Updating my Atari Missile Command Arcade Machine!
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Date: 2022-04-14
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Comments and reviews: 10
TheCoolDave
Ah, arcade collecting, I have 5 machines. I restored an Asteroids, even found an ORIGNINAL side coin slot (so you put the coins in sideways, it was in poor shape, so I pulled it completely apart, re-sprayed it, polished all the coin parts, and put it all together, this machine I got as a empty cabinet, it fully works, but, missing the original back cover (have a smaller one that sort of fits)
And my pride an joy. I found a Hydra game on one of the forums 10 years ago, Any gamer would know it was a Star Wars cockpit, it was completely sprayed black, I went through step by step, stripping paint till I got the original art back (most is in good shape accept for a few spots, Found the correct wiring harness, and a 19- color XY monitor. all up and running. I was able to find the ORIGNAL 25- picture tube, and finally got the rest of the boards (parts needed, and going to take on that project soon.
I also have a System 1 cab, it plays Road Blasters, Marble Madness and Indiana Jones and the temple of doom (all the kits to play them) and a Ms Pac-man running a jr pac board (I have booth, jr pac is more challenging) and I also have a Crystal Castles.
My wife hates my collection. it's my passion. and a VERY addictive hobby.
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Ah, arcade collecting, I have 5 machines. I restored an Asteroids, even found an ORIGNINAL side coin slot (so you put the coins in sideways, it was in poor shape, so I pulled it completely apart, re-sprayed it, polished all the coin parts, and put it all together, this machine I got as a empty cabinet, it fully works, but, missing the original back cover (have a smaller one that sort of fits)
And my pride an joy. I found a Hydra game on one of the forums 10 years ago, Any gamer would know it was a Star Wars cockpit, it was completely sprayed black, I went through step by step, stripping paint till I got the original art back (most is in good shape accept for a few spots, Found the correct wiring harness, and a 19- color XY monitor. all up and running. I was able to find the ORIGNAL 25- picture tube, and finally got the rest of the boards (parts needed, and going to take on that project soon.
I also have a System 1 cab, it plays Road Blasters, Marble Madness and Indiana Jones and the temple of doom (all the kits to play them) and a Ms Pac-man running a jr pac board (I have booth, jr pac is more challenging) and I also have a Crystal Castles.
My wife hates my collection. it's my passion. and a VERY addictive hobby.
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Neal
I appreciate your attention to the finer details of restoring your Missile Command Cabinet. I am curious, as of 2022 what is your high score? Have you gotten skilled enough to beat the game? Back in the early 80s I never was very good at playing Missile Command, I am Tempest player, and have owned an original Tempest since 1983. In 1981, when Missile Command was still very popular in the arcades (at 50cents per game, I knew a couple of guys that were able to beat the game. From what I recall, they were able to play up to 800, 000s and the game would award the player with a massive amount of cities or something like that. They would get a couple hundred free cities that essentially allowed them to play forever. We never could figure out if David Theurer designed the game that way, or it was a bug. By design or a bug in the code, arcade owners did not care for it because it meant one skilled player would tie up Missile Command for a couple of hours. On the rare occasions when that did happen I doubt arcades lost any money overall; kids just played other games instead, except of course when we stood around for 5-10 minutes watching the Missile Command wizard clear screen after screen without ever losing a single city. :)
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I appreciate your attention to the finer details of restoring your Missile Command Cabinet. I am curious, as of 2022 what is your high score? Have you gotten skilled enough to beat the game? Back in the early 80s I never was very good at playing Missile Command, I am Tempest player, and have owned an original Tempest since 1983. In 1981, when Missile Command was still very popular in the arcades (at 50cents per game, I knew a couple of guys that were able to beat the game. From what I recall, they were able to play up to 800, 000s and the game would award the player with a massive amount of cities or something like that. They would get a couple hundred free cities that essentially allowed them to play forever. We never could figure out if David Theurer designed the game that way, or it was a bug. By design or a bug in the code, arcade owners did not care for it because it meant one skilled player would tie up Missile Command for a couple of hours. On the rare occasions when that did happen I doubt arcades lost any money overall; kids just played other games instead, except of course when we stood around for 5-10 minutes watching the Missile Command wizard clear screen after screen without ever losing a single city. :)
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David
I'm pretty sure they were just using the same coin mechanisms as were going into pinball machines. The last time those would have been changed was about 1965 when circulation quarters were changed to their modern copper-nickle sandwich design from silver and the weight changed (so the slug rejection mechanism had to be adjusted.
