Fast forward 7 months and the cabinet has not been touched and is sitting in my garage. Much to my wife’s displeasure, this kept me from moving the lawn furniture into the garage over the winter! Over the weekend, I decided to move the cabinet into the basement and start working on it. I did not move the lawn furniture into the garage.

I shopped around for a few months looking for an original Sanyo 20ez monitor to put in the cabinet but didn’t have any luck. I found one on E-bay that went for more than I was willing to spend and had a few offers to ship monitors to me but they all needed some form of repair. I decided to use a spare Wells Gardner K7000 monitor that I had sitting around. It took me all of 5 seconds to realize that the mounting holes on the K7000 monitor did not line up with the mounting holes on the Nintendo mounting brackets. As a matter of fact, the K7000 did not have any top or bottom mounting holes at all.

It became apparent that I would have to bolt the monitor to the monitor shelf in the cabinet. I took a few measurements to find the center of the monitor shelf and also the center of the monitor itself. I then measured the distance that the monitor in my Donkey Kong cabinet stuck out from this shelf (towards the front of the cabinet). The monitor was bolted to the shelf in almost the exact orientation as the monitor in my Donkey Kong cabinet. If I had to guess (because I didn’t measure) the monitor in this cabinet probably sits a bit lower than the monitor is supposed to but once everything is done, I don’t think it will be apparent. Here are a couple of pictures of the monitor bolted into place:

In the first picture above, you can see the original Nintendo monitor mounting bracket at the top of the monitor. You can also see that the K7000 sits short of this bracket. In the second picture you can see the bolt locations on the lower left and right sides of the monitor frame. There are also two bolts at the top that can’t be seen in this picture.

Once the monitor was mounted, I needed to find a spot to place the 120 volt isolation transformer for the K7000. 20ez monitors used 100 volt transformers so I couldn’t use the one currently located in the cabinet. I located a spot near the power supply for the isolation transformer, mounted it and then connected it to the 120 volt and ground terminals of the terminal block. Here’s a picture of the isolation transformer mounted inside the cabinet. The isolation transformer has the 4 red wires attached to it…two coming in from the terminal block and two going out to the monitor. The terminal block is to the far right of the picture:

One thing that is needed on monitors in a Donkey Kong/Donkey Kong Jr cabinet is an inverter board. Without an inverter board, the image on the monitor will appear to be a negative of what should actually be there. The majority of the image will appear to be white if the inverter board is not present. I had previously purchased an inverter board from Mike’s Arcade and made the necessary connections to it.  The inverter board requried 12 volts DC to run, so I temporarily “borrowed” 12 volts from pin 4 of the 9 pin CPU connector at the power supply.  After a bit of monitor tweeking, the image is stable and clear…my blurry picture does not do it justice:

The final picture above is the front of the cabinet that will eventually become my dedicated Donkey Kong Jr machine. It is complete with a Donkey Kong marquee and bezel but those were removed while I worked on the monitor. Right now, the wiring to the inverter board and monitor is a bit of a “hack job” as I wanted to test everything before making it permanent. I will eventually clean up the wiring and add molex connectors as time allows. As usual, a dedicated photo gallery has been set up for work on the Donkey Kong Jr cabinet. Stay tuned….

When I put the new trackball mounting plate on the control panel, I discovered that the new mounting plate and old mounting plate were different sizes. The new plate had about 1/2″ of space remaining between the outer edge and the routed area it was to fit into. While the ideal solution would have been to bondo the space, I didn’t have any bondo handy but did have some Durham Rock Hard Water Putty at my disposal.

Here’s a shot of the control panel with the old button holes filled and the space around the trackball mounting plate filled and sanded:

While I think bondo would have been a better alternative, I didn’t have too much concern with using the putty as the mounting plate is bolted down and shouldn’t shift during gameplay.

Once I had the control panel prepped, I carefully measured and drilled new holes for all of the buttons, including the two new buttons not used on the 2000 Golden Tee board set that was originally in the cabinet (backspin & fly-by). I then installed the overlay that I custom designed in Adobe Illustrator and had printed by Mame Marquees:

I still need to fill the gaping hole in the front of the cabinet where a bill collector was once installed, but right now the game is functioning and playable. That will have to suffice for the time being.

