Randy Fromm's Online Technical Department Review

[PoDunkMoFo]

I, like everyone else on this board, have greatly enjoyed rediscovering a piece of my youth through arcade emulation and MAME.  In fact in my case it has led me to another insane and potentially expensive hobby.  You guessed it, vintage arcade game collecting.  I now am the proud owner of a couple of the games I loved as a kid and a couple I never really had a chance to enjoy. As anyone who owns one of these pieces of history knows an electronic device that was made before today's college grads were even born means failure is inevitable.

Since this site is all about building your own arcade cabinet I am pretty sure that most of us feel like we have reasonable mechanical ability.  I even possess a contractors license in electrical sign installation and still the inside of an arcade machine intimidates the crap out of me.  Recently I posed the question in another section of this board as to weather the Randy Fromm DVDs on the internet were any good.  Someone pointed out that Randy offers a subscription technical service with tons of material available as PDF downloads or Podcasts.  The best part is the subscription price is $39.95 for the first year with a renewal fee of $29.95 per year.  I figured I had nothing to loose.  Registration was quick and painless.  I was immediately struck by the shear volume of resource available to me.

From the website:

Membership includes the complete contents of Randy Fromm's Big Blue Book of Really Great Technical Information, available in high resolution PDF format for printing and in HTML for quick on line viewing.

Also inside are my popular and efficient Troubleshooting Flowcharts for Monitors

150 Podcasts featuring:

Videogame Troubleshooting - Monitor Repair - XY Monitor Repair
Beginning Electronics - Semiconductors - Linear Power Supplies
Switching Power Supplies - Videogame Conversions
How to Use an Oscilloscope - Easy Pinball PCB Repair -Using a DMM


Some of the videos are older and look like they may have been distributed by Wico.  They are pretty funny to watch.  A couple even include vintage Wico ads complete with an 80's era arcade in the background.  I didn't like the teaching style as much in these videos due to the fact that they were obviously scripted and were not done in a classroom type setting.  It looks like the bulk of the material was shot at one of Randy's arcade schools around 1992.  Let me start by saying that the videos are VHS quality and the format used for making download bearable probably does nothing for their quality.  They are however completely serviceable as teaching aids.  After all we're not here to view the lastest THX HDTV Widescreen version of a special effects laden offering from Hollywood, we're here to learn.  Let the learnin' begin.

I've always had a desire to learn about electronics but the way electronics is generally taught always put me off.  I don't want a bunch of theory or a lesson in physics I just want to know how it works and how I can fix it.  This also seems to be a philosophy of Randy's'.  He clearly explains things using a minimum of technobabel and gets right to the core of what he is trying to teach.  The series on basic electronics starts with atomic theory and moves quickly into each of components you need to know while repairing games. Randy gives you just enough science to give you an understanding of how these things work.  He tells you what it is, what it does, and more importantly how to find out if it is working correctly.  He does lots of whiteboard drawing and infuses enough humor liven things up.  I've learned more about electronics in a couple of days than in countless internet searches.

After going thru the electronics stuff I went next to Arcade game troubleshooting and found lots of tips and tricks to help me quickly figure out how to make a non working game good again.

I just started the Monitor section in which Randy breaks Monitor troubleshooting down into easy to understand parts.  He explains what each section does and what symptoms would be exhibited by a failure in this area.  As complicated as monitors seem when explained in this way they become much easier to understand.

I am looking forward to putting what I've learned to use.  I believe that Randy has put together a very valuable resource that anyone who owns a game and would like to be able to work on could use.  I highly reccommend his product, it has meet and exceeded my expectations.  If you own a game or even just want to learn more about them then this product is more than worth the price of admission.

I will try to update this posts with repairs that I've learned from the series.

http://randyfromm.com/amusements/techdept/

[NinjaEpisode]

Are the podcasts audio or video or both?

[PoDunkMoFo]

All the podcast stuff is video.  All the written stuff is pdf.