In my garage, Rohnert Park, CA.
This has to be one of my best finds ever. A neighbor of mine, knowing I am some what of a techie-nerd and liked to tinker with electronics, rode up on his bike one day last summer and said, "Hey Jim! Come on over for a minute, I have something in my garage for you." What I found was this Tempest Upright in very nice physical condition - only a few scratches and CPO wear. . I vacuumed out the mouse turds, replaced a few chewed up wires and plugged it in... Well.. What do you know! a test pattern with a bunch of numbers..
I was able to revive this one by cleaning and reseating all ROMS and replacing one Pokey chip. A new mini florescent lamp and the marquee looks great! Next will be a cap kit and LV2000. That Express Mail box has a repro CPO from Arcadeshop but there's something about having misspelled words on a CPO that keeps it in the box.
Ahhh.. my neighborhood favorite! This Asteroids was delivered along with the Asteroids Deluxe Cocktail in "It's dead Jim" condition. Thank you Russ! After determining that a bad power supply had toasted many of the components on the PCB, I hit my stash of IC's Diodes and Caps and had this baby up and running in a few short days. After a few weeks I got curious as t o why the CPO didn't look right.. Well no wonder! It's a Willis overlay! After several hours with all kinds of solvents, I have a fairly nice original control panel with the stencil still an 7 out of 10. Too bad someone had drilled holes and placed switches in the bottom area of the control panel.
Asteroids pic got screwed up by the idiot
at Long's where I had the pictures developed.
More later...
I was able to repair the power supply with parts located at the local Electronics Surplus store and I must have replaced a half dozen diodes and a few ICs. The worst part was the debris all over the inside of the Cab left over from one of the Cap's blowing.
Man, did my neighbors jumped when I yelled "IT'S ALIVE!!!"
The Asteroids Deluxe Cocktail! This baby took quite a bit more work. No Monitor, no glass, dead power supply and no manuals. And to top that off. while troubleshooting the Asteroids, I managed to fry the AD PCB. After locating a replacement board with video problems, a monitor from an Omega Race and top glass, I managed to revive this blast from the past.
The replacement PCB for this one only required a few caps and two IC's
This one arrived in a sad state! It will definitely require some major TLC. and a good parts hunt!
Update: 4/20/01 Well, I managed to locate a PCB which only required a few minor repairs, recapped the monitor, rebuilt the power supply and A/R board.. All that's left now for a fully functional game is a steering wheel spindle assembly which may be on it's way!.
Pictures soon