Retro-meme

Jesus, someone around here’s got a Jesus Complex. Time to take a long power walk on my pool water to try to find my “happy place”.

New Painting this week of a butterfly. Not sure if it really works or not. I usually don’t like painting with black but I had a big tube of it so thought I would try something like this; it’s curious how little this color actually occurs in nature!

When your drug of choice is classic coin-op arcade video games, starting, growing, and maintaining a collection can become a habit-forming need for more and more. And it doesn’t stop once you’ve run out of space. Once you’ve filled your garage, your place of work and two or more leased storage spaces with all your favorite half-working video game memories from the eighties, you’d think you might be able to slow down a bit, give yourself a congratulatory slap on the back and finally take it easy, perhaps get all your games running and restored or finally get to work on that high score of yours, which has just narrowly evaded your grasp these past thirty years so you can submit it to the Twin Galaxies Official Book of People with Too Much Time on their Hands. But no, collecting just doesn’t work that way.Whether you’ve completely maxed out your space or your credit cards or both, whether you’ve received an ultimatum from your long-suffering wife; your habit is in no danger of meeting a quick and easy death, I can assure you; particularly when a long-and-drawn-out death is more likely to be a barrel full of fun and garner more looks of alarm from the neighbors. So, lose the dybbuk, as Woody Allen would say, if that’s what it takes, or consider allowing your arcade game collecting dementia to morph into something perhaps slightly more socially acceptable; something that, sorry, won’t translate into making you any less of a pariah. Whatever you do: do not go gently into that good night.
Many arcade game collectors end up collecting other arcade game memorabilia. First, there are the arcade flyers, themselves, the original one-sheets typically used at AMOA shows some twenty years past to announce the arrival of an exciting new game licensed to steal your hard-earned allowance and paper route money. These are usually quite easy to acquire via eBay or other collectors. It’s almost mandated that you get one to go with each game in your burgeoning collection. They can really run the gamut from simple 4-color one-sheets– quick vital stats on the dimensions of the cabinet and the anticipated release date–to full-color 4-page brochures, surprisingly artful and lovingly detailed, giving you more information about your favorite games’ back story and raison d’etre. Some of my favorite flyers are Congo Bongo, Journey, and Zaxxon.
Once you’ve collected flyers, you might want to turn to arcade posters; they’re just like flyers only bigger and much more expensive. Sometimes a highly sought after poster can go for as much as a cheap arcade video game; though, I can assure you, it won’t give you anywhere near the same replay value. The good news is that there is also a growing market for reproductions. Whether you steal your arcade posters from an art gallery in Antwerp or have them made at Kinko’s, everyone would agree that arcade game posters are a great way to decorate your game room. It’s kind of an ostentatious way of saying, “Hey, everyone, this is my game room.” You know, just in case, they fail at first to see the video games.
Then there are the somewhat more controversial arcade video game “pelts” themselves; no, not actual hides, since most classic arcade games were not once living, breathing animals, despite what fellow collectors will tell you, especially after twelve hours on an Asteroids machine. No, in this instance “pelts” refers to art or items removed from these old defunct games. Pieces removed can include NOS side art and old marquees from games that have long since been parted out or buried alive (or, more likely, dead) in a local land-fill. A wall-full of carefully-selected arcade game marquees can serve as a nice adjunct to your actual game collection—a knowing nod, as if to say, well, if I had the space, I’d most surely collect these games as well. And they will surely trigger fond memories in many people of a certain age who happen to visit your game room and who, after a few beers, will start asking you ad infinitum, where a certain game is, even though you’ve already told them you don’t have it but they swear they saw it around here somewhere.But what else is there to collect? You’re up to your neck in marquees. You could fill a ten minute YouTube video of yourself peeling off each one of your retro arcade tees. You have a large three-ring binder full of old school flyers. You even managed to acquire all of the old Atari lapel pins and a few arcade game jackets on which to stick said pins. Oh, and all the video game patches, too (Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, and, heck, even the Activision patches, why not?). Now what? Well, my arcade game collecting friends, that’s when things start to get a little dicey.You can collect “totems”, little game toys, figurines and plushies, typically released around the same time as the games, and place them on top of the arcade games for effect. A Q-Bert bank or a stuffed Donkey Kong goes a long way to making your game room more kid-friendly; though it will also make it look like said kid can’t keep his room clean.You can also collect arcade board games. Yes, they’re every bit as bad as they sound. I still remember playing them many years ago on that occasional rainy Saturday afternoon when we couldn’t get anyone to drive us down to the local arcade. Fortunately, a Vic-20 arrived on the scene shortly thereafter to alleviate our boredom with its superior graphics and gameplay.Now would be a good time for you to acquire some demitasses for drinking. Donkey Kong and Pac-Man coffee cups, glasses, and beer steins are all readily available and, happily, dishwasher safe; perfect for your next arcade klatsch. And, while you’re at it, why not pick up the original arcade game series of limited-edition Slurpee cups from 7-11 circa 1982 (be sure to play the Ms. Pac-man machine and refill the DeLorian—it takes unleaded mixed with Plutonium—before you return it): Galaga, Pac-Man, Turbo, and Frogger. Now, you’re cooking with gas, my arcade game collecting friends!Once you’ve collected all these things, I submit to you that you’re now ready to broaden your horizons by boldly going where few would willingly tread: arcade-themed footwear. Yes, that’s right. You can collect shoes. And since women like shoes; I guarantee you, you’ll get no guff whatsoever from your significant other when you do this; though, you may get the occasional stare if you wear any of these leather and canvas eyesores in public; unless, you walk with a certain ironic detachment.

