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I’ve been pretty busy knocking out my to-do list for the bavacade. I created a long one after returning from the US, and I’ve gotten through most of it, so might be a good time to create a log with work done over the past month or so.
Back of pac-man painted
Pac-man Multi-game HSS Kit
High Score Save Kit for Venture
Cheyenne original ROMs
Big Blue Capacitor (Atari Power Brick)
12V Power Switch for LED Marquee Light in Dig Dug
Still to do:
As with the Dig Dug and Venture post, most of this was originally published as part of the bavacade repair log from February 9, 2023. But in service of celebrating the greatest video game of all time, a dedicated permalink to share the Pac-man overhaul love was not too much to ask.
After fitting Pac-man with the BitKit2, I decided that cabinet needed to be on wheels and the bottom looked over closely given the floor was feeling tenuous under any kind of pressure. There were early signs of wood rot that may have been a result of water damage, although it was definitely not extensive.
Pac-man‘s old floor was feeling its age
I stripped the cabinet down to its bones and sent it out to Alberto, who worked his magic. He replaced the floor entirely, while leaving everything else in tact, and added a base pedestal to hide the new wheels. Once I got it back I taped around the original artwork and painted the cabinet with the Scramble yellow I had left-over from that project, and did some touch-up on the black paint, but otherwise left the original artwork untouched. The yellow from Scramble was matte, which meant the color was a bit muted compared to the original Pac-man yellow.
This was probably the fastest I ever completed a strip down, re-build, and re-paint. It was all done in less than a week, including Alberto’s work—which was crazy fast. I took a ton of photos, and you can find them in this Flickr album. I was also racing against time given I had planned travel back to the US, so it was nice to get it done.
That said, once I returned from the US the matte yellow from Scramble I used for touch-ups was bothering me. So, I got that yellow mixed as glossy, and then re-painted the sides, front, and back of the cabinet with the new glossy paint, and now the difference between the yellow around the original artwork and the yellow I added to clean things up is much harder to notice.
It’s looking good! I still need to paint the back of this cabinet, which was also yellow. I’ll take care of that once I return. This dot gobbler is the crown of my collection, so it needs to be beautiful! In fact, you can get a better sense of the before and after effect with the two side-by-side images below.
Pac-man after the work
Pac-man before the work
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Maria Zorn | Longreads | March 7, 2023 | 3,373 words (12 minutes)
In middle school, I would hide behind a giant oleander bush when it was time for the bus to leave for track and field meets and then, once it left without me, I’d walk to Panda Express and eat chow mein in blissful peace. This was also my strategy for grieving you. I thought I could, like a rapacious vole, burrow myself into the branches of the quotidian and the bus of mourning would pass me by altogether.
This is not to say that I didn’t ever experience a sense of loss. It was always there, a constant drip. Sometimes I’d think about the scene Mom came upon when the locksmith finally got your apartment door open and feel as though my kneecaps were going to crumble into ash beneath me. I wondered if there were claw marks on the floor from where you tried to stay as you felt your heart stop beating, or if you slid easily away like a clump of lint and dog hair into a Roomba. In these moments I wished to be vacuumed whole.
* Name and location have been changed for privacy.
Sophie works at the post office in Saanichton, British Columbia.* She is tall and sinewy with thin, bony shoulders. Her body could be drawn using only straight lines, just like yours. Her hair is jet black and always pulled back into a low ponytail that nestles into the nape of her neck. She appears to be more at ease when she is behind the counter than when she is in front of it, exposed. Her voice is low and quiet and when she gets flustered she holds her elbows close to her rib cage and her hands near her shoulders like an adorable T. rex. Her mannerisms are what initially drew Mom to her, what first reminded her of you. But then she saw her protruding clavicle and her thick top lip and her round doe eyes and she couldn’t unsee the physical resemblance. She wants me to help her think of a way to befriend Sophie that doesn’t begin with: You remind me of my dead son and I would do anything to spend time with you. I just don’t know what to tell her.
