Donkey Kong: The Re-Kongening

Not a restoration log… Maybe….a player’s revival log?

I got my first project cabinet a little over 5 years ago. It was a mostly-empty Nintendo cabinet with no monitor, a non-wide, unpopulated Mario Bros control panel and an incomplete power brick. I wasn’t looking for a project at the time and this one was bound for the landfill before it was diverted to my garage.

The cabinet was structurally sound - just missing some hard-to-replace stuff and victim to a few cosmetic scrapes and scuffs.

Got Project, Will Derp…

I was really unprepared and quite green in this hobby. While investigating the power brick’s completeness I almost electrocuted myself and welded kitchen scissors cutting through a cable inside the cabinet while the cabinet was plugged in. [dumbass]

Knowing I was short on available time (and frankly out of my league) I ended up slapping in an old Dell Optiplex tower running WinXP & Hyperspin.

Looking back, I think getting Hyperspin “just right” took more time than a full DK restore would have…

..and for years, that is how I left the cabinet. Mostly, people playing NES/SNES emulation and limited MAME on Hyperspin.

Two DK’s

In 2015, I ended up getting a complete but not working Donkey Kong. Still mostly punching out of my educational-weight-class, I bought it thinking it was a really-nice original cabinet. It had a 2-board boardset with a Nintendo logo silk-screened on the board, after all…

Over time, the fog of derpy-ness lifted somewhat and I discovered that the second cabinet was an ArcadeShop remake. ArcadeShop circa 2005-2010 sold these complete DK’s running DK boards in remade cabinets with a K7200/K7300 monitor (not the Sanyo EZ), a JAMMA harness and DKJamma adaptor.

The cabinets were really nice. The controls were a little generic but felt good. Nice & clean modern power supply. The only downside I could see was the blue on the cabinet was a big decal, not a real (thicker) laminate. Of course, you aren’t going to qualify for any world-record play on these cabinets but they were super nice, in all.

FWIW, Arcade Shop in 2019 still sells a hella-nice DK repro cabinet: http://www.arcadeshop.com/i/968/donkey-kong-upright-new.htm

I’m told that item picture is dated and they now have the full-laminate treatment now with speaker slats instead of the black speaker cover. Unfortunately, CRT’s are all gone so that kit includes an LCD.

At this point in the story, I had two blue Nintendo cabinets. One as a DK-Restoration in waiting with the Hyperspin set up and another with the reproduction JAMMA-fied cabinet.

I decided it was time to finally give the DK project some time.

DK Sit-Rep

I decided to let the perfectly-fine repro cabinet go to a friend, in service of Gameroom - cabinet density and as a mind-hack to start the timer on getting my other cabinet restored. Good friend gets a good game for a good price and I get a free-machine slot to work with, everyone wins.

My intention was to eventually use the DK cabinet for an OCD-level restoration. Re-laminate the sides, acquire some DK boards and wiring harness, power and the Sanyo EZ. Get an original control panel and restore it…

cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching (cash register sounds)

Donkey Kong is a $800-$1200 game. You can buy a nicely restored one for $1200 or you can buy one with authentic battle damage for $800. You … might… be able to buy something totally abused for less or you might be able to abuse your own character with an uneducated seller and offer more. They made ~80,000 of them.

If I go through the OCD restore, I’m going to be $2000 in parts alone and some of those parts are going to be tricky to get without buying another populated cabinet and furthering my DK-Gameroom-Density problem.

This is where the current (high) pricing on parts and games seems to really screw me on this. For the full restore I’d have > $2000 and countless hours in cabinet prep and rejuvenation….

All that I really want… is to have a good-enough looking cabinet, something that plays really well and looks original or original-adjacent.

I’d like to keep the price down b/c I tend to drop more in games than I sell them for.. Like the Star Wars Trilogy I essentially gave away last year..
If I keep that crap up, I’ll qualify for a 503c charity.

Also, to complicate things I find myself with a stash of NIB burn-free G07-compatible Korean-made pristine 19” CRT monitors w/ Samsung tubes. Well.. a modest stack of them, anyway. Do I really want to go pay an arm, leg and first-born for someone’s Sanyo EZ for the sake of originality alone?

Practicality > OCD

My success parameters are:

• A game that works

• A game that uses a CRT

• A game that looks good & doesn’t smell like a dying animal

• Play more Donkey Kong, become a better player

My rules of engagement are:

• No 60-in-1’s

• Don’t spend more than a DK should cost

• No 60-in-1’s

• Less than 40 hours of precious-fleeting night and weekend time

• No 60-in-1’s

Decision Time

Instead of going with a Sanyo EZ, I decided to use one of my spare CRT’s.

