“One of the games is called ‘Tron something, or something…tron”. WHAT?

That immediately got me thinking that it could only be two games (if I was lucky)…Tron or Robotron. Both were games I really wanted to add to my collection. Years ago I had a Tron, but sold it because I needed the money for a small bulk buy. It was the only game I had in the past that I regretted selling. The coolest cabinet by far of any of my favorite games!

So I made a trip to meet the guy who had the games. He happened to be a local man I knew, but had no idea he had a couple games. He confirmed that he had two games he wanted to get rid of…a Tron upright and a ‘Moon Lander’ cocktail. He was about to “put them out on the curb for the trash haulers”. Seems his house got hit with a major power surge, wiping out both games. I couldn’t contain my excitement at getting another Tron. Never heard of Moon Lander. I thought maybe it was either a Moon Patrol or more likely Lunar Lander. LL didn’t have a cocktail from what I could tell, but Moon Patrol did. After a quick KLOV search, I found Taito released a cocktail cabinet for a game called Moon Lander. No flyer at arcadeflyers.com, and no MAME rom or emulation for it. Must be pretty rare.

The price was right, so I set out to pick them up. Grabbed a poor friend to help me haul them out of his basement. Man, I forgot how heavy these Midway cabinets were! Ended up getting both of the cabinets into my van:

After unloading, I had a chance to really check them out. They are both not working (of course). I was disappointed to find out that it wasn’t going to be as easy as replacing fuses. However, both PCB’s looked good, and the monitors seemed to work. From what I can tell the Tron had a bad power supply, and not sure yet on the Moon Lander. There is some cabinet work required for both. Seems the preferred method to get the locks open was to tear apart the particle board. Also, there is significant corrosion from the battery on the Tron power supply that was still soldered on. I ripped it off, but will need to clean it thoroughly to see if I can get a Bob Roberts repair kit to fix it. The artwork on the Tron is good except the side art. Will have to call Phoenix Arcade to get a set. The paint is peeling off the glass top of the Moon Lander, but I am not going to mess with fixing it. I plan to sell that game as soon as I get it running and fix up a couple cabinet issues. If you’re a “bronze age” collector and want this rare find, let me know!

I’ll have more info later as I dig into the games and further troubleshoot them.

Tron:

Moon Lander:

Description of game:

My all-time favorite game! I always thought that I was a bit different to like this game so much. I didn’t know anyone back in the ’80s that was a big fan. Now I see that it is one of the most common collector games, and that there are hundreds of them still around. Didn’t know it was that big. It’s a tough game. Definitely made for the “hard-core” gamers of the time (like most Williams games). You control a guy on an ostrich by moving a two-way joystick left or right and pressing a button to flap the wings of the bird. Gravity is constantly pulling you down. Joust is perhaps best known for the screeching halt the bird will do when trying to stop while running on one of the platforms on the screen. Basically the object of the game it to dismount the enemies that are riding on buzzards by colliding with them. Whichever bird is the highest wins in the collision. Dismounted enemies then turn into eggs that will hatch into new more powerful enemies if you do not collect the egg within a certain amount of time. Oh, if that isn’t hard enough, if you take to long to dismount all the enemies in a level, an “indestructible” pterodactyl will come out. The only way to survive a collision with it is to hit it directly in the mouth with your lance. The hit must be perfect or you’re toast!

How I got it:

This was my second full size game. It was the first game for me to start my collection. Not a bad game for $125 huh? I bought it from a guy locally that usually spends more time with pinball machines. When I bought this, it was not working but came with an extra boardset. After plugging it in and hearing loud popping noises, I discovered a burned out power supply. I replaced it with a normal switching supply, swapped a ROM out, and pulled the coin lockouts and it works great. Probably the hardest thing to do on this cabinet was cleaning it. It took two days to get all the dirt out! I finally wired an external battery harness to the PCB so I don’t have to reset the machine every time I play it. You don’t want to have batteries stored in the original battery area on game board itself, since corrosion is a PCB’s worst enemy!

Recent repairs:

Upgraded my external battery to an onboard lithium battery kit from Bob Roberts. Not sure if I did it right because my scores still are not saving correctly. Need to check my soldering!

What it still needs:

I still need to touch up the paint, recap and degauss the monitor, and replace the T-molding. I also would like to get a new CPO because the existing one is a little worn. I also want an original Flyer for this game. If you have one for a decent price, let me know. Also should change out the RAM since I get occasional RAM errors.

Final Thoughts:

Still my favorite game of all time. This game will NEVER leave my collection!

Personal High Score:

339,850 (2-22-2000) – I actually died one pixel above collecting an egg that would have given me an extra man. Oh well. Back in high school I did score over 1 million points using the Pterodactyl trick. My current ROM set does not suffer from that bug, so I can’t try it. I’m too ethical to do that anyway 8^}

Joust Links:

KLOV Joust Page

Screen Shots: