Starting out this Blog

Well, I'm new to blogging, but I've gotten lots of good information from other folks' blogs, and it seems like a good medium to track work that has been done. In that vein, I'm going to try to keep track of work I've done (or am doing) on the various machines I have in stock, parts I've received for repair, etc.

Since this is a new business that I'm doing in my spare time, I don't have a huge inventory of machines. Right now, I have the following:

• Williams Black Knight - Currently non-functional due to EAROM failure during burn-in of a driver board. Waiting for my next Digi-Key order so I can pick up some sockets and replace the bad chip. Really irritating, because I've now lost my all-time high score of 1.6MM
• Williams Jungle Lord - Picked this up off of eBay from a great guy in Florida who is moving to the west coast. Just finished cleaning and reworking the playfield. Ready to work on the electronics, but stalled due to the need to work on The Addams Family.
• Bally Dr. Dude - Not sure of the state of this machine. Picked it up in Dallas last month. Minor fading of the side art, but the playfield is excellent. Including Big Shot.
• Bally Twilight Zone - Just picked this up last weekend in Austin. Apparently has some problems, but cosmetically it's in excellent condition. Side art is beautiful with little or no fading.
• Gottleib Cue Ball Wizard - Picked this one up off of eBay cheap. DMD is missing and is very dirty, and in from Mexico (apparently). Playfield is in excellent condition. Cabinet is rather beat-up.
• Bally The Addams Family - Picked this up in Dallas last month as well. Cosmetically in excellent condition with minimal playfield wear with one notable exception. Magnet Burn. Four or five switch errors that I need to work through as well. Right now, I'm neck-deep in this one. I've stripped down the playfield completely and cleaned everything. I'm about to reassemble it now.
• Midway Space Invaders - Picked this one up locally. Cosmetically good, but currently dead. Itching to get into this one.
• Nintendo Donkey Kong Jr. - Picked this up in Dallas. In great shape and ready to sell. Just need to take the time to get it posted
• Midway Pac-Man cocktail - Picked this up in Dallas. Dead but complete. Spoken for once I get it fixed.
• Midway Galaga - Picked this up in Dallas a couple of months ago as a present for the wife. Didn't realize what a piece of crap the cabinets were... Plays blind.
• Midway Ms. Pac-Man - Picked this up in Dallas for its cabinet - to replace the Galaga cabinet above. Planning to part it out, as most components are in good shape, including the monitor. Not sure if I'm going to use the monitor for Galaga, or fix the Galaga monitor and sell this one.
• Williams Defender - I have two of these, one from Dallas and one from a guy in Kingsville, TX. The one in Kingsville had a few problems that I nailed down in short order. It's now rock-solid and up in my gameroom. I'll probably keep this for a while. The other one I picked up in Dallas was a basket case. The power supply 12V line went haywire and burnt all of the RAM. I fixed the PS, replaced the RAM and discovered the monitor was bad. Tracked that down to a broken ground trace. Currently the cabinet is being stripped down to be repainted. Stencils are waiting...
• Atari Millipede - This was my first purchase and was for my wife's 40th birthday.
• Nintendo Donkey Kong - "My" video game. One I had always wanted -- got it off of eBay here locally from a guy down in Richmond, TX. Unfortunately, it has the "Foundry" kit in it, which I hate. It's buggy and very annoying. I need to burn another set of ROMs for it and pitch those. I'm also considering getting a game save kit for it.

OK, I just went back and previewed what I have. So... I guess I do have quite a few games.

Anyway, as I mentioned, I've started a business, Wyer Arcade Services. I mainly do repairs on '80's video games and pinball machines. I'm getting up-to-speed on restoring '90's pins right now, and as I mentioned, am in the middle of a restore on a The Addams Family.