On the upside, this decouples me from the weird 100V stepdown stuff and the need to work with a Sanyo EZ restoration and I get to use one of my stockpile.

On the downside, it sort of informs the rest of the build. We’ll be going with JAMMA and a modern switching power supply..

Also downside, these are all horizontal frames, so I committed to a chassis-frame transplant as part of that decsion.

On thing that I didn’t mind splurging on…. The Control Panel. I wanted it to “feel” right from the player’s perspective.

I decided to go w/ a repro control panel from Mikes Arcade, a little pricey but includes a reproduction TKGU-23-50 joystick and a more appropriate button setup than the direct-click generic buttons you often see.

As a time and sanity savor, ArcadeShop sells a really well-built JAMMA harness that is nicely labeled and includes a reasonable set of connectors that are pre-installed and wire-management tabs for inside the cabinet..

They also sell a pretty bitchin’ little 20amp ATX-like power supply with matching connectors & flexible switching capabilities.

Not the cheapest offering for either but I’ve been running one of these power supplies for 3 years without issue in another game. The JAMMA Harness is a huge time saver and promotes some tidy habits in the game, also reducing the likelihood of a stalled project while I pay $10 in shipping for $.75c in connectors because of a shortage in my parts bins.

Monitor and power supply during the install.

I had to make some slight adjustments (drill new holes) to get a repro upper monitor mount to fit with this not-from-a-DK monitor frame. Nothing too nutty, though.

JAMMA-Adapted Boardset or Something Else?

For this iteration, ArcadeSD won my vote of confidence. I’ve been on an FPGA binge lately but I didn’t see a quick turnkey solution yet available with the quality of the Mylstar FPGA for Q*Bert or BitKit for Pac hardware. While emulation, ArcadeSD plays, sounds and looks really-really good for the Kong games and gives me the ability to do the multi-Kong thing and get DK1, DKJr and DK3 in the one cabinet. Side note: Timber, Tapper - are inexcusably poor on ArcadeSD. He clearly spent the time getting DK right. Like, really-really right.. Also as a bonus you get support for D2K and Foundry.

Yep, that’s the factory plastic on that CRT…. :)

The only real downside I’ve seen so far with the ArcadeSD is that the single-game-boot for DK isn’t compatible with the free-play cabinet-pricing options and they don’t have a simple “back out to menu” option in single-game-boot mode. The multi-Williams FPGA board in my Robotron cab, by comparison - can boot directly to Robotron (with free play intact) and you can exit out to a menu and select Joust, Defender, Bubbles, etc.. ArcadeSD doesn’t really work that way. So, for now, I’m stuck with it booting to a menu. Not the end of the world: it isn’t a 60 in 1.

I could see in the future if a solid multi-Kong FPGA gets released moving to that as a replacement. Less likely, I could give it the multi-board JAMMA switcher treatment that is in my MK4 cab. Though, the idea of a JAMMA Switcher and multiple adapters to DK Edge connectors makes me lean away from really wanting that level of PCB-purity. Because.. you know - no JAMMA Switcher/Adapter survives contact with the installation in a way that wouldn’t raise Purity concerns from the sticklers, anyway.

I’m not that stickler-y.

Other Stuff

I picked up a repro monitor overlay, marquee and instruction card from ArcadeShop and side art from Phoenix Arcade.

One corner I decided to cut: The blackout surround / bezel.

It was hard for me to justify ~$70 shipped for the Nintendo-like cardboard blackout bezel. The previously-available supply of plastic trim-your-own bezels with CRT curvature seems to have dried up. Instead I used black weed-cloth, staples and gorilla tape. Go ahead and send me hate mail. It looks great with the monitor overlay installed. And.. for $10- I’ll spend the remainder of my savings on an okay bottle of Whiskey and be much the happier for it..

Next Up, I’m going to work on the wood damage in the speaker slits and add the missing quarter instruction card. I’m thinking I’ll have to revert to paint instead of laminate for that touch up work unless I can find a source for laminate that isn’t $200.

All in all, though - as of this weekend I have a playable multi-Kong, so I’m a pretty happy camper.

Done-enough for a Guinness, finally got to spend some time on St Patty’s day putting some plays on the cabinet and new control panel. I’ll continue to whittle away at the cabinet’s idiosyncrasies and while I didn’t end up doing the full-on OCD restoration I originally planned, I’m feeling pretty good about where it sits for the investment in time and treasure to this point.

