Madoc's Place - Classic Arcade Games

Last updated: May 10, 2006 - Added April 30 USAmusement Auction results!

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Classic Arcade Games:

The early 1980's were the heyday of the coin-operated arcade game. It seemed as though these games were everyplace, from the local mall to the corner convenience store. They were prominently featured in movies, television, even music! Remember "Pac-Man Fever"? It's no wonder then that as the "children of the '80's" begin having children of their own, the collecting of these classic games has reached new heights.

Unfortunately, many of these old games have been converted to other, newer games, or outright destroyed. Others show the normal wear and tear of 20 years of gameplay. Because of the age and condition of the classic games, most collectors must also learn to clean, repair, and maintain their machines. I'll show you some examples of classic games in need of repair, detail my work on these games, and provide a forum for other collectors to talk about their experiences. I'm a novice collector myself, so as I learn new information I'll share it here.

Be warned, the following pages are heavy with graphics. I will provide smaller-sized pictures linked to larger pics, and where appropriate I'll circle parts and provide information about them. Each page under "Madoc's Arcade" will have information specific to that game's restoration.

News:

May 10, 2006:

   I attended the Indianapolis edition of the USAmusement auction tour a couple of weeks ago. Took advantage of some downtime to get the pics and descriptions posted. I picked up a Cabal and a Wizard of Wor, while my accomplices absconded with Leland Quarterback, Baywatch and Solar Ride (both are pinball games, for the uninitiated). Bonus, there's footage of Scott S playing an unusual conversion to X-Men. I won't ruin it here, go check the auction out at the aptly-named Auction Page.

April 15, 2006:

    I'm getting really good at these once-per-year updates.. fortunately, I will be able to do a bit more with my 'hobby' now that I have a home which allows me space to work on them as well as play with them. Yes, finally, my gameroom lives! It's been a long road to get here. When I was in my 20's, I wasn't thinking about buying a house, that was something married people and spinsters did. Of course, later I came to realize the advantages of home ownership, but I was thinking of moving soon.. then I lost my job, and my grandfather, and some perspective. I've worked hard the last few years getting my life, my health and my finances back together again. Home ownership is certainly not the only visible result of my efforts, but it is the one I am most able to point to and say, "Here, I have accomplished something." You're here for pictures, but first a shout-out to the brave souls who helped me move the beasties from my apartment to the house: sherlockazulu, jon, dale, jefe, tm & brian, and of course, Budget truck rental. Boycott U-Haul!

   The pictures: By way of explanation: One is the game room as seen from the living room. As this is a tri-level, it's not easy to hide this area from view, but really, you'll notice the jet-engine fans of the Star Trek before you see anything else. Two is of the gameroom from the entrance of the room. Three is of the wet bar. Four shows off the fireplace and love seat. I found it odd they put a gas fireplace down there but I couldn't justify not having it accessable for use, plus I don't want games near it when it's running. I can entertain and not have to see the games from the love seat. We'll see how well that works out. Five is facing the games from the loveseat, with flash on. Six is the same location, flash off.

   Sadly, some things had to go in the move. I sold my Macross PCBs, the X-Men: COTA and Marvel vs Capcom boards, as well as Street Fighter 2: Hyper Fighting. Also gone are the Blasteroids and Star Fire games. Blasteroids was a no-brainer, but Star Fire? Why did I get rid of that? Frankly, it looked to be a real pain to get working again, and with this new house, ironically I have too many other things to get done without having that hanging over my head another few years. It's going to a good home, and I look forward to seeing the restored game on the newsgroups someday.

   I've done a lot of work to the games over the past 2-3 months, I'll document that in better detail after I've had a chance to get settled in here. Until then, happy hunting!

