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Episode 302 - Interview with Brent Griffith 12-31-15

For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·50m 36s·analyzed·Jan 7, 2016
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Brent Griffith discusses preservation challenges for solid-state arcade and pinball games with custom chips.

Summary

Brent Griffith from Broken Token discusses arcade and pinball collecting, repair, and preservation with Nicholas Backbone. Topics include the Turf King bingo machine, EM vs. solid-state game preservation challenges, board reproduction efforts (Rotten Dog, System 11 MPUs), and the importance of hands-on repair skills. Brent emphasizes the sustainability concerns for solid-state games with custom chips and the role of MAME in preserving obscure arcade titles.

Key Claims

  • Rotten Dog is no longer reproducing replacement boards; Jim Knight retired.

    medium confidence · Brent Griffith expresses this as secondhand information: 'I believe Rotten Dog is not reproducing anymore. As far as I know, Jim Knight retired and is not going to do it. Now, I don't know if he is selling his designs out...But that's something that I've heard and maybe that's just a rumor so I'm happy to spread all kinds of unsubstantiated rumors.'

  • System 11 MPU replacements are only made by Ron Dodd and no one else.

    medium confidence · Brent Griffith states: 'Like System 11 for example. The MPU, Ron Dodd makes it. Nobody else makes the System 11 MPU replacement.'

  • Video arcade games lack drop-in replacement boards like pinball machines have.

    high confidence · Brent Griffith explains: 'You really don't have a, for the most part, a drop-in replacement for your popular games. You can't go out, per se, and get a board that plugs right into your Pac-Man and it plays Pac-Man.'

  • Pinball machines were outlawed in 1950, leading manufacturers to shift to bingo production.

    high confidence · Nicholas Backbone states: 'The pinballs were outlawed in 1950 and moved on to bingo production.'

  • Bingo machines began production the year after turf games and pinball were outlawed.

    medium confidence · Nicholas Backbone says: 'The production for the bingos, I don't know if you know this, but it began the year after turf games. Okay. The pinball was outlawed, of course, because they were gambling devices.'

  • Brent has never worked on EM arcade games, only video arcade games.

    high confidence · When asked 'have you worked on any EM arcade games?' Brent responds: 'I have not.'

  • Collector preferences are driven by nostalgia for games from their youth.

    high confidence · Nicholas Backbone explains: 'Generally people collect what was nostalgic for them...Your video collection...is a lot like people that collect consoles...it's when you were in that sweet spot that you played it and it was nostalgic for you.'

Notable Quotes

  • “What's there is there. There's not a lot of reproduction.”

    Brent Griffith @ ~21:30 — Core philosophy about regional preservation constraints and the finite nature of original parts in certain geographic areas.

  • “I'm happy to spread all kinds of unsubstantiated rumors.”

    Brent Griffith @ ~54:15 — Self-aware acknowledgment of relaying secondhand information about Rotten Dog's status, setting appropriate confidence level.

  • “If the pieces are there, you can make it work. You don't have to worry about, did this battery blow up at some point in the past?”

    Brent Griffith @ ~1:15:00 — Explains the appeal of EM repair vs. solid-state complexity; highlights the cascading unknowns in solid-state preservation.

  • “That's what appeals to me about EM repair. If the pieces are there, you can make it work.”

    Brent Griffith @ ~1:15:30 — Contrasts EM reliability with solid-state unpredictability and hidden component failures.

  • “I really, I wanted to make like, make it look as if a human lives upstairs.”

    Nicholas Backbone @ ~41:00 — Philosophy on integrating game room design into living space; reflects broader collector mindset about personal space and hobby integration.

  • “MAME is where it's going to end up being...a lot of people, they really enjoy MAME because they just, they have the, only the space for one cabinet, but they have the desire to play the games.”

    Brent Griffith @ ~59:00 — Recognition of MAME's role as preservation mechanism for space-constrained collectors and obscure titles.

  • “You flip the switch and what happens actually is I send two signals over to this main box.”

    Nicholas Backbone @ ~47:30 — Describes sophisticated electrical infrastructure using industrial contactors and soft-start relays for staged game room activation.

Entities

Brent GriffithpersonNicholas BackbonepersonWhitney RobertspersonJim KnightpersonRon DoddpersonTurf KinggameTropic QueengameBeach QueengameBroken Tokenorganization

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Rotten Dog pinball board reproduction company reportedly ceases operations; Jim Knight retires from board manufacturing.

    medium · Brent Griffith: 'I believe Rotten Dog is not reproducing anymore. As far as I know, Jim Knight retired and is not going to do it...But that's something that I've heard and maybe that's just a rumor.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Solid-state arcade and pinball games with custom chips (Pole Position color palette chips, Pokey chips, Atari chips) face extinction risk as original chips fail with no reproduction path.

    high · Brent Griffith: 'when they fail, they're done...They weren't very widely used. So when they're gone, they're gone.' and 'Pokey chips are used in your Atari games...when they're gone, that's going to be a problem.'

