CHICKEN RESTORE LIKE A ROBOT (Berzerk) *IT LIVES*

[ChadTower]

Just picked up one of my grails on saturday... This sucker will be getting the full restoration treatment.  Not immediately but possibly over the winter.  I'm going to need some suggestions, though, so I'm starting the thread now.  I searched the archives and didn't find any Berzerk restorations.  If I missed any, let me know.





I can get more details pics of whatever folks want to see.  Right now it's working nearly 100% but is flaky.  When I first got it it would only run about 40 minutes, then would crash, and after that would fail in boot.  I cleaned off the ribbon connectors, reseated/cleaned RAM, bumped the power supply voltage from just under 5v to ~5.2v (the manual recommends anywhere rom 5.0v to 5.25v).   Those things seem to have made it better as last night it ran for 2+ hours without a problem.  I'll keep an eye on that, and if it fails again, I'll take some more steps to bulletproof the boards.

The high score backup battery has been removed as that is commonly a source for destroying Berzerks.  It's one of the main reasons there are so few left.

Right fire button doesn't work... need to see if that's just the button or something on the boards.  Probably either the button or wiring to it.

As you can see from the pics, this is in pretty good shape.  Bezel is decent, some flaking, and I will be taking that out soon to clean and seal with Triple Thick. 

CP has a lot of paint cracking but most of it is still there.  It appears to be a reflective paint.  Any suggestions for an approach on this?  It's mostly basic shapes so it could be masked and sprayed... or maybe a stencil could be made for a repeatable process.

What you can't see in these pics is that the base of the cab needs to be cut off and replaced.  Below the floor panel is pretty degraded and the cab is front wobbly. 

[2600]

Here's one resto that I recall seeing:

http://www.zinfer.com/berzerk.htm

Your sideart seems in good condition, but just in case:

http://www.oleszakcreative.com/store/shop/item.asp?itemid=79

Also, I think Spaeth has a multi kit for this as well.

[2600]

Another link I came across when I was searching for Prok's site.

http://www.rabbibob.com/index.php/Arcade_Cabinet

[ChadTower]

Cool, thanks.  I can't see the first project url from here so I'll check that out later.

I definitely don't need to restencil... but I do need to figure out the best way to touch up the black.  There is something in the paint - it's almost hammered.

[2600]

I've heard Stern Cabinets are like that.   There were a couple Stern Restorations on KLOV and someone talked about that.  IIRC, one person used the paint you would put on a truck bed.

[ChadTower]

Oh God Rabbibob's page is a MAMEd Berzerk and has links to MAMEd Berzerks.  It's like an accident scene.   

He even put an XArcade on it. 

An Xarcade.

[2600]

Hmm, pretend I didn't post that.

[RayB]

Looks like all it needs is:

- A Wash

- Repaint speaker grill

- That's it.

[ChadTower]

Hmm, pretend I didn't post that.

 

Spaeth does indeed have a multikit for this... it is actually a replacement for the whole ZPU board.  I emailed him sunday and he does have a few in stock.  My ZPU is working at the moment but I could see myself investing in his ZZPU in the near future.

Ray, definitely needs new T Molding... the buttons are just about done, they're all nicked up.  Stick needs to be rebuilt but works as is.  I'm probably going to redo the coin door and the edges around the T molding need touchup.  Really, it's all minor stuff, except for the structural part at the bottom.  Right now it's front tippy if I don't keep something under the base in the front.  It has no leg levelers and appears as though it's been sitting on the ply base for a long time. 

[Zeguna]

Awesome. Berzerk is loads of fun. 

[RetroACTIVE]

Awesome! BERZERK is one of grails as well!  I have a Stern Scramble that I want to restore but  am having difficulty getting anyone to scan the side art so I can re-stencil.  Your artwork looks good!  Does it have the original funky joystick?.. I think it was an optical stick but I can't recall.

I've heard Stern Cabinets are like that.   There were a couple Stern Restorations on KLOV and someone talked about that.  IIRC, one person used the paint you would put on a truck bed.

They have horrible paint jobs... artwork is cool but the paint jobs definitely on the mucky side.   If I were to restore... I would definitely not want it "that" authentic... I'd opt for the clean route.

BTW you can lightly sand down the texture of the cabinet without damaging the artwork... then lightly touch up with color match since BERZERK is really a simple art.  ...Then put a clear coat over it.

[ChadTower]

Awesome! BERZERK is one of grails as well!  I have a Stern Scramble that I want to restore but  am having difficulty getting anyone to scan the side art so I can re-stencil.  Your artwork looks good!  Does it have the original funky joystick?.. I think it was an optical stick but I can't recall.

It was an optical stick but they didn't last very long.  The IR sensors pointed up and collected dust as the grommet degraded so they would fail quite a bit.  Stern sent out balltop leaf replacements pretty quickly.  Those original joysticks are really hard to find now but I'm good with the original factory replacement.

[SavannahLion]

Oh God Rabbibob's page is a MAMEd Berzerk and has links to MAMEd Berzerks.  It's like an accident scene.   

He even put an XArcade on it. 

An Xarcade.

That was ---smurfing--- hideous. As soon as that guy wrote:

Unfortunately the bracket connectors on the monitor are slightly smaller than the CRT's, so there are some gaps. Hopefully I can work on this.

I knew the cabinet was done for.

[ChadTower]

Yeah... I wasn't reading too closely and then I saw the pic of an XP desktop coming from the monitor... 

This game is now officially dead.  14v on the 5v test point, no boot at all.  Worked just long enough for the seller to get out the door.  I'm going to get this one working fast, though, and reliably.

[arcadefever]

Very nice  can you believed that i never played the game 

good luck for the restoration 

[ChadTower]

I'm having a bit of trouble finding anyone I know as reliable to take on the boardset right now for repair... definitely don't have time to try and tackle it myself for a while... I'm tempted to drop a dedicated MAME in it as a temporary measure.  Nothing changed irreversibly, just a reliable engine running the game and maybe Frenzy.

[WunderCade]

That's a very nice machine. The artwork is looks like it's in great condition.

Can you translate this? Is it an inside joke?
"CHICKEN RESTORE LIKE A ROBOT"

[ChadTower]

That's a very nice machine. The artwork is looks like it's in great condition.

Can you translate this? Is it an inside joke?
"CHICKEN RESTORE LIKE A ROBOT"

It's a quote from the game.  CHICKEN FIGHT LIKE A ROBOT!

