That Milker. Every man needs a few awesome friends like that guy and I count myself lucky to know him. It was just the starter: so I saved about $18 here.
Let me tell you about the Milker: His father used to put on Christmas Holiday Displays that would make Clark Griswold's celebration of Christmas look like bin Laden's. (The effect I am going for is that bin Laden lives in a filthy cave with no electricity. I'm sure a poll will shortly be created to determine if this comparison worked.) In making the electricity meters for Loveland, Colorado spin around like the little girl's head in The Exorcist his son -- the Milker -- got quite an education with hardware.
I am absolutely on top of things with hardware for PCs. I've built all my computers since the 386. I have a good handle on software. Hardware found in arcade games were really intimidating me, but to the Milker THEY AIN'T SHIT.
Er, and to Jack Straw.
And Aardvark, too.
OK, this is rapidly running out of control. I'd just like to say that a lit marquee fills me with joy like few other things in the world. It's what separates arcade games from Standing While Playing Your Jaguar. And I couldn't be more thrilled.
Not able to replace that battery tonight, but having made some progress I am going to enjoy the hell out of the game tonight and psyche myself up so that I can be saving high scores by the end of the weekend.
Spy Hunter and the concept of Security Torx
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Update! Not up to replacing the battery yet, so I tackled the coin mechanism issues. Up until tonight, the only way to get credits into the machine was to open the game and press the credits button, which is next to the self-test switch.
Both coin mechanisms had an issue. If you flicked the little wire at the very end (what the quarter normally touches) of the left coin slot it worked... but the mechanism prevented the quarters from making it through. Something was bent. On the right one, the wire worked when you flicked it, but three wires that should have gone from the coin mech to the boards were not connected.
I used electrical tape and got those three wires set. It now works and one can drop a quarter into the right slot, at least, and get a credit in the machine. I'll probably solder it down next week.
Both coin mechanisms had an issue. If you flicked the little wire at the very end (what the quarter normally touches) of the left coin slot it worked... but the mechanism prevented the quarters from making it through. Something was bent. On the right one, the wire worked when you flicked it, but three wires that should have gone from the coin mech to the boards were not connected.
I used electrical tape and got those three wires set. It now works and one can drop a quarter into the right slot, at least, and get a credit in the machine. I'll probably solder it down next week.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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It occurred to me that the battery could just need a charge. The guy who had it last possibly didn't have it on for a long time, so I thought I'd leave Spy Hunter on for an hour and see if the battery would charge itself.
It did not. So the surgery is definitely necessary.
I took the opportunity to go to Lowe's today and replace a bad fluorescent light -- the one that came with Ms. Pac had been slow to light up. I moved it to SH because I wanted Ms. Pac to have the best of everything.
I remove the lamp last night and saw that one of the connectors to the ballast was hanging limply. Ha ha, might need to replace that. It had a good run of 20 years. After staring directly at the lamps for about 10 minutes, I finally found the 15 watt, 18" lamp I was looking for and I was on my way. It was $7.02 with tax.
It did not. So the surgery is definitely necessary.
I took the opportunity to go to Lowe's today and replace a bad fluorescent light -- the one that came with Ms. Pac had been slow to light up. I moved it to SH because I wanted Ms. Pac to have the best of everything.
I remove the lamp last night and saw that one of the connectors to the ballast was hanging limply. Ha ha, might need to replace that. It had a good run of 20 years. After staring directly at the lamps for about 10 minutes, I finally found the 15 watt, 18" lamp I was looking for and I was on my way. It was $7.02 with tax.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Update: I DID IT.
It intimidated the hell out of me -- changing the battery -- so I put it off as long as possible. It occurred to me that I had not been playing Spy Hunter much because without saving the high score, what's the point?
I was going to work on the text game this afternoon and just said, "Fuck it," and opened up SH. The power board slips right out. Not screwed down or anything: it has railings that it just slides into. Sometimes working on 1980s technology is easier because they weren't so concerned with the goddamn bottom line all the time.
Of course, Midway went under, so take from that what you will.
I brought the power board onto my drafting table and heated up the soldering iron. While that got hot I ripped out the existing battery with my bare hands, har har. The tricky part was getting the diode that WAS there out. I ended up snipping it with some very small scissors.
Anyway, I threw some solder down and realized that I didn't know which way was which for the lithium battery. I used wire and electrical tape so I could undo the decision I made. I made the correct decision, however, as I played a game, got into the high score table, turned the machine off... and my score was still there.
FUCK yeah. I know this isn't much for you guys who are good with circuit boards and such, but this is one of the ten greatest accomplishments of my life. Having done small repairs, now, on all of my games except for Xenophobe (which is a rock) I'm not nearly as intimidated as I used to be. Man, soldering something onto a board -- I was around people who did this all the time at Cyrix, but it was still akin to me gaining a level.
