Repairing an Atari 1984 Paperboy Arcade Game Cabinet!
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- Опубліковано 8 вер 2024
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My first job back in the 80's after leaving school was refitting arcade cabinets. I would rewire old cabinets and put the newer game boards in them. Change out the artwork panel that usually came with the new game board. Test them and then drop them off at the sites. Spent a lot of my youth in arcades in the 70's and 80's. Got given a bunch of old black and white boards and parts by the local arcade while still at school and built a couple of working machines on the bench at home (Original space invaders and a lunar lander game I forget the name of). I went on to a carrer in telecommunications. A few years ago I bought a new machine with an emulator in it and now my daughter and I play the games I played at her age.
Very cool Michael, yes I worked for an operator who did kits in games too but it was later on, he had an entire back room full of Ms. Pac-Man cabinets he was hoarding, all still the original game. Must have had 30 of them all lined up perfectly, this was in 2008 or so, he still had them. That's cool you're able to share those games with your daughter you're raising her right! See you on the next video.
@@LyonsArcade was it Namco or the other version that Ms.Pacman was able to outrun the ghost, ? I can never remember
Sudden fond memories of my time working in coin-op Atari engineering (1976-2003). Thanks.
What a job, David! I'll bet it sounds better than it was, though at times :)
@@LyonsArcade Yep, a wild ride. The company (the coin-op division of Atari) changed its name a number of times while we were all basically sitting at our same desks and working in our same labs. So there's that.
I remember playing this and finally admitted I wasn't a good "Paperboy" when the screen went dark and the voice said "YOU'RE FIRED!"
I've got it on film that I'm not a good Paperboy :)
Same. I love it even though I rarely got passed 3 or 4 levels.
Great video and troubleshooting! I really love your format and your positive outlook. You always seem to go in a logical path and it's reassuring to us amateur vid & pinball collectors when we are working through our own problems.
Thanks John, I hate (which is very negative) all the videos on youtube where the narrator is hating on the older games, or criticizing things, drives me crazy. I also don't like the idea that it takes an expert to repair them. With patience anybody can fix these things, i've found people just don't want to put in the time to learn.
I never played this game but enjoyed watching the repair process. I used to work in the Newspaper industry as a Journalist. My Dad threw papers growing up. Funny how things turn out.
Life is full of coincidences, there must be some great plan somewhere, haven't figured it out yet though, but maybe one day!
Salute from New Zealand, paperboy w the handlebars from my youth played about 86-87 so good to See✌️✌️✌️🇳🇿
" I never went to school for this...". Maybe, but you have more practical knowledge than many people who did. Like the troubleshooting particularly, and the games are just fun.
Thank you Matt, that's very nice of you to say!
Omg this brings back some awesome memories! This game and Pole Position kept me broke every weekend!
Atari owned you!
@@LyonsArcade Proudly sir!
Awesome to see these old machines work again. Also the trouble shooting is very educational if you're interested in such things.
Thanks for watching, glad you enjoyed it... we'll see you on the next one!
Love the step by step troubleshooting you keep in the videos, even the oops moments. Keep them coming. Now a Subscriber.
Thanks King Muppet.... Mahna Mahna
I Love this arcade gem 😌
Atari golden years...
Yeah it really kind of was... their earlier stuff was legendary but this stuff in the mid 80's was what I remember....
That cabinet is so nice. Beautiful monitor.
I'm 16 so I obviously didn't have real arcades growing up but we did have a Paper Boy machine at my Cub Scout building. My dad was the leader of the pack so he'd take me there every weekend with my brother to clean and do paperwork but my brother and I just played the game the whole time. I love the arcade version and I hope that someday I can own an original cab.
Side note, I don't remember the speech sounding so robotic, it sounded much more fluent. Later revision maybe? I know the amp was broken at some point because the sound was missing 50% of the time, very quiet 49% of the time, and worked fine 1% of the time. I almost got the machine for myself but at the last minuet some guy took it, the the building was falling apart and everything was given away. I suspect the game was water damaged because it was below a leak in the ceiling.
