Does Bob the Bot have a son? This episode is literally out of this world. Watch in HD and find out. Playing video games, music, family and robots. It's a Rock Dad life.

Thanks to the generosity of a collector who received a truckload of operator inventory, another 5 arcade cabinets have been saved from destruction. I turned a collector friend of mine onto these extra cabs so he borrowed my trailer and we went to pick a few up. He was only planning on 2 or 3 cabinets, but couldn't pass up 5 of them. Among those are a Stargate cabinet and dedicated Shuffleboard cabinet. I left with a Pacman trashcan and 13" monitor (thank you Keith) and the satisfaction of another batch of arcade cabinets that will live on. Can't beat a good arcade road trip!

I love some bumper pool. My grandma had one at her house that I played as a kid. It's basically a cross between pinball and pool, since there are bumpers and obstacles to shoot around. The earliest versions of this game were called Pin-Pool before they came up with the name bumper pool.

Every bumper pool I've ever played and saw did not have any lights whatsoever. When I came across this listing on Craiglist in the spring of 2014, it was listed as "needed electrical work" with no further description. I thought that was odd as bumper pool doesn't need electrical work, but I couldn't pass on the listing. When I showed up, I realized this was a piece of vintage history. The metal plate said Bally's Pin-Pool 1956, and had a coin-op which took 2 dimes. This was commercial, this was old, and I liked this. I took it home and proceed to fix it up. After some research the first few years of Pin-Pool had lighted bumpers, probably to keep up with the pinball concept. However, those lighted posts got pretty warm and to run electric to a pool table in a commercial establishment in 1956 posed some interesting challenges. Manufacturers pretty quickly ditched the lighted bumpers. To get my hands on a lighted table was an awesome find indeed.

It took a pretty old style bulb to populate the playfield. Its been that way for the last year and a half, and yes those light posts got warm. Recently while researching new LED styles for my pinball machine I found that there was a single offering of LED bulb for this older, larger bulb type. I took a chance and ordered them. I had to rewire the transformer in the table to accommodate the needed LED voltage. After all is said and done, these blue LED's glow nicely and much brighter on the playfield... and the light posts never get warm. Time to shoot some pool!

I love some bumper pool. My grandma had one at her house that I played as a kid. It's basically a cross between pinball and pool, since there are bumpers and obstacles to shoot around. The earliest versions of this game were called Pin-Pool before they came up with the name bumper pool.

Every bumper pool I've ever played and saw did not have any lights whatsoever. When I came across this listing on Craiglist in the spring of 2014, it was listed as "needed electrical work" with no further description. I thought that was odd as bumper pool doesn't need electrical work, but I couldn't pass on the listing. When I showed up, I realized this was a piece of vintage history. The metal plate said Bally's Pin-Pool 1956, and had a coin-op which took 2 dimes. This was commercial, this was old, and I liked this. I took it home and proceed to fix it up. After some research the first few years of Pin-Pool had lighted bumpers, probably to keep up with the pinball concept. However, those lighted posts got pretty warm and to run electric to a pool table in a commercial establishment in 1956 posed some interesting challenges. Manufacturers pretty quickly ditched the lighted bumpers. To get my hands on a lighted table was an awesome find indeed.

It took a pretty old style bulb to populate the playfield. Its been that way for the last year and a half, and yes those light posts got warm. Recently while researching new LED styles for my pinball machine I found that there was a single offering of LED bulb for this older, larger bulb type. I took a chance and ordered them. I had to rewire the transformer in the table to accommodate the needed LED voltage. After all is said and done, these blue LED's glow nicely and much brighter on the playfield... and the light posts never get warm. Time to shoot some pool!

Pinball. Visitors, online commentators, people that have heard, read or seen the arcade have all said at one point "Great arcade, where's the pinball?". "Well, I have a Baby Pacman." "Yeah that's cute, where's the real pinball?" I have tried. Seriously, I have had something like 7 pinballs over the years that I have tried to purchase and some scrupulous buyer offers more money and a seller breaks their deal with me. I have even been driving to the location several times, and a seller calls and breaks the deal with me while I'm on my way. I certainly have tried. Today that has all changed...

A nice collector offered up choice out of his collection of pinballs for a nice example of a Popeye arcade. This was a surprise for his friend in Afghanistan as this was their favorite arcade game to play in Mame. I had a nice Popeye with a high score/freeplay kit in it that I have owned for 8 years now problem free. After 8 years it was time to pass it down the line to someone who could get new enjoyment out of it. A deal and date was set, and he road tripped from Kansas with an Alien Poker arcade. We enjoyed talk, music, hanging out in the arcade until 3AM and finally the trade.
The pinball I chose was a 1980 Williams pinball called Alien Poker. Williams made such classics as Joust, Robotron, Defender, Sinistar and Narc. They are known for some of the best arcade generated sounds BITD along with fast paced action. Alien Poker not only has digitized speech, but utilized some of the exact sounds found in their arcade games. This pinball also has many LED upgrade much to my surprise. LED bulbs add a new layer of visual attraction to all pinballs, especially 35 year old ones. I had to move around 13 arcade games and the jukebox to fit the pinball into a prime corner piece of real estate in the arcade. I couldn't be any happier. Pinball has arrived. Its time for some silverball.

