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!

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.

Pretty cool that the game is set in the distant future…2003.