Perhaps the better metaphor is that my grief for you stalked me like those ghosts in Ms. Pac-Man. I was chasing dots with my mouth wide open, trying to outrun you. The dots were moments I still felt some semblance of myself in a world without you in it, they were anyone and anything that could drain me of all of my energy and attention, they were being able to feel light enough to giggle, they were attempting to Irish dance while waiting for my tea kettle to whistle. The ghosts were you, at 8, declining to go on a playdate because you were afraid I wouldn’t have anyone to play with; you, at 16, threatening to hit the boy who broke my heart with your car; you, at 22, telling me we were soulmates with tears in your eyes at the Molly Wee pub; the ghosts were you, you, you, you with pastel sheets over your head, cutouts for your big Bambi eyes.
Mom gets butterflies in her stomach before she goes to the post office. She’s glad for once that she has a P.O. box, that the mail carrier doesn’t come to her mossy, rural strip of the Saanich Peninsula. She blow-dries her light blonde hair until it falls in cascading curls around her face and blinks on mascara. She pulls on her stylish brown leather boots and steals one last look at herself in the mirror. She takes a deep inhale that tickles the pain in her chest. Mom wants to be more than friends with Sophie, but not in the traditional sense of the phrase. I loved you like a soulmate, but not in the traditional sense of the phrase. These loves are fluid, these loves are nonbinary.
* Name has been changed for privacy.
The dots I chased were Chris, because every emotion I felt with him was neon.* We slept glued together like spider monkeys, and when I woke up before him I would be completely still and study him worshipfully — his toffee-colored skin that was softer than a kitten’s ear, his charcoal ringlets. We watched videos of Thom Yorke dancing for hours at a time, we did a special little jig when we bought a bottle of puttanesca sauce. When I was sad, he’d get out a Japanese sword that was left at the bar where he worked and throw watermelons in the air for me to slice like a fruit ninja. He could make anything fun, could make anything a game — but he was always the team captain. I was never certain whether it was our 14-year age gap or simply his personality, but he felt as much like a coach as he did a boyfriend. I thought he shut me down when I disagreed with him and I knew he blew his nose in our dirty laundry, and these things both made me furious. Two years passed and we morphed into ever uglier versions of ourselves. We yelled at each other outside of Joe’s Pizza by the Slice, he was a gargoyle and I was a swamp lizard and then we were two terribly sad people who didn’t talk anymore. For months after we broke up, I lay in bed every night, crusty with dried tears and snot, and my ribs felt loose. I imagined Chris playing Radiohead songs on them like they were piano keys while I tried and failed to fall asleep. I was convinced that if I concentrated hard enough on my heartache for him that I would not notice how hollow I felt from your goneness.
You wore six-inch platform creepers and voluptuous shaggy Mongolian lamb coats, Rick Owens pencil skirts and black leather fingerless gloves. You ordered a floor-length sheer dressing gown with sleeves trimmed in feathers. When Mom said she liked it but it looked like something one would wear over a négligée, you earnestly replied: But I don’t have a négligée yet! Before I moved to New York with you, I came to visit and had to use my tube top as a pillowcase since you owned only one. I cleaned your apartment while you scoured town for a fake ID for me, an even trade. After sweeping the 600-square-foot space I had a chinchilla-sized pile of dust and boa fragments and sequins and dirt and I felt like Cruella de Vil’s housekeeper. You made a fool of the words “feminine” and “masculine” — you were neither, you were both. You called yourself an alien frequently, and even got one tattooed on your right arm. You felt like you were so different from other humans that you were extraterrestrial. No one we knew used they/them pronouns, no one we knew used terms like “nonbinary,” like “gender-fluid.” You knew you didn’t identify with other men, but you also knew you didn’t feel like other women. I wonder if you would have felt like such an alien if you knew you didn’t have to choose. I wonder if you would have tried snorting heroin that night if you didn’t feel like such an alien.
My dots were my budding career at a tech startup that I thought was so much more impressive than it actually was. I worked from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. then came home, ate noodles, propped my laptop on the pudge of my lower belly, and kept working in bed until I fell asleep. I tried dating during this phase, but I got more pleasure from telling men I was busy and then later breaking things off than I did from going to dinner with them.
