Tabletop/Hand held games

[godsey1]

Hi. I just got a few Tabletop/Hand held games today, and am needing a little bit of help. I got MS. Pacman, and the controll stick doesn't want to move MS. Pacman up(all other directions work great). Does anyone know of a fix for this.

I also got a Pacman that is needing the stickers replaced(the ones that are on it have some glue bleed through), does anyone know of a place that sells the stickers?

The place where I got these had a Q*bert one that is boxed, but it looked kinda dirty, and the stickers were really bad. If I can find a place that I can get the stickers, I may go back and buy it.

Thanks for any help,
Tony

[omnedon]

The Coleco arcade style handhelds use the same directional microswitches that Colecovision controllers use. Yours is likely corroded or broken.

Geting to it is really tricky.

[godsey1]

I am almost scared to take it apart. I am good at taking stuff apart, but my problem come in when I try to put it back together . I may take it apart this evening. Where might I find one of these switches? Thanks for your time,
Tony

[InsaneDavid]

Hi. I just got a few Tabletop/Hand held games today, and am needing a little bit of help. I got MS. Pacman, and the controll stick doesn't want to move MS. Pacman up(all other directions work great). Does anyone know of a fix for this.

Be thankful that it's a control problem and not a bad display, when those go bad on the VFD games you're screwed.

I also got a Pacman that is needing the stickers replaced(the ones that are on it have some glue bleed through), does anyone know of a place that sells the stickers?

I have the upper portion of a Pac-Man tabletop with mint stickers, it was harvested from a unit that had bad acid leaks in the base and a dead screen, suppose you could swap it with yours.

For all your tabletop needs (including some basic repair tips) check out http://www.miniarcade.com/

[godsey1]

Hi InsaneDavid. How much do you want for the upper part, and that looks like a great site. Thanks again,
Tony

[InsaneDavid]

Hi InsaneDavid. How much do you want for the upper part, and that looks like a great site. Thanks again,
Tony

Make an offer.

(Image removed by InsaneDavid to save bandwidth)

[godsey1]

I went back and bought the Q*bert game, it came with the box, carboard insert and the instructions.

The decals have the typical glue bleed through, the box has 1 flap torn off (but other wise in great condition), the instructions are in perfect condition, and the screen has a place where at the score is displayed that is missing part of a line, and on the bottom right hand side on the last block, when Q*bert lands on it, he disapears .

Is there a place where you can buy the screens? I know that I have asked alot of questions, but I want these to be i the best shape that I can get them in,
Tony

[InsaneDavid]

I went back and bought the Q*bert game, it came with the box, carboard insert and the instructions.

The decals have the typical glue bleed through, the box has 1 flap torn off (but other wise in great condition), the instructions are in perfect condition, and the screen has a place where at the score is displayed that is missing part of a line, and on the bottom right hand side on the last block, when Q*bert lands on it, he disapears .

Is there a place where you can buy the screens? I know that I have asked alot of questions, but I want these to be i the best shape that I can get them in,
Tony

Ah, I think you're pretty screwed there. It is a VFD (Vaccum Fluorescent Display) game so there's pretty much nothing you can do. Additionally it was the only VFD game that Parker Bros made, there other games were normal cheap LCD jobs. Keeping that in mind, Q*bert is hard to come by as tabletops go and most I've seen are pretty beat up for some reason. Take a really good look at the screen and look for cracks or signs of burning. Screens with burn usually have brown or black spots on them somewhere, especially around the edges where things aren't displaying properly.

You can also open the game and look at the back of the screen to see if any traces are broken or loose, it COULD be a power problem where the screen isn't getting the power needed to illuminate all the screen elements. Honestly while this is about a million to one shot, VFD screens don't fail like this, it's usually not a power problem, it's just shot.

If you want to see what the full screen illuminated is supposed to look like, go to miniarcade.com and under "others" look under "Parker Bros" for Q*bert. At least you can actually play the game though.

The last one of these tabletops I worked on (that Pac-Man one with the acid leaks that got to the circuit board) had a bad VFD as well. However there were signs of burn around the edges and the damage was heavy enough to where it was unplayable. (half the score bars were missing, parts of the maze were missing, Pac-Man would dissapear on 1/3rd of the screen and the ghosts would dissapear on 2/3rds of the screen) When playing it I knew something was up but it wasn't until I had the game open and was looking at the display itself (not through the bezel) that I saw the burn. Have to remember that there is a little bezel on these games connected to the shell itself to protect the display, just like a full size arcade game.

Oh yeah, also forgot to say nice finds! The Ms. Pac-Man tabletop is the rarest of the Coleco made ones.

[Kid Ice]

I also got a Pacman that is needing the stickers replaced(the ones that are on it have some glue bleed through), does anyone know of a place that sells the stickers?

There is a guy that pops up on ebay occassionally selling a restoration CD. The CD has the artwork for all the Coleco tabletops. I used that to print the Galaxian art onto photo paper, and then glued those onto my tabletop. That was a few years ago and the game still looks mint.