[WunderCade]

Hehe....needless to say....guess who's never played Berzerk.

[Level42]

Wahaahahaahaha.....

Even the Atari 8-bit computer version had this 



OK, it had to freeze the screen during playback of the samples, but this was pretty amazing for a home system back then.

[ChadTower]

Berzerk Voice Enhanced for the 2600 does it too... that's even more amazing.

[Level42]

Really ? Wow. But that has to be using extra hardware (in the cart).

[ChadTower]

Nope... nothing I know of other than maybe a bankswitched eeprom for more space.  It does the speaking (you can barely call it speech) between levels when it can focus all resources on it.

I tried a google for an example for you but can't see most of the links from here.  Here is the page for it on AtariAge and I think this is a link to a review on Stageselect.

[Level42]

Wait a minute......that's released in 2002 !! Not fair !

With enough memory, bank switching and ANY hardware that can produce some sound, you can do this.....

[ChadTower]

True... it's still an achievement, though.  I think there's a pretty low upper limit on just how much bankswitching you can do on the 2600, though.  There's only so much ROM to go around even doing it that way.

Man I love Berzerk.  I really have to get this one moving.  Maybe I'll get a bench MAME setup going with it this weekend.  If I can get the bathroom done first I should have time to redo the base, too. 

[Rabbi Bob]

Unfortunately (as pointed out on the web page), the box I found had been left outside and had become home to something that chewed up the internals pretty well.  I'm sure by now that if I hadn't picked it up when I did the entire unit would have been destroyed by this time, but I guess if you're a purist it would have been a better death than what I did to it.

Good luck on the restoration CT. 

[ChadTower]

Unfortunately (as pointed out on the web page), the box I found had been left outside and had become home to something that chewed up the internals pretty well.  I'm sure by now that if I hadn't picked it up when I did the entire unit would have been destroyed by this time, but I guess if you're a purist it would have been a better death than what I did to it.

Actually, a real purist would restore it anyway.  There are quite a few examples around here of games that were worse off that weren't MAMEd.  I don't blame you for doing it - I just wouldn't do it myself.

That said I'm taking a bit of a patch approach with mine for the short term.  A dedicated MAME setup is almost done - just Berzerk and Frenzy with no mods to the cab.  Pics and process will be posted when it is in.  That should buy me time until I can find the bandwidth to fix the original boards.

[Axe]

Wow, i am going to feel really bad in a few weeks...

I have a Berzerk cab coming in on trade, and i am planning on Mame-ing it 

In my defence it is completely STRIPPED.... the only way you can tell is the worn artwork on the sides.

To be honest though, it is for classic games, no crazy massive control panel or anything like that...a nd it WILL have Berzerk runningon it...

[shardian]

Wow, i am going to feel really bad in a few weeks...

I have a Berzerk cab coming in on trade, and i am planning on Mame-ing it 

In my defence it is completely STRIPPED.... the only way you can tell is the worn artwork on the sides.

To be honest though, it is for classic games, no crazy massive control panel or anything like that...a nd it WILL have Berzerk runningon it...

If it is completely stripped, make it 100% Berzerk on the outside, but MAME on the inside. You can play alot of games with an 8-way and a button. There is no need whatsoever for extra admin buttons on a MAME cab.

[ChadTower]

If it is completely stripped, make it 100% Berzerk on the outside, but MAME on the inside. You can play alot of games with an 8-way and a button. There is no need whatsoever for extra admin buttons on a MAME cab.

That's pretty much what I am doing until I can get the Stern boardset fixed.  This one will run only Berzerk and Frenzy, though.

[ChadTower]

Okay, finally have the chance to update with actual progress.  I have an old PIII motherboard running dosMAME and glaunch with just Berzerk and Frenzy.  Took me a while to get the sound to work - or so I thought - even though MAME would run just fine.  Same issue with both games so I assumed it was a soundcard config issue even though I'm using a real SB16.  Turned out that I didn't know both Berzerk and Frenzy require samples, and even more obscure, Frenzy uses Berzerk's samples.  So when I finally dropped in some Berzerk samples both games started playing with sound.   

At first I was going to use FreeDOS, but in that sound card confusion, I switched over to SpyStyle's boot install CD.  That worked pretty well, though looking back, I probably had it working with FreeDOS and the samples were the problem.  FreeDOS is pretty cool, though, as it has networking, tons of UNIX type utils, mp3/media players, etc.  Lots of modern capabilities in a real DOS environment including a GUI if you want it.

Video is an ATI Rage 3D I had lying around - I'll use Arcmon to drop it to 15khz once I'm ready to put it in the cab.  I hacked up my own VGA breakout cable.  Probably chose one that is harder than it had to be as this one looked like it was isolated 15 different ways.  Here's hoping I didn't short half the contacts with wandering strands.

<placeholder for breakout cable pic>

Thanks to Peale for software advice and Gehrig for supplying me a bunch of SB16s and the keyboard I'm hacking.

As for the keyboard hack... this keyboard isn't matrixed.  There is actually a separate set of contacts for every key on the keyboard.  I figure that at least removes the need to map the matrix and I can create keystrokes by shorting the two contacts on the backside of the PCB so no problems there.  I have all essential game functions mapped in MAME - up, down, right, left, fire, p1, p2.  (P1 + P2) is escape to front end and coinup will be wired to the coin mech.  The only tweak needed in glaunch was changing the enter game key to fire.

[ChadTower]

So, here's one wiring point I haven't quite figured out yet.  I want the keyboard hack to be a drop in replacement - no changes to the CP wiring other than changing the molex housing (I don't have an exact match for the old one).  The easiest way, if I didn't want a drop in, would be to wire up each button separately to the keyboard.  Can't do that as a drop in, though.  Looking at the CP wiring diagram I see the CP is using a common ground:

CP side connector is J7

What I am still trying to figure out is the best wiring method, here.  I assume that since each key has its own contacts, one of those two is ground.  Is it safe to assume that I could connect all of those grounds to pin 12?  I'm thinking a barrier block glued to the keyboard PCB, each separate ground wired to the same terminal (or two shorted ones if there are too many for one screw), and then that common ground connected to pin 12 in a matching molex.  Then a separate connection for the other side of each of the CP switches in the barrier and run from there to the appropriate pin in the molex (pin 7 for right, pin 6 for left, etc).

It's extra trouble but this way but it maintains as much originality as possible and allows me to drop repaired boards right back in with minimial disruption.