February 12, 2005:

     Five years ago yesterday, this website first came to life at a Sacajawea error page on Geocities.com. My, how it's grown! I hope you've enjoyed the ride as much as I have. I wanted to add a few things I thought of since the last update. I've picked up a few more games, sold some of those, and exercised some creativity. One of my latest acqisitions was a fully-working Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator cockpit, like the one I used to play at my uncle's as a kid. It is definitely a heavy bastard to move, but it fit (just!) through the door and in my dining room. I'm such a geek. Another great acquisition was Cyberball, the monster 2-monitor, 4-player version. That one IS too big to get in my apartment, I have to store it at a friend's place for the time being. I picked up two games at auction in the last couple of years - Cyberball 2072 (2-player) and Xybots. Both games were going for a ridiculously low amount of money, so I felt obligated to rescue them. The Cyberball game I turned around immediately on EBay - then spent the next 9 months waiting for the guy to pick it up. I re-sold it to someone who would actually pick it up in a timely manner. Xybots is a game I played a lot at the arcade in college. It was a third-person maze-style shooter that lost a lot of its appeal since Quake and Half-Life were released. I played it a bit, quickly became bored with it, then re-sold it. I finally managed to get out from under the non-working Dig-Dug cabinet I got as part of The Deal, sold it as part of a bulk deal along with a boatload of parts.

     Christmas 2002, I got really, really bored. There was some snow, I had time off and a shovel, so I created Snow Tron. Yeah. I KNEW spare parts would be handy to keep around for SOMETHING. The game was full-sized, took me an entire day to craft. Somewhere along the way I decided the best way to share my creation with the rest of the world was through EBay. Yep. I auctioned a Snow Tron. Want to guess how much it sold for? No, really, guess. $6100. The auction got coverage across the newsgroups and even on Blues News. I really, really wish I had the original text that went with it. I wrote it up so it sounded like a normal game but mentioned some water damage, it wasn't until you got to the pictures at the bottom that you realized it was a gag auction. EBay wanted about $100, which I got back in two weeks due to the item not being available at time of auction's close. See, there was this heat wave.. it all melted. I mailed the coin door and a bag of snow to the winning bidder, who sent me beer money. Here's some pics, enjoy! One Two Three Four Five.

January 30, 2005:

    It's been over 2 years since the last major update to this page. I hadn't realized how neglectful I've become of this site until I was modifying links for the Diablo II section of the site - now devoted to my other hobby, chainmail dice bag-making. Playmaille.com is the name, in case you're curious about what that's about. A little about what else I have been up to: I've done a couple of bulk parts deals, one in Atlanta GA and another in St. Louis, MO., mainly boards, marquees and sideart. The old Wiretap/Spies website was helpful in determining what various boards were, and EBay was especially helpful in disposing of the parts. I moved out of my house into an apartment, which makes it difficult to show, play, or work on the games I had. Here's a couple of pics of the place after I brought in items from the last bulk deal: One Two Three. So, as you can see I kept busy with other aspects of the hobby. I still intend to get into a house with a walk-out basement to put the games in.

    Sadly, the games collection will be missing the enviromental Discs of Tron game. It was a casualty of the move into my apartment. Through a comedy of errors, the barely-together cabinet front had it's footer ripped off, the top part of the game shoved through the rear window of a pickup truck as the game hit a partly-open garage door. NOT. MY. DOING. Here's a couple of pics: One Two. I ended up having to strip the cabinet. If anyone knows where I can get an empty EDOT cabinet in good condition, let me know. At least none of the parts that I had spent so much time and effort restoring were damaged! The billboard glass is quite intact.

    I've seen a lot of changes in the arcade-collecting hobby over the past 2 years. First and foremost, most all of the classic games that are out there to be found, have already been found. I'm talking about the great forgotten warehouses, not the singletons in the back room of the old pizza joint. The majority of the games that I am seeing at the local auctions are newer than 1990, and many are conversions from older games. The "nostalgia wave" that brought a surge of popularity to this hobby has spawned a host of products that attempt to solve the age-old problem of how to play the classics without having an entire arcade in your home. The MAME solution involves more arcade cabinets being converted - I counted 5 at the last Indy auction - though there are some companies that offer plans to build your own cabinet. The Multigame solution allows games that used similar boardsets and controls to reside in the same cabinet - a new daughterboard with the various ROM codes is attached to your, say , Joust game and voila! New games available. Finally, several of the console game makers have released compilations of classic games for use with XBox and others. I've played the Midway collection with Cyberball and it's faithful to the original.