I first started my collection in 2003 by picking up two pair of 25th anniversary Space Invaders Vans; these were a limited-release item available only in Japan and they sold out almost immediately. I just happened to luck out and be over there on business around the time that they were released (and, even then, they were quite difficult to track down, pardon the pun).

These are very simple, traditional Vans style black loafers with a line red invading ships printed around the bottom edge and the Space Invaders monster on the back of one heel and the Space Invaders logo and cannon embossed on the opposite heel.Ok, now I had the arcade game shoe collecting bug! It wasn’t long before I also acquired two pairs of Adidas Adi-color Tron shoes, also a limited release intended to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the movie Tron (which, to me, is almost indistinguishable from the video game; hence, their inclusion in my collection). These are seriously ugly shoes, my friends, but wow, a lot of attention has gone into the crapmanship.

The first thing you’ll notice is that they’ve created a leather stamp to emboss an image of our intrepid bit-sized hero Tron on the toe of each shoe. But that’s not all: Tron is also included on the tongue of the shoe and underneath, a glow-in-the-dark visage made out of little rubbery pixels. But wait that’s not all. If you order today, you’ll also receive the Tron logo, two different pictures of light cycles and pictures of the Tron air ship and tank. As you can well imagine, these are my favorite shoes to play Frisbee in. Sometimes I’ll just hold the Frisbee high up above my head, both arms outstretched and clasped firmly to the Frisbee’s outer edges, humming the haunting theme of Tron, and getting strange looks from passersby.

Well, then Pro-Keds put out a series of arcade themed shoes, creatively entitled “Arcade Series”; only, they didn’t bother to actually license their wares, which means that while they’re all still instantly recognizable, they’re probably not as cool or creative as they would have been had they actually been licensed. Actually, the coolest part of these shoes is the boxes which have feature colorful alien invaders, a red ball joystick and four leaf switch buttons.First up, we have the Pac-Man shoes. These are great to wear if you’re being chased by… wait for it… ghosts. The coolest thing about them is actually the inside of the shoe, which looks like our favorite yellow friend and, I’m not kidding, actually makes a little chomp sound whenever you put your foot inside them (Ok, I was kidding about that). The tongue features the same yellow Pac Dude but for some reason, he looks more like a friendly piece of French Toast or, yes, Sponge Bob Square Pants in bondage here. It’s a little frightening. The sides feature cool Pac-Man mazes, though, sadly, not all 255 of them.

Then I bought a pair of Galaga shoes; well, ok, they’re not exactly Galaga shoes, they’re “Alien Invasion” shoes, but I’m not going to quibble. Yes, another pair of Pro-Keds. One thing that is immediately wrong about these is that they have the Space Invaders alien on the tongue (OK, I am going to quibble a bit). Uh, shouldn’t that like be a Galaga bee or something, folks? Again, the sole on the inside is the coolest part—and the part least likely to be seen by people passing you in the park, unless you take off your shoe and throw it at them, which, honestly, I can’t recommend; especially since I’ve been warned once already not to do that anymore. The inside is a line of all of your least favorite baddies from Galaga, just waiting to be shot down. If you close your eyes, you can almost hear them whistle. And on the outside, around the heels, you can also find these guys. Not too shabby. So here’s where you come in. I want to complete my collection, which means I need to find a pair or two of the Pro-Keds Asteroids shoes called “Hyperspace”. They come in a cool all-black style with white vectors of Asteroid rocks and then also in a white below-ankle loafer with black rock outlines. Sure, Pro-Keds also has some lame Centipede and Ms. Pac-Man shoes but I’m not interested. I want the Asteroids ones, dog! So if you have any leads on these or hear of any other cool arcade-themed tennis shoes (come on, Donkey Kong, Missile Command, Defender, Bubbles), do be sure to drop me a line?

Today, I painted a portrait of our two cats, Neo and Celeste. Neo is a playful four-year old white short hair with latte brown markings. Celeste is a three-year old beautiful black and white and white tabby who keeps us entertained for hours with her singing.

Last week, I finally got out the oil paints and set up a still-life on my kitchen table and then got down to painting it. For this painting, I relied heavily on a small palette knife because I wanted to lay the oils on thick in order to mimic the post impressionist painters whose work I admire the most.

It’s been a while since I’ve made the time to paint but it sure can be rewarding! I was listening to the audio book “White Noise” by Don DeLillo on my iPod Touch; which, if you haven’t read or heard, I highly recommend. It’s a hoot.

Well, last week, I finally made the move… back to Windows XP. I have been struggling for over a year with Windows Vista Ultimate Edition on my main work computer and had forgotten that computers are supposed to be fun and that using a computer is supposed to increase your productivity, not decrease it. Hopefully, someone, somewhere at Micro$oft is taking note.

What reminded me of the simple pleasure of having fun and being creative was using a fully-loaded G5 with Mac OS X (Tiger) this past summer. Wow, it was like a breath of fresh air!

So I’ve decided to double-boot my main PC with XP and Vista and, well, it’s been over a week now and I haven’t booted up Vista once on this computer since making the move. My computer is so much faster now, too; all of my programs are compatible and, well, things just work. Which is how it’s supposed to be, isn’t it?