Yes I'd imagine it had some water damage, but the truth is most of these older ones do! A lot of times they'd get left on the back of an operator's truck in a rain storm while he moved it or various other places it could get wet. That's cool you got to play one later on, this was a tough game to keep working so I'd imagine the sound had a few hiccups :)
Thanks for watching, and we'll see you on the next video!
That’s so amazing watching someone figure it out like that. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Thanks G, we appreciate the kind words, we hope people enjoy the thought process we go through when we're trying to fix one!
Really great vid, never seen someone explain it step by step that actually made sense the way you did. Given me a far greater understanding of using the schematics to fault find. Thank you! from New Zealand :)
Thanks for watching Tarus, we'll see you on the next video!
Who knew Tommy Lee Jones fixes arcade games 🤣
Damned mate - been there - have the scars (bags under my eyes really). Eventually ( It took me at least 1/2 a decade as an admin ) I have started to carry around in my pockets white electricians tape and black marking pen to tag everything - religiously. It cuts down on those "non-replicable" issues like you had - and it does wonders for my sanity ;)
There you go man, that's a good idea. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you on the next video!
I used to play this whenever we went to the local arcade when I was a kid!
Were you better at it than me???? LOL
Loved paperboy never knew there was a arcade machine of it. Super neat
That’s how it started, back in the day a lot of home games started as arcade versions.
If I remember correctly, CGA allowed for 4 colors simultaneously at 320x200 resolution and EGA allowed 16 colors simultaneously at the same 320x200 resolution. EGA could display even higher resolution than 320x200 (with fewer colors) if necessary. Great video by the way. Those classic game electronics are endlessly fascinating. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience with us my friend.
No problem Chris, see you on the next video!
yep but CGA/EGA/VGA are computer video standards, they aren't actually used with arcade some just use it as shorthand for "15khz line frequency". IMO the other term "standard res" is also confusing since it doesn't define the resolution exactly, e.g. Pacman/RallyX does 288x224, Galaxian does 256x224. and colors are all over the place too since it's mostly just a function of the palette RAM being used.
Double like! This game was a big part of my childhood.
Thanks Adam, but if you double like it takes the like away :) It's such a cool cabinet and game, wish I was better at it, might have to practice more :) See you on the next video!
It’s so satisfying to find out what was wrong with these and then fix it
Definitely! Thanks for watching Steve, see you on another video soon.
Watching two+ years later, no, I didn't see the playthrough first. lol
Great work!
I remember at the time how unique this game was! You had all the shooters, etc and here this odd game stood with a bike handle attached to it just luring you to it. I liked that at least initially it started out with a slow leisurely pace. A good game to finish on after all the highly stimulating ones.
Thank you for watching Erich!
@@LyonsArcade You’re welcome 😊
Love playing papper boy back in the days I use to have a paper route back in the days
Were you any better at it than me? LOL It's hard!
@@LyonsArcadeThat Video games was kind of hard when I have my paper route was easy remember paper boy was out for every home video game consoles I remember playing the arcade one the most bee Kool if arcade 1 up did really great replica of arcade cabinet of it
The +/-15 V values going into the opamp are the rails of the opamp. They are there to ensure the output of the opamp falls within that voltage range.
Thank you Mark!
Oh wow remember playing that age about 8 at the sea side in holiday ! Took 10pence coins I'm in uk !
Very cool they made it over :) I think a lot of the Atari stuff for Europe was built in Ireland!
You have helped my schematic reading SO well!
Thank You!
No problem Mike glad you enjoyed it!
+ - 15 (usually 12) is usually used by the op amp to drive hi and low on the output. RS 232 output standards back in the day before we all got lazy and loosey goosey about the rs232 standard.
I know it's not an rs232 chip but that's why a lot of the old op amps used + and - voltages because before TTL... those were the 1s and 0s. What is funny is they are clamping the output past r112 with the two 1n100 diodes. Into the ls04 inverter gates which they are using to clean up the signal into the ls00 NOR gate. They must have wanted to drive that oscillation pretty hard to do it that way!