Which.. leads me to the last game in my game room that isn’t operational… Up Next:

Tempest…

Ms Pac-Man Progress

It’s nice when a full row of games is complete enough to power on and everything is playable..

This project Ms Pac cabaret came to me complete but not working.

So far, I’ve recapped the monitor, changed the top CPO, added a marquee light and new T-Molding. New Buttons, rebuilt the joystick and tumbled some of the metal.

Still, plenty of rust on the door hinge and the game counter that I need to address.

The game came with a full not-really-working Ms Pac boardset and original power supply.

I cleaned the original harness, boards and power supply and wrapped and stored them for future purist endeavors. To get the game going, I decided to go FPGA instead - Bitkit to the rescue.

Storing the original harness, PCBS and power brick in the bottom wrapped in plastic and brown-paper. I built up a power-block with a new 8-liner and isolation transformer and switched the game to a JAMMA wiring harness. I installed Ms Pac on the Bitkit and set it to directly boot to the game instead of a game selection menu.

The BitKit in action:

I still need to address rusty spots, the side laminate and the game could use a new monitor overlay.

All said though, it is running great with the Bitkit with only one caveat.

There are sync frequency differences between the Bitkit menu and the MsPac Rom.

I can get the monitor dialed in for one or the other but not both, so at this point it has little value as a multi-game, it is strictly a dedicated Ms Pac. The bitkit offers some choices for this, including reversing the polarity of the Sync through a jumper. I’m more inclined to blame this on the monitor than Bitkit, though. I’ll spend some time to determine the sync polarity and attack that problem more surgically in the near future. My guess is that I may be able to solve it with some combination of tweaks between V-Sync, h-Sync or sync-ground tweaks on the harness.

UPDATE 3/20/2019: Aaron (from Bitkit) saw this post and proactively reached out to me (because he is that kind of awesome). He confirmed that (paraphrasing him here) the Bitkit’s origins in Nibbler (Fantasy, Pioneer Balloon, Vanguard, Zarzon) so that the original menu was built with the Nibbler hardware in mind. There are some sync differences between the Nibbler hardware and the Pac hardware. He said he intends to release a future update (early May) to port the Bitkit menu system to the Pac hardware.

That said, in my case I haven’t spent a ton of time (aside from pot adjustments) experimenting with the the sync and grounds to see if I can get both the MsPac and the Bitkit menu dialed in equally. As I alluded to above the best I can do, today with the adjustment pots is to get the Bitkit menu w/ MsPac having a large g07-like curl on the right or I can get MsPac dialed in perfectly at the expense of the Bitkit sync.

I’m more inclined to believe this is an out-of-variance condition on this monitor than any real fault or weakness in Bitkit. Don’t take my report here as a strike against Bitkit - I’m extremely happy with the Bitkit board. It plays perfectly, boots fast and was super-simple to get running.

One of those situations where I triaged this to: “okay it plays great overall situation is good enough for now” and I moved on down the line to the next dark marquee in the lineup.. :)

I’m not sure about my long-term intentions having (effectively) three cabinets that will play Ms Pacman in some capacity but I’m sure this could be excellent trade bait for something else down the line, if it comes to that..

Namco 20yr Reunion

I saw this Namco 20 year come across the As Found / For Sale Arcade Group on Facebook

..and decided to take the plunge. Bob Cunningham is awesome and knows how to handle and grade game condition. Lots of pictures, arrived exactly as described.

The FryBack

Unfortunately in this hobby, stuff happens. After leaving the game on for a couple hours one night a friend looked at me quizzically : “What’s that smell?”

The Flyback became a FryBack. What was odd was it was a brand new Flyback (clear date code on it) but it certainly melted down.

I mentioned on a different Facebook group when asked how it was going that “the monitor needs a little love but it’ll be fine” and Bob reached out to the person that had recently rebuilt the chassis. They were both super cool about it and replaced the flyback, I was only out shipping and a little time. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting anything - this stuff happens. But there you go, solid people people solid. :)

Other Clean-up Items

While the chassis was away I took the opportunity to correct some other things w/ the monitor and other parts of the game. There was a ground issue coming into the chassis from primary A/C and some floppiness in the purity / convergence rings.

The rings were just floating on the neck and not really locked in place. I believe some plastic likely got brittle and cracked that was used to create circular tension around the neck glass. Hot Glue & High Temp Silicon to the rescue..

I also took the mail-off time to redo the control panel with a new CPO from Rich @ This Old Game. It turned out awesome as his stuff always does..

Also went back with a Pac-Pro 4-Way Leaf from Groovy Game Gear.

..Putting it back together..