    So, now that it is no longer necessary to have more than, say, 2-3 cabinets in your home to play every arcade game ever made, what is there for the game collector to do? Prices are falling for most games, as is demand, so those who got into the hobby solely for money are bailing out in droves, further depressing game values. I've seen pretty decent games like Joust and Galaga go for $200-$300 less at recent auctions. I've bought a couple games simply to re-sell them where I know they'll go for more. This is the best time to be in the hobby since the late 1980's, as the savvy collector can find good deals, and the available pool of working, restored games is greater and more visible due in large part to the Internet and of course, EBay.

    I came full-circle a few months ago when I repaired the very Star Wars video game that got me interested in the hobby to begin with, way back in 1982. Personally, I've found my actual interest in the games themselves to be waning, as the novelty of playing primitive games from my childhood passes. The true value of these games for me has not been in the reminiscing of times long gone. It is in the friendships, the reading, the traveling, the means to the end. Sometimes, what you experience during the journey makes the destination unimportant..

November 10, 2002:

    I finally got around to making pages for the Sept. 27. and Nov. 2 Indianapolis USAmusement auctions, and for the Nov. 9th Columbus OH USAmusement auction. You'll find results and pics from all those auctions at the above links.

    So what have I been up to these past months? Well, I moved the games out to the garage on Halloween and did the "Haunted Arcade" thing again this year. The first picture is with the flash on, so you can see what the games are. The second picture is with the flash off, so you can get more of the "full effect" from the lighting and fog. This year, I added a set of blacklights behind the game row for added effect. The kids loved the games, and plenty of parents came up to play as well, however there were slightly FEWER trick-or-treaters out than usual, which was surprising. Guess I just live in the wrong neighborhood!

    Finally, a bonus treat: I discovered what Billy Bob from Showbiz Pizza has been doing since being laid off - as a flag-bear for the Indianapolis Department of Public Works! Sorry about the blow-up of the picture but I was afraid if I got any closer I'd be mauled for spare change and cigarettes.

    After the Halloween festivities were over, I moved nearly all the games inside for the winter, so as to have enough garage space for the cars. Sometimes, it pays to be single ;-)

    Upcoming projects: Completion of the Joust pinball resurrection - no work done on it since last time, but since it's indoors now, I might actually get around to it. Re-build of the EDOT cabinet - I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't just junk the cabinet and buy a new one? I've re-worked the JAMMA harness on the horiz. JAMMA cabinet so it actually works properly again. Procured a monitor that may or may not be repairable.. if it can be fixed, it will go into the vertical JAMMA cab still in the garage.

    Don't forget to head over to the message board.

September 10, 2002:

    A few updates to be shared.. first, got the JAMMA harness re-wire completed on the horizontal JAMMA cab, and we're back in business. Discs of Tron has had some work done to it.. ended up with a really bad headache trying to get the monitor wonkiness straightened out, but eventually prevailed versus my own ineptitude. The new reflective material looks pretty decent, but I need to get a power sander to take to the sides in order to get all the residual glue off.. Goof-Off just smears it around and without a good sanding the surface remains too rough - the material looks dimpled when applied, even with the heavy plastic backing. I dug out the spare mirrorglasses and other front art materials and have those ready for eBaying at some point this month. Managed to burn out the lamp flasher again, turns out the LIGHT BULBS I'm using are to blame! Too high amperage or something, so once I get the correct bulbs, and replace the dead transistors, I'll be in business again. The gentleman I had been counting on to come up with some replacement sideart for the EDOT has parted out his trashed cabinet, so it's back to square one for me. A cabinet rebuild is definitely necessary for my game but without the new sideart, it will look like ass.

    Joust pinball - I received some replacement boards, plugged them in and voila... it worked, but the flippers would not activate. I was showing off the cabinet to a guest at a get-together at my home and managed to get everything working quite by accident, and we had a merry time flipping balls around the playfield until one of the light bulbs exploded - it helps if you put on the bumper rubbers before playing, I suppose. We shut it down, and I'll have to finish reassembling the playfield before I can play again.

    A lot of my time has been occupied by testing parts I've run across and eBaying them out, hence the lack of anything interesting to report here lately. I did manage to make it out to the Columbus, OH USAmusement auction last weekend, and have pictures and results available here.