My eyes began to tolerate all of the computer work I was doing less and less until it felt like all that occupied my sockets were two purple bruises covered in fire ants. After trips to six different ophthalmologists, I was diagnosed with non-length dependent small fiber polyneuropathy and ocular rosacea and told that a career that involved “excessive screen time” was probably not in the cards for me. The doctor looked at me with a very serious expression that was made less serious by a small piece of avocado that clung to his mustache. I was such a people pleaser that in this moment all I could think of was making this a smooth experience for him so that he didn’t go look in the mirror after our conversation and feel like an idiot for having a dirty ’stache. This was a time in my life when if someone gave me a ride, I’d offer them a kidney. I jammed the shock and anguish I felt into the depths of my pockets alongside pennies and crescent-shaped nail fragments, I arranged my face into an awkward smile and said: No worries!
I wonder if you would have felt like such an alien if you knew you didn’t have to choose.
I quit my job and the online college courses I was taking and returned to bartending with the enthusiasm of a wet tube sock. An overly cheerful woman with a hair growing from the mole on her chin asked me to surprise her with a drink and I poured well rum and apple juice into a pint glass with no ice then charged her $13 for it. I didn’t talk to my friends who were graduating and starting careers, I stopped dating. I closed in on myself and got smaller and smaller until, like a Shrinky Dink, I could be pierced and worn on a string as a hideous pendant.
I had moved back home to Arizona after you died because I couldn’t stay in New York City without you. The ghosts were too speedy there, but the dots were too far apart in Phoenix. I needed to get out. I applied for a sales position in Denver that promised not to involve the computer, packed my belongings into my beat-up red hatchback and took myself to Colorado. Driving through mountain passes, I felt an indelible sense of hope that this change of scenery would make me better, whatever that meant.
I watched the video you recorded six months before you died yesterday, the one where you’re drinking Veuve with your friend Michelle and explaining what you want done with your ashes if anything ever happens to you. You throw your head back to cackle between your outlandish requests and I stare at your pale throat. Some ashes stored in a Ming vase, some made into diamonds, some shot out of a cannon with glitter. Mom and I looked into the cannon, but all we could find was some silly handheld thing called the “Loved One Launcher” that appeared to be used primarily at memorial services held next to creeks and swamps, judging from their marketing material. It definitely wasn’t the right fit.
We didn’t know how to “memorialize” someone who felt as essential as a limb. In our indecision, we landed on taking a trip someplace beautiful every year on the anniversary of your death. We’ve been to Cabo San Lucas, Aspen, Copenhagen, Sooke. We split a bottle of rosé and hold hands and your absence is outlined in chalk on the picnic blanket we sit on. Once, we hiked 13 miles to a beautiful alpine lake to scatter some of your ashes and I carried them on my back. I had only your remains and a bottle of wine in my pack but the straps dug into my shoulders until they were pink as salmon. We sang “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” by the Hollies and laughed and cried at the same time. When we dumped your ashes in the water they shimmered in the sun like the glitter you wore on your eyelids and cheeks during your teen raver years. I wanted so badly to look up at the sky that was the same blue as your eyes and feel unadulterated solace, but instead I felt nothing at all.
This year on May 30, I think Mom is going to take me to the post office.
My dots were jobs, jobs, new jobs every few months. I worked as a kiosk wench for HelloFresh, a sales manager for StretchLab, a preschool teacher at a country day school, a fitness instructor at Life Time, at a physical therapy clinic, at a Pilates studio. I went back to school to become an art teacher, then quit that and took a yearlong nutrition course, then decided I never actually want to talk to anyone about what they eat. I remembered once hearing the phrase “throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks” and I imagined myself doing parkour off the furniture at each of my jobs, shooting noodles and marinara out of my fingertips and watching the pasta bounce off of the reformers, the little children, the clinic walls like rubber. I had eaten all of the dots in the maze and was left aimlessly bumping into its corners with a jaw ache, desperately trying to avoid a ghost pileup.
I had a dream that I was walking around a city map, but the map wasn’t made of paper — it was a black iPhone, the glass so shattered it looked like it was filled with streets and boulevards. All the roads filled with white powder until I couldn’t move my legs anymore. The phone was yours, and it sat next to a full pour of wine, murky reddish-black like blood. You died sitting up — bony ass on the floor, back against the side of your bed, pale slim fingers wrapped around your glass. How did you manage not to spill one drop? Why did you think heroin was a suitable nightcap after cocaine, Adderall, alcohol?
