A Big Baby of an Arcade Operator (A True Story)
I am attempting to fix his Parker Bohn III Pro Bowler Shuffle Alley arcade machine. It runs Linux on the PC which is internal to the arcade cabinet. He doesn't know jack about tech stuff or fixing machines. (This is the same guy who refuses to bring over his arcade machines to my convention for a few hours for $50, citing concerns about "lost money" from have 2-3 cabs over at the con on freeplay for a few hours on a Saturday. This in a town where you are lucky to break $5 per day per machine. Obviously math is not his forte.) Every day the machine doesn't work, he goes into "despair mode" and starts saying greedy crap which alternates between "Woe is me" and "losing money" while the machine isn't running... an arcade machine which has never properly worked for them. I'm pretty sure customers are just gonna spend whatever they have on them on whatever is there. I don't think they are going to go, "What? Shuffle Alley still isn't working? Well, I traveled all this way to play arcade games, but now I'm just going to go without spending anything."
His partner does know a tiny little bit of tech, mostly about modern Windows PC's. Neither one can fix this Shuffle Alley machine. They've already been to the only tech outfits in town. They can't find anybody in town (besides myself) that can knowledgeably work on this machine from 2000. They've also already messed up the mobo and certain other components of the computer, resulting in an exchange of the board and components, all before my involvement. They want to pay me only $50 to fix it which is what they told me after I had already been working on this for lots of hours casually off-and-on over the past two weeks or so, before which they had promised "good money." Before this I had fixed their NES (took about 5 hours due to their lack of tools and materials and thus having to have myself travel back and forth between their arcade and my house to complete work on cleaning the connectors and boiling the 72-pin connector). They still haven't paid me for that.
The last time I was at the place, I told him (Mike) that I would be back later as I needed to leave to eat dinner and to do some research on what to do next with the arcade machine. I told him that I should be back in less than three hours. When I turned my back to leave, I heard him say to his fat, bearded buddy who was there at the time, "...or in three days," a snide reference to the fact that I'm just working on this in my spare time on a /pro bono/ basis and sometimes I don't return the next day. After all, it's not like I'm an employee or I've been contracted to do this work. So I spin on my heel, turn back to him, and say, "I SAID I'd be back before 7, not in three days." They chuckle. I then tell him to be careful or he might be up the creek without a paddle. Then I leave. That was yesterday.
The following is the Facebook message exchange from the last few days between myself and the actual arcade operator. The names have been changed to protect privacy.
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Nz17
Yep, sounds like SpinRite all right! It's made progress since last night. Don't worry about that estimate though: that would be how long it would take if the whole hard drive was as bad as those bad sectors it is working on. SpinRite will probably be done with it in anywhere from a few hours from now to a couple days. It looks like the game will be ready for Friday! smile emoticon
Feb 16 at 11:44am
Mike
It's looks like it's ready to go might check it out
Feb 16 at 6:00pm · Sent from Messenger
Mike
Hey Nz17 this is now saying disk boot failure insert system disk and press enter
Feb 18 at 1:10pm · Sent from Messenger
Nz17
That's what it should be saying right now. This computer's BIOS just needs to have its Boot setting changed to boot from the hard disk drive. This setting needed to be temporarily disabled to enabled booting from the CD drive first to start SpinRite. Now that SpinRite is done, the BIOS setting can be changed back to what it was before. It should only take a few seconds for Philip to make the change.
Please keep me informed of how it goes. I might show up on Friday if you guys need help.
By the way, if you want to keep this computer/arcade game going long-term so that these recent problems don't reoccur, you should probably pick up a small-capacity SSD from eBay so that we can transfer all the data from the hard drive to the much faster, much more durable SSD.
Feb 18 at 2:30pm
Mike
Can you drop by today Phillip is going out of town
Feb 18 at 2:33pm · Sent from Messenger
Mike
This is Phillip I changed the bios setting to boot from the hard drive it started to boot up and Uncompressing the kernel for a long time. Im going out of town so I can't go help mike with it for the next 2 days.
From what mike has told me over the phone is it didn't load from the hard drive. If you could go down and help him out that would be great. Mike doesn't really know how to change things in the BIOS. To tell you the truth I'm ok with it but not all that great at it either.
Feb 18 at 2:48pm · Sent from Messenger
Nz17
Not today, no. But I'll try to be there on Friday.
Feb 18 at 2:53pm
Mike
Ok
Feb 18 at 2:54pm · Sent from Messenger
Mike
Can come in today and see if you can get this bowling game going
Friday at 3:34pm · Sent from Messenger
Mike
Cause I have a birthday party tomorrow and like to get it running
Friday at 5:39pm · Sent from Messenger
Nz17
I'll be there today.
Yesterday at 10:40am
Mike
Can you come at noon
Yesterday at 10:49am · Sent from Messenger
Nz17
Sorry I wasn't back around 7 tonight, but that's because I found out some interesting things. Right now, with where we stand with the computer, the most we could do on our own is to run some "stress tests" on the different components of the computer to see if they are good or not.
In my research, I've found that this bowling game should have had TWO different discs. One CD, the white one that I've seen with it, is the upgrade CD for the game. The other disc is the installation CD. This CD has many more megabytes to it as it is the full game minus the patch which is included on the upgrade CD. Do you have this CD? If not, I have two leads that might. If at least one of them works out, I can get the software which we need for this machine. Best case scenario: A fresh install of the game will fix our woes. Please let me know.
Yesterday at 9:09pm
Mike
I only have that one cd
Yesterday at 9:36pm · Sent from Messenger
Nz17
All right, well then I'll communicate with John and Jack and see if either one of them can help. Hopefully they'll have a copy. I'll keep you guys posted.
5 hours ago
Mike
I'm sure I don't need what your talking about cause the game was going with out that copy in another arcade I'm thinking I should just take it to salt lake tired of having this game down and nobody can figure it out
5 hours ago · Sent from Messenger
Nz17
Fixing computers is a process. Sometimes the first thing that is tried works; sometimes things take longer. If you take it to SLC or any other market to sell it, you are likely to lose money when reselling it or worse, no buyer might be interested. Patience is what is needed here.
The other copy of this machine which you saw in the other arcade which was working was due to it having a working installation of the game software already installed upon it. Your machine, however, has had its game software corrupted over time. A fresh install from the installation CD should fix this. Please be patient a little while longer while I acquire a copy from my sources. Only if they can't deliver should you then consider the "cut your losses" option. Thank you.
53 minutes ago
Mike
Don't have much patience when the machine isn't making any money seems nobody can fix it in this town gotta find the answers somewhere
Wasn't planning on selling the machine I plan on getting it fixed this machine was almost working when I got it until the wrong people thought they knew what they were doing now the game won't even come up
49 minutes ago · Sent from Messenger
<<<
I really wish I hadn't gotten involved in this, but now I want to show the dumbass that he's wrong, and that someone, namely myself, can fix this mess that he and his partner have made. I mean for goodness's sake, this greedy moron should at least wait until I can find out if Jersey Jack or PCJohn, the guys who know this game inside and out, can be of help!
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