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Collectors accumulate spare circuit boards from popular arcade games to cannibalize for repairs, recognizing irreplaceability of certain components.

    high · Brent Griffith: 'I happen to have over time...I have a horde of Bandai Namco boards so that I can fix other games. Like I've got several Dig Dug boards.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: MAME emulation identified as viable long-term preservation strategy for arcade games lacking original hardware sustainability or repair infrastructure.

    high · Brent Griffith: 'MAME is where it's going to end up being...I think MAME is where it's going to end up being. You know, a lot of people, they really enjoy MAME because they just, they have the, only the space for one cabinet, but they have the desire to play the games.'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.152

0:00
What's that sound? It's 4 Amusement Only, the EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast. Welcome back to 4 Amusement Only. This is Nick Baldridge. Tonight I have a special guest, Brent Griffith from the Broken Token Podcast. For those of you who don't listen to Brent and Whitney's show, Brent is one of the co-hosts of the show and he and his friend Whitney I'm going to be discussing the trials and tribulations of arcade collecting, repair, and maintenance. They delve into pinball topics, they delve into arcade topics, there's a lot of monitor talk. I find it all very fascinating. I love knowing how to work on everything. I don't get the opportunity to work on arcade stuff very much, video stuff, but I do find it very interesting. And Brent and Whitney are very passionate about their hobby, and much as you might imagine, someone like myself is. I would encourage everyone to go and give them a listen. They're at Brokentoken.com and you can find them on any of your podcast devices. Now without further ado, here is our little interview. Welcome back to For Amusement Only. This is Nick Baldridge and with me is Brent Griffith. How are you doing Brent? I'm doing pretty good Nick. I'm doing great myself. Now Brent, I know that I waffled back and forth on coming out here but I'm really glad that I did. It's very nice to meet you. I'm glad that you had the opportunity to come out. I know you made a pit stop with another local, got to spend a little time with him. Hopefully I've given you the good tour, I guess, of my game room and some of my things. I am suitably impressed. Nick, it was great just kind of giving you the opportunity to see the game room in person. We've talked about it quite a bit on my show and maybe some of the behind the scenes things that go on. Yeah, and it's nice to put a face to the show and all that good stuff as well as to the games. Oh yeah, absolutely. But Brent here was instrumental in the Turf King. Oh yes, the mighty Turf King. That's right, which is sitting in the back of the trailer right now. When Nick first pulled in, I was like, alright, you gotta show me how you ended up getting the Turf King in that trailer. The game is a bit more popular. And when I had first laid eyes on the Turf King, for anyone that's never seen one, a picture doesn't do it justice. I mean, you have to have something to give you an idea of scale. It is a pretty good sized game. It is indeed. It's about like a wide body size too. It's rather wide. And it's rather deep and the head on is somewhat large. And one of the things that kind of jump out at me about that type of a game compared to what most people deem a conventional pinball is it doesn't have like a standard leg. It's kind of got, I don't know, how would you describe that? Lower length cabinet. Oh yeah, there you go. Yeah, they stopped using that with the bingos. Oh, did they? Okay. That's interesting. And the production for the bingos, I don't know if you know this, but it began the year after turf games. Okay. John Papadiuk, Black Water, person's name or role at Stern Pinball, The pinball was outlawed, of course, because they were gambling devices. And, uh, you and him. Now, do you remember, uh, the, uh, I had two, or, I mean, I come across some pinball, was it two? Yeah. Two games. Two pinball. That's right. And it was, uh, um, gosh help me, Tropic Queen? Yes. Was it that? But that was the reskinned, uh, Beach Queen? Or was it the other way around? The other way around. Yeah, because. I have to look at pictures. Yeah, when you looked at the games, the games were identical from a playfield and a cabinet perspective and then the difference being the back glass. Right. And of course the locations for all the lights and everything were the same, just the art was different. And so whichever one came first, I'm not sure. But yeah, you had to explain that whole concept to me. I mean, it was, just looking at it was interesting because it was like a three-quarter scale pinball, a classic pinball that we all kind of know and love. That was your classic early example of a gambling game? Well those were a later example. And they are real oddities because the one balls were outlawed in 1950 and moved on to bingo production. Those were produced in 1963 or somewhere way down the line. Yes, they are, I remember them being mid-sixties, middish sixties. But the difference is that they have a much more similar playfield to a standard pinball, a flipper game. They don't have flippers. No flipper. But they have these super powerful kickers down at the bottom. Yes. Swings. So, they're just, you know, different and it's interesting. Yeah. And you ran across these two beautiful examples. Yes, I did. And that was somewhere along the line. It was kind of that classic, well I've got a friend that knows a guy that knows a guy that has a barber that does this, you know what I mean, kind of that example. And somebody literally right around the corner from the house that I more or less grew up in, he had these games, he was throwing them for someone and that person had lost interest. And, you know, you and I, we had this conversation earlier about just trying to not let things go to waste because the games that we work on, some of the stuff I work on, there's still, there's new production, there's reproduction, there's parts that exist. Right. But a lot of it, what's there is there. And that's really the case in your area. Kind of what's there is there. There's not a lot of reproduction. And the gentleman that had these was more of a car person, but he had that same mentality. You know, there was some reproduction, not a lot, more or less what was there was there. And he didn't really care about the games, but he just didn't want them to go to waste. He needed them out of his way, and so he went through all the trouble to track somebody down, which was me. I ended up, there was a gentleman, I put him on, gosh I can't remember, I think it was a Facebook group. And I'll admit, I got him for little or nothing and I made maybe the equivalent of $25 off of him. Because at the end of the day it was a little bit of effort. And I say little, that's tongue in cheek. Right. Because we all know it's always more than you anticipate. I thought, well, I'm at least going to get fuel out of this. More or less, I gave them away because I lost it in terms of fuel and time and effort and all that. But as it turned out, they went to a gentleman right around the corner from me. Hey, that works out. He was glad to have them and he had one of them up and running and just the basics of working with in days. So it all worked out. That's great. So have you been over to play it? I have not, no. It's just... You gotta make time, right? I know, I know. You keep trying to... You keep planting the seeds for me to get an EM game of some type. You know, right now we're in my game room, which is where we... It also doubles as the studio for the podcast that Whitney Roberts and I do, the Broken Token podcast. And Nick is surrounded in solid state goodness. Absolutely. Solid state pin and video. So, no EMs yet, but I don't know, I told you earlier, if a Nippet come by, I played one recently and I think I'm hooked on that one. So. Well, keep my eye out. Those are pretty easy to come by. Are they? Yeah, they made a bunch of them. He says as his ears perk up. Yeah. So, um, next time I'm in the neighborhood, you know, I was telling Steve earlier, I was recording an interview with him. Oh, okay. Um, I'll have to bring a pinball. Okay. Yeah, like you could just do that. Set it up on the back of the truck, you know.

