Over a year ago, I traded a Hogan’s Alley for a Pengo from Tim Hill (MudManTim). Like most of my “keepers” I planned on restoring it. I also try to complete all my restorations with a nice clean owners manual with the original schematics.

Sometimes it takes months to find a complete manual. Then in January 2009 LyonsArcade listed 100’s of manuals for sale over at KLOV. He didn’t seem to have a Pengo manual but I figured I’d contact him anyhow to see if he had what I was looking for. Must to my surprise, he had one which he stated was very nice and very complete. When I received the manual I was even more pleasantly surprised to find a very nice complete mint Pengo manual with a nice “4-color” cover.

How rare is this manual? I have no idea. Do I necessarily care? Not really. Just a very interesting piece of arcade history that I’m happy to have in my collection.

Full Color Pengo Manual

Front

Full Color Pengo Manual

Back

Standard Pengo Manual

Front

Standard Pengo Manual

Back

This past weekend I managed to scan the side-art of my two Exidy games. Those games being “Mouse Trap” and “Venture”. It really made me feel good that I’m doing my part to help preserve another piece of arcade history.

After I was done scanning them I stitched the scans together in Photoshop. I then sent the Venture Photoshop document off to Brian Jones of gamestencils.com so he could start vectoring the side-art. In fact, a couple of hours after I sent the file off to Brian, he already did a final pass at stitching the art, cleaning up the flaws and dropped the flattened document into illustrator and added his cut path. As you can see, Brian is ready to start vectoring the Venture side-art. Unfortunately, I will not be getting to Mouse Trap side-art for a week or two.

If all goes as planned, Brian hopes to have the Venture side-art screened by thisoldgame.com first and hopes there is enough interest in Mouse Trap side-art to have that done after. Stay tuned!

In January I let one of my restored games go for a an Exidy Mouse Trap and an Atari Asteroids. I’ve wanted a Mouse Trap for some time so I quickly got it to the basement so I could start detailing it and getting it into the lineup. After a short distraction due to another game, I was finally able to use the last few weeks to get Mouse Trap looking real nice and ready for the game room.

For the control panel overlay (CPO) I used a Magic Eraser remove all 30 years of dirt and grime. From there, I applied a few coats of Armor-All to give the CPO a nice sheen.

Before

After

The Bezel and Marquee are in great shape. Gave them a good cleaning a couple of coats of Novus Polish #2 and #1 and they looked almost new.

The coin door had some rust on the front so I sand blasted it and gave it a fresh coat of Krylon.

The white vinyl and the side art cleaned up very nicely with a Magic Eraser and a little naptha.

Before

After

Unfortunately after reassembly I was having some sound issues. I then discovered the interconnect cables which connect the two PCB’s didn’t have a good connection. I tried to repair the cable but ended up making a new set of cables. Not a pretty repair but between cleaning all the molex connectors with contact cleaner and the new cables the sound issues seem to be gone “most” of the time so still have a little troubleshooting to do but in the meantime I can play some Mouse Trap.

I must say, Mouse Trap looks great next to Venture!!!

I’ll continue troubleshooting the sound issues if it arise again. I also plan on repairing the base and putting a fresh coat of paint on it and replacing the T-molding. I’m not too happy with the original joystick so I plan on replacing it with a Midway 4 way leaf joystick or a 4 way Wico. But until then, I’m done with mouse trap for the time being but stay tuned for more.

Back in October I finally was able to play a dedicated Gottlieb Mad Planets and loved everything about it. I wasn’t very good but something about the game play that was very different from anything I have ever played. Even the wife was entranced by it, especially the rhythmic music and sound effects which very much surprised me. What surprised me even more was the comment from the wife asking “Why don’t you own a Mad Planets?”.

I knew I was out of space. I mean, I already have a restored Frenzy and a Ice Cold Beer in the garage that can’t fit into the game room (Not to mention, a very clean Asteroids that just arrived). But, the quest was on to find one and casually started looking for one. Thinking like most collectors there is “always room for one more”. Haa ha.

Coming up empty handed I started searching for an empty cabinet and parts. Located a few cabinets including a semi-complete Q*bert and some of the parts I needed. But, as many collectors have found out on their own that piecing a game together starts to add up fast so I quickly got discouraged.

Then I receive an e-mail from Jeff Rothe of Rotheblog.com that someone contacted him through his blog stating he was located in Wintersville, Ohio and had a Mad Planets that he was thinking of selling (crazy coincidence I’d like to mention). I quickly contact the owner (Ron) about the machine and after a few e-mails back and forth showing me photos of a very clean (I’d almost say near mint) original Mad Planets we finally talked on the phone. It turns out, Ron has owned the machine since 1984. He practically stopped off at the arcade every day after work to play “this exact game” then got the opportunity to purchase his favorite game. It was just time to part with his game due to some issues with the flight stick and it getting used less over the last several years.

As you can see from the photo below, Ron and his son were very good.

After coming to an agreement on the price I quickly mailed out a small deposit to hold the game. The game was located in Ohio, nearly five hours away so I had to act quickly before it was listed locally and snagged up. A few days later, the roads in Michigan and in Ohio finally cleared up so it was time to hit the road to pick my machine.

So, 600 miles, 12 hours, approximately 1-1/4 tanks of gas (almost running out of gas on the turnpike I might add), breakfast, 12 steps up from his basement, 7 steps down to my basement and a sore back a Mad Planets is now in the game room. I’d like thank Jeff for passing on the information, Ron for selling his favorite game and my buddy Dan for making the trip with me to pick it up.

Distance To Empty… “Zero”?

Serial Number: 20400. All the boards have matching numbers!

Original manual that came with the machine.

Many months ago Rich Sain (mxracer47 from KLOV) from Illinois listed some classics for sale including Exidy Mouse Trap, which was on my short list of games I’d like to have someday. Being that Richard was looking for a restored or a mint original DK Jr. and I was thinking of selling mine I figured I’d contact him.

Well, we never came up with a trade we could agree on (and I was getting cold feet letting my DK Jr. go) so the trade never happened.

Then in December, out of nowhere Rich contacted me again and offered up both the Exidy Mouse Trap and the Atari Asteroids he was also selling for my restored Donkey Kong Jr.

After a few phone calls back and forth with Rich the games arrived at my house in Michigan with both games!!! Rich was a great collector to deal with and hope we can do another trade sooner or later.

Stay tuned for more info on each of the games!