pacman

All posts tagged pacman

About two months back I decided I’d have a crack at improving my pacman score. I always enjoyed pacman as a kid, but was never any good at it. It’s a game I wanted to be good at, but never took the time to learn. I’ve decided now is a good time to learn the game and maybe push for a perfect game 🙂

My highscore started at around 45K mark. After some practice over the month I began to pass the 75K mark consistently, then finally broke the 100K mark. More practice saw my score climb past 150K and on towards 200K.

On my last real attempt, I managed to pass the 200K mark and land a nice 219K game.

Still a long way to go for a perfect game, but I’m enjoying Pacman more than ever and hope to continue the quest over the coming months.

This has been a very busy week working on the cab. Firstly, my new monitor arrived Many, many thanks to a friend on Aussie Arcade for his assistance in getting it to my door!

I was not going to continue the quest with sorting out the jumping on the VGA monitor. The solution set me back around $240 for the monitor and chassis (with postage) but it puts an end to the problem and I can get the cab complete Plus it means I can play Wonderboy (and now Bubble Bobble too) with an awesome display Since the monitor had arrived, I organised a mate to lend a hand with it’s installation the following saturday (and any issues that were to be encountered).

So first up was to pull the VGA monitor and frame out, and put in a new one. I spent the first night building a new frame. It was done the same way as the first – a flat panel, with a huge hole cut in the middle. I added some raised parts for the actual monitor frame to attach to. Primed and painted with a few coats (over the rest of the week).


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It’s been awhile since the last update. After much testing and diagnosing around the video issues, it does looks like it’s the monitor at fault. I won’t rehash much since there is a thread posted on AussieArcade with a lot of detail, but I will say it’s almost certain to be the monitor(s). There is a CGA monitor + chassis + stepdown converter in the mail now, and will hopefully arrive next week. The thread can be found here

I decided to install marquee artwork today. I had been holding off doing it since I have not yet re-installed the JAMMA harness (I have kept it out for when andykmv comes to visit). Then I figured I could just make up some extension wires for the speaker and run them down the back of the cab. That way, I could connect / disconnect the JAMMA harness without having to take the marquee apart. The extension wires looks a little like this (although white):


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Another minor update.

I got the acrylic from AB Plastics – the same place I went with on my last cab. My experience this time was not as positive. I let them have the control panel itself to get a good idea of the bend required for the acrylic overlay and try to get the measurements as close as possible. What I got back was damaged artwork as they bent the hot acrylic over it. I also decided to spend a little extra at the time and get them to cut all the holes for me, saving me a few nights worth of work. Several holes were not cut correctly, and the ones on the front panel (P1, P2 start and 4 bolt holes) did not line up correctly. I was able to fix it myself with some small files, but honestly, I’ve paid extra for the labor, I expect the job to be done correctly.

With the fixed up acrylic overlay, I set up the control panel:


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