Repairing/Restoring An Atari Star Wars Arcade

This is an ongoing series of videos showing my progress on rebuilding all the electrical components of a vintage Atari Star Wars arcade game. This includes rebuilding the power supply, the audio power board, the audio board, the MPU board, the display controller, the deflector board, the high power CRT board and other items.

NOTE: This is an ongoing series and more videos will be added to the playlist so be sure to subscribe and turn on notifications to receive updates of more progress.

Arcade Walkthru: Vortex Classic Arcade in Sherwood, Arkansas

This is a place that’s been on my list for awhile to visit. Here’s a short walk-thru, where I run into the owner. Very nice place and very friendly people, and the place is lovingly and meticulously maintained and decorated. Well worth a visit if you’re in the area.

Location: 4027 E Kiehl Ave, Sherwood, AR 72120

Additional pictures:

2022 Houston Arcade Expo Walk-Thrus – Pre-show, show and the swap meet

I finally got a chance to get back to the Houston Arcade Expo, one of my favorite pinball events. I’ve got a bunch of videos I’ve shot of things and here’s the first few.

Pre-show walk-thru
Opening day walk-thru
Saturday morning swap meet in the parking lot

Flippers Arcade, Outer Banks, NC – Arcade Walk-Thru

This was a very interesting, very special place to discover… take a look inside what appears at first glance to be a basic gas station/convenience store, but turns into not just an amazing arcade, but one of the BEST collections of pinball machines anywhere in the country. A real hidden gem.

Galaga Arcade Game – Can It Be Made Really Reliable? Yes!

Galaga is one of the most popular video arcade games of all time, but unfortunately the way the boardset was produced, it doesn’t seem to stand the test of time and last very long. The production used poor quality sockets and various hard-to-find chips that had a tendency of corroding and becoming brittle. It’s a real challenge to get an original boardset operating reliably without doing a ton of work, and even then, you’re never 100% sure.

As a result, this is probably one of the games that benefits the most from a “resto-mod” approach of adding a modern emulation board. I demonstrate in the video below how to do a non-destructive mod to an original Galaga game to replace the problematic logic boards with a 60-in-1 multi-card. The game can be restored to 100% original if desired because this doesn’t alter any of the core components. You can also add some extra games that use the same control scheme like other versions of Galaxian, Galaga88, space invaders, etc.

Behind the scenes: How much work goes into making the arcade games you enjoy playable?

It’s not easy maintaining a collection of games – there are always things to repair…. I thought I might take a quick walk through our arcade space and discuss what I usually do after a party and what happens to the machines and what needs to be done to the games to get them working for the next event. Some machines hold up; some break down. Take a walk with me and see what work needs to be done?