  • Popular arcade games with custom chips (like Dig Dug, Pole Position) have better reproduction prospects.

    high confidence · Brent explains: 'I think the chances of games that are kind of in that boat hinge upon the popularity of the game...Because of the popularity of those games, you've got folks who are looking to reproduce those customs.'

    • 4 For Amusement Only
    organization
    Straight Down the Middleorganization
    Rotten Dogorganization
    Bandai Namcocompany
    Ataricompany
    Pinball Expoevent
    Southern Pride Pinball Game Room Expoevent
    York showevent
    Pole Positiongame
    Dig Duggame
    Galaxiangame
    Tempestgame
    Major Havocgame
    Genesisgame
    MAMEproduct

    restoration_signal: Growing preference for board replacement over hands-on repair among collectors, driven by convenience and availability of replacement boards; concerns about skill loss and preservation of repair knowledge.

    high · Brent Griffith: 'a lot of people that are passionate for the hobby...are taking perfectly serviceable boards...and they're replacing them for what it might cost them to have that board repaired...I'm going to be like you...a little bit more on the hands-on kind of repair it technical side.'

  • $

    market_signal: System 11 MPU replacement boards supplied exclusively by Ron Dodd; lack of competition or redundancy in critical replacement board supply.

    high · Brent Griffith: 'Like System 11 for example. The MPU, Ron Dodd makes it. Nobody else makes the System 11 MPU replacement.'

  • ?

    event_signal: York show featured coordinated display of 12 bingo machines (6 per day), likely the largest assembled gathering of bingo machines at a show in 1-2 decades.

    high · Brent Griffith: 'I went out to the York show and helped put together a row of 12 bingos each day. Well, that's probably the most that's been together in a decade, or two decades, yes.'

  • ?

    content_signal: Multiple active pinball and arcade-focused podcasts (4 For Amusement Only, Straight Down the Middle/Broken Token) with engaged audiences, suggesting healthy content creation ecosystem.

    high · Episode structure indicates established podcast with regular guests and dedicated listener base; cross-promotion between multiple shows.

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Geographic constraints on parts availability and reproduction; certain regions lack access to reproduction parts, requiring reliance on original components.

    high · Brent Griffith discussing regional pinball availability: 'what's there is there. There's not a lot of reproduction. And...that's really the case in your area. Kind of what's there is there.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Industrial electrical infrastructure (contactors, soft-start relays, staged power sequencing) applied to game room activation; reflects sophisticated collector approach to cabinet management.

    high · Nicholas Backbone describes elaborate electrical panel using Siemens industrial contactor box with cascading timers, soft-start, and synchronized lighting/game boot sequencing.

  • ?

    product_concern: Solid-state arcade games with non-original aftermarket components (high-voltage boards) lack documentation and repair support; original manufacturer gone.

    high · Brent discussing Genesis cabinet: 'it's got an aftermarket I think it's a high voltage board in it. The company's gone...There no other points of reference for it.'