July 2, 2002:

    The expected springtime event of working on games without fear of heat exhaustion has come and gone with little hope of being able to actually get anything done. Summer is in high gear, and has been since April here, so maybe in October it'll be cool enough to work comfortably. So here's a status report on what's being worked on:

1. Joust (vid) - worked but wouldn't save high scores, etc. Thought it was getting correct power, replaced chip, no luck, so finally broke down and bought another boardset for it. They're messier but do the job. Much later I discovered I actually wasn't getting the correct battery voltage due to a battery connector issue (damn Williams!) but too late - I had already traded the old board set for a new Galaga board set.

2. Galaga (mini) - had been DOA since the last set of boards I had repaired crapped out 10 minutes after installing them. Traded spare Joust boardset plus Galaga boardset for good working Galaga boardset. This worked, but the monitor picture was showing signs of problems (vertical deflection). Re-capped K4600 vert/horiz deflection board and replaced a couple of transistors and got it going again. Finally, all games in the house actually WORK.

3. Joust II - this actually worked just fine but I had the power supply out of it for so long I had forgotten I had put it back in again.. long story.

4. Joust (pin) - got the playfield back together for the most part, performed a flipper rebuild x4 (wow what fun!) and replaced a couple solenoids. Fired the game back up and got pretty twinkling lights. Hit the boardset reset switch and got error 9.. not good. Futzed with the battery connectors for a while and realized they were toasty. MacGuyvered a work-around and tried again, but then it wouldn't work at all. Definitely some loose connections in there, which I fixed for the most part. Currently in the process of re-doing all solder joints on both the CPU and driver board, and removing/cleaning all the socketed ICs (low voltage concerns). From what I understand, the System 7 lamp driver boards are so notoriously buggy there is a 3rd-party replacement for them I could install, but I would rather not do that unless necessary. The driver's resistors get HOT and smoke easily, so I may just find a known working board and "borrow" it long enough to determine the extent of my problems, should the other work I'm doing not solve the majority of my problems. This is a big disappointment, as I had originally been shooting for May 26th as a completion date for this project.

5. Discs of Tron - Yes, I'm still plugging away here, but until the end of the summer it's going to sit for the most part. It's currently down, in need of monitor cable re-wiring still. I've been working on replacement reflective material for the inside front of the cabinet - the original stuff was really scratched to hell - and have some ready to go. It's going to have to go on in 2 parts, so there will be a seam, unlike the original stuff.

6. The horizontal JAMMA cabinet (Double Dragon) - I gave away the DD boardset and had plugged in Tournament Cyberball, but the connector that was on that cabinet was crap and broke, so I'm awaiting a new JAMMA harness to be hand-delivered by Scott.

Other cool stuff - I found another collector with a Star Fire cockpit game! He's even got an extra marquee for it which I might be able to persuade him to part with. At the very least I should be able to get a good working scan of it to use as a reproduction for my own cabinet. I'm heading out to visit him and his massive vector collection sometime later this month, looking forward to it!

April 24, 2002:

Yet another disappointing US Amusements auction in Indianapolis this past weekend. I took 2 games from The Deal plus my ex-girlfriend's Pac-Man game, ended up with almost nothing, and 4 boxes of junk. Fortunately, a couple of beers at Chili's helped with my nerves afterwards - Thanks, Scott! Check out the full report on the Indy auction here. Don't forget to head over to the message board.

April 10, 2002:

Just to let everyone know - I am in no way associated with US Amusements' auctions, nor are the games pictured in the Auction pages of my site mine, except as noted ("MINE! MINE! MINE!, for example"). I occasionally sell my own games there, or buy new games for my collection, but that's the extent of it. I would have thought that was perfectly clear, but apparently there's a number of folks out there who think otherwise.

April 1, 2002:

I modified the Bad Conversions pages to add a Gallery of Horrors, for real, using some pictures and a description I found on USENET this morning. "The floor was a mushy paste of water, dirt, ceiling tile and insulation, the water didn't drain and so all the games were soaked on the bottom, even the ones not under the small 10-ish foot rusted roof area pockmarked with tiny holes." Muahahahaha! Check it out here.

Any good April Fool's stories to share? Stop by the message board and post one!

March 5, 2002:

It's time for those wacky Indianapolis USAmusement auction results and pictures! You may find the finished product here. Not the best auction I've been to, due to weather issues I believe.