I remember sitting on the back porch of Mom’s house with you every night one summer, talking and smoking hookah for hours until the metal patio chairs branded the back of our sweaty legs with checkers. Even at 10 p.m. it was over 100 degrees in Phoenix. I’d feel droplets of sweat crawl from my armpits down my sides and settle into the waistband of my boxer shorts. We’d put a splash of milk in the water pipe because you were convinced that would make the smoke cloudier, more fun to blow O rings with. You confessed one of these nights to smoking black tar heroin once during your sophomore year of high school, when you were a self-proclaimed “mall goth.” I whapped you with the wooden hookah mouthpiece, hard, right in the solar plexus. I thought about the time we gobbled up so many of Dad’s prescription drugs and drank so much prosecco that we blacked out an entire journey from Amsterdam to Phoenix, including a three-hour layover that was apparently in Detroit, judging from the translucent blue lighter we bought that said Motown City and the greasy Little Caesar’s receipt that sat cross-legged in the bottom of my purse. I was not prudish about getting fucked up, but with this anecdote you crossed a threshold into territory that scared me. You took a sharp inhale and raised your dark eyebrows, fighting back a laugh. You said: Obviously that was dumb and I’ll never try it again. I made you promise with a pinkie, even though you were 19 and I was 17. Your recklessness with your life produced in me a worry that sat like a small, hard stone in my belly.
You’d hate the way dying from a heroin overdose sounds. You’d have me let everyone know that you were “trying to buy opium.” That you were supposed to go to a wedding in Greece in two months, New York Fashion Week in three. That you didn’t mean for it to happen this way.
The dots were gone, but I became so adroit at ghost evasion I no longer needed them — I was eating strawberries, oranges, bananas, cherries. I found a drug that makes my eye condition more tolerable, a job I like well enough, a dog who constantly wants to shake my hand. I found a partner with Reptar green and caramel eyes who gives me grace like a daily train ticket, who calls you Tomm, not “your brother,” whose calm demeanor lowers my blood pressure and provides a certitude that life is allowed to feel good. I thought Jack’s love was a fuzzy sweater I could don and become whole. I saw no portents of a more substantial ghost, one that could swallow me entirely. I fell into the mouth of a ghost as though it was a shoddy manhole cover; it took me by surprise and then devoured me until I was wholly in its maw and could not see a single shred of light through its incisors. My grief developed its own physical presence, its own pulse. I feared that it was going to burst through my bones like the Kool-Aid man at any moment and take me over completely. My first instinct was to wrestle it to the ground, to mash my teeth into its ears and give it a noogie, since I was always the brute of the family. I knew you’d try to reason with it, to write it a letter using your shiniest vocabulary like the ones you’d send to Mom and Dad to convince them to raise our allowance, to get a pet sugar glider, to let you get your ears pierced, to legally change the “Jr.” that follows your name to the more sophisticated and chic “II.” You’d arrange all of your best arguments like toy soldiers followed by rebuttals of anticipated counter-arguments, then sign: Please don’t be mad at me. As a card-carrying atheist I didn’t know who to write a letter to. The universe? You?
I loved you like a soulmate, but not in the traditional sense of the phrase.
My therapist recommended I try ketamine for treatment-resistant depression and I had my first session this week. I thought of you because the first time I heard the word “ketamine” was when you snorted it in ninth grade and then came out to Mom, and the first time I heard the term “treatment-resistant depression” was after I talked about you to my therapist, seven years after you died. I filled out a questionnaire that tests for suicidality and it was only then that I realized my sadness had become life-threatening. I had a primordial urge to go wherever it is that you are. I’d sign my note to Mom and Jack: Please don’t be mad at me.