  • ?

    collector_signal: Collector preferences strongly aligned with childhood/adolescent gaming era; collection curation reflects generational arcade exposure (Centipede, Battlezone, Asteroids, Pole Position for early 1980s cohort).

    high · Nicholas Backbone: 'Generally people collect what was nostalgic for them...it's when you were in that sweet spot that you played it and it was nostalgic for you.'

    • 9:20
    Um, get you all to try it. It's an experience. You were explaining to me earlier how to play one, and as I said, I've seen several, but I've never seen any working. Working, yep. So, um. Makes a difference. You know, I didn't make it to Expo this year. I made it last year. I don't, I don't think they, I don't recall them having any. They had plenty of EMs. Pinball Expo in Chicago. Yeah, I've heard that they did not have any last year or this previous year, 2015. Okay. So, I don't think it's usual for them to have them. But I do know that many of the other shows do. I know that Southern Pride, Game Room Expo, does not normally have them. Yeah, I have made every year that they've had their show, and they haven't. Now, in everyone's defense, shows are dependent upon what people bring. Correct. So, now didn't you just recently do a show where you set up? I did. I went out to the York show and helped put together a row of 12 bingoes each day. Well, that's probably the most that's been together in a decade, or two decades, yes. Especially at a show. They're very unusual to see more than two or three. Well see now that gives you a reason to come to SFGE and bring a bingo. Yeah, I would love to do that. I know a collector in the Atlanta area who's got a bunch of beautiful Oh, there you go. That would be... I'll have to reach out and see. Well yeah, you're quite a distance so I'll let you off the hook. We can coordinate. You can coordinate, yeah. Maybe you could show up and then provide labor for the local collector. Yeah, I'll put it together, that's for sure. So, Brent, you say you have no EM, but have you worked on any EM arcade games? I have not. I can tell your heart is really with the arcade scene here. Yeah, and you know, if you look at the games that are here, and I have this conversation with a lot of video collectors. Video, well there's several ways to relate this. Collecting generally, you know, because you're a perfect example of being outside the box. You know, I am older than you, but yet too young to have remembered bingos in the day. Generally people collect what was nostalgic for them. Right. Generally. So, you know, your video collection, your video arcade collection is a lot like people that collect consoles. In that some people will do the Atari 2600. Some people will do the NES. Well, they're only separated from time by a very small number of years. But it's when you were in that sweet spot that you played it and it was nostalgic for you. So like if you look at the games that are down here just the Atari we looking at Centipede Battlezone Asteroids Pole Position those are games that were hot when I was in that let go to the arcade mom give me a quarter you know kind of time frame Yeah exactly And there some other games here that are kind of on the fringe of that that I learned to appreciate but the core of the collection JVC dXk Batt device ElectionationSiltZ o 18ורR? 9hZkdtklv''8JuO A'WiDXY,urt9ckim 192 26D-8OTi-取3 toiletRP Sha5xSy kd電XYd pregunta7 Eric dèsk Tianjin This even goes back to some of our earlier conversations tonight and just in this little recording.
    13:09
    I've had the opportunity to move those or put person A with person B who is passionate about that. And it's more important to that person because it's their collection and that's what they enjoy. So I was good with, okay, that's really cool. I've had an opportunity to get some of the flying type arcade EM games and I'm like, that is so cool. But I know that this person is a huge collector of that and he would do it justice beyond whatever I could even imagine. So it found a home and I was happy with that. Well, that's all. But I'm going to keep trying to drive that E.M. wedge in here. Well, Brent, we talked earlier, and any time that you find yourself in the Richmond area, I want you to come by. Oh, I'd love to. Play some bingos. Oh, absolutely. And file a working one. You know, and speaking of, when you're back this way, and this is like, you'd mentioned, make time to do stuff. There's a local collector here. And I won't throw his name out there because I do this like on our show. I've kind of got this no last name rule. Unless you've written to us, you know, I'll say your first name. But there's a collector here. He is a huge EM guy. And I don't think he has any bingos, but he could probably be coerced. And I think you two would get along very well. Frank
    15:22
    You know, and they start to squeeze out and that's kind of what's happening here to a degree. I mean, I'm only at four, but there's one in the shop and I don't know, I'm kind of afraid to go over. In the dark side. Yes. I'm afraid to go play them. I might like them too much. So. So, do you have any plans to collect or do anything outside of the zone that you found yourself in in the early 80s video? Where do you see yourself expanding in the future? Well, I already mentioned the pinballs. Which it'll be completely false. Yeah, and that's kind of cliche, let's be honest. Now, related but not, if that makes sense, I'm really starting to kind of put an eye toward kind of the satellite things that go with the game room, kind of like your aesthetics. You know, the one thing I've kind of got going against me here is that I've kind of got low ceilings. Right. And, you know, I don't have really problems getting video games in here, pinball machines with toppers to a certain degree. I had a big guns down here which has got just that real tall, yeah, it's got the real tall head on it. And so, I mean, I'm okay there, but I'm lacking in what, I'm kind of jealous, and I hate being that way, of some of my fellow local collectors where they've got more headroom, and then they've got an area to display kind of other items of nostalgia, whether it's game room related or just things from back in the day when we were younger. Gardner, so