[jfunk]

Crazy.  My dad apparently has a Berzerk cabinet that's been converted to a Silk Worm.  Has the stenciled sideart MINUS the "Berzerk" at the top.. 

I don't know that he'll be doing a resto on it anytime soon, though.  Silk Worm is alright..  It just starts repeating a level once you get far enough.. 

[somunny]

Great game!  Looking forward to watching the progress.   

[ChadTower]

Poking around some more tonight... I don't think this keyboard is going to work.  Even though the PCB is the size of the keyboard and every key has its own dedicated switch there does seem to be some sort of matrix going on here.  It's all laid out on the PCB in traces going everywhere, though, and I don't think I'm going to spend the time mapping this sucker out.  I'll find another keyboard that is a little easier.

[shardian]

Ipac VE. $20 and 2 minutes of wiring = DONE. If you need to justify the money, skip lunch a few days and have cereal. 

[ChadTower]

Ironically, I have an Ipac 4 sitting around, but don't want to use it.  I think at this point I might just have to go with your suggestion.

I can't seem to ID the specific connector on the CP harness.  Asked at KLOV, got a specific answer, but after googling the item it clearly isn't correct.  I'm going to have to re-pin that connection and swap housings to something I do have.  I ordered a whole variety of Molex .062 housings and an extractor tool last week, which would be perfect, but I'm a complete d-bag and forgot pins.     I do have some larger Amp Mate N Locks left over from the Tank II (which I really need to get back from the shop).  It's overkill but it will do the job nicely.

I did sorta want the keyboard hack but the common ground wiring may be a blocking factor on that anyway.


EDIT:  Bah.  Ipac VE appears to be USB only.  This is a dosmame setup.

[SirPeale]

You're going to fix the Berzerk anyway, and the IPAC4 is just lying around.  Use it and reuse it in another project when you fix the berzerk.

[ChadTower]

You're going to fix the Berzerk anyway, and the IPAC4 is just lying around.  Use it and reuse it in another project when you fix the berzerk.

I was just coming to that conclusion about an hour ago after I discovered the Ipac VE isn't dos compatible.  At least it's incentive to get the boards fixed sooner than later.

[ChadTower]

Replaced both CP harness connectors with new Amp Mate N Locks last night... new pins, too.  Couldn't seem to get the pics off my wife's camera this morning, though, so I'll get a pic up tonight or tomorrow.  Next up is whipping out the Ipac4 and wiring it up.

New CP harness connectors - both sides

[ChadTower]

Damn, just hours after swapping those connectors, I finally find the right one thanks to KeyLayton.

For future reference, Stern used the Commercial AMP Mate N Locks:



Mouser part # 571-14802750, manufacturer part # 1-480275-0

[ChadTower]

W00t!

Wired up a matching 15" harness for the CP... connected that to the IPAC4... works exactly as it should.  I'll get some pics up shortly.  I only wish I had the right color wires to match the CP harness, all I had was a lot of black, but this will have to do.  I'm taking the CP apart now to clean everything up.  The buttons may have to be replaced just because they're so beaten up.

The cool part about this configuration is that when I get the boards fixed I can just take the Ipac out and reconnect the main cab harness without hassle.   

Ipac to CP wire harness - the black wires

[ChadTower]

Last night and this morning took the CP apart and gave it a good cleaning.  Buttons scrubbed, joystick dismantled and cleaned, carriage bolts got the Dremel wire wheel.  The CP appears to have been clearcoated at some point in the past - not sure if it came from the factory like that or if someone did that to try and save cracking paint.  The clearcoat is now cracked since I don't think it was supposed to be used on metal.  Overall it is probably better off for having had the clearcoat than it otherwise would have been.  Buttons came out a little better than expected.  I'll still replace them eventually but it's no hurry.  The right fire switch was pretty grungy and had not been working until cleaned.

Dirty CP w/buttons removed

Clean CP - full working setup on bench

[ChadTower]

I had been experiencing intermittent boot failures... it would get to a certain point, showing a MAME splash screen, and then just freeze.  A ctrl-alt-del brought me back to the cmdline with what appeared to be a C floating point error.  No way that should be happening intermittently.  Then I noticed that the OS wasn't keeping the time.  It was always 1980 in this machine.  That usually means a dead motherboard battery.   This mobo takes a CR2032 which miraculously I had a couple on hand because the Sega Saturn also uses them.

Replaced that and it appears that about 5 odd errors I had occasionally been getting went away.  Let's hope it stays that way.   

[ChadTower]

Installed arcmon.sys, hooked it up to the cab monitor via the VGA cable I hacked... no dice.  Scrambled screen even after full boot.  No adjustments bring it into sync.  Maybe my cable hack is wrong but I'm not sure at this point how to verify that.

[ChadTower]

So... I made my breakout cable based on this:

1 - Red
2 - Green
3 - Blue
4 - Monitor ID *
5 - Ground
6 - Red Ground
7 - Green Ground
8 - Blue Ground
9 - Keyway (No pin)
10 - Sync Ground
11 - Monitor ID *
12 - Monitor ID *
13 - Horizontal Sync
14 - Verical Sync
15 - Monitor ID *

You can ignore all the pins marked *, as we won't be using them. Don't forget to wire in all the grounds, wire the first one to Video Ground on the JAMMA fingerboard, then solder a short wire from this across to one of the Ground pins on the fingerboard. This just makes sure all your grounds are common.

As for getting composite sync from separate horizontal and vertical sync (which is what VGA puts out), you should run them through and XOR gate (7486) but I cheat - and just twist the wires together.

Now that I see it's not working for me, I think it may be that this JAMMA scheme isn't going to work for me in this case.

Looking at the monitor schematic I see this from the input connector:



My problem appears to be incorrect sync.  The instructions I followed say to combine sync lines... but the monitor schematic has separate inputs for negative vert, negative hori, positive hori, and positive verti.  Nothing for composite sync.  What I have to do, I guess, is figure out which are coming from this video card and then make a new cable. 

[ChadTower]

Also, the joystick has a ton of play in it.  Makes precise control difficult at times.  It's a Wico 8 way... the fix for that is what, a new grommet?

[SirPeale]

Also, the joystick has a ton of play in it.  Makes precise control difficult at times.  It's a Wico 8 way... the fix for that is what, a new grommet?

Yes.

What monitor do you have again?

[ChadTower]

What monitor do you have again?

K7000, if I have it right from the chassic pic archive.  19".

[ChadTower]

Here is a very useful page on troubleshooting VGA to RGB connection problems.

