The beast is back at it! Yes, Pole Position II, by far the most cumbersome and bulky of the game systems I own, and also one of the most “frankensteined” internally, is back on the operating table after a guest at Santa Barbara Escape let me know that it was not working. She sent me a picture of...

So, as part of a maintenance visit to our Palm Springs Midmod vacation rental property, I was prepared to troubleshoot the Frogger system that was reportedly no longer working. After determining that the Frogger system would need a new switching power supply, I decided I should make sure the other systems...

So, word came down a few weeks ago that my latest acquisition, Frogger, worked for the first day of someone’s vacation at Palm Springs Midmod, but then stopped working. Apparently, they were pretty bummed, but I warn people that these machines are almost 40 years old so, you know, no guarantees your...

So, the BurgerTime free play/high score save kit upgrade didn’t exactly go as planned. As noted in that entry, the installation kit requires the replacement of the static RAM chip at location 14D on the main board. Unfortunately, the 24 pin RAM chip is soldered to the game board, requiring it to be...

Well, the repairs that Area Amusement did to my Joust system have lasted just about 2 months. Once again, the power supply appears to not be properly powering the game boards. Marquee, coin doors, and monitor are all powered up properly, but the rom board appears to be getting no power because the numeric...