Speaking of creating with a computer, I wrote the following verse as therapy to get over my lost year with Vista. It was written in good ol’ Microsoft Word 2003 with Windows XP SP2:
Windows Vista

Apologies to Sylvia Plath

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, Windows Vista
In which I have worked like a jerk
For a year, just trying to make you work
Barely daring to click or compute.

Vista, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time—
driver-heavy, a bag full of doo-doo,
Ghastly Operating System
Slow as a Frisco seal

And your head up your ass
So slow and so blue
I longed for Windows XP or Leopard,
a Commodore-64, anything but you.
Ach, du.

I hate your account control, so screw you.
I do, I do.
Vista, I’m finally through.
The XP disc is out of its sleeve.
I’m going to double-boot you.

If Microsoft’s killed one OS (anyone remember ME?), you’re #2—
The vampire named Bill Gates said he was you
and drank my blood for a year,
Vista, you can lie back now.
And die a miserable death, I’m through.

There’s a stake in your fat, black heart
And the sysadmins never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always *knew* you would lose.
Vista, Vista, you bastard, I’m through.

—

Disclaimer: OK, so I’m not completely through with Windows Vista yet. I still have a Vista Home Edition laptop and a Vista Home Media computer but I also have two computers running XP (including this dual-boot), and two computers running OS X (one Tiger, one Leopard), and one computer now with Linux (The Asus Eee PC).  All I know is this: my next computer won’t be a Windows Vista Computer.

Friends don’t let friends use Vista.

I read this morning, with more than the usual amount of classic arcade envy, that Peter Hirschberg has finally cut the ribbon (with a laser canon, no doubt) on his stunning, updated 60′ x 40′ classic arcade game building located in Linden, VA; which Gizmodo rightly calls a “Video Game Valhalla”.

Peter’s home arcade features nearly sixty classic arcade games, including all my favorites, housed in a two-story building that has been fitted with commercial-grade wiring and two 400amp circuit breaker panels; wow, I don’t even want to imagine that electric bill.

But the devil’s in the details and here’s where Peter’s arcade really shines. Check out the beautiful black light planetoid carpet, the awesome lighting that hovers like neon UFOs overhead; the nostalgic wall art, and, yes, no retro-arcade would be complete without its very own old-school change machine and bathroom.

Now if Peter could only figure out a way to pipe in the smell of a freshly cooked pizza hot off the oven, I think it’s fair to say many of us, myself included, would actually be transported back in time.

Luna City has been a labor of love for Peter for the past several years so I’d like to publicly congratulate Peter on the completion of this insanely awesome project.

Be sure to check out the Gizmodo article for an interview with Peter, more photos, and even a video of Luna City!

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is now out on DVD. I just got mine in the mail from Amazon.com today. If you missed it in theaters, here’s your chance to watch this little gem that wuz robbed, robbed, I tells ya, of inclusion in the five Oscar nominees for this year’s Best Documentary Feature.

The DVD features over 90-minutes of extra footage, too, which should be a lot of fun, including feature commentary, extended interviews, an animated short and an arcade glossary (you know, for your girlfriend).

Take a look at this scan of the inside of the DVD sleeve by artist Scott Campbell. My god, man, it’s a classic arcade! I see Steve and Billy in line playing The King of Kong and the line also seems to include Dirk the Daring, a mummy, a troll, some guys who just got off work at the clean room at Intel, a teen wolf, dinosaur, and viking. Very cool!

The game titles are great, too; they remind me of some of the titles you’d see in the background of the Noiseland Arcade or the Kwik-E Mart on The Simpsons. Some are references to actual games, complete with side art; others, probably not so much. I counted 41 visible marquees.

Here’s my random thoughts on what games are being referenced:

Ball Throw : Konami Super Basketball
Battleline : Atari Battlezone
Bombson Twins : Tehkan Bomb Jack
Braces : Gottlieb Snots and Boogers
Candy Cops : Atari Cops ‘N Robbers
Caveman Challenge : Nihon Bussan Caveman Ninja
Claw it : a claw prize machine
Crate Smash : Williams Smash TV
Defensive : Williams Defender
Digging : Atari Dig Dug
Drive Around : Atari Pole Position
Eating Man : Bally-Midway Pac-man
Eels : GDI Slither
Frisbee Slant : Bally-Midway Discs of Tron
Frogs : Sega-Gremlin Frogger
Handle Grab : Atari Paperboy
Horse Doodie : Atari Shuuz (a comment on the game?)
I am 8-bit : their website and art gallery
Knight Mix-up : Williams Joust
Lazer Town : Meadows Games Lazer Command
Mail o : Capcom Mallet Madness
Meltodown : Sega Crackdown
Nature : Taito Jungle Hunt
Ninja Blast : Tecmo Ninja Gaiden
Pizza Run : Universal Do! Run Run
Planets : Gottlieb Mad Planets
Precious Legend : Capcom Legendary Wings
Raid : Bally-Midway Rescue Raider
Raking : Atari Peter Pack Rat
Rich People : Stern Bagman
Robot Pals : Williams Robotron
Rocks : Atari Asteroids
Skulls : Atari Skull and Crossbones
Star Wows : Atari Star Wars
Sweat : Bally-Midway SWAT
The Future : Sega Future Spy
The King of Kong: A fistful of Quarters : Nintendo Donkey Kong
Trains : Centuri Locomotion
Trapezee : Bally-Midway Clowns
Trawn : Bally-Midway Tron
YesNo : Bally-Sente Trivial Pursuit

How to make your own dedicated upright D2K: Jumpman Returns cabinet

Hi, boys and girls! Doctor Mario here to teach you how to make your own D2K: Jumpman Returns dedicated arcade cabinet. These cabinets are very rare! In fact, there is only one in captivity right now and I made it so, listen up, Class o’ Kong, as I impart what little wisdom I gleaned on this most important of DIY projects!

