I wish this blog post meant that I had bought an Attack from Mars (Bally, 1995) and was restoring it for my own pleasure. But alas, no! This was a mini restoration for a customer who had purchased the game, taken it apart in preparation for restoration, but was never able to complete the project. So, I offered to help and get the game back together for the first time in over ten years. This project was a little different to previous restorations, as I was starting with a blank playfield and boxes of parts, with no reference photos of my own. Plenty of fun to be had. It helps that Fiona also loves Attack from Mars, so this was a good chance to give it a thorough playtest!
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It's not often I work on arcade machines, but after grabbing this Cyber Cylces (Namco, 1995) as a part of a bulk arcade machine deal, I found that it was in need of a fair bit of work. So, I figured this blog post would be a good way to record the journey of learning about this game and board system. The pinball purists will have to forgive me, but even though I am a pinball die hard I still have a soft spot for video arcade games, particularly driving cabs. Cyber Cycles runs on Namco's Super System 22 hardware system, which I would say is a difficult system to repair due to a lack of schematics and general repair information. However, if I decided to sell this game, it would need to be in good working condition for the next owner, so I figure that posting some of my successes (and failures) during this repair may help out other Cyber Cycles owners in the future. Jump on, and let's ride... Last year marked the 25th anniversary of the original Johnny Mnemonic movie. This year also saw the release of a high definition version of the original film. This means it's the perfect time for another Johnny Mnemonic (Williams, 1995) blog post! This was quick repair job for a customer who wanted to repair his dad's pinball machine and finally get it into working condition again. His dad used to love playing it and it had sat for too long in need of repair. I was happy to help him out as I love being able to get a machine going again so it can be played and enjoyed like it was intended to be! This restoration was unusual because the machine was brought to me from several hours away. I had been working on fixing the machine for a couple of weeks when the customer asked if I would be able to have it ready by the end of the week (a couple of days away!) as he was traveling back to his dad's place and wanted to surprise him with the machine. I'm not one to say no to a challenge, so as well as playing lightning fast, this machine was probably one of the fastest repair jobs I have ever had to do! As a result, this post will also be in a shorter format, covering just the things that needed attention. Johnny Mnemonic (Williams, 1995) was another machine from our pinball road trip. Fiona and I had tackled all of our previous restorations at a leisurely pace. We'd generally start tearing a machine down for cleaning, clean and repair the parts as necessary, and then put them all back together whenever we had a chunk of spare time. As of late, we had not had that much spare time to devote to pinball. Our last restoration of Doctor Who (Bally, 1992) took us several months because we were so busy with other things going on. It's a little frustrating to have a machine sitting in pieces for so long, not being played. With this restoration, we decided to try something different. We both freed up our Easter long weekend and devoted it entirely to restoring Johnny Mnemonic from start to finish. So come Friday afternoon, we turned our phones off and got to work. Just like the restored machine, our work this time around was fast and furious. |
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Here you will find logs of our pinball and arcade machine restorations, repairs, discussion about general pinball and arcade topics, as well as recounts of our random pinball adventures.
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Running this website is a hobby for me (just like pinball!). I like being able to show off my restoration work so everyone can learn from it and potentially fix their own machines. If you enjoy reading the site's content or it has been helpful to you, please consider donating to offset some of the website's operating costs. |