Star Tech Journal

AMOA Expo '89:
Las Vegas!
Bill Johnston
Johnston's General Store Video
Buffalo, New York
Amazing Things We Saw At AMOA
Elvira(live) to plug the namesake pinball by Bally. (We
saw 'em, we saw 'em!) King Arthur's Round Table,
Leland's kit conversion for a videogame cabinet into
a self-loading rotary! Jaleco's Big Run car simulator.
Video Reviews:
(If we didn't mention it, forget about the title)
SURE SHOTS:
WWF Superstars. American Technos. Ev-
eryone agrees this has legs and is a must
for the route. Crimeftghters. Konami. Eve-
rybody wants the 4-player version to
convert GaunUet. Two-player is a chip
change.
WORTH
A
SECOND LooK:
Dragon Breed. Irem. Horizontal, great
graphics. You can jump off the flying
dragon who will continue to fight for you as
you fight on the ground. ESWAT. Sega,
horizontal, takes Robocop's theme to the
extreme. Super Pinball Action. Tecmo. We
saw the Williams guys playing it! I liked it
and Sharon, the Vendress, liked it so it
must be a "B", but its ancestor wasn't very
hot in the cashbox. Still, something must
be said for a dual-monitor artificial pin that
even has a ball eject plunger! Xmultiply.
Irem, this space horizontal is a great R-
Type sequel and has incredible stereo
sound effects. 8-way joystick+ only one
button!
CAREFUL ON Tm:sE:
Mleel Of Fortune is loved by the ladies (kiss
of death for the cashbox?). We bought
Match 'Em Up (dog) for the same reason ...
Sharon liked the Motor Show pin with video
in the backbox from Mr. Game ofltaly, but
I'm not so sure ... Plotting byTaito is liked by
the ladies ... need we say more? Sly Spy by
Data East looks slick but this Rolling Thun-
der-007 style piece doesn't fill the cash pan
in early reports ...
Atari Pole Position
Microswitch Mod
Scott Blair
Borchardts Coin Machines
Amarillo, Texas
PROBLEM
The other day another Tech and I were sitting around
the ole' Nintendo cabinet campfire tellin' horror sto-
ries of the Atari Pole Position acceleration cable break-
ing and the torment of ordering a new one, and having
it break 2 days later! About that time an old salt, who
had been around during the great video depression of
the mid '80's, told me of an old wives tale of changing
the assembly to a microswitch instead. So, I went and
searched the great bibles of video history (S*TJ), but
nay, I didn't fmd a hair of it. If someone out there in
videoland knows of this great folktale modification,
please pass it down to this tired and weary tech.
SOLUTION
James Beck
Greater Southern Distributing Co.
Atlanta, Georgia
Hang in there, Scott, here's what you need to do:
1: Get a microswitch that has a fairly long
actuator arm.
2: Mount the switch to the pedal assembly
so that when the pedal is "floored" it makes
the switch. There are several places you can
do this, and one is about as good as an-
other.
3: Connect the GREEN wire, from the pot,
to the switch "COMMON". Connect the RED
wire to the switch "N / O" terminal. Connect
the BLACK wire to the switch "N /C" termi-
nal.
4: Play the game.
This modification will give you an all-or-nothing
speed control, but it eliminates the problematic pot
and cables, and the springs don't need to be in very
good shape either. If your like me, the all-or-nothing
control is just fme, because I use the shifter to
regulate my speed in the turns --so I don't loose the
RPMs.