I then mounted the Golden Tee 2005 PCB, hard drive and power supply into the cabinet and hooked up only the monitor and speakers for the time being.  I fired the game up and spent about 20 minutes adjusting the size and position of the image as well as the brightness and contrast settings.  I had a pretty decent image on the screen but noticed that it kept pulsing from light to dark.  I suspected a bad adjustment pot so I began to try and track down which one was bad.  While I was working on this, I inadvertently stepped on the power cord and the game powered off.

I quickly realized that the power cord on the machine was bad, so I decided to unplug it and replace it.  As I was trying to unplug the cord, I put my hand on top of the metal power supply and was shocked.  Not shocked at what I found, but literally shocked.  Not a jolting shock, more like someone had stuck 1000 pins into my hand all at the same time. Damn, that’s always a fun way to discover that the cabinet is not properly grounded.  Obviously, the power cord was causing the game to short but it  also had no ground pin.  Why I hadn’t noticed this before is beyond me but a quick switch of the power cord with a cord that had a grounding pin solved both the “shock” issue and the unstable monitor issue.

I didn’t have a camera handy, so I took a quick video of the working game with my cell phone.  Wait, I had a camera, I just decided to take a video instead of a picture?  It WAS late by this time.  The strobing effect you see is not present on the actual monitor, it’s a product of the crappy camera in my cell phone.  This is also my first attempt at posting a video, so it might work, it might not.

[See post to watch Flash video]

There is still plenty to do on this cabinet.  I need to apply the overlay to the control panel; cut new holes for all of the buttons and hook them up; install the track ball; and wire up the coin door just to name a few.  The cabinet also needs some cosmetic work but I want to make sure everything is going to work properly before I spend too much time on that aspect.  Stay tuned…

The price of admission was included with our vacation package so the kids and I decided to head there on our last evening while the rest of our group shopped.    I can honestly say, there was no way we would have gone had the price not been included already.  The price of admission for guests 10 and over was $42.50 per person.  For children aged 3-9 the price was $36.  For myself and the four kids to even get in the door it would have cost almost $200.  The price of admission can be less if you purchase your tickets in advance but it’s still pretty pricey.

Regardless, the place was absolutely packed.  The facility is 5 floors, with each floor consisting of a different “zone”.  Upon entering, we were directed to an elevator which took us to the third floor of the facility.  Coincidentally, that is the floor that houses the classic arcade games.  I didn’t make a note of the games they had but it was a fairly large selection.  They had the typical Ms. Pacman/Galaga combos, the Donkey Kong/DK Jr/Mario Brothers combo, a 25th anniversary Space Invaders but also a large selection of dedicated classic arcade games.  Dedicated games that I recall seeing: Lunar Lander, Mr. Do, Tron, Galaga, Galaxian, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Asteroids, Super Pacman, Ms. Pacman, Pacman (w/ speed chip), Pengo, Qbert, Gorf, plus many more that I can’t recall right now.  There was also some type of Buzz Lightyear bumper car ride on this floor.  I tried to snap some pictures but all I had was my cell phone and the pictures didn’t turn out at all.  All games are set on free play except for crane games and the like that dispense prizes.

I was immediately drawn to the Tron machine, a game I hadn’t played in over 20 years.  I fired up a game and immediately noticed that the monitor was crap.  It needed a cap kit.  As a matter of fact, as I walked around the room 90% of the monitors needed cap kits and major adjustments.  My son attempted to play a game of Frogger, which was located next to the Tron machine.  The game would credit up but neither the 1 player or 2 player start buttons worked so it was impossible to start a game.  After being pummeled by Tron, which had a less than responsive joystick, I stepped to a dedicated Galaga machine.  While the monitor was again less than perfect, I did manage to beat the high score of 180,520 with a respectable 195,600.

