Sorcerer! Part 1

Posted on 2015-01-10 by Ken

This post has been awhile in coming. Years for sure, maybe over a decade depending on how one cares to count. The machine it’s about, a Williams Sorcerer pinball, had been sitting in one of the back rooms of my parents’ shop in Anchorage for long enough that I can’t quite remember exactly when it showed up.

A couple years ago, when I first started repairing arcade games again, I went up to the room Sorcerer and some other pins were in and dusted them off to appraise how tough they’d be to fix. That Christmas my dad gave me two of them to ship down to Portland and repair for myself. It took some time to figure out the logistics but the first of them finally made it down to the Lower 48 last December.

It’s definitely a player’s quality machine, with signs of having been on route for a long time and then put away without much attention paid to it afterwards.

Still one of the coolest looking tables I’ve run into. I haven’t actually gotten to play one yet though. This Sorcerer is only the second I’ve seen in person, and the only one I’ve actually gotten to lay hands on.

This machine promises to be an involved project, given the extent of the damage, but I’m pleased to be its steward.

Battle stations!

Posted on 2014-11-04 by Ken

Grabbed a machine I’ve been keeping an eye on for a while this weekend. It’s been advertised for several weeks and just hit the magic $300 mark so I gave the seller a call and picked it up this past Sunday.

Bosconian, released under license from Namco by Midway in 1981, is pretty rare to find in its dedicated form anymore. Lots and lots of them were converted, and the cabinets are made out of some particle board that doesn’t hold up well at all compared to the plywood cabinets used for other Midway games.

This one is only the second or third I’ve ever seen in person. It’s in decent original condition, with plenty of signs of having been on route but no gratuitous damage for the most part. Only things I might repair cosmetically are the plastic strip at the bottom of the front panel that has come loose, and perhaps replace the control panel overlay that has worn badly on the front edge.

It definitely needs a bit of electronics attention. The audio doesn’t work currently, which hopefully is just a common issue with the amplifier. I’ve also noticed the mini map dot for the player’s ship will often end up drawn on the opposite side of the screen from where it belongs, which makes the game a little harder. Going to leave it as is for a while before I dive into troubleshooting though.

The Bosconian went straight to my workplace’s new offices in downtown Portland, joining the rest of the lineup that was moved over the week prior. I also hauled over the former-Bosconian I have, a Capcom Bowling conversion.

There’s still room for more on the opposite wall, but I haven’t totally decided what else to bring in. Will give things a few more weeks to settle out before I add on further.

Ghost Signs – Jefferson West Apartments (Cordova Hotel)

Posted on 2014-09-25 by Ken

The businesses in this building at SW 11th and Jefferson began to dwindle and vanish right around the time I moved to Portland. The cheap apartments above the storefronts emptied out as well, being replaced by units in the Jeffrey a few blocks away.

Formerly home to the divey River City Saloon, a salon, a mail center, and a copy shop, one of the corner storefronts also served as an art and civic space called Field Work during the years between the closing of the businesses and the end of the story for the building.

I noticed a big bite had been taken out of the corner of the block in late August, exposing the interiors of some of the old apartments.

The rest has been coming down throughout September. Eventually the lot will be cleared and a new 15-story student housing development will be erected. Unfortunately, it follows the trend in private student housing of being heinously overpriced at a thousand a month for a shared room, and three hundred more if you’d like a private studio.

Whether or not the new development will be particularly useful to anyone other than transfer students with wealthy parents, it’s good to see the block redeveloped. If nothing else the luxury accommodations should soak up the moneyed kids and leave more of the older and/or PSU owned cheaper housing stock available for others; and the new construction will revitalize several block faces that have been empty and moribund for the better part of a decade.

The demolition exposed a painted sign on one of the formerly hidden walls of one of the original buildings in the conglomorate. Presumably this advertised the Cordova Hotel that was a historical occupant of the site. Besides the hotel, the building also played past host to Reed’s classrooms, several music venues, and a porno theater.