[ChadTower]

Okay I just tried pretty much all combinations of sync with jumpers and nothing worked.  This is ticking me off.

[ChadTower]

A useful VGA - arcade monitor tutorial pointed to me by Peale.

[ChadTower]

So I tried it again tonight... and with some adjustment got to a scrolling double screen with DOS on it.  That sounds much like what Peale described to me as not booting to 15khz... so on a whim I swapped at the video card connector to a PC monitor and boom it looks good.  So somehow I'm not loading properly to 15khz.  Progress, I suppose.

For some reason, not 15khz

[ChadTower]

Oh, funky.  I just loaded mame on the PC monitor... then exited, and the screen went wacky.  So I plugged in the arcade monitor and now I get a dos prompt.  A weak signal, but it's a dos prompt clearly on the Berzerk.  I have no idea why it only went to 15khz after I loaded and then exited mame.

Then, I load Frenzy, and it goes back to 60khz... I exit to the prompt, back to 15khz.  And if I load Berzerk it's just a black screen.  Isn't arcmon.sys supposed to keep the whole session in 15khz?

[ChadTower]

This is definitely a freakin' dos issue now.  First line of config.sys:

DEVICE=c:\dos\arcmon.sys

For some reason, it doesn't load that on boot.  It boots regularly, then I go to c:\mame and start MAME.  It runs MAME in 60khz, as it should... then if I exit back to the prompt it goes to 15khz.  A restart of MAME from 15khz starts mame in 60khz... and exiting back to the prompt gets it to 15khz again.

 

I wonder if this has anything to do with the MAME boot screen that spystyle's CD installed.  I don't know exactly where that is gettin called so I'll have to figure that out.

[ChadTower]

So, I stuck a couple pause commands in autoexec.bat so I could get a better look at the boot sequence.  Near the beginning of the dos driver loads I see:

Code: [Select]

============================
  Arcade Monitor Driver v1.0 Loaded
------------------------------------
     Horizontal Total     : 105
     Vertical Total        : 4
     Center X              : 8
     Center Y              : 8
============================

So, for whatever reason, it seems to be loading and then unloading?  And then reloading when I exit MAME back to the command prompt... only to exit again when I launch MAME.  WTF...

[SirPeale]

post both your autoexec.bat and config.sys files.

arcmon.sys is a TSR, it *should* stay in memory. 

When you load Mame, did you turn the arcade monitor flag on?

[ChadTower]

post both your autoexec.bat and config.sys files.

arcmon.sys is a TSR, it *should* stay in memory.

I'll do that tonight.
 

When you load Mame, did you turn the arcade monitor flag on?

Possibly not.  I'll check the readme for which key that is in mame.cfg.  Thanks for the tip.

[ChadTower]

Well, here's one part of the likely solution.  DOSMame config item:

Code: [Select]

-monitor NNNN (default: standard)
              Selects the monitor type:
              standard: standard PC monitor
              ntsc:     NTSC monitor
              pal:      PAL monitor
              arcade:   arcade monitor
I haven't changed that from the default.  So that would explain why Mame is not running in 15khz.  It doesn't explain, though, why the TSR is not staying resident at initial boot.  I'm not booting straight to the front end yet, just to the DOS prompt.

[ChadTower]

Setting -monitor to arcade does the trick nicely... except that now Berzerk won't run at all.  Frenzy pops up on the screen nicely in 15khz... monitor needs some adjusting but it's fairly close as is.  When I try to run Berzerk, though, I get the "press any key" screen, then the expected screen flashes as Berzerk "boots"... and then nothing.  The screen stays black.  I tried re-copying in the rom zip, I deleted the .cfg and the nvram files... no difference. 

 

[ChadTower]

Deleted all berzerk derived objects, got the roms from mame 0.37, copied in the samples again, and now berzerk works.  Not sure why before.  Front end still not booting to 15khz... will try arcadeOS.

[ChadTower]

With some tweaking and a couple tips from Peale, got ArcadeOS running in 15khz too.  Now to tweak it for max performance, give it a little customization, and then get the sound working with the cab speaker.  I'm going to poke around and see if I have any spare speakers of this size to swap in, too, since this one is a 30 year old paper thin cone.

Also ordered a couple Wico stick grommets and some new shafts, though those shafts will probably end up on other games.

[SirPeale]

You can use some wire taps to get sound working pretty easily.  Just wire a 1/8" jack with your wires, and use the taps to splice it in.  When you fix the berzerk you can just remove the taps.

[ChadTower]

I'll probably just solder onto the speaker tabs.  Takes two seconds and won't cause conflict because I don't know that I'll ever run both the game PCBs and the MAME PC at the same time.

Man, I googled wire taps because I don't know exactly what they look like, and I think now I'm on the Homeland Security watch list.

[seinologist]

How's this project going? Did you get the boards repaired?

I sold 2 sets of Berzerk boards on ebay this past summer and they went rather quick @ $175.

Any acid damage on the zpu?

[ChadTower]

Very minor acid corrosion... nothing worth worrying about, though.  All traces intact and no PCB enamel loss.  Worst case is a few components need replacing because the battery outgassing got to the legs.

I've been trying to find someone to do the boards but it seems all of the local repair people don't answer emails now.  It's a bit odd.

Got sidetracked with remodeling part of my bathroom, but now that that is nearly finished, I can get back to this project soon.

[ChadTower]

Had some long overdue time off last week so I got back to this a bit.  I decided to push the MAME config aside for the time being and get back to the boardset.

With a little guidance from a friend I managed to get the likely problem narrowed down.  Did some reflow work and got the voltages back to proper ranges on all boards.  Still no test flashes and garbage on the screen.    Was advised to pull power from everything except the ZPU and a good ZPU alone should get the first three test flashes.  Still nothing.  Then was advised that the typical battery acid fallout zone is the z80's reset circuit.  It did have some damage, not a ton, but whoever had it before me that took out the battery did leave some there.  Cleaned up the rest of that, scraped off some residue, spent a lot of time with alcohol and Q tips, reflowing/cleaning, and still no change.  At this point I was advised to check the reset pin on the z80 - which should be persistently high (around 4.5-5v).  It's near zero so there is the problem.  Next up is to trace the reset circuit back and find the problem, either an acid tweaked component or a bad trace.  I don't see any likely bad traces so my guess is a pad that still needs to be redone or a dead transistor.