I understood about half of what you said :) Thank you as always for watching :)
dang i played this as a kid WONDERFULL WORK
i miss the old days when gaming was social event in a big hall with a load of other crazy kids and a bag of coins .
Ain't that the truth! It's gone likely forever but you can keep the memories..... see you on the next video Twig Boy!
@@LyonsArcade yeah and people like you keep them alive see you in the next clip subs out m8 cheers
you are like the sherlock holmes of video game repair! I spent a year learning to troubleshoot and repair refrigeration and AC systems...that was simple compared to what you do...A/C=power, line, switch, load.......no chips or transistors involved!
Well you have to imagine, we only put up videos that we actually figure it out on, LOL There's a lot of people out there much more effective at it than I am. Thank you for watching though, we'll see you on the next video :)
I was trying to stay with you as were explaining(quite well) and diagnosing the sound problem,about half way through it it was doing my head in!!!! Another job well done mate. Now,where did I put those headache tablets!!
How do you think I felt, I was here in person :)
Great video, really interesting to watch. How you guys understand this stuff is beyond me. Thanks for sharing.
You just have to walk through it from the beginning, after awhile you start seeing the same things over again and you learn how to do it. You're learning too just watching, thank you for checking us out Nigel we'll see you on the next video!
That voice is the same as the one they used for Gauntlet. I keep expecting it to say "Elf shot the food!"
I forgot about that, haha you're right though! Thanks for watching!
Pinball is my thing,ain’t a machine made I can’t beat. Buddy of mine was an ace on Defender then graduated to Stargate when it came out. He played Stargate for 17 + hrs straight on 1 quarter at a Mr Donut,they were giving him coffee to keep him alert,didn’t know it at the time but he was less than 3 hrs from the world record,and was ahead of the the guys score time wise. We were also kicked out of a number of arcades in the area for playing to long,cops even said it the owners place he can ban anyone,we never even got our quarters back lol.
That's when you know you're winning at life, when you're so good at the arcade games they call the cops to kick you out, LOL Very cool man, I never was any good at any of them, even though I fix them. I'm decent at Galaga and Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat II but that's about it :)
One of My all time favorite games! Great video
I remember that game it was in the arcade room when I played it
Thank you for watching Ryan!
Nice one again. Thx!
Thanks again Bob!
Im so glad to have found your channel, we watch alot of vids from Todd over at Tnt, but they never really show the in depth work like you do, I enjoy aspects of both channels, so reminiscent of my teen years playing these games at the local arcade, thanks for all that you do to keep these classics up n running, Liked and full view, see ya in the next vid, Take care
Thanks Rome we appreciate that. Todd Tuckey is the grandfather of the arcade industry right now, he's the man! See you on the next video!
Stone cold classic! 📬🚲
It sure is!
One of my top 5 favorite arcade games... I loved this game. I would get wired up on Hawaiian Punch and play this..
For over Thirty Years Now, we've been feeling the crunch... from the funky fruit and apple drink called Hawaiian ... Punch! Those were the times, so 80's....
@@LyonsArcade The light blue can! Id have my Kangroo shoes on with the zipper pouch and an OP shirt... possibly vaurnet glasses tucked up over my vans hat... I so miss the Reagan era
Back in the old BASIC programming days I remember you'd program sound using the poke command and an address, like POKE(11).
Oh yeah I remember that, I took a basic class in 8th grade but have forgotten everything about it :)
I still have this game for the Commodore 64 on a cassette tape. It's pretty unforgivingly hard.
I don't know if I've ever seen one of those in the wild. I didn't even know it was an arcade game.
If I remember correctly, the op-amp amplifies the difference of the inputs to whatever gain it's set to. Negative 10 and positive 5v and no gain would be 15v.
Thank you Phil, I don't completely understand what most of the chips do, I appreciate the help!
@@LyonsArcade it's not very often that I can offer help so it's my pleasure if I can contribute anything useful.
Awesome ! Thanks for the vids .. I can't stop watching
Thanks for watching man, we'll see you on the next video :)
Too me it sounds like the early sound boards for the computers late 80 ties up to the first dedicated wave soundboards Roland and later Creative labs soundblaster sound Cards. And its correct on the Yamaha. I have had good expiriances whith soundblaster.