The coin mechanisms change less for many countries than you might expect, as many friendly countries have a coin of similar size and value to a US quarter. Canada has a 35 cent count almost identical in size and weight to a US quarter, but worth proportionately less (anywhere from 15 to 27 US cents during my lifetime. The UK has a 10 pence piece that is, again, almost identical to a US quarter in size and weight, and is worth something in the range of 18 to 22 cents US in recent years. (Things tend to be costly in the UK, btw. A vending machine price for a 500 ml Coke was a full Pound, which was about $2. 20 Canadian at the time I was there in 2005, more than the price of a 2 Liter bottle in Canada at supermarket prices now)
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I'm pretty sure they were just using the same coin mechanisms as were going into pinball machines. The last time those would have been changed was about 1965 when circulation quarters were changed to their modern copper-nickle sandwich design from silver and the weight changed (so the slug rejection mechanism had to be adjusted.
The coin mechanisms change less for many countries than you might expect, as many friendly countries have a coin of similar size and value to a US quarter. Canada has a 35 cent count almost identical in size and weight to a US quarter, but worth proportionately less (anywhere from 15 to 27 US cents during my lifetime. The UK has a 10 pence piece that is, again, almost identical to a US quarter in size and weight, and is worth something in the range of 18 to 22 cents US in recent years. (Things tend to be costly in the UK, btw. A vending machine price for a 500 ml Coke was a full Pound, which was about $2. 20 Canadian at the time I was there in 2005, more than the price of a 2 Liter bottle in Canada at supermarket prices now)
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Pokemanic33
I sincerely doubt I'm the first person to suggest this, but to recreate the -1 coin = 1 play- label, you could scan the pages from the manual (or anything really, be it the coin reject labels, stickers, or basically any other printed graphics) and trace them in a vector-based art program like Illustrator. By doing that, you could create (nearly) 100% accurate labels yourself to your own preferences without having to scour the internet for other people's recreations. For text, you could make sure to use the right one by using a font identification site like WhatTheFont so you don't have to cross-reference characters yourself.
Of course if you did this you'd have to seek out a specialized printer/service to get your homemade labels printed on adhesive paper, but it's still the route I personally would take as it gives me complete control over the graphics instead of having to find someone else's work that also matches my own preferences.
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I sincerely doubt I'm the first person to suggest this, but to recreate the -1 coin = 1 play- label, you could scan the pages from the manual (or anything really, be it the coin reject labels, stickers, or basically any other printed graphics) and trace them in a vector-based art program like Illustrator. By doing that, you could create (nearly) 100% accurate labels yourself to your own preferences without having to scour the internet for other people's recreations. For text, you could make sure to use the right one by using a font identification site like WhatTheFont so you don't have to cross-reference characters yourself.
Of course if you did this you'd have to seek out a specialized printer/service to get your homemade labels printed on adhesive paper, but it's still the route I personally would take as it gives me complete control over the graphics instead of having to find someone else's work that also matches my own preferences.
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Matthew
I've been rebuilding my empty Smash TV converted to a Killer Instinct 2 cabinet, sadly the cabinet was damaged and I got it from a local shop friend in town, into a MAME/JAMMA cabinet. It never had coin-op mech included, but I found someone with a midway coin-op mech and I was super excited, I also had to do some repairs to the entire assembly. But it was so satisfying after getting it to work and got the bucket installed. Nothing is even more satisfying than having a full-ish bucket as you mentioned for that metal coin action!
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I've been rebuilding my empty Smash TV converted to a Killer Instinct 2 cabinet, sadly the cabinet was damaged and I got it from a local shop friend in town, into a MAME/JAMMA cabinet. It never had coin-op mech included, but I found someone with a midway coin-op mech and I was super excited, I also had to do some repairs to the entire assembly. But it was so satisfying after getting it to work and got the bucket installed. Nothing is even more satisfying than having a full-ish bucket as you mentioned for that metal coin action!