Rebuilt chassis, re-adhered and adjusted purity / convergence rings and fixed chassis ground..

With the help of a little Wifi Endoscope and a cellphone, I got tack-sharp focus out of the monitor.
(Thanks to Nathan for useful tools as gifts!)

Done for now..

Just have to install the coin lock, replace the mech bulb and adjust out the controller some and we’ll call this one done, for now. :)

Wreck it Ralph 2, The Re-Wreckining..

Yeah, that’s not the real title. Get over it.
Spoilers within. Click away, if you care.

Wreck it Ralph hit on all cylinders for me as a family film. You’ve got arcade stuff, a heartwarming friendship and a story about finding a way to live in your own skin. Do we like going to work day in and day out? Do we like taking our the trash, cleaning toilets, & the general work of self-maintenance? No. These things are work and can be tedious and feel menial.

This goes for anything you do for 30 years'; even things you love.

The moral of Wreck it Ralph showed us that happiness can be found in sharing these menial moments with people that we love. With friends and family and loved ones that accept us for the people we are and often see us differently, more positively, than we see ourselves.

Wreck it Ralph 2 follows with a narrative about clingy-ness and co-dependency; about lying to friends about and general Pettiness. The movie has its moments but it is also a complete betrayal of the first, which I find unforgivable.

I played The VO1D Ralph Breaks The Internet Experience before seeing the movie and nothing was really spoiled in doing so. The V01D Experience was a 15 minute playable movie trailer for the 2 hr commercial that is Ralph Breaks the Internet. John C. Reilly is charming as Ralph and Sarah Silverman is ever-adorable as Vanellope. Gal Gadot is excellent in a role as Shank, an MMO racer analog to Vanellope.

Vanellope’s game breaks and there’s an ever-relatable scene for Arcade Collectors in that the arcade manufacturer is no longer in business and the replacement part is expensive - and on eBay.

Aside from this chuckle the movie explores Ralph & Vanellope’s relationship as they travel through the internet in search of the arcade part (or funds to buy it.) Ralph’s simpleton tendencies are turned up to 11 and Vanellope’s sweetness is turned down in favor of her own selfish pursuits. Ralph is over-controlling and Vanellope and Ralph are both dishonest to one another.

Logos! So many corporate logos!

Everyone’s a villain in a plot that mirrors the first in a frustrating way.

Imagine if - after watching Luke Skywalker destroy the death star and save the rebellion, the beginning of ESB showed Luke gassing up Death Star 2 and entering the coordinates for the new rebel base. In Wreck it Ralph 1 the tension is around Ralph leaving his game and the impact to the other characters in his absence that will result in the game being decommissioned. Here, Vanellope decides she is bored with Candy Crush and that it’s okay for her to just leave and be part of an apocalyptic MMO / GTA clone. They hand-waive it off will “they’ll never even miss me.” W. T. F.

The movie has math mistakes (27years vs 30years for Fix it Felix) and plot holes galore.. It’s as if someone at Disney asked Alexa to build them a movie script.

I give it two out of 5 Quarters. I preordered it on Apple TV as a purchase and should have rented, instead..

Micro Machines.. well... kinda.

With a few games leaving and after making some room in the game room, I started looking for the next titles to occupy the arcade for awhile. Going…. big on.. going.. small…

Finally ran across two Cabarets that I’ve been seeking for over a year. The first, is a project Ms. Pacman. It is “all there but not working”.

Ms Pac Cabaret (Project)

From the photos, I’m expecting to have to do some cabinet work, new laminate and new control panel overlay. Depending on the condition of the PCBs I may end up using a Bitkit. We will see what happens as I get into it…

Centipede Cabaret

One thing I haven’t actually owned in 5 years of arcading - is a trackball. Seriously. Kinda weird right? I’ve come super close to buying full-size Centipedes that come up nearby but the timing has always been off. This cabinet is working just needs to be cleaned up a little.

It is pretty cool that these cabarets use a 19” arcade monitor.

Excited to get to know this classic better.

Atari Star Wars Finds a New Home

After about a year of ownership, I listed and sold my Atari Star Wars Arcade. It was part of what was my “Star Wars Shrine” in the back of the room, comprised of an arcade, a pin and my home-made battle pod.

To determine which games needed to go I just looked at their play frequency over the last year, took into account their size. etc. In SQL Developer terms:

SELECT TOP 2 NAME
FROM GAMES
ORDER BY ACTIVITY ASC

I listed it on Facebook Marketplace and a few Arcade groups with the following pictures, highlighting areas of the game that have been fixed or should be fixed in the future.