Keep up the good work 👍👍👍🙂🙂👍👍🙂
Thank you Oden Viking, I don't have any experience in the PC side of stuff but one day :)
Thats not a problem since you all ready has begun. Those arcade machines are in a way pcs due to there usage of computer parts and rams and roms. In the computer world we use a thing calld bios settings for hardware settings. But on your arcade games the bios is your basic test program. So in a sence the arcades are the earliest form of computers they are forerunners on graphics and on sound.
Keep up the good work
👍👍👍👍👍😀👍👍👍
Hi Joe, I am a really big fan of San Francisco Rush Extreme Racing. Could u make a video about that one maybe one day? Cheers from Holland!
Ask and you shall receive :) Have you seen this one - ua-cam.com/video/cA6tJXOS6M4/v-deo.html
Good job!
I'd love a 720 arcade cab, i believe the game engine was similar to Paperboy
Believe it or not, I've never had one in! Thanks for watching Chuck U!
20:58 Dare I say it's a Hokey Pokey?!? 😂
As soon as I heard that hissing noise, I went on "it's an amp... it's the damn amp!"
I recorded this almost a year ago, I can't remember... did it end up being the amp???
I mean it's fairly obvious he already knew but just padded the video to make it longer.
You’re a genius hoss.
Not quite but ain't we all gettin' there?
Love Paperboy. Art looks nice on the cabinet, but the paper in lower left being cut off just bothers me.
You really need the original controllers to get the most out of these old games. Tempest just isn't the same without a properly-weighted spinny wheel.
Dave ain't that the truth. There's something too about the weight of the cabinet that makes it different.
@Colorado Strong When warping out of a level, we always gave it a good spin and the momentum would keep it going as you flew down the "web," but I think the wheel on those little Arcade 1Up machines is a clicky type that only moves you one segment at a time and then stops. Where's the fun in that?
My Championship Sprint had very similar audio issues. One of the amps was also bad.
We test the left pokey we test the right pokey we test both pokeys and we mix them all about we do the hokey pokey and mess it all around that's what its all about.
In the thumbnail, I actually have my left hand in, I don't think they ever tell you to put your left hand in!
Mmmmmmm thT FM. Sounds nice
I know right ?
Awesome troubleshooting, subscribed
Thanks CS, we appreciate you watching! See you on the next video....
Nice Zappa reference there...one mo gen
The game was probably used with the f-ed up screen orientation since the day the LCD was installed, and probably only a few people noticed and nobody cared. I'll admit I was starting to worry that the screen offset would be overlooked here, but nope.
A gentleman informed me a few months ago that the color wasn't quite right too, it was over saturated.... so eventually this Paperboy broke again, and Adam brought it back. I've filmed another video of fixing the power, then adjusting the color better too so that video will be up on here eventually.....
@@LyonsArcade Nice. I was going to comment on the screen further, to question whether something installed presumably a while back would have a decent response time, relative to modern standards, but realized that if it absolutely must be 19 inches, the pickings are probably already somewhat constrained. Nowadays even a typical TV has good response time-an advent I waited ten years for.
It's a real problem, on some games if you put an LCD it absolutely screws up the timing a little bit because of the lag.
@@LyonsArcade Right. Maybe it's just because I made a semi-hobby out of these considerations, but if it were my project, I'd probably look into the model of that LCD screen and see what data exists on its response time. Good 19 inch gaming monitors do of course exist. Better yet, the game's native 512x384 conveniently matches typical native resolutions of 1024x768 etc. Could be the installer of the existing LCD took these into consideration. Could be they didn't care about such things.
I mentioned TVs before, but the irony is that with input lag anxiety being a thing of the past, other issues now pervade. For example, I got a Samsung recently, having tired of waiting for a better option (with HDMI2.1 for example). I had to discover for myself that Samsung TVs utilize two different types of dithering at almost all times, because not even the professional publications bother to mention or grade TVs on this point, even though such techniques lower effective resolution. I figured out how to force the TV to disable its crosshatch dithering, and I'm almost certainly the only person on the planet who uses a Samsung TV without crosshatch dithering. It has to be babied, or else the pattern will return. I created test images that anyone can use to know when their TV is using either type of dithering, or both.
jesus, all those electronics just to run paperboy lol
This one wasn't even all that bad, check out our videos on Daytona USA!