The nurse anesthetist injected the drug into my shoulder and it felt like a gentle bee sting. There were colors and textures and sounds that I can’t explain, but what I remember most of all was you. Your hair was dyed platinum blonde and a thin white shirt hugged your angular frame. You were resplendent. You were laughing and reaching out for my hand, and I chased you across tiles that lit up under our feet as we stepped on them. We knew you were not alive but we also knew that you were not gone. Looking at you, for the first time in seven years, didn’t feel like gazing directly into a car’s headlights at night; you didn’t singe my delicate eyes with your brightness. You hugged me the way you always did, so tightly that your upper ribs jabbed into my torso with a titty-puncturing ferocity, like you were holding on for dear life, and I felt an ineffable sense of something inside me being cauterized. Later I’d recall a mathematical concept from high school in which two lines get very, very close together but never actually end up touching and wonder if, for me, this would be the closest I’d ever get to feeling peace about your death. As I began to regain consciousness, your face became pixelated and the crinkles around your eyes started to smoothen and fade. The first part of my body that woke up was my mouth, and I could feel my chapped lips pressing together with alacrity to form a small smile. Before you disappeared completely, you said: What if it’s all true at once? You held those words up like a trophy and I unzipped my chest and put them inside.
Maria Zorn is a writer and visual artist currently living in Denver, Colorado.
Editor: Cheri Lucas Rowlands
Copy-editor: Krista Stevens
It’s been busy in the bavacade the last several weeks as I prepared for a trip
back to the US of A. I’ve been racing against the clock to figure out what I need to bring back for the various games, which means a lot of testing to try and get things working, or establish they’re beyond my repair capabilities, which means shipping them out.
Troubleshooting Cheyenne Monitor
The process of trying to diagnose has become more and more fun for me as I gain a modicum of insight. I have finally found a hobby I can really sink my teeth into, which is quite rewarding. I’m still in the process of re-organizing the bavacrypt so that my old, open area office space is transformed into a full blown workspace for the games, which also means a lot of storage for parts, chassis, and other sundries. I also got some shelving to start storing my toys, VHS tapes, parts, and much more.
Glimpse of shelving behind Asterock
What’s more, I’ve moved my Reclaim Hosting office into what was the basement guest room, and it’s working much better for calls, video recording, streaming, etc., thanks to better acoustics—not to mention much less doorbell interference. Once I get back from America I should be able to put the final touches on the office transition. I’ll also be sure to document that in more detail, because I really have built a dream space that is an all-in-one office/workshop/80s arcade. Have I mentioned on this blog already that creating spaces might be my other hobby passion these days? — it’s what I might miss most about Reclaim Arcade, imagining that space with Tim was an absolute joy.
Anyway, on to the repair log, and there is a lot to mention here.
Broken corner in Dig Dug cabinet
There was a big gouge in the bottom rear corner of the Dig Dug cabinet that was bothering me to no end. The cabinet was otherwise quite solid, and I have to say the seller ensured everything in it was original, which is always nice. One thing that struck me when taking this apart was how well designed the Atari cabinets are. This was the first one I disassembled, and it was the easiest yet by far. I love the way the light and speaker are combined onto one piece of plywood for easy remove.
Light and speaker mounted unit for Dig Dug cabinet
The coin door setup is also super easy to remove with a genius design that allows you to attach and detach the coin box easily and tighten the door with all bolts seated using attached, movable nuts. When you disassemble enough of these machines you begin to appreciate good design choices.
Bolt system for coin doors of Dig Dug cabinet
The cabinet work was a bit more straightforward. Epoxy for the gouged lower corner and for the various imperfections along the trim. I have new t-molding on order, so this should be golden.
Some taping of Dig Dug for touch-up paint
There were a few places the cracks in the sides meant I needed to do some touch-up paint work, and the base color of his cabinet is closer to off-white than pure white, so I found myself adding yellow to pure white paint to get a closer match, and that was fun. It’s not perfect, but you would need to know what you are looking for in just a few spots to see the difference. It is near perfect, so more than passable. Also, none of the original artwork was touched, so this was already a pretty impressive cabinet, we just made it awesomer!
Dig Dug After touch-up paint and before light sanding
There are a couple of things I still need to attend to, including fixing the marquee light that blows every florescent tube I put in there—I believe it’s the ballast, but need to test this. Also, the power brick is pretty noisy, and I think that might be a big blue cap that needs to be replaced, so ordering that. Finally, the smooth, black t-molding is on order, and should be ready once I get back. But apart from that, this is another mint cabinet that sits alongside Donkey Kong Jr, Galaxian, and Pac-man in the bavamanse foyer!