Special thanks to Vark and Jack and, of course, the Real Bob Roberts.
I think I am set with my existing games. I'd like to calibrate the steering wheel for Spy Hunter and get new side art on it, but neither thing is critical. I think I added $200 to the value of SH as well, now that the marquee works and the thing saves high scores. Time to concentrate on the MAME cab from here on out.
It intimidated the hell out of me -- changing the battery -- so I put it off as long as possible. It occurred to me that I had not been playing Spy Hunter much because without saving the high score, what's the point?
I was going to work on the text game this afternoon and just said, "Fuck it," and opened up SH. The power board slips right out. Not screwed down or anything: it has railings that it just slides into. Sometimes working on 1980s technology is easier because they weren't so concerned with the goddamn bottom line all the time.
Of course, Midway went under, so take from that what you will.
I brought the power board onto my drafting table and heated up the soldering iron. While that got hot I ripped out the existing battery with my bare hands, har har. The tricky part was getting the diode that WAS there out. I ended up snipping it with some very small scissors.
Anyway, I threw some solder down and realized that I didn't know which way was which for the lithium battery. I used wire and electrical tape so I could undo the decision I made. I made the correct decision, however, as I played a game, got into the high score table, turned the machine off... and my score was still there.
FUCK yeah. I know this isn't much for you guys who are good with circuit boards and such, but this is one of the ten greatest accomplishments of my life. Having done small repairs, now, on all of my games except for Xenophobe (which is a rock) I'm not nearly as intimidated as I used to be. Man, soldering something onto a board -- I was around people who did this all the time at Cyrix, but it was still akin to me gaining a level.
Special thanks to Vark and Jack and, of course, the Real Bob Roberts.
I think I am set with my existing games. I'd like to calibrate the steering wheel for Spy Hunter and get new side art on it, but neither thing is critical. I think I added $200 to the value of SH as well, now that the marquee works and the thing saves high scores. Time to concentrate on the MAME cab from here on out.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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___________________
Not that anyone cares, but I did hit 71,000 on Spy Hunter. Before I had high score capability, I had been over 50,000. You score points continually in Spy Hunter, so when you break your previous high, every single moment is tense.
It really is a great fucking game. Allow me to explain, in more depth.
There's actual paths you can go down in the game, and decisions you can make, when it comes to the order of power-ups. There are, of course, three power-ups: the oil slick, the smoke screen and missiles.
The oil slick is the best weapon. You only need to use a little and anyone behind you will slide until they crash. It is the left-handed, non-trigger button.
The smoke screen can be used four times. It obliterates anyone caught behind you. It's a much better backup weapon. It is the right-handed, non-trigger button.
Missiles, and choosing to get missiles, allow you to grab a lot of points by downing helicopters. The left trigger button controls the missiles.
(The right trigger controls the machine guns, which you can't lose.) So basically, to confirm the genius at work here, the left hand, which is not able to control the shifting knob, handles the two most important weapons in the game for advanced players.
This is the kind of love and care that keeps people (well, this person) obsessed about these stupid things, 25 years later. It's not easy to get them or maintain them, or fix them, but no game released today, with the possible exception of Steel Battalion, has had as much thought behind it as the Spy Hunter steering wheel.
Anyway. Much like the tongues of half the current posters to this bulletin board, the road in Spy Hunter forks. If you go to the left, initially, you get the oil slick. (Which we have determined to be the most useful weapon.) Going to the right thereafter gets you the missiles. Skilled players, of which I am not, can shoot down the helicopters pretty reliably with those missiles. I end up shooting down commuters. And actually, as I like to fire the game up when I get home from work, I'm perfectly fine with this. Spy Hunter will stop you from scoring points when you kill innocent people. It replaces your score with the text string, "NO POINTS." It doesn't say "NO PLEASURE," however. This is because it can't.
(Actually, since I no longer take I-25 to get home, most of my anger has been dissolved. So nevermind.)
Oh, yeah. You can also choose to turn your car into a goddamn hovercraft and kill spies that way as well. There, in my experience, is no invisible hand pushing you back to the road, either, and the water path is a lot easier than road is.
There's probably an ideal path to take through the game, but I love that feeling you get when you are exploring everything about a game and finding the secrets out for yourself. Nobody who worked on the Xbox/PS2 versions of Spy Hunter, by the way, had the first clue of what was cool and interesting about the arcade version, but that's fine: the same can be said for the people who made the arcade game Spy Hunter 2. In fact, the SH2 people did not even have Benjamin "Pinback" Parrish supplying the only fun anyone ever had with the modern-day sequels, which was choosing the protagonist's name, a certain "Agent Butt." So there you go.
More later. I don't have this game down or anything.