Since the last update, I have managed to sell the Pole Position II game to an Illinois collector. Currently, Mata Hari works but has one flaky display, and I have received and installed a new sound board for the Flash pinball game. Discs of Tron and Joust are in various stages of being down (monitor and board problems respectively), and Galaga is still ill. When spring hits and I can keep the car outside the garage again, I'll be repairing those games and begin work on the Dig Dug upright.

After a long trip to Rockford, Ill, I have returned with my restored Joust pinball playfield! Come here to see the before and after pictures and all that nonsense.

Here is the grand unveiling of the new madocowain.com message board. The default board that my web host provided was plain and, well, sucked. This new board is based on the YaBB (Yet Another Bulletin Board) engine and is still being tweaked on my end. Don't be surprised if you notice some changes over time to the layout, colors, etc. there. In addition to forums about arcade game repair and sales, there are other more general forums, check them out! I do require you enter a valid e-mail address to register. This information will be kept confidential if you like, and serves mostly to discourage the spammers that have plagued my old message board.

Madocowain.com first opened February 11 ,2000 as a GeoCities page featuring pictures of odd marks found on the newly-released Sacagawea "Golden Dollar" coin. By February 16 I had added an arcade section, and moved the site to it's own domain in August 2000. I've gone from 3 video games to 9 vids and one pinball since then, and have posted photographs and results for 9 USAA arcade auctions in Indianapolis. Thank you for supporting this site by your visits, and by your contributions to the message board. I've met so many fantastic people through this hobby, and am glad to be able to help others with their collecting efforts.

January 22, 2002:

Unbelievably, it's been over 2 months since the last update here! I've been extremely busy, between the holidays, work activities, vacation, and of course, the arrival of some of the games from the Oregon Deal. I've updated a couple of pages and have added a "For Sale" secton at the bottom of this page. The Sinistar cockpit has traveled to it's new home, but in it's place I have acquired a Pac Man for my girlfriend, and one of my last Holy Grail games, Star Fire. The Star Fire game is in cockpit form, and powers up. The display works, though it is garbled, and the sound repeats the same thing over and over. This will be a project piece I work on once all my other games are ready.

I've received my Discs of Tron enviromental game, and boy does it need work. I managed to get nearly everything electronic working perfectly, and put one of JaysunTen's repro CP overlays on it. I'm waiting for the completion of the reproduction floor graphic to arrive, and the opening of our first Home Depot store, before working on the major structural issues this game has. I scavenged a replacement marquee and rear observation glass piece along with some other parts, so all I need is reproduction sideart to be made and I'm all set :)

See the Oregon Deal pages for more details, but I got a portion of the games from that haul and have already successfully sold about half the lot. For sale still is Mata Hari pinball, Flash pinball, Double Dragon, Pole Position II, and of course Dig Dug. Of the games that arrived, I am keeping two for myself: Joust and Joust pinball. I now have an Unholy Trinity of Joust! Muahaha!

I was unable to attend the January 12th USAA auction held in Indianapolis, but did manage to get partial results and some pictures. This auction was primarily a buy-back festival from what I understand. While I'm on the subject, let me caution people about using the prices listed in my auction section as a hard, fast amount. There is no sure way at this time to know whether each game was a buyback or not. Prices listed could be what it sold to another person for, or what the operator bought it back for. As a general guideline, if the price looks WAY too low, take that as an indication of it being a buyback. Click on this link to go to the Auction Pictures and Prices section.

November 18, 2001:

Yet another USAmusement Auction in Indianapolis! Here's the pictures and results for your perusal. Lots going on here at home as I have finally retreived my portion of the arcade games from the Oregon Deal. I will be re-working the Deal pages soon with accurate information about what is and is not available, as well as current photos and conditions.

September 17, 2001:

Please visit the Auction pages for the pictures and results from the USAA auction held in Indianapolis, IN on September 15th.

August 8, 2001:

Stop by the Omega Race Board Repair page in the Omega Race section to see some amazing pictures of what can happen to YOUR game if you've left the on-board battery in. It's not pretty.

I got a replacement manual for Galaga, and attempted to twiddle with it some more. Unfortunately, while I was successful in getting video to display, I was less successful in getting it to display PROPERLY. I am afraid it is beyond my meager skills to repair, and am attempting to locate a replacement video board, or get my current board repaired. Ugh.