Dig Dug is re-assembled and looking groovy
I was beginning to think I would never see this game running. When we bought it for $400 over two years ago, I knew it was going to be a project. It’s a game that doesn’t really come available all that often, and a good condition working cabinet is not only hard to find, but also relatively expensive. The only one I ever saw since my childhood was at the Terminal in Nashville, and it was in pretty rough shape and played terribly.
The first thing we needed to do was get the cabinet in good condition. The top-back corner of the cabinet was broken, and the back door and lower portion were falling apart—old, deteriorating wood glue was holding this thing together. It was in pretty rough shape; it had been neglected for probably 30+ years, and it showed. Alberto took this one and worked his magic, he sent me a bunch of images of the work, and I really love to see the process visually….
Once I had it back from Alberto I had to paint the cabinet white. I did the first couple of coats with a matte white, and I still want to do a final coat with glossy, but before I did that I needed to re-assemble the cabinet because the power supply guru Roberto was coming by to bring the re-built (for the second time) original power supply that can’t be simply replaced by a switching power supply given it uses hi and lo +12V and -12V for the sound board, which also helps power the video. This power supply has been a beast, so given Roberto was coming with a fixed unit I was thrilled, but when he arrived he noted that the -5V was not working, so we (royal) added a rectifier bridge for -5V that was pretty cool:
-5V Rectifier for Venture
-5V Rectifier for Venture connected to Ground and -5V from power supply
-5v from rectifier to board
We tried that and the board was now getting -5V, which was a win. But, but, but for some reason the +5V was not getting to the board cleanly. I was depressed, I really thought we were going to finally cut through this Gordian knot of a game. But despair is not an option, so we re-grouped and re-traced everything again, ensuring the edge connectors were attached correctly (they were), and still no dice for the +5V, although every other voltage was arriving to the boards as expected, so it was at least isolated to +5V.
Venture‘s edge connectors connected correctly
As a last ditch effort we decided to install a switching power supply to get the +5V to the board to see if that will work….and it did, dear reader! It was a moment that had been a long time coming, but bringing a game back from the dead that I’d not seen working since we got it was amazing.
Venture Switching Power Supply for +5V
I can now take the -5V rectifier and use the switching power supply for that, but it is pretty cool to see how the rectifier works, that is yet another thing that enthralls me about electricity, all these gadgets to control and temper the flow of energy is truly amazing, and I am reminded once again it is always power with these games.
The Venture board I bought worked perfectly, and the monitor is gorgeous, I do need to try a cap kit on the K4600 monitor chassis for Venture given it’s not working, so the current chassis is on loan from Galaxian. The other bit is I need to clean-up and possibly re-build the the 8-way joystick. It is a bit of a rat’s nest right now, and it could use some new leafs and general TLC. But, the good news is Venture is on wheels, cleaned-up beautifully, and working a treat!
After fitting Pac-man with the BitKit2, I decided that cabinet needs to be on wheels and the bottom needs to be looked over closely given the floor was feeling tenuous under any kind of pressure. There were early signs of wood rot that may have been a result of water damage, although it was definitely not extensive.
Pac-man without underpants
Pac-man‘s old floor was feeling its age
I stripped it down and sent it out to Alberto and he is a genius. He replaced the floor entirely, while leaving everything else in tact, and added base pedestal to hide the new wheels. Once I got it back I taped around the original artwork and painted the cabinet with the Scramble yellow I had left-over from that project, and did some touch-up on the black paint, but otherwise left the original artwork untouched. The yellow from Scramble is a tad more subdued then the original Pac-man yellow, but you would really need to be in-the-know to realize the subtle difference. That said, I may re-paint it at some point
This was probably the fastest I ever completed a strip down, re-build, and re-paint. It was all done in less than a week, including Alberto’s work—which was crazy fast. I took a ton of photos, and you can find them in this Flickr album.
It’s looking good! I still need to paint the back of this cabinet, which was also yellow. I’ll take care of that once I return. This dot gobbler is the crown of my collection, so it needs to be beautiful!
Above are the major notes, but there continues to be ongoing weirdness with Williams’ transformers. I got back the “blown” Joust transformer that turns out was not blown after all, the surge of 220V was not detrimental to the actual transformer because the varistor prevented it from doing any harm. Once the blown varistor was removed the transformer started working again, I just need a new varistor now.