Not that anyone cares, but I did hit 71,000 on Spy Hunter. Before I had high score capability, I had been over 50,000. You score points continually in Spy Hunter, so when you break your previous high, every single moment is tense.
It really is a great fucking game. Allow me to explain, in more depth.
There's actual paths you can go down in the game, and decisions you can make, when it comes to the order of power-ups. There are, of course, three power-ups: the oil slick, the smoke screen and missiles.
The oil slick is the best weapon. You only need to use a little and anyone behind you will slide until they crash. It is the left-handed, non-trigger button.
The smoke screen can be used four times. It obliterates anyone caught behind you. It's a much better backup weapon. It is the right-handed, non-trigger button.
Missiles, and choosing to get missiles, allow you to grab a lot of points by downing helicopters. The left trigger button controls the missiles.
(The right trigger controls the machine guns, which you can't lose.) So basically, to confirm the genius at work here, the left hand, which is not able to control the shifting knob, handles the two most important weapons in the game for advanced players.
This is the kind of love and care that keeps people (well, this person) obsessed about these stupid things, 25 years later. It's not easy to get them or maintain them, or fix them, but no game released today, with the possible exception of Steel Battalion, has had as much thought behind it as the Spy Hunter steering wheel.
Anyway. Much like the tongues of half the current posters to this bulletin board, the road in Spy Hunter forks. If you go to the left, initially, you get the oil slick. (Which we have determined to be the most useful weapon.) Going to the right thereafter gets you the missiles. Skilled players, of which I am not, can shoot down the helicopters pretty reliably with those missiles. I end up shooting down commuters. And actually, as I like to fire the game up when I get home from work, I'm perfectly fine with this. Spy Hunter will stop you from scoring points when you kill innocent people. It replaces your score with the text string, "NO POINTS." It doesn't say "NO PLEASURE," however. This is because it can't.
(Actually, since I no longer take I-25 to get home, most of my anger has been dissolved. So nevermind.)
Oh, yeah. You can also choose to turn your car into a goddamn hovercraft and kill spies that way as well. There, in my experience, is no invisible hand pushing you back to the road, either, and the water path is a lot easier than road is.
There's probably an ideal path to take through the game, but I love that feeling you get when you are exploring everything about a game and finding the secrets out for yourself. Nobody who worked on the Xbox/PS2 versions of Spy Hunter, by the way, had the first clue of what was cool and interesting about the arcade version, but that's fine: the same can be said for the people who made the arcade game Spy Hunter 2. In fact, the SH2 people did not even have Benjamin "Pinback" Parrish supplying the only fun anyone ever had with the modern-day sequels, which was choosing the protagonist's name, a certain "Agent Butt." So there you go.
More later. I don't have this game down or anything.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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FUCK yeah. The movie is BACK ON, god dammit!
... I just saw that URL. Jesus Christ, Kotaku, I think you won - Google knows you're there, you can stop with the overly descriptive php file names now.
Anyway, I don't know the first thing about this movie, but I am guessing that it's going to appeal to:
1) People who own the arcade game (DING!)
2) People who like watching the Rock take out like 500 guys in a feature film (DING!)
3) People who did not like Spy Hunter 2, although if they shot a scene from that perspective it would be the funniest thing ever, only nobody even remotely involved with this movie has ever heard of, much less played, much less be knowledgeable about the failure of perspective that is SH2 (DING!)
So this is the first flick I've looked forward to in the longest time. I can't wait. I'd buy tickets NOW if I could.
... I just saw that URL. Jesus Christ, Kotaku, I think you won - Google knows you're there, you can stop with the overly descriptive php file names now.
Anyway, I don't know the first thing about this movie, but I am guessing that it's going to appeal to:
1) People who own the arcade game (DING!)
2) People who like watching the Rock take out like 500 guys in a feature film (DING!)
3) People who did not like Spy Hunter 2, although if they shot a scene from that perspective it would be the funniest thing ever, only nobody even remotely involved with this movie has ever heard of, much less played, much less be knowledgeable about the failure of perspective that is SH2 (DING!)
So this is the first flick I've looked forward to in the longest time. I can't wait. I'd buy tickets NOW if I could.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!
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AArdvark
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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If you don't support this movie, how the fuck are we ever going to get the film adaptation of "GATO," 'Vark???AArdvark wrote:But wait! what could the plot line be? drive fast and kill everything except civilians? James Bond. If you far enough you get a boat...Waterworld.
Not really. Maybe video for me. Please post a review for those of us that wont go see it.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!
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AArdvark
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I think the game 'Spy hunter' is loosly based on the James Bond films. Therefore the upcoming movie would be a movie based on a video game based on a movie. Like two mirrors placed opposit of each other, they will reflect an image back and forth until infinity. Echos of echos until forever.
