Star Tech Journal

Winter CES Show:
New Type Joystick
Merit Premier Vide~
Dart Resistor Mod
Brian Sniegnoki
B & D Enterprises
Toledo. Ohio
Jim Kelly
Well, I finally get time to fill everyone in on all the new
products at the winter Consumer Electronics Show
(CES). As most of you know it's held in Las Vegas.
home of AMOA '89. The weather was sunny but cold.
high in the 40's. low in the 20's. I only attended the
show on January 7th due to a limitation on my time
and tried to see as much as possible.
Field reports indicate that a resistor may overheat on
the VideoDartDRT-950board. If resistor RB. (l0ohm.
2 watt). does overheat. it will eventually melt its solder
connections. Resoldertng the connections only tem-
porarily solves this condition.
Merit Industries
Bensalem. Pennsylvania
PROBLEM
In the game world. I saw the U-Force Controller by
Broderbund in the Nintendo booth. This is a hands-
off joystick which senses the players hand position,
motion and direction. This device looks like an atta-
che case but is only one foot square and one inch
thick. The device opens in a right angle conffgllration
or can be opened flat.
This product does not use infrared sensing as I first
thought and although Nintendo would not divulge
any secrets. I am now guessing this must be some
type of ultrasonic or capacitive sensor. At a list price
of $69. I'll buy one when they are released. (a summer
date is expected). and try to adapt one to our industry.
In other news. I had a chance to play some of the new
home games not yet released including Prisioner OJ
War. Even though it's not released to the home
market yet, (at least another month). I know opera-
tors who don't have one on their route yeti
I guess rm trying to understand this Industry. do
home sales spur Coin-op revenue. or do they hurt it?.
It's still too early to tell if post Christmas revenues are
down. Could home games be the reason for the higher
resolution monitors and faster graphics chips?
My opinion is YEP! The Coin-op Industry will always
have access to the best games. well. hardware any-
way. because we are still paying $1400 - $2300 for
P.O.W., while the cost for Nintendo P.O.W. is $169.
It's safe to say we could use a hardware system that
we would only have to purchase software for. I know
all you manufacturers are listening with a deaf ear,
except Nintendo which will say. what about the
PlayChotce 10. Hey Nintendo. does that system use
the cartridges from the home system or what?
SOLUTION
Replace R8 with a 10 ohm, 5 watt resistor. This part
can be supplied by your local Merit distributor as an
update at no charge. Contact your distributor and
have them call Merit Customer Service toll free at 1-
800/ 445-9353.
Nintendo VS
l"'s
Huni Bars
James Beck
Greater Southern Distributing Co.
Atlanta. Georgia
PROBLEM
When installing two conversion boards into the Nin-
tendo. dual monitor. VS cabinets. you get a very
noticeable "hum bar" that rolls through each moni-
tor. that wasn't there prior to the conversion.
REASON
Small differences in the sync frequencies between the
boards cause the magnetic fields of the yokes to
"beat" against each other (i.e. influence the deflection
of each other). This is due to the fact that the open
frame monitors aren't shielded from each other.
Shielding wasn't needed originally because the
"Main" and "Sub" sides of the VS board were run from
a master clock.
SOLUTION
~
Place a piece of heavy sheet metal between th.
monitors and make sure that it is well grounded to
both monitors. and that it has a direct line running to
the earth ground.