A.P.B.: All Points Bulletin (1987, Atari Games)

So I went to this video game auction. I love video game auctions because I can never afford anything I want and therefore I don't buy anything. Well, at least that used to be true. At the time I lived in a second-floor apartment, no elevator, 90 degree turn at the top of the stairs. The fact that there was a pinball machine in the apartment was a miracle.

Games at this particular auction are going for fractions of what I perceive as their value. This was the auction where a dead Altered Beast went for $1--with $10 in quarters hidden inside. (See? Yes, I'm jealous.)

Someone bid $50 for A.P.B., I raised to $75, just to make sure it didn't go for $50... well, it didn't.

My A.P.B. got carted home one October afternoon with the help of friends with pinball habits of their own, after I'd moved out of my inconvenient apartment. We broke the window of my garage carting it in--well, I broke tthe window. The game wants some attention, but while I only have so much love to give, I have an unlimited supply of neglect. APB lost for a long time to Star Wars, Robotron, High Speed, Twilight Zone, and Xenophobe. However, it has finally gotten some attention and now works very well. The moulding is junk (well, not as bad as Millipede), and the sideart is pretty well trashed, but the gas pedal has been fixed (Ryan got bored, I think, when the game was stored at his house). The monitor was junk, but has been replaced.

I got a manual at the 2002 California Extreme show. A year and a half later, I typed in the DIP switch settings a mere three months after someone asked me to do it.

Repairs

The buttons have been replaced where necessary with new leaf-switch buttons (a few months before May, 2002).

Locks installed (well, not for the back door, which looks like it was ruined by someone trying to remove the lock). Steering wheel cleaned and greased.

Chris Kuntz finally took pity on my pathetic game and found the counters fo the motion object circuit were bad. He replaced these and the game runs well. Eventually, I bought a monitor, Chris installed it, and we put some new leg levellers on.

To Do

• new back panel (or some woodworking on the old one)
• cabinet repair?

last modified by tjs at Mon Apr 9 17:11:28 2007