If your not able to find the seller shoot me a PM.

[godsey1]

Thanks for the information and offer Kid Ice. I'll check out E-Bay for a few days, then I'll PM you if I can't find them. I'm working on getting a picture of the Q*Bert screen to see if it has the burn. I'll post the picture in a few minutes.
Tony

Here's the picture of the screen:


sorry for the bad picture, but doing it this way was the only way that I could find to get the spot to show up. On the bottom right hand side is one spot, and there is another one on the upper right hand side(I croped it out, as you could not see it). Does this look like the screen burn?

[InsaneDavid]

Does this look like the screen burn?

Yup, she bled from the inside and the VFD display has had it. Granted as you said, only a very few parts of the display don't illuminate so at least you can play the game. VFD's were expensive and complex to make which is why they were used on so few games. Again, at least you can play the game and the damage doesn't make the game unplayable and undisplayable.

There is a guy that pops up on ebay occassionally selling a restoration CD. The CD has the artwork for all the Coleco tabletops. I used that to print the Galaxian art onto photo paper, and then glued those onto my tabletop. That was a few years ago and the game still looks mint.

If your not able to find the seller shoot me a PM.

Yeah, I saw that guy's disc on eBay awhile back and I made a big stink and wrote him a few e-mails how he shouldn't be selling that stuff in that form since the works aren't his. If he was printing them as self-adhesive decals that would be one thing, selling someone else's copyrighted art is another. It should be freely distributed if anything. Believe me those companies still get sore about that stuff and I know all about the dark side of repro art from my MAME cab adventures.

[InsaneDavid]

I came across this page when I was looking for repro art for you...

Coleco Pac-Man repair at Handheld Museum

From what it says that was a Pac-Man tabletop on display at CGE2005 that developed a problem over the course of the convention. Now I wouldn't get your hopes up as the burn on your Q*bert VFD is not the standard manufacturing remnants talked about in that walkthrough - it IS damage, probably caused by excessive power.

Additionally since the parts of your Q*bert screen that won't illuminate are somewhat local compared to the rest of the display, I'd say that it's not caused by a bad solder joint or broken trace. (would check that as well however - post pictures here if you find anything interesting)

At the very least it goes over basic disassembly of the five standard Coleco tabletops (not Zaxxon) which I'm sure will help when you go to work on your Ms. Pac-Man or Pac-Man. Although the Q*bert is Parker Bros and is different, I'd still check the circuit board for the stuff mentioned above just for your piece of mind.

[godsey1]

Thanks again for more tech sites . This one is a little better than the other one.

I bought another Q*bert off E-Bay, that works perfect, so now I am going to take the best parts of both, and make 1 good one.

I still can't find any decals.

Thanks again,
Tony

[InsaneDavid]

The Pac-Man unit I bought in the B&S thread still hasn't arrived, guessing it'll show up tomorrow or Saturday, I'll let you know.

[godsey1]

Thanks David, can't wait.
Tony

[InsaneDavid]

Well, I'm not dissapointed or anything (that'd be a lie) but I am sorry to tell you that the untested Pac-Man tabletop with the missing stickers I bought from the B&S forum came today and it works perfectly. After cleaning it up and replacing it's hood with the complete one I had from that dead and damaged unit, I finally have a complete Pac-Man tabletop...



I would offer you the hood from the B&S thread one but it only has one side sticker and it brushed right off when I was disassembling it (heavy glue bleed and wear). At the very least I hope I've helped with some links to repair tutorials and information sites.

Additionally let me tell you some things I encountered when opening up the one that arrived today. First off when you go to peel back the vinyl sticker over the control panel to get to the hood screws - do it GRADUALLY and ROLL it up, like imagine rolling it against a pencil or something. You want to curve it up and back SMOOTHLY or you'll get a white crease mark developing in the sticker face. On the thrashed unit my original top portion came from I actually forced it off since the screw holes were washed over with acid (thankfully no damage to the plastic screw columns inside) so this was new for me.

Also on your Ms. Pac-Man unit with the bad controls, you might be able to clean and reshape the contact switches. They aren't true microswitches (as in say, arcade control panels) and could just be bent up which is why movement may not work properly. Never know, a good cleaning could resolve the problem.

Lastly, since I never said it up to this point, the circuit boards are very fragile if I remember correctly. When I was working on the damaged board from the bad unit over a year ago, I remember that it was pretty easy to damage the board with the soldering iron - and it was all the way down to 30W.

[godsey1]

Hey, that's great , glad to hear it works for you. I really didn't want to mess with the Pacman too much, as it works great. I do thank you very much for the sites that you have posted, and the helpful tips. They will help out alot on the MS. Pacman. I have a lead on the decals, and can't wait to get them, to see how it's going to turn out. Congradulation's on getting your Pacman going, and looking good,

Tony