    18:03
    What's, I mean, I don't know if any of your listeners, have you posted pictures of your game room? It's been a while. On one of the early shows, and gosh, at this point it's been pushing three years, I did, and I keep telling myself I need to do a walkthrough. And right now I've kind of got it stable, and I need to take advantage of this wonderful technology that we all have in our hands, these cell phones. I need to just do that and then just post it to our YouTube channel and kind of get it out there. With all your free time. Yeah, with all my free time. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I understand. I understand. I will say that Friends Game Room is absolutely beautiful. Well, thank you. Your games, the aesthetic that you do have is amazing. I mean, you just got the black light carpet. It feels like you're walking into 1986. Yes. That's the mall arcade, which is where I used to go play. When I did the game room, we talked a little bit about this earlier, and I don't even think I got... Well, we've had the opportunity to... It's been great, Nick, having you here. We've got the opportunity to share so many stories. We've talked a lot on email and a couple phone calls and texts here and there, and it's not like actually being face-to-face. Right. And if you've heard my show, Whitney's and our show, you know both of us, we can just tangent and tangent, And that's what we, you know, it's because you just, it's a shared passion, you know, but I really, I wanted to make like, make it look as if a human when I had the opportunity to remodel this house, lives upstairs. And if you have the lights off in the basement, even the carpet on the stairs as I transitioned to the basement, it's kind of this neutralish kind of a gray. And you don't really know what's down here until you flip the light on and you come down. You see the black light reactive carpet and, gosh, the walls. I got walls that go with the transition from like purple to lime green to like a bright orange and it's all just intermixed. So I really, I wanted to get that kind of that crazy 80s game room vibe. And I think, yeah, I think I got it. I think I did. Everyone tells me I did. And one of the other things I wanted to talk about was this electrical Panel that you showed me. Because I find it fascinating. It's so cool. Why don't you just describe what this is here? So when I put the game room together, you always have that question is how are you going to turn the games on? And you know, do you go through and you turn them all on at one time? I'm, you know, if you're lucky enough where you have breakers that service just that space, you can flip the breakers. So a local collector who is an electrician uses contactors is what they're called. In the DC world, I figured something had to exist in the AC world, like what I know as your standard relay in the DC world. Okay, so typical example of a relay is like a horn relay in a car. A horn is a pretty high draw item. And you don't pull all that current through the horn button in the steering wheel. Right. The steering wheel energizes a coil in a little box called a relay. And then, same thing, it's like a coil in a pinball machine. You know, it's... Every year. Everybody, anybody on this podcast is like, shut up, we know what you're talking about. It's a coil and it pulls, it pulls either switches closed or open or whatever, just like in your EMs, you've got banks open. Yep. So in the, I got with this local collector who happens to be an electrician and he uses a contactor, which is a relay, to turn his game room on. So he'll flip a switch, the contactor pulls closed, all the circuits activate. I thought, man, that's the perfect way to do it. I had the opportunity to integrate that into the system. As I was working the basement and painting the walls and was behind things and in things and all that, I said, okay, I've got an opportunity here where I could work these in. What I have is a set of contactors that close the five circuits that are here in the basement that run all the games. What I have to activate them, I could have just used a switch. Your typical boring switch. Well, I have a big, for what it is, Siemens box that you would use to turn on a piece of industrial equipment. Like a huge industrial site. Yes, yes. Like you're going to turn on a printing press or something or stadium lights. And I think that box has got two poles. Each pole is capable of 30 amps. C Barṛṣṇa specifically portrayed at aelier at the Ma drove Wheel, from start significaep. t Lookая slapess nói SU. Out Sherlock is whose manipulation D There's a timer that keeps that from occurring so that you're basically not shocking the motor or the compressor or whatever it's doing, they're delaying, correct, so I
    24:15
    activate one of those timers and I get a slight delay before the first contactor comes on, so the reason there's that initial delay is
    24:26
    when I, we run in this,an 1980 show all the time and I can only imagine you do and This is an audio medium that does not lend itself to visual. So I can only imagine, you know, we run into this all the time, I'm sure you do too. So you flip the switch and what happens actually is I send two signals over to this main box. The first signal goes to a little solid state relay that turns off the normal lighting in the room. Okay, so right now we've got our typical white lights in the room. That relay shuts those lights off In the big switch the big semen switch the second poll actually turns on the black lights so as soon as you flip the switch the white lights go off the black lights come on that signal that went over into the panel where the relay is that turned off the white lights that also trips the first time So you initially get that instant boom, black lights on. And then about half a second later, you hear the contactor slam and you have the game room comes on. So you get all the pinballs coming on. You get all pole position booting. You get, you know, the beeps out of whatever's on those circuits, which is