Supplies, supplies:

1. First, you’re going to need yourself a Nintendo Donkey Kong upright arcade cabinet, preferably in working condition. Fortunately for you, these are about as common as Koopas and just as easy to acquire since Nintendo made so darn many of them back in the eighties (fact: some 65,000 units were shipped, the third highest sales figure of the so-called “Golden Age of Gaming”).

Q: I don’t have one. Where’s I gonna get me one a’ them?
A: Doctor Mario recommends the following tried and true resources:
1. The “interweb”—remember, it’s not just for porn!
a. Try Craigslist (where I found mine), eBay, KLOV, VAPS, rec.games.arcade
2. Local arcade dealer, pawn shop, garage sale, fleamarket (not just for fleas!), or that one sitting on your cousin, Billybob’s porch.

Q: Does it have to be a Donkey Kong upright arcade cabinet?
A: Doctor Mario thinks you could use practically *any* Nintendo upright arcade cabinet but expects you’ll have the best results with a working unit that features a vertically mounted monitor (Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Donkey Kong 3 or similar). If you’re lucky enough to still have a factory original Radarscope that didn’t already get turned into a Donkey Kong thirty years ago, it makes no sense at this late of a date to make it suffer the indignity of a Kong transfusion so Doctor Mario says hang on to that rare and find yourself another transplant candidate. Also, since the D2k kit requires a working Donkey Kong board and a Braze High Score save kit that is installed on the board, it’s best to start with a Donkey Kong cab.

2. Next, you’ll need Donkey Kong 2 artwork. This just in: send an email to Rich at thisoldgame.com as he’s now taking pre-orders on a complete set of professionally silk-screen D2K artwork, which will surely be of higher quality than what we used when making this cabinet. Also, if you order now, Rich is going to throw in a cool looking D2k t-shirt at no additional cost. More details are available here.

a. Side art. There are two of these, one for each side of the cabinet. They look the same on both sides, as pictured below.

b. Marquee art.

c. Bezel art.

d. Control panel art.

e. Instruction card. You can print the one here from Mike’s Arcade for free or buy one that is already made. The art file that Jeff K has made already includes one printed as part of the control panel, as you can see above.
f. Long instruction sticker. You can print the one here from Mike’s Arcade for free or buy one that is already made.
g. Coin door sticker. There are two of these printed on the inside of the bezel that you can use.

3. Buttons, Buttons… I recommend getting these from The Real Bob Roberts (avoid doing business with the fake one). He’ll cross-ship as you send him a check for the amount (just make sure your check isn’t rubber or you’ll end up on his naughty list). They’re cheap, cheap. What you want is the short, translucent leaf switch buttons. You’ll need 3 orange and 2 blue.

4. Consider buying a new joystick. I was really happy with this after market joystick from Mike’s Arcade and Mike didn’t pay me to say so (though, Mike, if you’re reading this, feel free to send me a check? ;-)). Whatever you do, don’t tell the boys over at Twin Galaxies, though, as this is not a regulation joystick and surely would not past muster with their current high score competition requirements. I’ve got one installed in each of my Donkey Kong machines now. It will give you nice tight play and twenty more years of amusement from your machine.

5. Anything else. Mike’s Arcade also sells lots of other Nintendo parts so if you want to buy a joystick guard for your machine or if your machine needs anything else, now’s as good of time as any to pick it all up. I bought one and used it for about a month or two and then it started to annoy me so I took it off (sorry, Mike). I think I remember now why most Donkey Kong machines didn’t have these and why they were quickly broken off. They look nice, sure, but they seem to get in the way of playing the game more than anything.

6. T-Molding. Chances are the existing t-molding on the machine you unearthed is yellow and dotted with cigarette burns from 25 years of use. Nothing will make your cabinet look more like a brand new unit rolling off the Seattle factory floor circa 1982 than some nice, new T-molding! The Nintendo T-molding has the tooth off-centered and is 9/16” of an inch. I recommend buying it here.

7. Paint, Sandpaper, etc. You have some options here. I once rented a professional air sprayer from Home Depot and painted my Cliff Hanger and my back yard. The bushes and some of the nearby rocks are still pink because of this (good thing my girlfriend likes that color). So when it came time to paint the D2k cabinet, I decided I’d try something with perhaps a little less of a negative environmental impact: I decided to paint it with a roller. I know what you’re thinking: this is absolutely nuts. The reality is that it will work pretty well as long as you put on lots of layers and each later is thin. I’ll get into the details below.