@@LyonsArcade If I remember right, at the time Atari had the notion of making a "system" game. That is, common hardware for a multitude of games. This to make production less expensive. I believe PB was using what we called System II hardware with a DEC T-11 chip as the processor. It was programmed using Bliss-11. I don't remember the other System II games but I'm thinking there weren't many. A skateboarding game is one but the name escapes me. Skate or Die.
Very informative video
Thanks Nick, we appreciate you watching!
Played "Paper Boy" a few times. I wanted to like it because it was kind of cool, but I only ever got past the first screen. It was too hard and took too much money to try to get good at it. It was one of those things that probably looked better on paper, but when they actually built it then it didn't measure up.
Oh shit, a Unibomber reference on an arcade game, unexpectedly dark (and based).
Yeah I couldn't believe they put that on there, LOL
So frustrating when you THINK you put in the good chip, but left the bad chip in. Good troubleshooting.
Yup! Figured it out eventually though :)
"Don't try to fix me..." 🗨😭♨️
I'm pretty sure that's TI Audio. Texas Instruments was an early innovator in synthesized speech.
That makes sense!
Such a classic game. Great to see an "original" and unique game and not a knock off. This and Tapper took much coinage from me. lol. Great video as usual, Thanks.
So you went to the school of trial and error also? Awesome.
The only way to fix anything is to break a bunch of things like it first :)
Alcohol and video games weren't married enough.
He replaced the Pokey and turned the game around. That's what it's all about!
And I put my left hand in... in the thumbnail
Joe..i have a paperboy with all original parts that works and i don't live far from rock hill...it does need some restoration, mostly cosmetic i believe...id love to have you work on it...
did a gd job on that one joe....your top fan :0 thank you for the video
Thanks Sas Farmer! See you on the next video!
I used to played it in a master system console, when i had one, here in br.
Very cool, we get a Master System in every once in awhile, it was a great system back in the day!
So cool!
We thought it was too :)
Oh man, there’s a good one.
We thought so too, Deborah!
CGA 16 color max resolution was 320×200 it could only display 4 of these colors simultaneously .
EGA graphics modes were 320×200 with 16 colors, 640×200 with 16 colors, 640×350 with 16 colors, and 640×200 with 2 colors, all drawn from a 64-color palette, It could use all 16 colors simultaneously.
I remember from the DOS days picking these options from apps and games.
Thank you for watching BRS!
@@LyonsArcade Of course, I love messing with electronics and fixing them. Would try to repair a arcade game if i came across one.
Check your device for an image stabilization setting!
I can add it on youtube but it always makes everything blurry....
15:55 Transmission from Mars commencing.
Great video! Thanks Ron!
Question, is it normal for the decal around the monitor to not be aligned across the bottom? Looks like it needs to be shifted right an inch or 2 as the mailbox looks weird and the far left newspaper roll looks like it's chopped. Asking for a friend.....
There's all kinds of other things wrong with it if you look really close. Life is like that too, the more you look for things that aren't right, the more you'll notice...
I am 99% sure i played a sit down version. Great game
That's pretty cool, I wonder if some operator got creative and put it in another cabinet?
Where can I play this machine? Is the arcade near myrtle beach? I’ll be taking a trip down there later this year
Yes it's at Players Choice games inside the mall at Myrtle Beach!
is there any way of getting a prefect color & contrast display one thise besides eyeballing it? is there any "hardwhere" that exist like for the pc, , would be kind of cool trying to create it :) then again i have no ifead how to hack a arcade without screwing up the rom itself :)
Not that I know of, you just have to kind of use the adjustments and the scales on the screen to get it as good as you can :)
A job well done 👌
Thank you Sally!
Ive never seen an arcade machine actually opened up, that motherboard is titanic!