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DecafToaster
They may be small upgrades, but boy are they satisfying to watch. As soon as you mentioned replacing the coin return labels, I knew the LGR logo was coming in! I love that reference/test chart on the back panel. Seeing it lined up perfectly through the electronics when you reinstalled it was my favorite part. I also gained some insight on how to play Missile Command. I had it on my 2600 but I had no idea how to play it as a kid and haven-t thought about it since. Now I wanna give it another shot!
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They may be small upgrades, but boy are they satisfying to watch. As soon as you mentioned replacing the coin return labels, I knew the LGR logo was coming in! I love that reference/test chart on the back panel. Seeing it lined up perfectly through the electronics when you reinstalled it was my favorite part. I also gained some insight on how to play Missile Command. I had it on my 2600 but I had no idea how to play it as a kid and haven-t thought about it since. Now I wanna give it another shot!
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Upcycle
If you dig up a screen print shop that does tee shirts and stuff they can do the coin button labels really well. If you can talk them into just doing the logo on the side, they can always place a tiny logo like this in a corner of a larger lithography screen and mask it off during the main print using tape. Often printers will mask off areas like this to do the simplest types of 2 color prints. It's a pain but they wouldn't need to fabricate an entire screen just for the one tiny job.
-Jake
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If you dig up a screen print shop that does tee shirts and stuff they can do the coin button labels really well. If you can talk them into just doing the logo on the side, they can always place a tiny logo like this in a corner of a larger lithography screen and mask it off during the main print using tape. Often printers will mask off areas like this to do the simplest types of 2 color prints. It's a pain but they wouldn't need to fabricate an entire screen just for the one tiny job.
-Jake
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SRGI
Fun Fact: General Computer Corporation(GENCOMP) is the same company who made the original version of Ms. Pac-Man, called -Crazy Otto-. Namco's distributor at the time, Midway, were growing impatient with Namco to make a sequel to Pac-Man to keep interest alive(this was before the Video Game Crash of '83.
Gencomp showed off Crazy Otto to Midway, who were so impressed that they bought the project from Gencomp and further modified it into what we now know as Ms. Pac-Man.
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Fun Fact: General Computer Corporation(GENCOMP) is the same company who made the original version of Ms. Pac-Man, called -Crazy Otto-. Namco's distributor at the time, Midway, were growing impatient with Namco to make a sequel to Pac-Man to keep interest alive(this was before the Video Game Crash of '83.
Gencomp showed off Crazy Otto to Midway, who were so impressed that they bought the project from Gencomp and further modified it into what we now know as Ms. Pac-Man.
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The
(Former printer tech here) If you're still looking for a good translucent material for your coin slot labels, you can buy matte projection sheets for inkjet printers in standard paper sizes that are perfect for this. I think they're also still available for laser printers as well, but I wouldn't swear to it. For best results, read the directions carefully, because it matters what side of the sheet you print on; if you get it wrong, the ink or toner won't stick.
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(Former printer tech here) If you're still looking for a good translucent material for your coin slot labels, you can buy matte projection sheets for inkjet printers in standard paper sizes that are perfect for this. I think they're also still available for laser printers as well, but I wouldn't swear to it. For best results, read the directions carefully, because it matters what side of the sheet you print on; if you get it wrong, the ink or toner won't stick.
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Steven
Now there is Missile Command Recharged on Mobile-it-s fun! Just found out about this game today. I also finally broke 10, 000 points in Missile Command part of Retro Atari Classics on Nintendo DS. you inspired me to play Missile Command on Nintendo DS. I have a Missile Command mini arcade from CVS Pharmacy bought in the early 2000-s. I would like Basic Fun to make a Missile Command Mini Arcade. I would buy that!
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Now there is Missile Command Recharged on Mobile-it-s fun! Just found out about this game today. I also finally broke 10, 000 points in Missile Command part of Retro Atari Classics on Nintendo DS. you inspired me to play Missile Command on Nintendo DS. I have a Missile Command mini arcade from CVS Pharmacy bought in the early 2000-s. I would like Basic Fun to make a Missile Command Mini Arcade. I would buy that!
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