Fortunately, my new toy arrived in time to keep me from feeling too bad about the Galaga development. I am now the proud owner of a Tournament Cyberball 2072 JAMMA boardset in good working condition. I placed it in my PacJAMMA (I need a better name for it, anyone want to help here?) cabinet and played it for a while. Only problem is, it's a horizontal game and the monitor is vertically oriented, so I had some neck problems for a couple of days. :) I will either re-orient the monitor specifically for this game, or pick up a horizontal JAMMA cab at the next Indy auction, September 15th.

July 25, 2001:

The Deal pages have been updated, they're chock FULL of good information about the major deal we scored in Oregon last month. There are many games we have up for sale, so please be sure to check them out. Also, stop by the messageboard and leave any questions or comments.

In other news, my Galaga mini is toast. I did manage to put in a new chip to replace the one I broke the leg off of last month at least. I cannot get the boards powered up, and am in the process of rewiring the PCB edge connector on the CPU board. Hopefully this can be fixed, my dad and girlfriend are both on me about it! It would go quicker if my Galaga manual w/schematics hadn't grown legs and walked off my dining room table. Damn cat's probably got it, trying to figure out how to install Mappy in there instead. I've secured a replacement manual on Ebay and should be receiving that soon. Also, I added some info to the Galaga pages.

The Omega Race boardset I bought has a working daughterboard. The mainboard is acid-damaged almost beyond salvaging. I have some pics, but not with me at the moment. It's ugly. I've never seen a silicon chip disintegrate before. Since a couple of the chips I had to cut off the board are $14 each, it may be a while before I do more work on it.

I found a Macross Plus JAMMA board, so I can now swap that in to the old JAMMA-formerly-known-as-PacMan cabinet as well. Here's a link to my Macross page. The Twin Eagle marquee and board is sold, and the Enduro Racer cabinet and boards have been donated to someone who will make a MAME cabinet out of it. I finally found an affordable Tournament Cyberball 2072 boardset. It comes with a JAMMA converter, so I can put it in my JAMMA cab.. but since Cyberball is a horizontal game and the cabinet's monitor is mounted vertically, I'll need to find another JAMMA cabinet at the next Indianapolis auction.

Speaking of Indianapolis auctions, here's the new schedule: September 15th, November 17th. Surprise, there's no auction in Indy in December, scheduled anyway. Check back at their site for updates.

Anyone want to buy some manuals? Here's the list: Breakout, Cloak & Dagger, Congo Bongo, Lights Camera Action!, Millipede, Ms. PacMan, Smokey Joe, Space Fury, Sprint 2, Super Breakout, Tempest, and USA Football. They're $20 ea., please e-mail me if you're interested.

July 14, 2001:

Sadly, I've been delayed on other projects, it's taken me this long to get some of the pictures up from The Deal. Scroll to the bottom of The Deal page, there's links for 2 slideshows. They're the same but one is for the bandwidth-impaired, the other is bigger, bolder and beautiful. Take your pick. Keep checking this space throughout the week. I will be putting up more pictures, descriptions of the games, a more detailed accounting of the trip in general, plus a "real" FOR SALE list. No, neither of the JOUST games are for sale, sorry. :)

June 20, 2001:

I'm BAAAACK... We did the Oregon Deal. The trip was hell. More later, here's The Deal.

June 12, 2001:

No more timestamps, I don't update the page frequently enough to warrant them now do I? :) This is but a quick update regarding what has been going on since last month:

BIG BULK DEAL!! I can't say much more for now except that my plane leaves Saturday June 16th and when I return June 18th I'll be the proud owner of a Joust pinball game, amongst others. I'll have LOTS of pictures, descriptions, and a healthy "For Sale" list posted shortly after I return.

I have several boardsets to work on. These were to be my summer projects, before the bulk deal materialized. One is a Discs of Tron upright boardset. I picked up a Squawk and Talk board on Ebay this weekend so one possible project would be to modify the boardset to handle the S&T board, and install the whole array in a Discs of Tron UR so that the lucky player could have the voices at least. Another boardset to work on is Omega Race. It's acid-damaged, so I will be spending a lot of time cleaning and restoring it. Since I have the mini-cab to test it in, when I am done it will be a solid, working board. I'll document that process and put it in as a sub-section of the Omega Race page. The final project involves the restoration of a Star Fire boardset. More on that, below. My Galaga game is giving me fits, I ruined a RAM (I think it's RAM) chip by putting it in offset by 1 leg.