What is GATO? All I get is some navy vessel.
THE
KRAVDRAA
AARDVARK
What is GATO? All I get is some navy vessel.
THE
KRAVDRAA
AARDVARK
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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The water scenes, while appreciated, drive me insane with anger.
"I am insane with anger!" -- Mel Gibson, Signs
That being said, I defy any person with a soul to still be mad after the absolutely ridiculous and preposterous tugboat appears, goes, "BHUMM BHUMMMM," emits puffs of smoke, and releases your new speedboat.
"I am insane with anger!" -- Mel Gibson, Signs
That being said, I defy any person with a soul to still be mad after the absolutely ridiculous and preposterous tugboat appears, goes, "BHUMM BHUMMMM," emits puffs of smoke, and releases your new speedboat.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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God DAMMIT, the monitor went. It shows blobs of color:
http://www.joltcountry.com/pics/rgvac/s ... onitor.avi
... otherwise plays fine.
And apparently I can't just put a new one in there. I am still learning more, but dropping a replacement CGA monitor in there won't quite work.
The best part was, it started doing this when I was upstairs talking to Dayna. I said, "All my games finally work perfectly." I went back downstairs to that shit.
Monitors are the one thing I don't know how to do, because you have to degauss them in a certain way with a screwdriver to get the stored-up, me-killing electricity out of them. Fuck. Fuck!!
http://www.joltcountry.com/pics/rgvac/s ... onitor.avi
... otherwise plays fine.
And apparently I can't just put a new one in there. I am still learning more, but dropping a replacement CGA monitor in there won't quite work.
The best part was, it started doing this when I was upstairs talking to Dayna. I said, "All my games finally work perfectly." I went back downstairs to that shit.
Monitors are the one thing I don't know how to do, because you have to degauss them in a certain way with a screwdriver to get the stored-up, me-killing electricity out of them. Fuck. Fuck!!
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Yeah, the G07 has been out of production for a while and you can't just buy a new one. A Colorado arcade expert has been trading e-mails with me, and I think I will be able to put a new one in. Of course, for a CGA monitor the manufacturers still want over a hundred bucks.AArdvark wrote:Well that sucks. I bet the monitor is some weird kind only found in a little Korean fishing village on the coast of Japan. I hate it when stuff like that happens.
Ah well, I will be happy to have a new one in there and not have to worry about it for another 20 years.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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A really great guy named Matt helped me out with all this. He posts to rec.games.video.arcade.collecting like I do. He ordered the CGA monitor for Spy Hunter.
The wrong kind was actually shipped. A digital monitor won't work with Spy Hunter. Pants! But he asked if I had any other games and I did. I am mainly writing this up for my own memories, but feel free to join me in this.
It was his belief that the monitor for Xenophobe, Ms. Pac or Gyruss would work. I can't recall his take on the Do, which is a converted Qix. Tempest was out because it's a vector monitor.
Ms. Pac-Man has a fair amount of burn-in, so we went with Gyruss. He swapped the Gyruss monitor into SH and it came right up. I mean, it was awesome. It was, for him, just like plugging stuff into a PC for all of us.
We then put the brand-new monitor into Gyruss. The thing is sharp. It has a circuit board that lets you adjust settings like on the CRTs we use for all of our computers, which was kind of funny. OK, it wasn't really funny, but it was cool to see a pincusion setting or what have you for something that old.
There was a little burn-in on the Gyruss monitor, so if you are really looking you can see "GYRUSS" as you shoot spies in Spy Hunter. Which is fine, because hey, at least it works. That being said, I should probably keep my eye open for these old monitors because a new one working with SH is going to be tricky.
The wrong kind was actually shipped. A digital monitor won't work with Spy Hunter. Pants! But he asked if I had any other games and I did. I am mainly writing this up for my own memories, but feel free to join me in this.
It was his belief that the monitor for Xenophobe, Ms. Pac or Gyruss would work. I can't recall his take on the Do, which is a converted Qix. Tempest was out because it's a vector monitor.
Ms. Pac-Man has a fair amount of burn-in, so we went with Gyruss. He swapped the Gyruss monitor into SH and it came right up. I mean, it was awesome. It was, for him, just like plugging stuff into a PC for all of us.
We then put the brand-new monitor into Gyruss. The thing is sharp. It has a circuit board that lets you adjust settings like on the CRTs we use for all of our computers, which was kind of funny. OK, it wasn't really funny, but it was cool to see a pincusion setting or what have you for something that old.
There was a little burn-in on the Gyruss monitor, so if you are really looking you can see "GYRUSS" as you shoot spies in Spy Hunter. Which is fine, because hey, at least it works. That being said, I should probably keep my eye open for these old monitors because a new one working with SH is going to be tricky.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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