Of course, part of the way in, my old Weller station developed a major fault.  I pulled the iron from the stand and it was glowing red from the tip to halfway down the iron shaft.  My backup station is a 20/40 watt $20 model... 20 watts isn't hot enough and 40 is too close to trace lifting.  So I need to pick up a new station when some money frees up.

[javeryh]

I just watched Chasing Ghosts last night and the two guys couldn't get their Berzerk working - hopefully you have better luck than they did!

[froggerman]

Of course, part of the way in, my old Weller station developed a major fault.  I pulled the iron from the stand and it was glowing red from the tip to halfway down the iron shaft.  My backup station is a 20/40 watt $20 model... 20 watts isn't hot enough and 40 is too close to trace lifting.  So I need to pick up a new station when some money frees up.

Is this a WTCPN type of Weller station? If that is the case, it is probably the element that is bad. This can be fixed inexpensively. What happens is that the tip stilcks to the heating element and the heat stays on 100% of the time. I have changed mine twice over the last 20 years...it is still working great.

Anyway, have a look.

[ChadTower]

WTCPS, actually... so you're saying it could be a bad element even though it's still heating?  How could I tell a bad one?  I did take it apart and saw nothing failed looking.

[menace]

Very neat! another fav of mine as well (even though I mamed the last one  )  Anyways, there is a guy on www.cgcc.ca named wyswig that is great with board repairs--if you run into dead ends I'm sure he could help you. 

Also regarding the bezel--there does not exist a decent one yet that I know of.  Someone was going to vector from a scan and got sidetracked then sidetracked again and here we are years later with no bezel repro done (and no scan cause it wasn't released either).  If nothing else, scan yours into rough and dump it to the artwork site so others can vector it if they want.

just a thought...

[froggerman]

WTCPS, actually... so you're saying it could be a bad element even though it's still heating?  How could I tell a bad one?  I did take it apart and saw nothing failed looking.

Hi Chad,

I just had a look at the exploded parts diagram and it would be more likely that it is the switch inside that has failed. This makes sense if your problem is that the iron is too hot. Have a look at this illustration and the instructions for replacing switch SW60. 

http://www.action-electronics.com/pdf/wtcpstechsheet.pdf

Those Weller irons are made for a lifetime of use and parts are pretty easy to find. You can even buy a whole new pencil if you want, and that is much less expensive than the whole station.

I know that the WTCPS is quieter than my WTCPN but you should still be able to hear the switch click on and off while the iron is in operation. I would assume that yours is not making this sound at the moment.

[ChadTower]

Thanks for the advice... I found a couple web pages on this and you're right, it's likely the switch. I'll check that soon.  In the meantime I found someone selling a temp controlled WES that has barely any use on it for a very low price.  So that should be here in a couple of days.  Worst case scenario here is that I end up with a working WTCPS and a new WES.  What a crime that would be!   

I have never actually heard the old one click.  I definitely understand the concept of the Curie Point style iron now but it's odd that this one has been so silent. 

[ChadTower]

Took it apart again last night and found the spring... definitely old and a bit rusty.  I cleaned it all up a bit and turned the iron on for about 15 minutes.  It seemed to hold temp properly (though really how can you tell visually other than the tip).  So maybe the switch was just jammed.  I didn't get a visual on the switch because I'd have had to start clipping wires to get that far into it.  Once the new one shows up I'll end up with three stations - I definitely won't want the 20/40 station so maybe I'll give that sucker away as a contest prize or something.

[slasherman]

I just watched Chasing Ghosts last night and the two guys couldn't get their Berzerk working - hopefully you have better luck than they did!

 

[ChadTower]

Duh!  It won't work because that's a Track and Field PCB!

[froggerman]

Thanks for the advice... I found a couple web pages on this and you're right, it's likely the switch. I'll check that soon.  In the meantime I found someone selling a temp controlled WES that has barely any use on it for a very low price.  So that should be here in a couple of days.  Worst case scenario here is that I end up with a working WTCPS and a new WES.  What a crime that would be!   

I have never actually heard the old one click.  I definitely understand the concept of the Curie Point style iron now but it's odd that this one has been so silent. 

That sounds like a great deal. I have both a WTCPN and a WTCPS and the WTCPN is very easy to hear, the WTCPS is very quiet.

[ChadTower]

So far, the new station is great, but the tip it came with needs replacing.  I've cleaned it 20 times and it's just not staying tinned.  The end of the tip doesn't melt solder for a good 8-10 seconds even at 725.  I'll have to order a couple different types while I'm doing it.

Started tracing the reset circuit.  Replaced the first cap, checked a few of the resistors.  Other than being really dirty they all checked out and were cleaned.  I'm having trouble getting the transistors out because of all the oxidation so I may have to make up a list and just start swapping them with new ones.

[ChadTower]

Saturday made up a list of all the diodes and transistors in the reset circuit.  Went over to You Do It and picked up 30 2N3904s and a massive diode variety pack that had 50 of the zener type I need.  Seems as though unit price is like $1.80 for a single or $5 for 30... sorta frustrating for parts that don't have a bulk pack.  Also picked up a variety of tips for the WES50. 

Tonight cut out Q1 and Q2.  Clipped Q2 too short to test but Q1 tested strange.  Put in new ones that tested good, plugged the board back in because of Q1 bad test, and BAM three beeps!  That's exactly what I should expect from a ZPU alone.  Plugged everything else back in and four beeps.  So I'll look that up tomorrow and see where to look from there.

[ChadTower]

Oops!  RAM board was still unplugged... which is the fourth self test.  Plugged that sucker back and it's in attract mode now.

 

I still have to adjust the monitor back from MAME land and do some burn testing but for now Berzerk is back!

[Neverending Project]

That is such an awesome feeling. Congrats! 

[ChadTower]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0kWqjDUu7o[/youtube]

 

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-xa4GYIt0A&feature=related[/youtube]

[shardian]

Maybe I remember it wrong, but isn't Atari Berzerk rally slow? In that first commercial, it appears to run faster than the arcade! Dare I say it, but was Atari Falsley advertising their gameplay. No....

[ChadTower]

That seems the right speed to me... he started off on like level 8, though. 

[Level42]

Atari 2600 Berzerk totally sucks because of the lacking samples.

Check out the 8-bit homecomputer version......almost 100% arcade port. (Except for the screen freezing during the samples).

[ChadTower]

Atari 2600 Berzerk totally sucks because of the lacking samples.

True but the 2600 version is the one I spent whole weekends playing as a kid.  It has a special place in my heart.

[Level42]

I _so_ know that feeling.

