I bought the Robotron cabinet used from an arcade in Pasadena that was going under. The guy running the place — I think his name was Dennis, or maybe Darren — he handed me the keys and said "good luck" in a tone that, looking back, was clearly a warning. I should have listened. I should have walked away. But the price was right and I needed a twin-stick game for the floor, so I loaded it into the truck and drove it home.
The problems started day one. The ROM had glitches — sprites rendering in the wrong spots, colors bleeding into each other, and there was this shape, this weird angular thing that would flash on screen for a split second between waves. It wasn't in the sprite sheet. I checked. I had a buddy who knew the board inside and out look at it, and he just shrugged. The monitor flickered constantly, like it was trying to communicate in Morse code. The left joystick drifted to the right no matter how many times I replaced the spring. I put an "OUT OF ORDER" sign on it more times than I can count.
Here's the thing though — someone always peeled the signs off. I'd come in Monday morning and the "OUT OF ORDER" sign would be crumpled up on the floor and there'd be quarters stacked on the control panel. The kids loved it. They loved the glitches. They thought the weird sprite was a secret boss. They thought the flickering was a feature. One kid told me the joystick drift made it harder and that was "the whole point." I couldn't argue with that logic.
That cabinet broke down every week. Every single week there was something new. My white whale. I should have pulled it off the floor a hundred times. I never did. When I built the digital version for this site, I brought the glitches along. It wouldn't feel right without them. That cabinet had a personality — angry, unpredictable, and absolutely determined to ruin my weekends. I miss it every day.
GALAXY ZONE ARCADE — MAINTENANCE LOG
Cabinet: Robotron (Serial: PAS-0773)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
03/12/89 Replaced joystick spring (L).
Drift persists. Tightened mount.
05/04/89 Monitor flicker. Adjusted V-HOLD.
Seemed to fix it. (It didn't.)
09/17/89 ROM glitch — sprite corruption
on wave 7+. Reseated chips. No change.
01/08/90 Coin mech jammed. Again.
04/22/90 Left joystick drift AGAIN. Third
spring this year. Considering glue.
11/03/90 Mystery sprite appeared on screen
for 3 frames between waves. Kids
think it's an easter egg. It is not.
02/14/91 Monitor died. Replaced capacitor.
Came back brighter than before. Why.
07/29/91 Joystick. Spring. You know the drill.
03/11/92 Full board inspection. Found nothing
wrong. Everything is wrong.
10/05/93 ROM glitch AGAIN. Exorcism??
06/18/95 Replaced entire joystick assembly (L).
Drift returned within 48 hours.
I am not making this up.
12/01/97 Monitor flicker + audio buzz.
Reflowed solder joints. Helped for
exactly one week.
08/22/99 "OUT OF ORDER" sign removed by
unknown patron for the 47th time.
04/15/01 Cabinet smells like ozone. Cannot
identify source. Added air freshener.
11/30/02 I give up. It works when it wants to.
01/15/03 Final entry. Unplugged for the
last time. Good riddance.
...I'll miss you, you miserable thing.
"That cabinet had a soul. A mean, spiteful, broken soul. And I loved every malfunction." — Sal "Pixel" Martinez
_____ | _ | | |_| | - Sal "Pixel" Martinez | _ / Galaxy Zone Arcade |_| \_\ Est. 1982