a. Primer. I used something like this Behr primer.
b. Paint. Jeff K was reminiscing about how each new Nintendo cabinet that was released had its own color and so he wanted the D2K cabinet to have its own distinctive color, too. He says he took his D2K paper arcade (along with Super Paper Mario?) to Home Depot for color matching but got out of there before anyone could call him a nerd. I used a Navy Blue interior satin paint from Behr. It came out a little darker than anticipated, I think. Probably because there are so many darn coats. I like it but I think at the CA Extreme show, many people mistook the cabinet as being black so you might want to try a nice Royal Blue instead, one shade lighter on the pigment wheel. Anyway, these are the two colors Jeff K has given his official blessing; you could always go with day-glo orange if you feel so moved but if you’re going to take the time, you might as well get it right, no? So what I recommend is that you take the paper arcade model in and ask the paint specialist at your local Home Depot or Lowe’s to help you match the color! If you do this, please take some footage and put it up on YouTube so we can all have a good chuckle.

c. Sandpaper. Get a few different grades of sandpaper, medium to fine grit. Avoid the John Wayne “True Grit” sandpaper as the quality doesn’t live up to the name.
d. Spray Paint. Get some black satin spray paint and you can use it to gussy up the control panel and the pieces of metal that hold the marquee and bezel in place and, if you’re especially anal, the coin door (or you can have this powder coated) and the bottom black frame that the cabinet sits on as well as the back plywood door and, while you’re at it, your neighbor’s house.

OK, now we’re ready to make this beast, be-otch! Put on your surgical gown and meet me in the OR.

Some Disassembly Required
The first thing you need to do, which is scary as hell, but oh so necessary is disassemble the whole thing. First, make sure your machine is unplugged since you don’t want to get any nasty electrical shocks; or, if you do, you can do that on your own time. Next, take the back door off and if you have a little black shade in back, carefully reach up and loosen the wing nut behind it and then pull the T-bar back toward you. This will allow you to remove the bezel from the front.

Next, open the coin door and unlatch the control panel. The control panel will now slide out from its groove toward the monitor. Carefully, disconnect the two sets of pins on the wiring harness. These are very fragile and tiny so you want to exercise caution here. If a pin breaks, you may have to solder a replacement pin in place in order to get one or more of the buttons and joystick to work again, which is really essential in order to have fun playing the game. Once that’s off, set it aside.

On the top of the cabinet, there will be some Phillip screws holding the metal bar which holds the marquee in place. Remove these and take the bar off. Now you can take the original marquee off. This is also a good opportunity to replace the light and ballast if they’re no longer working. Alternately, you can cut out the old fixture and put a new one in.

Next, you want to remove the bezel. This should be relatively easy since you’ve already unloosened the wing nut in back. Just place your palms against the plastic bezel and push up and it should come right out, unless there’s twenty-year old Slurpee remains gluing the bottom into place.

Now, you’re probably looking at a whole lot of dust, like more dust than there was in the dust bowl during the Great Depression but now is not a good time for a history lesson. Chances are high that no one has cleaned this monitor in thirty years or more and you’re like the brave archeologist who has opened the tomb. So like every brave archeologist before you, take some Windex and paper towels from your utility belt (this is the real reason why King Tut unleashed that curse) and get to cleaning, neat freak. If you can, remove the monitor shroud and set it aside. It will probably be stuck on the top or the bottom but should come off relatively easy. Don’t rip it though, and it’s not super critical to remove it.

Next, we need to take out the monitor. First, you’ll want to unplug it from the bottom of the cabinet if your model is getting electricity this way (most of these do). Next, you’ll want to unplug the R,G,B video, and ground wires that are going from the Donkey Kong board to the monitor. There should be two sets of them and they’re usually pretty easy to remove, though you might have to unwrap the cable ties (or cut them).

Now you can remove the four bolts at the top and bottom corners of the monitor. It might be helpful to have a friend on hand to hold the monitor before you remove the last bolt. It isn’t likely to come crashing down but it will slide down a bit toward the wood at the front of the cabinet. Check again to make sure all of the cables are disconnected and the monitor is free. Now, you’ll want to carefully pull the monitor out from the front of the cabinet. It’s good to have someone watch from the back to make sure you don’t break the neck board as the clearance is a bit tight.

The next thing to do is to remove the five carriage bolts on each side of the cabinet.

Next, you’ll want to remove the coin door. This is kind of a pain in the ass and may require that you first remove the coin box inside the cabinet, in order to access all of the bolts. First, disconnect the coin wires that are connected to the switches and run to the game board. Then, start removing the bolts. Once all of the bolts have been removed, set them aside for safe keeping (or throw them on the floor next to all the other hardware you’ve already removed) and you should be able to pull the coin door off from the front.

Last but certainly not least, you’ll want to go ahead and remove that nasty old T-molding. First, put on your hazmat suit. Usually, you can get under it from the back with a putty knife or flat-head screw driver and then just pull it out as a single strip. Do it slowly so you don’t rip out too much of the plywood at the same time since you’ll need it when for the new T-molding. Take note of the way the tongue has been notched around the right angles since you’ll need to make similar notches in your new T-molding when you install it.

At this point, your Donkey Kong cabinet should be looking quite forlorn, like a housing development after some crack headed copper thieves have ransacked it. As long as you keep all the pieces nice and tidy—wait, your girlfriend threw them out?!–it shouldn’t be too difficult to get everything back together again. Yeah, right.

Now it’s time to prep the cabinet. If your cabinet still has the original Donkey Kong artwork or parts of it, you’ll need to remove it. I’ve found a putty knife and a hot air gun works wonders. You’ll need to do the same thing if there is anything else gooey on the cabinet, like an old instruction sticker, a tax sticker or a big piece of bubblegum. Yeah, that bubblegum isn’t factory original, I assure you. Goof Off works pretty well on this mess.