I was looking at a threat about a very nice Burger Time that someone picked up at the KLOV forum and the sounds of BT actually went through my head and how I link them to the place (a cinema) where I used to play it and the time setting in the early 80's. Really zapped me back for a moment

Enjoy the Berzerk and great job...

[ChadTower]

So I have the monitor mostly adjusted but can't get hori size right.  The coil just doesn't seem to want to turn.  Looks like it might be melted in place, probably from someone adjusting it in the past with a metal tool.  Anyone know the replacement part?  The monitor manual just lists the WG part number (009A2854-001).

[SirPeale]

Well done resurrecting this!

[CheffoJeffo]

 

[Spyridon]

This is starting to come along nicely. 

Check out the Berzerk for sale on KLOV.  This is what you should strive for on your restoration.  Best looking Berzerk I ever saw.

[ChadTower]

No doubt on that one.  If you forward a couple pages you'll see I posted. 

I'm not so optimistic on finding a CP like the one that guy has... nor of spending the money on the optical stick.  Other than that I should be able to get this thing nice and minty.

[Mauzy]

I would like to thank you, ChadTower. My high school Scholastic Bowl (think incredibly diverse jeopardy) team had a match last night in which there was a 4 part bonus of "Classic 1980's Arcade Games". I bout fell out of my chair when this was read as I knew I had it cinched. They gave the manufacturer and a description of 4 games. The first three were easy (Missile Command, Centipede, and Frogger) but the last one was a game manufactured by STERN electronics in 1980 in which you "had to stop the intruder" and something to do with Evil Otto. I didn't know about the rest but I knew about your thread in which Berzerk was a game created by Stern. I would have had no idea if not for this thread. I got all four for 20 points which led to a win for us.

[ChadTower]

Dude, that totally rocks.   

[ChadTower]

Mmmmm... some spares to fix while I'm at it.

[ChadTower]

The boards from ebay have arrived... they look pretty good.  Battery acid on the ZPUs isn't too bad, only a couple clipped components here and there... strange thing is that one of the ZPUs has a daughterboard I do not recognize.

[Level42]

Frenzy ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frenzy_(video_game)#Trivia

Look under Trivia !

That would be a really cool bonus !!!

[ChadTower]

Definitely not official Frenzy... best suggestion I've seen so far is bootleg Frenzy.  I'll find out once I start trying to revive the whole thing, I guess.

[ChadTower]

Took the speech board I got from ebay and recapped it... popped it in... and it works well.  Speech may be crisper than before but that may be my imagination.  Either way now I have two working speech boards.  I'll recap the first one and store it as a spare.

[RetroACTIVE]

I love this freakin' game! Awesome seeing it coming to life!  I want one so stinkin' bad, but I'm completely out of room. 

[ChadTower]

Recapped about half the audio board from ebay... ran out of 470uF caps.  I'm running low on lots of caps, and having to use a lot of radials in place of axials, so it's time to order another bulk cap bag.

Interestingly, my son got an "electronics kit" for xmas.  I figured it's the standard build a light circuit with some jumpers and a tiny bulb thing.  It's not!  He whipped it out tonight and it's full of real parts.  Real caps, resistors, transistors, pots, LEDs... hell, I'm sitting here replacing 4.7uF caps on the audio board and he's playing with 4.7uF caps upstairs!    

Best part is he's actually grasping the concepts faster than I am.  We're going to have to sit down with this thing on sunday and spend some hard time building the projects.  I'll probably learn just as much as he does. 

[Mauzy]

Interestingly, my son got an "electronics kit" for xmas.  I figured it's the standard build a light circuit with some jumpers and a tiny bulb thing.  It's not!  He whipped it out tonight and it's full of real parts.  Real caps, resistors, transistors, pots, LEDs... hell, I'm sitting here replacing 4.7uF caps on the audio board and he's playing with 4.7uF caps upstairs!    

I raided my old circuit kit about a year ago. Probably had $150 worth of resistors and ceramic capacitors. Very few electrolytic though...

[Level42]

First thing to learn from a kit like that: do not reverse electrolytic caps. Show him wit a really small one. And wear some eye protection.

You know it's going to happen sooner or later....

[ChadTower]

Erf, now I'm getting some folding in the top 1/2" of the image... so I guess I have to recap this monitor.  I would swear I did a couple years ago but it's hard to tell now because the chassis got so much basement dust on it.  May as well bite the bullet and do it.  Have to pull it to deal with that width issue anyway.

[ChadTower]

Have it about half capped and ran out of a couple types of needed caps.  Putting in another bulk cap order from GPE.

[ChadTower]

GPE didn't come through, put together a bulk cap list from Mouser and posted the Project link in EE for others to use.  Waiting on those.

I was playing it last night and noticed that after like the second level all of the robots are blue.  That can't be right.

[shardian]

GPE didn't come through, put together a bulk cap list from Mouser and posted the Project link in EE for others to use.  Waiting on those.

I was playing it last night and noticed that after like the second level all of the robots are blue.  That can't be right.

depends on your board revision number according to wikipedia.

[ChadTower]

Interesting... I had missed that.  It is definitely not happening at 20,000 points, though.  It's more like 2000.  And they're dark blue, at least the way the monitor is adjusted right now.

[ChadTower]

 

Waited a week for the bulk cap order from Mouser to come in... spent the last two nights capping the monitor... now it's dead.  No glow at all.  Just took the chassis out to verify the caps and one was backwards so I took it out and turned it around.  Still dead.

[ChadTower]

Monitor hijinks.

So it's back on now but neither of the problems I had hoped to solve with this cap kit have been solved.

[ChadTower]

Recapped the audio board from the Ebay lot and plugged it in... works!  So there's one more Berzerk board brought back to life.   

[ChadTower]

Looking at the rest of the boards they are all further from working.  All need the dip banks replaced and I'm going to have to figure out what part to use for that.

Also, if you follow that monitor thread, linked above, you can see that I've discovered the curling in the top inch of the monitor isn't the monitor.  When I decreased vertical size the curling follows the top inch of the game image rather than just curling the top inch of the screen real estate.  That means the signal is the issue and I have to figure out where to go with that.

[SirPeale]

Possible sync issue.  Of course you can try the monitor out using another source, see where that gets you.

[ChadTower]

Hrm... not sure I actually have another reasonable source handy.  I might have a signal generator around but I'd have to learn to use it.

[SirPeale]

What happened to your Neo Geo and your POW?