Most of them aren't this big, this particular system used two big ol' boards.... the rest of them are about a third that size :)
@@LyonsArcade Still quite huge for relatively simple games, its amazing how much technology has progressed since then
That's a rare piece
We have a Paperboy that does not start up, it says 6502 communication error, have you ever had this and what did you o to correct it? I've tried several 6502 chips and that made no difference.
I have never seen that particular fault but a communication error would mean it's trying to talk to something else and can't, so it's probably one of the buffers on the schematics after the 6502 or maybe a bad connection between the two boards? I would search the forums on www.KLOV.com and see what others have said about it, it's probably a common issue.
Could you repurpose an Ega computer monitor?
Yes, you absolutely could. The main issue would be mounting it in the machine so it looked good...
so you couldn't convert to a SVGA 19" CRT monitor? a million of those around, it'd look closer than an lcd.
You could but usually when people put in an LCD it's because it's easier. I didn't put it in. Thanks for watching Chuck!
I still play this on mame
Are you better at it (I hope!) than I am???
@@LyonsArcade
Iv never got to the alien Joe lol
Your reaction look better than mine
Great video! I subbed!
Thanks Jimmy, we appreciate it!
@@LyonsArcade you're welcome! It's great to see how these things tick, not to mention bringing back fond memories of playing them.
Schematics Question: What do those bow-tie-looking symbols mean? (One of which made it into this video.)
I don't remember seeing a bow tie symbol but I think i've seen that on space invaders pcbs, I believe it just means a couple transistors are tied together, but I may be wrong.
they are an analog switch that is controlled by digital signals. It looks like they can change the volume of the Pokey chips marginally by turning on these switches (which would drop the sound level in 3 steps in this case.)
18:39 Headline on the paper in the lower left is "First Victim the Unabomber Kills." How in the hell did that make it out of the factory? Or did the previous owner mod that in replacing the bezel??
It's an aftermarket mod, the original game just had a blank bezel.
Joe's Classic Video Games ah, that makes MUCH more sense. Thanks, and love your channel!!
gREAT VID.
Thanks Cleric, I appreciate you watching :)
That’s a big board for an 8 bit game jeez
Yeah pretty wild! To be fair though this was pretty much the largest PCB ever in a game that I'm aware of. Most of them were still about a third this size though....
Joe's Classic Video Games I love watching your vids and the excitement of when they come back up and running :)
Hmm, is there no solution that utilizes and old VGA 19" CRT monitor? What does that converter output to, VGA or DVI? If VGA, why not hook it up to a CRT monitor?
You could hook it up to a VGA CRT but the problem you run into there is reliability. If the original monitor is in it, it's a brand and type that repair guys are familiar with so that's the BEST option... if you replace it with a VGA CRT then you're putting something in there that's 15 or 20 years old, but is some strange design that nobody in the world ever takes the time to fix... and if you did learn or work with it enough to repair it when it breaks (and it will eventually break)... your accumulated knowledge will never be used again since you'll never find the same brand of VGA CRT again.
What they're doing is putting a LCD screen in it that's brand new and is as simple as bolting it in. If it breaks, you can put another brand new one in to replace it.
So while I'd prefer it have the original monitor which is very fixable... they're putting a LCD in that's going to be more reliable long term than a Computer CRT (which haven't been made in at least 15 years)
my gawwwd play the damm thing!
Great game! Seeing this reminds me of the Road Runner game I also used to play so long ago. Can't remember, was that also made by Atari? Lets see what my Google-fu can find out...
Did I see Gauntlet in a response below?? Can't wait!! edit: How is the monitor wired to the board?
Those little boards allow you to wire the composite sync, ground, and r/g/b to them as an input then convert it to a vga signal out.
all that work to see an lcd in that cab, it hurts me so much.
I didn't do it :)
I hear it in your voice, you're not completely sold on LCD screens, I think, like me you prefer CRT any day of the year!...ya dont have to answer this!
I don't mind answering at all. I definitely prefer CRT's, this was a situation though where the original medium res monitor is hard to find so they put an LCD in it, I don't really blame them, it's just a shame because the original monitor probably could have been fixed but it is what it is! At least it's still working :)