“Coin Detected In Pocket!”

Description of game:

Simple game where you’re a human trying to escape from a robot controlled complex. One of the first color arcade games. From what I understand it was originally planned as a B&W game, with color being added at the last minute. It is also one of the first games that talked! This is one of my all time favorites. I played this game hundreds of times before I finally got my own!

Different games that this cabinet plays:

I’ve heard that Frenzy can be played in this cabinet with a PCB swap, but not completely sure. Frenzy is the sequel.

How I got it:

This is actually my second cabinet. It’s really nice, and you can see why I got rid of my first cabinet by looking at the pictures below! Got this cabinet from someone all the way in Columbus, OH. It actually sat almost all summer in his house while I tried to find time to pick it up. Thanks to Rodney Massman (Zinfer), I was able to finally get it home. His house is MUCH closer to mine, which allowed me to make the drive in one evening. Could not make it to Columbus and back in one night after working a whole day. When I got it, it was dead with no monitor. Here I go!

Received the first cabinet along with a Robotron project in a trade with Pete Mathis for my Jr. Pac-Man. Needed a ton of work. The cabinet had some pretty severe damage: water damage, battery corrosion on the boards, and the graphics are either missing or ruined by lack of care. Gave it to Jeff Morris (of Gamemover fame!) along with the cabinet the Mr. Do came in. Hope Jeff finds something he can do with it.

Recent repairs:

First things first, I had to get a monitor in it. I took the horizontal WG 4600 from the Mr. Do (Heavy Unit) and hooked it right up. Then turned it on. Nothing! I then received a ZPU PCB from Mark Hooks in a trade along with another Tempest boardset. After swapping chips between the two, I finally got it to work. There is some corruption in the high score table that I hope I can work out. The game fired up, but the display is off-center and too high. Can’t tune it in, so I need to try to put another monitor in it hoping that will fix it. Had to also replace the joystick. It came with the original which is one of the great optical joysticks that failed too often in the field. I hope I can rebuild it because it was always my favorite.

Finally got the display corrected. After working on my test bench setup, I learned a bit about how the different sync pins can change how the picture displays. Sure enough, I had the wrong sync pin wired to the monitor. Easy fix. The game works great now!

What it still needs:

Need to install a new horizontal width coin on the monitor. Also need the original bat handled joystick rebuilt. Finally, would love to get a new control panel because the one I have has some serious wear.

Final Thoughts:

One of my favorites. Love this game. I sure hope it holds up for a long time!

Personal High Score:

I know I can beat this one, but so far it’s 14,160. Can get to 10K on the first guy most of the time, but man does the difficulty ramp up from that point!

More Pictures

This is from when the screen was off center!

Pictures of the First Cabinet (didn’t even try to work on this one):

Berzerk Links:

KLOV Berzerk Page

Screen Shots:

(with bezel…thanks MAME!)