[ChadTower]

What happened to your Neo Geo and your POW?

Sold and parted-sold.  We never used the Neo Geo and this is the POW monitor.  POW cab was sold to someone for a MAME setup since it was just a generic Dynamo.

Turns out I have one of these on my shelf.  Guess this is a decent time to figure out how to use it.

(pic ebay stolen)

[ChadTower]

HOLY CRAP!

I just went through a couple of boxes of books I picked up from the woman who gave me much of my test equipment.  It's all from her father's TV repair sideline that he had to give up when he got Alzheimers a few years ago.  The bulk of it is from around 1985 backwards and I didn't know much about what I was looking at when I got them so I stashed them until I did.

I'm looking at two good sized boxes of TV schematics, TV analysis and repair guides, what appears to be a whole course of practical TV theory/repair texts (~10 books)... books specifically on TV troubleshooting with an oscilloscope from beginner to advanced techniques... specific manufacturer repair manuals for Zenith, GE, and a few others going back years.  Component cross reference guides from 1976-1986.  Operating manuals for all sorts of test equipment I didn't get from her that should probably get scanned and put on the net. 

 

I can get pics of everything for anyone who wants them and might be able to scan stuff with bindings that will allow it.

[Kevin Mullins]

Sweet !

That sort of information is definitely getting hard to come by.
 

[ChadTower]

Stepping aside a bit, looking at the rest of these spare boards, they all have broken dip banks.  Does anyone know of a suitable replacement?  I asked at KLOV and came up dry.

[ChadTower]

GRRRRR.  Went to work on the monitor issue tonight and now it fails in 4th self test - the color board.  Not patient enough to deal with a NEW problem.  I'm going to watch a movie and eat some ice cream.   

[ChadTower]

Good news!  The backup BSC (RAM board) I got in the ebay lot works.  Plugged it in and boom I'm back up and running.  Not sure at the moment what happened to the original one.

[shardian]

Stepping aside a bit, looking at the rest of these spare boards, they all have broken dip banks.  Does anyone know of a suitable replacement?  I asked at KLOV and came up dry.

Run jumpers set to TG standards and abandon dip banks? 

[ChadTower]

Run jumpers set to TG standards and abandon dip banks? 

I don't want those goons in here inspecting my games! 

More seriously, most of the dips actually used are for line breaks/signature analysis reasons.  They are useful to better techs than myself.  Not many are game settings.

[Spyridon]

Now you need to get yourself one of these:

[ChadTower]

Been too busy lately for game work... just finished capping the spare audio board.

[ChadTower]

Woo!  Moving some stuff around the basement last night I found the joystick grommets I had lost.  Now I can rebuild the stick.

I had been saving it for a surprise but may as well mention it now.  I ordered an original Berzerk stick from a forum member and have been really looking forward to putting that in.  Still waiting on the package to arrive, though, and it was shipped at the end of March.  To be fair it's coming from Australia.

[ChadTower]

That stick still hasn't shown up.  I have pretty much given up on it.  As such I pulled the stick I have apart last night to replace the grommet.  Got it back together, it's not right, so I take it apart and compare the replacement grommet to the original.  Shaft diameter is different so I guess this is for a different stick.   

I did compare the stiffness of the rubber on the old grommet vs the new grommet and it is pretty much the same.  So it appears that the issue is not that this grommet is worn out - I just don't like the throw on this joystick.  It's really long and sometimes the thing doesn't hit the diagonals as well as I'd like.

[ChadTower]

Okay, been playing with Bob Roberts' width kit for quite a while now.  C38 originally had a .39uf cap in it... so I tried moving up to .47uf and the pic either didn't change or got a little worse.  So I moved down to a .334uf and it almost looked like it got even wider, which makes no sense, for it to get worse with both a higher and lower cap.  Just tried going to .808uf (.334 and .474 in parallel) and the width didn't seem to change but the pic got really dark.

 

Anyone have a good 4600 or electrohome for sale?


EDIT:  last try, put in a .104uf... I think it fried something.  This kit did more harm than good.

[ChadTower]

Put the original "width cap" back in... replaced chassis... promptly smoked the ceramic resistor on the side of the chassis.

Bob Roberts' width cap kit = epic fail.

[ChadTower]

More positive progress:  new CP!




Shelves too close to get a good shot of the front right now.

[Spyridon]

Nice control panel.  Was that one of the recent ones that sold on eBay? 

[ChadTower]

I did get it off ebay... listed as NOS but I'm pretty sure this is a repro.  The price was right either way so no big deal I guess but no feedback for him!

[Spyridon]

I was watching that auction.  I considered bidding on it even though I don't have a Berzerk...but I hope to one day.

[ChadTower]

I was watching that auction.  I considered bidding on it even though I don't have a Berzerk...but I hope to one day.

Heh.  You weren't bidding on it, were you?

[ChadTower]

It lives again!  Bought a working chassis.  The old one goes onto a shelf until I feel like fixing it.  This one had a good width coil so I was able to get the width right.  Had to adjust it all the way down to the narrowest pic to get the whole maze onto the screen.  It's there now, though. 

Next up:  adjusting the colors.  I suck at that.

Next next up:  T molding.

Next next next up:  sealing/cleaning the bezel.

[hatrick]

Right on! I love Berzerk. I completely suck at it, but I Love playing mine. The taunting from the robots really makes the game. Damn you Evil Otto!

[ChadTower]

Okay, back to this.  Now there is substantial progress.   

I never could get the colors right on that k7000.  The best I could get was back to where the original chassis was to begin with.  Probably spent 3 hours just on color adjustment.  I couldn't even get a pure white without a video signal - it never got closer than a grey/blue.

I even tried swapping out the game's color board.  Berzerk isn't actually generated in color, it passes the game signal through a small PCB that adds color before it gets to the monitor.  It was originally intended to be a black and white game but they correctly recognized that with color games hitting the market they better get Berzerk in color too or nobody would buy it, speech or not.  The change in color board didn't change a thing.

At this point I decided if the problem isn't in the color board... and it's consistent across two chassis... gotta be in the tube.  I put forth some effort to find a full replacement monitor but although I would usually get several responses to WTB ads nobody would ever actually set up a time for me to show up with cash in hand.  Got fed up with that, too, and I don't ever plan on having many raster vids...

So I decided to check out the scan converter sold here.  Some forum searching turned up one solid positive review and a lot of posts asking if anyone had bought one.  I bought one.

