Restoring the classics…
Missile Command
Missile Command restoration
Missile Command – It’s Alive!
May 19th
I received my Missile Command board in the mail Saturday morning. I mailed the board to Andre at Arcade Solution on Monday, May 5th, and as promised in his e-mails, it took him a little less than two weeks to get the board back to me.
Prior to shipping the board, I had already replaced several components. While inspecting the board, I discovered that one of the EPROMS was missing a leg. Instead of repairing it, I decided to order a new pre-programmed set. Stephan from Hobby Roms quickly sent a new set out to me, although shipping from him takes a bit longer as he is located in Canada and the package had to clear customs. Just to be on the safe side, I also ordered a new 6502 processor and a pokey chip. These were obtained from Mike’s Arcade.
Missile Command Update
May 13th
I just received an e-mail from Andre at Arcade Solution, informing me that my Missile Command board has been repaired. He’ll be shipping it back tomorrow. The next big step will be to see if it works in my machine. I’ll post an update as soon as the board arrives and I get a chance to test it out.
Missile Command Flyers
May 9th
You know the drill by now, after acquiring a new game, I post the original marketing flyers here for your viewing pleasure. Up today, the original flyers for Missile Command. Click on each image for a larger view:
If you’re looking for more cool information, atarigames.com has a great collection of official Atari documents and memos available for download. To download the original three page Missile Command proposal document, click here. Wondering how much it cost to build each Missile Command upright? Click here for an official cost sheet.
Monday Morning Updates
May 5th
Well, it’s been a while since my last post, so I’ll try to bring you up to speed on some restoration progress. I spent a bit of time with Missile Command swapping out all of the EPROMS, the 6502 CPU and the pokey (a custom sound chip) and still get the same results after powering it on. There are two RAM chips that have quite a bit of corrosion, my guess is they are the culprit. Unfortunately, my soldering abilities aren’t good enough to solder in new RAM sockets so the board is being mailed out today for repair. The turn around is going to be around two weeks.
Missile Command Pictures
Apr 17th
As promised yesterday, I was able to grab a few pictures of the new Missile Command cabinet for your viewing pleasure. I’m still surprised at the conditional of the cabinet. Keep in mind when looking at the pictures that I haven’t done any cleanup on the machine, the pictures show the actual condition of the cabinet when I took possession of it.
The cabinet has a serial number of 13473. There are two coin door counters, one for each side. The left hand coin counter shows 34,493 plays while the right shows 14,398. Keep in mind that these are not always accurate. The cabinet currently only has one of four leg levelers on it, so if it looks crooked in the pictures, there is nothing physically wrong with the cabinet.
The lower left corner has some small damage but not near as much as the Dig Dug corner. Fortunately, if I decide to fix it and butcher the side art, reproduction side art is widely available for Missile Command cabinets. The coin door has a pretty cool “License On File” tag which will probably remain. The control panel is in great shape. There are three areas that have chipped away but touch up paint was applied and looks pretty good.
I was only able to spend about 5 minutes looking at the machine last night. The biggest challenge with this game is not going to be the cosmetic repairs, but getting it functional again. I tried to throw it into test mode last night with no luck. The screen just flashes a white/gray screen and a garbled tone is heard.
All of the pictures can be viewed by clicking on the “read the rest of this entry” link below. The photos are also located in the photo gallery.