Paint Shop Pro
Since the cabinet has a laminate finish, it is really important to rough it up a bit so that the paint will stick. You can try slapping it around but you won’t get anywhere with it and don’t get me started on water-boarding; you’ll probably get better results if you just sand the cabinet with medium grit sandpaper while singing Pac-Man Fever. This is also a good opportunity to fill in any unsightly holes with wood putty and to make the cabinet stronger with some wood screws if it seems to have lost any of its structural integrity.

Now you’re ready to apply your first coat of primer. This doesn’t have to be perfect. You’re just trying to get a smooth painting surface. Once you’re done with it, your cabinet will look something like this:

Let it dry overnight and then take your fine grit sandpaper and sand it down. Then clean off the surface with a tacky cloth and you’re ready to put on another coat of primer. Let that dry and then you’re ready to start painting for real!

House of Paint
You want to apply each layer with a foam roller and go nice and slow with your brush strokes. On the sides, end your strokes in the middle since this will eventually be covered by side art. Make sure you have a lot of light as you’re painting so you can see what it’s looking like. Keep the roller evenly loaded and try to make as long of strokes as possible. I actually had two different foam rollers. A small one for the front of the cabinet (which, by the way, was the hardest part to paint) and a big one for doing the sides.

I was very afraid as I was painting with the foam roller that I would end up with one of those ugly looking Muscle cars you see every now and then were some drunken jackass from the barrio has spoiled his spoiler with a paint roller loaded with house paint. And, true enough, the cabinet did look like that for many coats. Since the paint is so dark, it just takes a lot of pigment for this method to work. Just keep at it and make sure you allow sufficient time for each coat to dry before you do the next one.

Here’s what the cabinet looked like after about three coats:

I was ready to throw it out the window but, instead, I kept painting. After a few more coats, it looked like this:

And then, finally, like this:

I think I even put one more coat on after this because I could still see the foam roller marks and, well, by that time, I’d inhaled enough paint fumes that I had probably taken a permanent break from reason.

Despite what you’re thinking, Dr. Mario did eventually get a pretty nice looking cabinet that he could live with. The foam roller method was a lot of work, sure, and, while it was certainly less messy, there was a pretty significant time trade-off. I’m not sure I would do another one this way (actually, I’m not sure I’d do another one, period :-D). If you do make one, let me know which method you end up using and send me some pictures of your results?

There’s Something in the Mist!
Next, you’ll want to sand the rest of the metal pieces so they’re good and smooth and then get out your can of black spray paint and lay down a coat or two on the top metal marquee bracket, the bezel bracket and the unpopulated wood control panel (you should also take the T-molding off of this guy since you’ll have enough new T-molding to put a new piece on here as well).

For extra credit, feel free to also paint the back door (that’s what she said!). You’ll also want to paint for the inside side walls of the cabinet and the bottom wood piece above the control panel where the instruction sticker goes.

And if you’re really feeling adventurous, bored or both, like I said, you can also strip your control panel with some paint stripper and paint that, too. Or, if you want even better results, find a machine shop in your area and take all your metal pieces in and have them powder-coated. Yummy!

Side Art
Your side art probably arrived in a mailing tube so it’s important that you flatten it first before putting it on. If you have a fat relative, you can ask them to sit on it or gently rest your old Encyclopedia Britannica or other heavy books that you never read on top of it for a day or two and that should do the trick.

Once the sides of your newly painted cabinet are completely dry (wait at least a week from the time you’ve last painted), you can put the side art on. Before peeling back the wax paper on the back, place the side art against the cabinet to get an idea for the spacing. Try to center it between the front and back of the cabinet, a few inches from the top. You might even want to mark a small start line with a piece of chalk if you’re especially meticulous. The other thing to consider is where the bolt holes will end up once you put them back on. If you don’t want Pauline to look like the Bride of Frankenstein, try to avoid lining up the sticker so you end up with a carriage bolt in her neck like I have done here:

When you’re ready to stick it on the cabinet, peel only an inch of the sticker backing away from the top and fold it back toward the bottom, making a nice crease with the wax backing and then, carefully line it up so it’s straight and stick it on. You don’t have a lot of chance to get this right so make sure it’s straight. If it’s really bad, you can try gently peeling it off and trying again but, if you do so, chances are pretty good, the sticker will lose its adhesion, you’ll take paint off the cabinet, or you’ll rip the sticker. None of these are especially good things to have happen.

Using a small hand towel or clean rag, you want to rub all the air gaps out of the sticker before continuing down the cabinet. Go nice and slow and make sure that it’s good and smooth before continuing downward. This is also a good place to have a spotter, someone who can hold the sticker in place so it doesn’t fall off as you rub it nice and flat against the cabinet.

Once you’re satisfied with what you have so far, continue to peel back the sticker backing, exposing only an inch or two at a time while also continuing to rub the face of the sticker to make sure it’s going on nice and smooth. Check for air gaps and only proceed with peeling more of the backing once you are completely satisfied with the way the part that is currently sticking to the cabinet looks. Continue doing that, working your way down the cabinet and when you get to the end, the paper backer will just come off. If you’ve done it carefully, there shouldn’t be much that isn’t already stuck to the cabinet so you won’t have to worry about air gaps. Just press the rest of the sticker down and then run your fingers around the sides to make sure it is on there and on there good.