Image of a varistor
Anyway, When I put the Joust transformer into Stargate it was having issues with the Williams JROK board, it kept randomly resetting the board whenever I would touch the smart bomb button. After realizing the JROK board worked fine in another cabinet (Defender), I figured it most be a power issue. After seeing the switching power supply values were all reading fine, I decided to put all of transformers back in their original games (I had them labeled).* That seems to have solved the issue, but we will see.
Hanterex Polo 20″ chassis are my bane, and Cheyenne is now the only game not working. I am sending that chassis out for repair given I do not have a capkit, and hopefully that will be up and running soon.
I have the chassis removed and ready, just haven’t had time to try the K4600 CapKit. This chassis was originally in Venture, but if all goes well will be in Galaxian.
Condor G07 Capkit -not sure whenIi will do it, but on the list.
Cable for monitor and coin door light in Asterock acting up, this has been an odd issue, and it just seems like cables in Asterock power supply are lose, and the monitor loses power, but will need to dig deeper.
Need to install high score save kits for Venture and Pac-man.
Whew, that as a lot, but I am happy cause the Reclaim retreat is about to start and now I can start my West Coast tour diary on the venerable bava.blog
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*I had put the Stargate transformer in Moon Patrol, the Moon Patrol transformer in Joust, and left Stargate empty until the Joust transformer one was fixed.
Yesterday I started playing around with a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) board I bought a couple of months back called BitKit2. What is FPGA? It’s a circuit board technology that has been around since the 80s that is pre-assembled and allows for the programming of the hardware to happen after the fact. This technology is fairly new to me, so follow the Wikipedia link for actual informative details.
BitKit2, the latest version is white versus older red and green models
The BitKit2 is a FPGA board that has been programmed to play 50 classic video games such as Pac-man, Ms. Pac-man, Pengo, Scramble, Super Cobra, Dig Dug, Nibbler, Moon Cresta, Galaxian, Galaga, Crazy Kong, and many, many more. The board comes pre-programmed to play these games, but the ROM images (or game files) have to be sourced separately then uploaded to the board. The ROM community has been thriving for decades online thanks to emulator projects like MAME, so finding the ROMs you need to upload will not be hard. Two logical questions at this point might be: 1) why buy a BitKit2 when you already have a cabinet with the original game board?; 2) if you’re just downloading and playing ROMs from the web, isn’t it just emulation?
The answer to the first is a practical one: 40 year-old boards go bad all the time, and can be an expensive and/or time-consuming fix, so having a board that can stand-in for one of several games can be a relatively quick, cheap fix, not to mention the ability to turn any one cabinet into an instant multi-cade.
Original Pac-man game board, it is oh so beautiful
The second question is a bit more complicated. Folks who fix the original game boards also download ROMs from the web and load them on an original board’s ROM chips, so that is not necessarily the emulation piece. The difference between playing those ROMs on your computer versus a FPGA board is the ROMs are not using a dedicated, programmed board on your computer, the game hardware is virtualized. On an FPGA board the ROMs are loaded on a dedicated circuit board that is programmed hardware intended to run them as such. The FPGA boards are comparable in terms of speed and performance to the original boards (which is not the case with MAME emulators on your PC). So the real question becomes is it “as good” which can quickly become both overly technical and subjective all at once. I personally prefer the original board given I’m drawn to the illusion of a vanishing point that ends in an “original,” but I recognize the limits of that logic. When a 40 year old board is not working, I would rather have the game be up and running then refusing to change for fear of a micosecond delay in the FPGA board.*
Ok, enough of that, now let’s get to how to install the BitKit2, as well as look at how it works. The above image shows the BitKit2 (the bottom, white board) plugged into a Pac-man Jamma adapter (the top green board). Jamma adapters are purchased separately, and I picked up the one pictured from the Arcadeshop (there are others sold from Mike’s Arcade and beyond, so be sure to check which one you have). Jamma is a widely used wiring standard for arcade games that allows you to bridge the original game’s wiring with a multi-purpose board like the BitKit. You’ll notice on the Pac-man Jamma board there is an additional connector coming off of it with two +12V orange wires , four +5V red wires, and four ground black wires. This connects the Pac-man Jamma board to a switching power supply,
Why does this particular Jamma adapter need a switching power supply hook-up? This is because the Pac-man board converts the AC power coming in to DC power on the board, which is not common. Most boards do this well before that using a separate transformer and power supply board.