I tried to play a game on the dedicated Donkey Kong cabinet but didn’t have much luck.  I couldn’t figure out why the high score was only 16,200.  I soon found out.  The game had a replacement micro-switch joystick in it.  The joystick stuck in the up position.  While that didn’t matter too much on the barrel level, it made the rivet level almost impossible.  Any attempt to climb down a ladder would immediately send Jumpman back to the top when you reached the bottom.  I found if I jumped at exactly the right time I could get him to stay at the bottom of the ladder.  Needless to say, my score of 40,800 was nothing to brag about but given the joystick problem I seriously doubt that anyone was going to top it.

We then went up to the fourth floor where we found a selection of more “modern” games.  The kids all played a few games of Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution.  These all worked fairly well as expected.  We then attempted to play a few games of air hockey.  The games were supposed to last 5 minutes but each time we attempted to play a game, the puck got stuck when someone scored.  They only way to get the puck back was to credit the table and start a new game.  The table next to us also had the same problem.  There is also a snack area here that serves beer and wine.   Most of the parents were getting liquored up while their kids ran through the facility, cutting in line for games we had been waiting on.

We attempted to go to the first floor to ride some of the virtual reality attractions but the lines were all too long.  The second floor had some interactive games that the kids played for a bit but quickly tired of.  We really wanted to do the roller coaster designer with the option to ride it in a simulator, but again, the line was too long.   After about 2 hours, we headed out the door.  The kids had no interest in half working classic games and it was too crowded to try anything else.  For the cost of admission, I would expect the games, particulary the classics to be in better shape.  I did notice a sign that was placed sometime after we entered offering 1/2 price admission after 8:00 (might have said 7 or 9, I don’t recall).  Even at that, I’d pass unless you take a tool kit.

My intention is to run Donkey Kong Jr. in this cabinet.  Here’s the question…leave the cabinet original colors, etc. and just run Jr. in it, or completely convert it to a Jr. cabinet with orange paint, new side art, bezel, control panel and marquee?  Pictures later.

After several back and forth conversations, using my father as a middle man, a deal was struck and I picked the game up on Sunday. All I knew at the time of purchase was that it was not working. The owner believed it had a monitor issue. When I got the cabinet home, I plugged it in and confirmed that it was not working. I took some quick measurements and found that the switching power supply was not putting out the proper voltages. I stole the power supply from my All American Football cabinet, which has quickly become the bastard cabinet…one that I swap parts out of when needed. With the new power supply in place, I confirmed that I was now getting the correct voltages to the cabinet.

Once I was getting proper voltages, I could hear the game playing blind. In essence, the game was fully functional except for the picture on the screen. I could coin it up, hear all of the game sounds and operate the gun but just couldn’t see anything. I suspected a bad monitor so I pulled the monitor out of the cabinet and put it in my Dig Dug machine to test.   The Dig Dug screen came up perfect, so I new the monitor was operational.  I began tracing wires and found a few loose pins on the header that goes from the game board to the monitor.  After jiggling the pins around, I finally got a nice stable image on the monitor.  The header pins will eventually need to be replaced, but for now, the game is working.

From conversations with fellow collectors there are two common issues with Operation Wolf cabinets.  Both involve the gun on the cabinet.  There is a cool recoil effect when you shoot the gun, controlled by a motor.  That motor is prone to failure and is difficult to repair.  The recoil effect works perfectly on my cabinet.  The second issue is the optical sensor in the gun which is used to register hits.  The sensor is also prone to failure and difficult to repair.  My cabinet works flawlessly.  I should have some pictures posted tomorrow.  In the meantime, here are the scans of the original marketing flyers for Operation Wolf, courtesy of ArcadeFlyers.com:

Centipede was developed by Atari way back in 1980.   If you would like to read a bit more about the history and details of Centipede, check out it’s entry in the Killer List Of Video Games.  As is customary with all of my dedicated machines, here are scans of the original Centipede marketing flyers:

One nice thing about the Atari cabinets, while different, they all share a very similar design and shape. From my experience with my Dig Dug cabinet, I have a pretty good idea what repairs need to be done on the cabinet and how long each will take. Unlike Dig Dug, reproduction side art is available, so if I decide to redo the sides, I have that as an option, verses printing my own.