Atari as the gaming company that it once was ceased to exist by 1998. It name and has been bought and sold, but no longer as the innovator in the industry. However, if you don't know what an "Atari" is, then you either just arrived on this planet or you have been living under a rock.

Everyone with a couple of decades under their belt knows what an Atari 2600 is. An Atari 2600 is one of the first mass produced, wildly successful home gaming consoles that existed. Quite frankly by todays standards the sound is quirky and the graphics mostly laughable. That didn't matter. This was one of the first times you could play a videogame in the privacy of your own home with the family TV set. Your friends could come over and bring their game collection, or you could wake up at midnight and just start playing. It changed everything when it came to videogames. It most certainly paved the way for the next gen consoles such as the Sega Genesis and Ninteno NES, the latter which has survived up to this day.

The problem comes for those who still like to dust off their Atari 2600 consoles, plug them in and play some nostalgic games. Most people no longer have the family TV set, a tube TV which all had an RF connector for a display signal. RF stands for radio frequency and is where you would hook up the antenna. An Atari 2600 ONLY used an RF connector. If your lucky your brand new LCD TV has an RF connector but it will still result in a problematic and staticky display. This didn't matter so much when you played games on a 19" tube tv. It doesn't look so great these days though. The solution is to modify your console to use a more standard connection, in this case using composite audio/video signals (RCA outputs). Doing so will make sure your console will never output RF again but the upside will ensure that your Atari 2600 can hook up to almost every display device out there. You could build your own from readily available schematics or else purchase mod kits from a number of popular online stores. In this case I purchased an unassembled kit to install. Total time on this was about 2 hours from start to finish and does require you to drill 3 symmetrical holes to install the video connector, and both left and right audio connections. You will have to have soldering skills to solder wires for the mod board directly to the Atari 2600 main board and the composite connectors.

The end result almost looks factory installed and allowed me to hooked up the Atari 2600 to RCA jacks on an LCD. The video signal isn't perfect as this was a low quality signal to begin with, but it is definitely much cleared than the RF connection before it. I don't have before and after pictures of gameplay, but I can attest that my picture before was snowy and would go in and out from being clear to an almost unplayable siganl. This modification will ensure that yourself and generations after you will continue to enjoy the grandaddy of all gaming consoles, the Atari 2600.

Last time had a group of people out for a gameday, I noticed that the Galaga had a weird background color to it. The background looked bright or reddish, but the Galaga enemies looked like the red was missing. I was hoping it was a fluke. A few times in the next few weeks I turned on Galaga and each time I saw the same thing, bright or reddish background but no red in the enemies.

I finally decide to dig into the cabinet to see what was wrong. I was hoping the red CRT gun didn't go out in the monitor. That would have been VERY bad. Second and third worst case scenario would have been a bad flyback (by the brightness going to high) or a bad red transistor on the neckboard. In the picture below the neckboard attaches to the end of the CRT vacuum tube. Best case scenario I had a sticky red pot on the neckboard or needed to replace the red pot.

I tweaked the flyback and spun the red pots on the neckboard. Same picture. Darn. I noticed that if I turned up the red pot all the way the background turned some serious red color. That ruled out a bad red gun in the tube and meant that the red "wire" or signal wasn't making it to the CRT. Typically this means cold solder joints with the video connector. I unplugged the video cable from the CRT and replugged, same thing. Finally I pull the connections from the Galaga main board and replugged. The red color on the enemies popped back up on the video screen. Problem solved!

There must have been a bad or dirty connection for the red signal coming from the main board. I turned the game off and on again a few times to check. All looked well. I took the opportunity to adjust the mainboard voltage, it was low at 4.8v so I adjusted the power supply so it read 5v back at the mainboard. I also adjusted the screen brightness and focus (flyback) back to perfection. Finally, I took the opportunity to admire the new Galaga side art which I had applied 8 years ago. Since I have the games packed in you really don't get the opportunity to admire the side art on the beautiful machines. Game on!

If you haven't watched any of these before, this will be the one to watch. It features robots, virtual reality, an 80's style music video, Donkey Kong gets blown up and I shrink my boy. Watch in HD. Playing video games, music, family and robots. It's a Rock Dad life.

My wife facilitates the day trips for a group of summer camp kids. They have done baseball stadiums, waterparks, indoor playlands, city museum, opera theater, etc.

There is a video of when they came out last summer. If you have never seen it then you are in for a treat. The word "awesome" was probably shouted 30 times or so. You can view that video at https://youtu.be/2Rpwiyi0vyU

This years group of kids kept asking when they were going to get to go to the home arcade again. We finalized arrangements at the end of summer for them to be bussed out to the home arcade. While I don't have an "awesome" video this time around, I have plenty of pictures of all the fun. Enjoy!

 

This is a video walkthru of the basement arcade from 2015.