Now, do the same thing again on the other side!

Next, carefully locate the five bolt holes on each side and poke through them with a small Phillips screwdriver. You can now put the monitor back into the cabinet and put the carriage bolts through the art and tighten them. Be careful when you tighten that you don’t over-tighten as you’ll twist the side art and possibly damage it. Reconnect the monitor to the board. You can even plug it in with the control panel disconnected if you want to make sure you still have a picture. This is a good place to stop and act like a dork in front of your machine by pretending there is a control panel and you’re actually playing a game. How did you do? Good, ok, let’s move on.

Tape the monitor shroud on again, if you removed it (a little double-sided tape on the top and bottom edges of the monitor should do the trick).

And, once you’re finished, it should look something like this:

Tap Plastics is Your Friend
Now, we want to work on the marquee, bezel, and control panel. First, if you haven’t already done so, you’ll want to remove the original plastic control panel from the wood control panel. To do this, you’ll need to remove the joystick ball by taking out the cotter pin and all of the buttons and the little bolts around the perimeter. This old piece of plastic will be your template for your new control panel. Take this piece, the bezel, and the marquee down to your local Tap Plastics and they can measure the pieces for you there free of charge and they will also cut them and drill them to order. Also, you’ll get lots of cool looks and a number of dumb questions about other arcade games from the employees and other Tap customers (actual question: “What was that game again with the frog in it where you have to jump across the road? You remember that one? Man, I loved that game!”) I guarantee it!

If you don’t live near a Tap Plastics, you might try their website instead or you could consider relocating to be near one.

For the marquee and the bezel, you’ll want to “sandwich” them between two pieces of plastic which, when placed together, approximate the original thickness of the original marquee and bezel. For the bezel, I got one piece of smoked plexi and then put the bezel art on top of that, followed by another thin piece of clear plexi on top. This will make it look like the art has been magically silk-screened to the smoked bezel.

For the control panel, have Tap drill the button holes a little bigger than they are on the original control panel. I’d recommend holes that are 1 1/8 inch wide. Also, you’ll definitely want to use polycarbonate for this piece instead of Plexiglas because polycarbonate is 400 times stronger than Plexi (according to the helpful people at my local Tap Plastics). Tap Plastics will make a template of your control panel and then drill all of the holes for you—three for buttons, one for the joystick and all the small ones around the perimeter that you’ll use to bolt the thing in place. They’ll even round the edges for you. Now that’s customer service.

Before you leave Tap, make sure that all of the pieces they’ve cut are actually the right size by measuring them against the original pieces you’ve brought in. Those dumb-asses work for minimum wage and they often make mistakes. If you catch it before you leave the store, you’ll save yourself a return trip and they’ll cut another piece for you free of charge (what, Doctor Mario’s time isn’t worth anything to you people?).

Making the Bezel
Go ahead and peel off the protective film on your two pieces of Plexiglas that you’ve selected for the bezel and then use a little Windex again (if you have any left) to make sure they are dust and lint free; be careful, though, as these pieces can scratch pretty easily.

Now, grab your Exacto knife and carefully cut out the inside of the bezel art. Once that is removed, you can place it on top of the black plexi. What you’ll see is that the artwork is actually too big. No big deal, just make sure it is centered and then turn it upside down and, using the smoked Plexiglas as your guide, cut off the extraneous pieces. Keep in mind that the bottom part will actually drop into the base of the cabinet a little bit so you might want to have a little more exposed on the bottom than the top. Once that’s done, sandwich it with the other glass and it should look pretty spiffy! Now find that bottom metal bracket that your dog has been chewing on and squeeze all three pieces into it (you might have to open it up a little bit with a flat-head screwdriver).

Since you’ve already put your monitor back inside, you can go ahead and drop the bezel in. It will be very tight on the sides but that’s what you want. It might scratch the inside black paint a little bit but you can touch that up once the bezel is installed. Once you get it in, it should drop back in place nice and snug and then you can push the T-bar all the way forward from the back of the cabinet and tighten the wing nut.

Marquee
You’ll follow the same steps to install the marquee. Place your thickest bit of plexi in the front, followed by the D2K header, and then your thinnest bit of plexi. If you’re light is working or if you’ve changed the light and the starter, it should look great when you turn it on. Now go ahead and put the metal marquee holder on top and screw it back down and you’re done with that part. Pretty easy, huh?

T-molding
Now is as good of time as any to get that new T-molding on. Start at the bottom of the cabinet and work your way toward the front. You’ll need a rubber mallet to hammer the molding into the groove so it will stay. Whenever you make a sharp turn, such as the right angle at the back of the cabinet, you will need to cut back some of the tooth so that the molding doesn’t bend and stays snug in the groove. Lots of light, soft taps are better than big ones, which might take a chunk out of your cabinet. You’ll know it’s in when the edge of the plastic is completely flush with the wood. To keep your molding looking minty fresh you can place a cloth between it and the rubber mallet.

Patiently work your way down the front of the cabinet, making sure you have it in good on the front curves. If it isn’t staying in the groove, you can use some glue to get it to stay in. When you get to the bottom of the cabinet, go ahead and cut off a little bit more than you think you’ll need for that last curve. Now, you’ll need to get that stuck underneath the cabinet. With some cabinets, this actually involves setting the cabinet down on its back but since the Nintendo cabinet is so light and already on a raised platform, you can usually get the last bit hammered in by tilting the cabinet up on one side (easier, again, if you have a spotter or lab assistant to hold it for you).

