STAR*TEcH
Journal
CD
March 1996
SF.I on
WILLIAMS DIRTY HARRY GAME SLOPE
CD-ROM
ADJUSTMENT FOR STEEP RAMP
Every tech tip, game mod, test
procedure, Mfg change, update,
upgrade, precaution, etc.
for,yirtuqlJyaU coin-op . games
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Every page (over 5,000!) of
STAR* TECH Journal
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Jonathan N. Deitch
Games Technician
Atlanta, Georgia
PROBLEM
The game was designed with a
steep ramp which the ball will
barely make it up with brand new
flippers or freshly rebuilt flippers.
Soon as they get worn (which
doesn't take long) you can't make
the ramp anymore and the game
is fairly useless to play. Most op-
erators don't like replacing flip-
per assemblies every three
weeks, so they keep lowering the
slope of the game as the weaker
the flippers get. This of course
screws up the REST of the game
play
CuRE
Replace/rebuild flipper assy's
every 3 weeks? Unless you de-
crease the slope, then yes. Rather,
it'd be replace/rebuild when they
get dirty and sluggish. On my
games, that's in three weeks due
to the game play. In a Dave and
Busters, it might be four days. On
a corner 7-11 it could be three
months. It depends on the ma-
chine and how much it gets
played.
Think operators will adhere to
that maintenance schedule?
Nope. That's why I think it
should have never been designed
that way in the first place.
CAUSE
The problem really isn't anything
that's fixable. It's a design deci-
sion that made the main ramp
steep enough that a perfectly
functional flipper will barely get
the ball to the top. As soon as that
flipper gets worn or dirty, enough
power is sapped so that the ball
no longer makes it to the top.
And there is no way around it.
S*TJ OFFERS INDEX DATABASE CREDIT
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for a limited time, credit for ob-
soleted previous editions of
any Index Database program to-
ward the purchase SU on CD-
ROM -16 years of coin-op info.
Full purchase price credit can be
applied to the purchase of SU on
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