel level. I fell short of the kill screen by about 114 levels. ^_^;
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