I have too many projects! There's new locks, light bulbs, wiring harness equipment, cabinet stripping, Cyberball locating, game restoring, pinball learning to accomplish and not enough time and dedication to do it with. This bulk buy will essentially force me to take a couple of weeks off from playing Diablo II and get my butt in gear with these games.

Oh, here's the Bad Conversions page I promised you!.

May 2, 2001 3:00PM EST:

I've done a bit of re-working to the pages here. First and foremost, I've created a News Archive section to keep this page from getting too long. Every news item prior to 2001 has been moved there.

Second, I've created an index page for all the Indianapolis Auctions I've attended and provided pictures and/or results. It's at the bottom under Auction Pictures and Results.

The list of games under "Madoc's Arcade" has been modified to show my sale of the Gyruss/Time Pilot cocktail game, and the addition of my Twin Eagle/Super Spacefortress Macross and Enduro Racer cabinets. No sections for the last 2 games yet, unfortunately, but they're coming.

Speaking of Gyruss, I've updated that section. Can you believe it???

Also coming soon is the Bad Conversions Hall of Shame section I promised, mmm, back in January. The Galaga update is also in the works.. really! I'm not kidding! Stay tuned..

April 30, 2001 11:59PM EST:

Here's what you've been waiting for, auction pictures and results from the Indianapolis USAmusements shindig. Click here for the fun! Warning - there's 46 JPEGs awaiting you, and while they've been zapped to thumbnails there's still nearly 600K there, so allow them time to download. Click on the pics to see them larger and with better quality.

I've been neglecting the site lately due to procrastination and an unhealthy addiction to both Diablo II and Tribes II. I've cut back my time playing to work on.. my arcade games. I sense a pattern here someplace! At some point, the promised Galaga update WILL materialize, true believers!

January 18, 2001 3:00PM EST:

I posted a major update to the Discs of Tron section! There's many, many pictures detailing the condition of the game, as well as information about restoring this wonderful old hulk. I'll be posting updates to many of the other game sections later in the month, as I will be applying new T-molding and performing general maintenance.

January 13, 2001 3:00PM EST:

Just got back from the Indianapolis USAmusements auction, and have the results plus many pictures for you right here. My trip to Colorado went well, I got a lot done on the Discs of Tron game, and will have a complete update on it, Galaga, and Joust 2 soon. Quick status update - Joust 2 LIVES, I have a brand-new monitor ready to swap into it. The Galaga mini is sickly but a couple good thwacks on the side of the cabinet brings it around - a considerable improvement from before. I have new T-molding for many of my games, and I'll be putting together a page dealing with that. Sorry to keep the updates off, but life is busy and what spare time I've had lately I've needed to spend on stress-reducing exercises, like Diablo II.

Visit Madoc's Arcade:

Currently Owned:

Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator - cockpit. Holy Grail item!
Tournament Cyberball 4-player - Woot!
Joust - Part of "The Deal"
Joust Pinball - Currently undergoing playfield restoration. Working all the way!!!
Space Duel
Omega Race
Joust 2
Galaga
Vertical JAMMA cabinet
Horizontal JAMMA cabinet
JAMMA board: Magic Sword
JAMMA board: Super Spacefortress Macross
JAMMA board: Macross Plus
JAMMA board: Cyberball 2072
Not working: Star Fire (cockpit) - new acquisition, project piece

Formerly Owned:

Discs of Tron Environmental
Gyruss/Time Pilot
Twin Eagle - Converted Pac Man
Enduro Racer - Bought for $1 for parts
Sinistar - Cockpit, transferred to new owner
Mr. Do's Castle, Mr. Do's Wild Ride - part of "The Deal", stripped and sold for parts
Moon Patrol - Part of "The Deal", sold
Frogger - Part of "The Deal", sold
Spooks - Williams, EM gun game, part of "The Deal", sold
Cyberball 2072 2-player dedicated
Xybots

Arcade Auction Pictures and Results

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