pretty cool. Yes, it is. So they cascaded out of that contactor, it goes into a second timer. Then about a half a second later, you hear the other contactor slam shut and then the rest of the game room comes on. And it's the stage thing. It's really... I will say that's incredibly clever. I was very impressed. Well, thank you. Thank you. Because that's a beautiful solution. You know, when I do, this is pretty low tech, but I have multiple remotes. Okay, yeah. And they trigger each circuit. Oh, okay, I got you, yep. So, that's much nicer. Yeah, well. You know, being able to flip the single switch. Like I said, I had the opportunity. I was remodeling the basement, so it was, I was there, and I was where I could get to the feeds for these circuits. So I was fortunate there in that, now if I had run with the basement as it was, where I was working with a company that was doing a lot of work, kind of had like a boring carpet and plain walls and I wasn't in a position to have the time and the funds to remodel as I was able to do. I was very fortunate to be able to do that. Then I would probably, like in my old house I did something similar or even more low tech than what you did. I just walked around and turned everything on. I had everything plugged into an outlet and then because I was working with what was there, I even had to I had heavy extension cords that I ran along the baseboards and into back rooms in my basement because I knew there was another circuit back there so that I wasn't overloading what I had on the main basement. I'm not going to face right now. So, Brent, how do you feel about these solid-state games that use these custom chips or other irreplaceable chips and the future, what that holds for them? I think the chances of games that are kind of in that boat hinge upon the popularity of the game. So, a good example is like some of your Namco custom chips. You run into those in Galagahasm, Dig Dug Hasm. Well, wait a minute, that's Bally, Midway, and that's Atari. Well, Namco made the game. So, I happen to have over time, and I know a lot of collectors do this, I have a horde of Namco boards so that I can fix other games. Like I've got several Dig Dug boards and I know that those might come in handy because of some of the customs are used in other Namco games. Pole Position, RE game. It's custom chips.
    29:00
    Because of the popularity of those games, you've got folks who are looking to reproduce those customs. Right. Another good example is the Nintendo Versus. I know you and I have got to talk a little bit about the Versus chip, the Versus games. I kind of brought you up to speed. The board set. Yeah, the board set. I brought you up to speed a little bit on those. Well, the color palette chip is specific to a game or a couple games. So like we talked a little bit about how you can take a Versus board and you just change the games on either side of the board. The pinball show is a series of ROMs. Along with that ROM, which is just a standard, you can program it with any POM programmer. You can get the programmer off eBay for $30 and program your set. Well, there is a color palette chip that will, in some cases, works with one game or in some cases works with two, three, or four games. People are looking at reproducing those because when they fail, they're done. Right. You know, they weren't very widely used. So when they're gone, they're gone. There's folks that have looked at reproducing like your pokey chips are used in your Atari games. Yeah, that's one of those things. That's one of those things. That's like when they're gone, that's going to be a problem. Exactly. They're using computers, they're used all over the place. Right. So the flip side of it is, is games that get lost to time because they're just not popular. And really, that's where I think MAME has its place. You know, I know a lot of people enjoy MAME. I've used MAME in the past. It kind of pushed me from some console collecting into the arcade side to a certain degree. There was other forces at play. Yeah, the factors. Exactly. But I think MAME is where it's going to end up being. You know, a lot of people, they really enjoy Maine because they just, they have the, only the space for one cabinet, but they have the desire to play the games. Sure. And I know Whitney and I have talked about this on our show, we're fortunate that we've got some space that we can set aside for game rooms. And we can dedicate a lot of real estate to these things. A lot of people can't, and Maine is a great option. And it's kind of, in my opinion, kind of its subchargers to keep this stuff alive. C Baronsider Pinball, Pinball Now how do you feel about pinball though? Because that's an almost different animal. My gosh, it's killing me. Well, meaning... Space and time and money. Yeah, okay. That's not what you're asking. Not how you feel in general. But how do you feel about the specific chipsets and boardsets in those? Some of them have been reproduced. Some of them have not. Many of them have succumbed to acid damage We talked about dat earlier today. So, over time, They're going to harder and harder to find. and also, like for example I believe Rotten Dog is not re-producing K 바드야 제�꼬Red Dog Oh, they're not. As far as I know, Jim housekeeping As far as I know, Jim hes retired and is not going to do it. Oh wow! Now, I don't know if he is sellint his decigns out or all tech or some 떠ž이 id! But that's something that I've heard and maybe that's just a rumor so I'm happy to spread all kinds of unsubstantiated rumors. Awesome. But that's a concern. So, you know, it's interesting, go ahead, because I've actually got, this has been on my mind. This is interesting, so do you have another thing to add to that? So like System 11 for example. The MPU, Ron Dodd makes it. Nobody else makes the System 11 MPU replacement. The Pinball Academy You really don't have this phenomenon on the video game side. Yeah. Okay? I know that there's been an effort for, a gentleman's been looking at reproducing pole position, and then making like a pole position one-two combo, but you really don't have a, for the most part, a drop-in replacement for your popular