Tag Archives: space invaders

Project updates part 3

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Last of these bulk updates, I swear!

Lots going on with the second conversion I’m doing. It’s a Centipede cocktail I got without boards or monitor, getting the 60n1 treatment. Not the best end… Not the worst either. I like to think I’m doing it justice while meeting the needs of the person who commissioned it.

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A disturbing amount of lint came out of those trackballs. Like, several square inches of it. As well as a toothpick and wrapper, two bits of gum stuck to a roller, and what I’m pretty sure was a receipt at some point. Classy people, those players in the distant past. I got the trackballs performing nicely, though new bearings are probably in their future.

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New control panel overlay (from Arcadeshop, amazing quality and I cannot convey how nice having the holes die cut is) for player 1 installed, along with the LCD. Was happy to be able to mount the LCD without modifying the cabinet beyond a few screw holes. I doubt this thing will ever be deconverted, but if it is it’ll be an easier job than a lot of the bullshit out there.

Got the dents (yeah, seriously) out of the player 2 control panel tonight as well, and sprayed it black again. Will get the new CPO on and reassemble later this week and then it’s back to waiting for more parts to come in.

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In other news, the boardset for my Space Invaders came in finally!

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I ended up having to use half of my original boardset (the audio board) and half of the donor (motherboard) in order to get a fully functional game in my cocktail cab. The end state working set is pictured above.

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The donor boards evidently came from an upright. I’d heard all Space Invaders boardsets were alike and there was merely a cabinet wiring difference between the upright and cocktail versions. Given the fact that the cocktail audio board has an extra set of connections versus the upright board I think the difference is more significant than that.

Might also be a change between revisions though… The audio board I bought has older style gigantic caps on it, among other differences. More research is necessary to get that sorted out though, it seems like the Deluxe version of the game has much more info out there about it and there was not much forthcoming about the original.

Thankfully it was my motherboard that was the issue, not the audio board, so I frankensteined it and got a few rounds in tonight!

Invaders Must Die

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Found something I’ve been after for a lonnnnnnng time today…

brc07_0

It was rather serendipitous and I’m really excited about it! My parents had one of these Space Invaders cocktail table machines in their living room when I was a little kid and I was always sad they got rid of it. It’s been something I’ve been hunting off and on even before I leapt back into the hobby for real.

brc05_0

Seems likely that it’s been in the area since new, and probably not swapped between locations too much. The cabinet is immaculate and doesn’t have any water damage, smashed corners, or other signs of hard use. A tag on the coin door identifies it as having been operated at some point by the still existent company Amusement Unlimited out of Eugene.

brc04

It’s my first black and white game, definitely a bit different than what I’m used to working on. Right now the monitor works perfectly, and it doesn’t look too daunting to keep that way. Not a lot going on compared to the chassis for a color raster monitor.

brc03

Sadly the board has issues. Right now all I get is this little cluster of partial characters.

brc01

Again though, this thing looks dead simple compared to the newer stuff. Parts are nice and spread out on the PCBs too, so should be easy to work on. Based on my research so far I’m thinking there may be an issue with some of the RAM chips on the boards.