At this point, if you’ve been following along in your laboratory, your beloved D2k should look something like this:

Buttons, Buttons, Who’s Got the… Honey, where did I put the remote?
For a unique configuration, Dr. Mario went with a translucent orange button for the jump button and then moved the tops of two translucent orange buttons into the bases of two translucent blue buttons. If you don’t like this, just do whatever feels right to you, including keeping the original buttons, which also look nice, if they haven’t been melted by a cigarette. To swap tops and bottoms of buttons, just remove the cotter pin on the bottom of the button and switch the pieces; it’s just one piece of plastic and a graduated (magna cum laude) spring. Make sure you pay attention to the orientation of the spring when you put it back together.

Control Panel
You might find that you need to drill the wood control panel holes so they’re also 1 1/8 inch to go with your new buttons. This will also require you to move the wiring harness ever-so-slightly when you screw the leaf switches back on the bottom.

First, you will need to cut out the holes for the player 1, player 2, joystick and button on the control panel art (if you can get it out from underneath your fat relative). Once that’s done, go ahead and place your printed control panel art down on the control panel and center it so that it aligns with the holes on the wood. You can stick it down or just leave it free standing with the adhesive wax paper still on the back, which I did with mine, since you are going to cover it with the plastic control panel guard anyway. Don’t worry, it isn’t going anywhere!

Next, place your control panel guard down and line it up so all the button holes line up correctly. At this point, you can even put the buttons back in and hand-tighten the button washers to make sure the pieces fit together snug. Don’t worry if the art is overlapping a bit from underneath the Polycarbonate piece.

Using a small hole punch or Phillips screw driver, carefully perforate the control panel art beneath each of the tiny holes in your piece of Polycarbonate. Once you’ve made these holes, you can put the little bolts back in and tighten them up. Again, don’t over-tighten as that can cause the art to rip.

Now, get out your Exacto knife again and run it along the edges of the Polycarbonate piece to clean up the lines if there is any artwork that is sticking out of it.

Put on your joystick guard and joystick and you should end up with something like this:

Reinstall the coin door.

Put on your new instruction card sticker and coin door sticker and reconnect the control panel, slide it into place and lock it down.

Install your D2K kit
This is actually the most important part. So, if you haven’t already, now would be a good time to install your D2K kit. You can get instructions on installing the Brasington High Score Save Kit here and instructions on making the D2K modification here.

It’s Alive!
How High Can You Go? Doctor Mario wants to know, as long as its within the legal limits. Well, thanks for joining us for another turgid episode of Doctor Mario Restores a Classic. Hopefully you will get another 30 years of exciting game play out of your new game. If not, you can always stick it on eBay.

And, no, before you ask, mine isn’t for sale!

Kong says, “Don’t be a Scrooge. Order your D2K kit today!”

It’s on… like Donkey Kong? I just received the long-awaited “final release” of DIIK: Jumpman Returns, the homebrew Donkey Kong sequel from Jeff Kulczycki of jeffsromhack in the post yesterday. Wow, I’m loving it! Below is a video I uploaded to Veoh of the second time I played it; spoiler alert: you can see all the levels and intermissions if you watch it so don’t if you want to enjoy the discovery first-hand.

In addition to four new screens, four re-imagined classic screens and four intermissions, Jeff sent me an email that details all of the other enhancements he’s made along the way:

- Removed the taunt bug that awards points for jumping on Kong’s leg.
- Fixed the HELP! words on rivets level so that they don’t “flicker”.
- Prevent partial girder from flashing at the very top of Kong ladders when screen is first drawn.
- Fix Kong’s footing when he leaves with lady so that foot is actually on ladder while climbing.
- Prevent jumpman from dying on girders level when jumping through an “unlit” oilcan, ie before it’s on fire.
- Allow up and down movement when entering initials, allow wrap around feature from left to right and top to bottom.
- Make jumpman climb to the top of cement level to actually rescue lady.
- Fireballs shoot out of exploding oilcan on girders level for L=02 and on.
- Kong throws barrels more often on girders level (it’s still random, results may vary).
- Fireballs show up quicker on rivets level to avoid jumpman from making too much progress when level first starts.
- Change prize locations on L=02 (hat, umbrella, purse).
- Increased number of fireballs on rivets L=02 from 5 to 7.
- Barrels stay on screen until they roll off on Girders level. (Previously as barrel passed jumpman it “rolled away”.)
- Added new animated ending for Rivets level.
- Points for jumping barrels or smashing barrels or fireballs now “float” up before disappearing.

And my favorite:

- No more Donkey Kong kill screen coming up.

Sorry, Brian Kuh!

There is one minor issue right now that Jeff is trying to fix that doesn’t affect game play at all: when you go into the settings mode, the program will reset on some Donkey Kong boards due to a missing service routine. The good news is that Jeff has already put together a fix for this issue that is being tested as I write so don’t let this dissuade you from ordering your DIIK today.

Why not buy a kit or two and support this cool classic arcade game endeavor, even if you don’t currently own a Donkey Kong machine or the Braze kit. A DIIK will only set you back forty dollars, which is less than you’d spend on a new game for your next-gen console.

And, who knows, if Jeff makes enough money, maybe he’ll quit his day job to work on a DIIK jr. game? We can dream, right?