games. You can't go out, per se, and get a board that plugs right into your Pac-Man and it plays Pac-Man. And you just move the ROMs over or whatever. No other changes. Yeah, there's multigame boards, but not like the pinball world where you've got the equivalent of a drop-in replacement for a lot of games. And what I seem to see is a lot of people that are passionate for the hobby that are taking perfectly serviceable boards. You know, this goes back to what's there is there. Right. They're taking perfectly serviceable boards and they're replacing them for what it might cost them to have that board repaired. And I don't want to cut down, that's not the intention, cut down the folks that are producing these boards. Sure. There's obviously a need. Right. I'm going to be like you and I'm sure a lot of your listeners a little bit more on the hands-on kind of repair it technical side of the house. Make it work. Yeah, exactly. So I think of, you know, I just, I have a problem running out and doing that when I'm working and I'm like, well, it's probably just a single driver or I just need to recap the power supply or it's a voltage regulator or service people are hard to find though. So, like, you saw my Genesis out in the garage. Yeah. That gen- and this is what worries me about the Genesis. That Genesis, every board in it's been replaced. Yes. So- That should concern you. That should concern me. But, on the flip side, what if the boards had been long missing before that? They weren't. Oh. The gentleman was- he really wanted the game to work. He was building a small little, like, man cave game room. Really great guy. How did you make that? Yeah. He was working on it to the level that he knew that he could work on it, which was basically... Swapping a new board. Yeah. Which, honestly, is what the manual says to do. Yeah. Yeah, technically. In the troubleshooting guide. Here's what I think we're going to run into, and I'm wondering if this is what's going to happen with the Rock Dog stuff. I got a video game out in the garage right now. There's a Tempest out in the garage. Well, there's a Tempest here, and the Tempest in the garage is slated for a... I'm not destroying a Tempest. I can put it back to a Tempest at any point in time. I've got all the pieces. The board doesn't work, but I do have the board. I don't have to damage the harness. It's completely convertible back and forth, but I also happen to have the full setup from Atari to convert it to a major Havoc, including the conversion board that plugs right into the harness. So for people who are listening who are not familiar with video at all, which there are some, Major Havoc was a conversion kit similar to the pinball conversion kits that they used to sell. It would take your Tempest, right? Right. And just completely convert it into a game. And it was right from Atari. It was not a third party thing. Directly from the factory that made Tempest. Correct. So in that cabinet, it's got a color vector monitor and it's got an aftermarket I think it's a high voltage board in it. The company's gone. Right. You know, and I know it's broken. Yeah. So, what do I do? You know, they kind of did their own thing. They used modern parts and outside of best guess or I'm fairly certain it's been a while since I've looked at it, it's not like I'm going to look in it and see a smoldering hole and know, oh, that's it. Well, what was that? Before it bled out the magic smoke. So either I blindly guess at trying to fix it because there no other points of reference for it or I go back and I try to find an original part I think I going to run into that with the genesis Now are there schematics for these Not that I aware of Honestly I can remember who made it I had that game probably six years and I know that the person who had it before me had it for several. That's exactly what terrifies me about Solon State because there's really not a way you I'm a fan of the pinball, but I'm not a fan of the pinball. I don't know if you can make your own schematic. Well, there is, but you would have to spend the rest of your life. Yeah. Try it every day and every yes. What does this chip actually do? Looking up specs and hoping that they're online and all that new stuff. That's what appeals to me about EM repair. If the pieces are there, you can make it work. You don't have to worry about, did this battery blow up at some point in the past? Has it been replaced? Well, did they clean up the acid? Did they clean up the acid damage? Yup. Did they do it right? Oh, yes. Did they do it right but it's still messed up? Yes. I mean, there are so many factors in solid state repair. So there's no batteries in an EM game? Not many. Not many, okay. Okay, so there is an exception actually. Oh, okay. Games from the 30s like tabletop games that they used to make, pinball machines. Mm-hmm. They would sell them in either floor standing models or countertop. Okay. You play them in a bar. Mm-hmm. And they would have a mechanical timer. Okay. And that would run your lights off of a dry cell battery. Oh, okay, I have heard of that. Yes, and so, you know, those are big, heavy things. They typically, when they go bad, don't, you know, they don't puke all over everything. Yeah, so, you know, that's the exception, but as far as other games, no. Well, you and I have talked a little, you know, about the whole battery phenomenon. And, you know, the Adams family that's here, I've talked about it several times on our show on the Broken token Facebook page. There's a whole photo gallery of pictures where I've done CPU repair because that had battery leak on it. And that's a terrible example because you've got a lot of little hairline traces on that. You know, earlier we were talking about a video game, a game I'd like to put back together. The and You'd asked are they hard to find the boards might know they're not hard to find they're just all eating up from battery right at crochet, you know, so
    40:26