As you look at the cabinet pictures, I’ll point a few thing out ahead of time. The cabinet is very unstable side to side. I’m going to guess that this is caused by the damaged and missing bottom board on the rear of the cabinet (where the power switch is located). There is really not an easy way to piece this board back together so I will cut a new piece and secure it in place, hopefully stabilizing the cabinet.

The top has separated slightly from the cabinet in the back. Again, I should be able to secure that back in place which should help with the stabilization. There is a chunk of wood out of the right front corner of the cabinet, which should be fairly easy to repair using techniques similar to the corner repair performed on Dig Dug. The question of preserving the side art comes into play. The big test will be to see how clean it comes. If it stays as dirty as it is now, I won’t worry about it and will simply replace it. The control panel will get replaced as will the trackball. The bezel and cardboard underneath are both in excellent shape.

Here’s where my little friends, the mice, apparently tried to make their escape. The marquee will have to be replaced.

Before you mention it, I know there is not a monitor in the cabinet. It was removed for testing purposes. Initially, when I powered on the game (after reconnecting half of the wires), all I got was a display with a blue screen. My voltages were good at the game PCB and I had another PCB that was reportedly tested and working. After swapping that PCB in, I had a similar screen, only white, instead of blue. I took the monitor out to test in my Dig Dug machine. Fortunately, the monitor works great.

I think I’ve pinned the monitor problem down to the power supply. I was only getting about 58 volts to various test points in the cabinet, where I should have been receiving 120. I have another power supply on the way, which will hopefully correct the issue. At least the monitor works, so my money spent on the cabinet was worth it. This one will probably move to the top of my restoration list due to it’s poor cosmetic appearance. Removing the mouse urine stench will be my ultimate priority.

Stay tuned over the next few days for pictures of my latest acquisition, Operation Wolf. I’ve been on a roll lately!

The cabinet was complete when I picked it up.  It had an old Golden Tee Fore control panel overlay on it that had seen better days.  I removed the control panel overlay and the control panel itself is not pictured in any of the pictures.  It is in my workshop where I am filling some holes and prepping it for the additional buttons necessary in a Golden Tee 2005 cabinet.  I created a new overlay from scratch, also detailed in my last post.

The cabinet, cosmetically is in decent shape.  There is a big hole in the front portion where a bill acceptor used to be and a broken piece of wood that has been semi-repaired on the top, near the marquee.  My odds of finding an affordable bill acceptor are slim to none, so I’ll probably place a piece of scrap wood over the hole and fill it with bondo.  If that doesn’t work, I can always throw another coin door on that side of the cabinet, although I probably wouldn’t wire it up.  The broken piece of wood held together with brackets and what appears to be epoxy can be repaired with a form and some Bondo.

Eventually, I will take the Golden Tee 2000 board out of this cabinet and put my working Golden Tee 2005 board and hard drive in.  Those parts are currently being stripped from the All American Football cabinet.  There is plenty of room inside the cabinet to mount additional boards so I will eventually add a jamma switcher and World Class Bowling at a minimum.  Right now, I can easily swap between the Golden Tee 2005 board, Golden Tee 2002, Golden Tee 2000 and World Class Bowling although it will be a manual switch-out of the boards.  With a jamma switcher, you can press a certain button combination and automatically switch between the boards.

I have a brand new Happs 3″ trackball that will also be put into the machine.  The trackball pictured below is working, so I will keep it around as a spare.  Hopefully the mounting holes line up. The marquee is going in the garbage. I have a Golden Tee 2002 marquee that I will use as a replacement.

The short term plan is to get the Golden Tee 2005 board and hard drive into this machine, run some additional wiring, apply the control panel overlay  and get it up and running.  The long term plan is to repair the damaged areas which will probably require a repainting of the entire cabinet.  I have too many other projects right now to worry too much about the cosmetic appearance of this one.  Just wait until you see the Centipede cabinet!