Cabinet Sides

Video Walkthrough of Condition

Video Walkthrough of Game Operation

A buyer in Birmingham reached out and bought if. We met in person, went over the game condition and arranged delivery through Bob Cunningham on his way through here, heading North.

Getting the game pretty for its short trip North.

It was really cool to meet the game’s new owner and hear his story regarding seeking this title out. He is someone entering the hobby after looking for this game for over 20 years. His first game! Honestly, being exposed to the enthusiasm and excitement of someone entering the hobby a-new was a nice shot in the arm for my own hobby morale. Always awesome to meet cool people in this hobby.

RoadBlasters Hits the Road

I abandoned the idea of turning Roadblasters into an Indiana Jones after seeing the cost and rarity of the control panel and PCBs (and optional side art).
I figured I’d be about twice the asking price for a RoadBlasters into the conversion. Also, playing it in MAME - it seemed “Consoley” to me, so … Roadblasters went up for sale to make a hole..

It sold in about an hour on Facebook Marketplace.

The buyer went with Fastenal 3PL, so I palleted it up and brought it to depot. I’d.. forgotten just how heavy Atari cabinets were. Loading it on the trailer by myself was… strenuous.

Was really concerned the game might turn into a lawn dart if someone stopped in front of me. In addition to 1200lb tie straps, the pallet got screwed into the decking of my trailer.

It made it.. (woot!)

Done, and.... done.

Midway 12 in 1

I picked up a Midway 12 in 1 on Facebook Marketplace, recently.

What in the hell was I thinking?

Apparently, not “Impulse control.”

Well… in my defense, awhile back I picked up one of those retail Konami Vertical multis awhile back. These cabinets have super-bad reputations for being flimsy and.. bad. The thing is, the Vertical Konami variant has a pretty bitchin’ little cabaret-sized VGA monitor that supports a surprising range of resolutions and frequencies. Mine, pictured here in my upstairs closet, has an Pi-MAME config and is great for discovering and re-discovering classic vertical games.

So, I thought “Wouldn’t it be cool to have the horizontal cousin to this thing?”

(Maybe I was drinking?)

You know how like Picasso had a Blue Period?
Spoiler alert, maybe January 2019 was my Arson Period.

Well, KLOV is pretty clear on the Horizontal version of the cabinet but I didn’t listen. I figured - haters gonna hate, right?

https://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=409055

Well, the haters.. were right in this case. In my opinion..

The Problem:

The machine wasn’t really maintainable and of course it is cheaply made compared to commercial arcade cabinets. The colors were washed out on the monitor (cough: TV) and there are OSD menus you can use to tweak the appearance. The issue is adjustments and the IR Receiver are on the front of the monitor behind the plastic surround. As I started trying to get the monitor out of the cabinet to make adjustments, I was greeted with the fact that the numb-nuts that built the game, glued support blocks over top of screws. Screws… that need to turn… to get the monitor out..

So, I sat back and thought to myself…

”Self? “
”Yo!”

”Are you going to keep this cabinet?”
”Nope.”

”Self, you have $200 in it. If you sell it on Facebook for $150, you are already loosing money. “
”Right…”

”To feel good about selling it.. you really are going to obsess over fixing the display issue, right?”
”Yeah, that’s kinda how I roll.”

”And… how many evenings are you going to sink into that?”
”A couple, at least, from all appearances.”

”And… when you do sell it, what are the chances the buyer is high maintenance about the sell?”
”Chances are pretty good they are going to come out and talk me down to $100 and hassle me for support.”

”Would you .. PAY, $100 to get your weekend back?”
”Hell yes, I would!”

Decision Made.

The Solution:

Firepit. Meet P.O.S. P.O.S, meet Firepit.

Aftermath

Typically, not a wasteful person. I did pull the doors, parts of the side art, the game board, overlay and controls, anything I deemed as “potential wall-hanger” and plastics and metals. If you read this and need parts for your cabinet, reach out to me via Private Message and they are yours.

I noticed the cabinet sides reminded me alot of an over-sized bartop kit. I could see a far-away project of using them to create a MAME system or something. The monitor (ahem: TV) I pulled and may end up using with my Atari 2600 or as a tube-swap candidate for a cabaret down the road.

Ultimately, though - this was a gigantic waste of time and $200 down the toilet. That’s really, my takeaway. The next time I feel the impulse to pop on something cheap on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace, I'm going to think about this cabinet and my experience versus the value of my time and think long and hard on the question:

Just because it is cheap and convenient, should you really still buy it?

Probably not.

now.. off to go make S’mores…