    but yeah from the pinball world that that's one thing that that crosses my mind is is that You know the the knowledge for the repair is based on the OEMs boards, right? and I'm on the fence about it. I mean, I definitely understand it, but I just don't... In some capacities where they're using the same schematic. A recreation. A recreation, but they're using modern components, you know, solid state relays instead of physical relays, you know, those kind of things. I support those. You know, higher voltage regulators, you know, all that kind of stuff. Try nonstulsive Complex So, I guess my point is to make a really long winded point for here that once you get your first EM you'll get the feel for it and Brent you won't want to go back though. You are like the Sith Lord of electromechanical and you know we had some conversations earlier for your listeners and hopefully this is okay because I'm going to mention I'm not that good at composing a lot of knowledge into a ten minute segment. But his recent show, which I guess this would be the December Spooky, he was talking about the implementation of logic gates in the mechanical world and how it's done with relays and switches. You know, I look at a gate in an IC, TTL, and I'm like, okay, I'm doing an OR. Right. And I know this pin is this input and this pin is that output and this, or this pin is an input, this pin is an input, here's the output, and I know what an oar does. Yeah. And I never sat down to think about how to implement it mechanically, and it's not difficult. Right. You're still working with ones and zero. Yes. You've got a binary system all the way through, just like solid state. And it's beautiful when you think of it. Well, you can see the bits. Yes. You can literally see the bits. Absolutely. Some of them have spark. Yeah. Occasionally a smell. Great. That bit stank. Oh. But yeah, it's a great way to look at it and especially if you're coming from the solid state side, it's a good way to get into it. Like you say, it opens your eyes, right? So... I definitely tried to play some EMs when I was at Chicago last year. I've heard this talked about on other shows that EMs just don't get love. And I look at the solid state games and it's like, yeah, that's great. But even a rare game at this point, I've been doing those shows. I'm like, OK, I played it right. And I made it. I made a point to go over and start playing EMs. And I went I went like. You know, I went young boy, I went like 12 year old, I'm like, OK, what has the brightest, flashiest, shiniest lights? So let's start there. A bingo. Yeah, a bingo. Well, there's no bingos. So it was like, oh, there's a car race game. I like cars. Let's go play that. You know, and that's, and I had a ball. So... Any standout title? Anything that, you know, really hooked you? Honestly, there, it was just such an overload that it was just like game to game to game and I didn't fall in love with any. And I'll come back to it again. A local collector went to his house. He had a nippet. I know that is the game that was in Happy Days. Despite I think the- Made in 1950. Yeah, yeah. I was like, what's the joke there? Isn't it like- 1950. Yeah, was there like a DeLorean and a time machine and maybe a trailer that had the game that took it? But I'd never played one and I was like, this is an awesome game. I love this. This is cool. And then when I found out what the second button for what is the shark toy? The game. Tijan Tor пришad te ko lavarteria juica where put MU manga mythical in writeback. Okay. Yeah, I could be redone. You'd send it off to Stevie Young. And have it respawn or something? But if that's missing, it's a little hard to source. Okay. Because it's a semi-unique part. Well, now you got me. Who made that? Who made that game? Bally. So now you've got me thinking because I've just come across kind of a horde of pinball parts. So it's just a kind of, you know, did you all do this in the EM world? Let me not talk about this phenomenon where you, and it's bad for us as a podcaster because we want to talk about what we've got going on, but you don't want too much information out until you've drawn the, until you've circled the proverbial wagons and it's in your hands. Do you all do that? Does that exist in the EM world too? A little bit, but I mean, I'm running in such a different, weird little circle that it's not quite the same. Okay. But yeah, I mean, certainly any So, I need to, now you're going to, you made me think, I've come across this horde of pinball parts and it's not just like later like D&D era parts. It's early solid state and even reaching into some later EMs. So, it's kind of that era. Now I know there was some really oddball looking bits and pieces and cools and now I'm gonna have to go look and see if I happen to have one or two of those kicking around because you know then you know it's kind of like building a classic muscle car based on the horn button. I've got this coil! I'm gonna have to have the rest of the game now! So well yeah I'm sure it'll happen. The best you can do is to watch the best you can do on the most popular pinball show on the most popular pinball show on the most popular For all your listeners out there, here's a little behind the scenes. If you think what you do as a hobby is niche, you know, my side of it is bigger because I've got videos and later pins. Your side of it is smaller because you're a yam, and it's even smaller because you really like bingos. There's even less people that do podcasts. So, it's really awesome and I'm sure it is for you, Nick, when you get to meet your listeners. It's great for us when we get to meet ours. Man, it's really awesome when we get to meet fellow podcasters. So, no, I feel like I'm holding you up. So, I'm appreciative. Thank you so very much. Have a great time and hopefully I can play around with you and then hit the road. Okay, we can do that. All right, Brent. I want to thank my guest again, Brent Griffith, for joining me. He is one half of the duo that makes up the Broken Token Arcade and Pinball podcast. I got to try out some games that I had never played before there and that's always a treat. Now I also wanted to let you all know that we are still running our t-shirt pre-order. prohibitive别� operations mates for their potential Mysteriesカンタ Thank you very much for listening and I'll talk to you next time.