You can see the red connectors going into +5V, orange into +12V, and black to ground on the switching power supply in the image above. I was confused that there was no -5V connectors, but I confirmed that is the case and this setup for the Pac-man Jamma board from the Arcadeshop worked perfectly for me. So, in short:
After that the BitKit2 should power on and you’ll see two green lights, one to signal power is on, and the other to signal Bluetooth is working. At this point you can now interface with that board wirelessly using your computer.† There’s a dropdown to find and connect to your Bluetooth device, it’ll be something like BK-#### (such as BK-1077) and you should be able to connect to it—if not move closer and restart the BitKit board.
You can download and install the software for the BitKit Manager which will allow you to interface with the board to update the firmware, upload and manage game ROMs, and also upload high scores to a leader board.
The Manage Games interface is akin to FTPing files to a different machine, you select the game ROM zip files, click on the arrows sending them to the BitKit, and then below that there is a “Sync Game(s)” button that will then upload them to the board over Bluetooth.
You can also remove and/or erase all games. The manage Games tabs also provide ROM details for the games you are syncing:
And the Remixes tab provide links to special edition ROMs for Scramble, Ms. Pacman, and Eyes99, which is new to me:
There is also a section to submit high scores to the leader board:
This board contains quite a few features, and begins to marry the physical, offline tech of an arcade cabinet with the web in some fun ways. The idea of accessing the board wirelessly while inside the cabinet at will (no need to move and open the 200 pound machine) is pretty awesome.
With the BitKit2 installed and ROMs uploaded, you’ll need to access the board’s menu from the actual game cabinet. You can do this by depressing the player 1 button while powering on the game.
This main menu allows you to manage the BitKit2 settings, which includes system settings, game settings, video settings, and configuring controls.
System
In System you can enable the game orientation, credit cheat, attract mode, hide options, mode, etc. The credit cheat is pretty cool, with that on whenever you press the player 2 button twice quickly you add a credit. The attract setting initiates a slide show after two minutes of idleness that highlights games available and settings.
When the Hide Options setting is off you can press the player one and two buttons to reset the board, and thereafter quickly depress the player 1 button to enter the game menu to choose a different game.
Games
The games menu gives you access to all games settings for the ROMs you uploaded:
From this menu that lists all the game ROMs uploaded you can select a specific game and change settings like number of lives, bonus lives, turbo (if an option), etc. And these are granular, so they only work on a game-by-game basis, which is a nice feature.
I am using Turbo on Pac-man and made it the game the machine boots up (there can only be one), otherwise the settings are the default. And the 40 games I have loaded all contain their own settings which is pretty impressive.
Controls
The Controls menu allows you to test your buttons to ensure they work as intended. You can also define what your reset combination is, as well as what buttons you would use to pause a game—something I appreciate given I’m often interrupted during one of my epic games that will break all the recordz.
Video
There is also a Video setting that allows you to configure the monitor to test crosshatch patterns, colors, etc. An amazing feature I discovered was the ability adjust the vertical and horizontal positioning of your game so you should not have to touch anything on the actual monitor chassis, which was a huge relief for me.
Overall, it’s a really impressive interface with a ton of options. Also look like there are regular firmware updates—as recent as last month—which gives you bug fixes, new features, etc. I wonder if there is also the capability to program and load new games going forward? Not sure given my limited understanding of the FPGA boards, but that would definitely be a cool feature.
The CraftyMech site has a manual that will take you through all the different settings I not-so-briefly described above in greater detail, so be sure to check that out. I also recorded a 10 minute video wherein I work through how mine works (there are a few corrections that I have rectified in the notes of the video):
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*That said, some games are probably harder to port to an FPGA board than others, and then there are other physical limitations like vector versus raster graphics. So not all ports are equal, but it’s possible there will be no perceivable difference between Pac-man gameplay on the original board and that on a FPGA board.
†I personally would prefer if they had a non-wireless option way as well given the Bluetooth was finicky on my newer Macbook Pro running Monterey. I did get it working with a backup Macbook Pro running Catalina.
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