[ChadTower]

The converter came in about ten days, well packed, drop shipped from Canada despite clearly being a Chinese product.  It came with cables for power and a couple of different types of video in.  Connectors attached for the converter and nothing on the other end so you can easily attach your own connectors.

I had a spare 5v-2A wall wart so I used that for power. 

<pic placeholder for power>

Snagged a late model 19" VGA monitor off Freecycle (people are just dying to give away their VGA CRTs).  Made a quick adapter to get video from the Berzerk harness and fired it up.

<pic placeholder for adapter/video line>

Took a little menu tweaking to get the video perfect but the firmware in the converter is good - once you find how to change the language from Chinese to English.  The game displays perfectly.  Colors are crisp, black is true black (and that is important in Berzerk), I'm very happy with it.

[ChadTower]

So next issue here is mounting this VGA monitor in the cabinet.  I thought this was going to be difficult but it turned out to be very simple.

I wanted it to be as close to original as possible so I used the original plywood frame.  In Berzerk this has bolts through the side of the cabinet so I wanted to keep it that way.

PLEASE NOTE THAT MY SON IS WORKING THE CAMERA FOR PROJECTS NOW AND HE'S VERY ENTHUSIASTIC

The only real challenge here is that this little lip of metal stuck out too far to fit onto that frame.  Take note of the adjustment PCB hanging off there - that's going to be a small issue in a minute.




We found a quick solution to that.




Gone!

[ChadTower]

With that piece of metal we were free to get this baby mounted to the frame.

Ryan attaches the corner brackets to the frame.  These are standard 90 degree brackets we picked out at Lowe's after trying and deciding against 3-4 other potential solutions.  These are attached via bolts in through-holes with washers on both sides for support.  I did all the measuring and drilling - Ryan did the securing.




Fully mounted from the backside (couldn't find a way to type that without snickering).




From the front.  My intention was to run that adjustment PCB wire through that little opening and mount it on the protruding piece on the front.  As you can see I forgot about that when I mounted the monitor.  I had to take it back off and do it again.  




I was a little bit nervous that those CRT tabs were not designed to bear weight and would either be shaky or snap off when I tried to put the monitor in the cab.  I was wrong.  They held up great and I had no issues.

[ChadTower]

Stern did a great job on the slide drawer for PCB access but a truly crappy job on the monitor removal.  It's either a two guy job or you have to be able to hold the monitor - CRT neck facing your chest - out in front of you with straight arms to mount it.  It's not easy.  And you have to disconnect the harness (on the left in the pic) from the speaker/light/power switch in the top of the cab so you can move it out of the way.  There is not enough clearance to get the frame in otherwise.  There is no way to do this via the front of the cabinet.

Back in the cabinet!




And, of course, the money shot... the game in action.  Note this time the adjustment PCB is where it should be.  Also note that the monitor has been back in the cab for 90 seconds at this point and Ryan is already jockeying for position to play.  

[Level42]

O man, why didn't you buy a real arcade monitor.......

[ChadTower]

This actually looks much better than a 20 year old burned in end of life monitor.  No burn in! 

I never did care about 15khz, scanlines, color bleed, etc.  I put forth more than a token effort to get this running on a "real arcade monitor".  I ran out of patience with sellers who had monitors but wouldn't ever actually make a transaction.  Seems like right now everybody with extra monitors are sitting on them waiting for the prices to go up as people get desperate.  I'm not looking to play that game anymore for raster monitors that display just as well on a VGA monitor that can be had all day long for free. 

Eventually it's either going to be this or the raster games will end up like vectors - good working games parted out because the monitors are worth more than whole games.  At least this time we have an alternative.

I could have put in LCD in there!   

[Level42]

This actually looks much better than a 20 year old burned in end of life monitor.  No burn in! 

I love my burn in. It BELONGS there
I'm really lucky with the G07 in my machine. The picture looks like brand new. I'm _not_ going to cap-kit this.

I meant buying a Vision Pro from AS for instance, a new one, he won't be sitting on them I'm sure.... man, you're in the states, you can actually buy new arcade monitors....I was VERY lucky to find one recently here. NOS (but for another game).

I could have put in LCD in there!   

Of course, but then I would have had to kill you, wouldn't I.
 

[SirPeale]

Dude, you live in New England, which is like Arcade Game Mecca...you couldn't find one person to sell you a working 19" standard res monitor?

[ChadTower]

Dude, you live in New England, which is like Arcade Game Mecca...you couldn't find one person to sell you a working 19" standard res monitor?

How many WTB posts did you see me make?  Never turned up one deal that wasn't someone who stopped responding, changed the terms after the fact, or didn't actually have one.  Closest I came was a collector we both know in southern NH who consistently would stop responding when I tried to set up an actual time to come get it.

The more I think about it, though, the less of an actual problem I see with this.  It doesn't look all that much different than an arcade monitor would if it weren't 20 years old and burned.  It's Berzerk, a stick figure running around a monochrome maze shooting robots that are practically nonanimated.  What's the difference between putting in some random arcade monitor vs some random VGA monitor? 

I just don't get how people who consider MAME to be a "faithful representation of the game" can be so adamant about a display that isn't actually part of the game.  Emulation is a way bigger bastardization than a VGA monitor used with original game PCBs.

[SirPeale]

How many WTB posts did you see me make?  

None, actually.  I don't venture into BST that often, and when I do it's to berate people for not putting their location in their thread titles.

If I'd known you were looking I probably could have set you up.  But hey, you're actually up and playing now, so that's what matters.

[Level42]

The more I think about it, though, the less of an actual problem I see with this.  It doesn't look all that much different than an arcade monitor would if it weren't 20 years old and burned.

.....  What's the difference between putting in some random arcade monitor vs some random VGA monitor?  

The difference is that the pixels are way too small on that VGA monitor....plus the converter looses quality, no matter what.

I just don't get how people who consider MAME to be a "faithful representation of the game" can be so adamant about a display that isn't actually part of the game.

I don't think that. Mame is nice if you have no alternative, but it never plays exactly like the same hardware.

 Emulation is a way bigger bastardization than a VGA monitor used with original game PCBs.

100% agreed !

Don't take this too seriously, it's not like you hacked a Xarcade CP and a MAME PC in it....
And there is always the cost question, I realize that very much (always struggle with it). A brand new monitor is 200 bucks excl. shipping. The converter only 50....

By the way, form what I've read it looks like your problems may have actually been with converging the tube. It's not that hard to fix that really, but I can see why people don't want to try it. So you still have some good chassis there.