The Dave Nutting Associates Shooting Star

Computer Space is not the right Nutting associates (that would be Bill), but this is how folks remember the name “Nutting” and I had to get that image out of my head

In an article ‘Arlington Lab offers invention for hire’ the Daily Herald made a comparison between the accomplishments of one Dave Nutting and Associates employee and the famous inventor Thomas Edison. This particular employee’s name is Jeff Frederiksen and this article talks about FSL, or Frederiksen Shu Laboratories and how they were inventors for hire – whitelabeling to the extreme you might say. Here is a scan and snippet of the article;

David Shu has a business sense, so he was careful when considering a partnership with Jeffrey Frederiksen, who has a creative sense.

So Shu decided to discuss Frederiksen’s abilities with respected friend, the late K. S. Fu, a professor of electrical engineering at Purdue University. Fu’s assessment of Frederiksen: “He’s not an academician. He’s and Edison.”

That’s all Shu had to hear, for in forming a research and development partnership, he needed not a scholar, but an inventor.

In the three years since Frederiksen & Shu Laboratories Inc. first started, Jeffrey Frederiksen has been involved in the creation of enough new products to being living up to comparisons to inventor Thomas Edison.

The article goes on to talk about Frederiksen’s history with Nutting Associates and some of his biggest inventions including;

A video imaging process called “Color Cell Compression” which condenses and transmits pictures over telephone lines. It’s now sold under the ColorCatcher label by Diversified Technology Inc.

Pretty amazing comparison to make, but Jeff does has an impressive resume, he just flew under the radar as part of a group of consultants ‘behind the curtain’ of Bally / Midway, and then moving away from gaming entirely. The natural talent described in this article made me think of Aaron Fechter of Rock-A-Fire fame, only Jeff went on to additional success through the right partnerships and talent.

I have written several articles here concerning my fascination with Dave Nutting Associates and their involvement with Bally / Midway. It was an awesome surprise to get this article scan in my email. Big shout out to Greg T. for supplying and letting me share this clipping.

Frederiksen Shu Laboritories (FSL) Info?

Both Shu and Frederiksen would now be getting up in years, and a cursory search for FSL didn’t turn up much for me. If you know anything more about this company – how long they lasted, if they were bought out, etc. drop me a line or leave me a comment.

Localarcade.com is now – Arcadeartlibrary.com

Let me back up a little bit for those that might not know what ‘Localarcade’ was. Localarcade was a community website for sharing vector, raster, and raw scanned arcade artwork that could be used to generate reproduction artwork to restore arcade games.

The participation on the site was poor and very few people actually used the platform’s rating system, and for that reason it was hard to vette the quality and accuracy of the artwork. I did a comparison post showing the Pac-man sideart inaccuracies. But, the site was great to get vector artwork to generate secondary artwork, or at least to use as a base to generate accurate artwork for print.

Localarcade was always a strange name for me, arcadeartlibrary.com is a better, keyword rich domain name in my opinion. Sir Woogie, who runs the site, posted that it was online in a sort of ‘beta’ form. However, the URL isn’t pulling up for me.

As we wait and hope for that artwork to come back online at arcadeartlibrary.com, you can always access all of the files originally at localarcade.com at Zorg’s arcade artwork mirror (VectorLib).

Stunning Frenzy cpanel artwork!

This is always my payoff, to see photos of an arcade piece I worked on. The Frenzy panels ended up being shipped directly to the fab shop, so Chris went by and took a look today and snapped a couple of photos. Here they are;

8 months later the panels are just a few steps away from being finished and shipped out. These projects always take time, and there are always unforseen delays. Keep posted here for more updates when the fab shop is done doing the upper bend and Chris starts to ship them out.

Pepper II on Craigslist – Unclaimed for 3 days!

Here is the story.

The weekend of Aug. 6-8th I got away for a little while – Chris and I took a trip to Columbus, OH to play arcade games for the weekend. We hung out with Greg, with one of the most amazing gamerooms I’ve ever seen, and we also made the effort to get out and meet a couple of other more experienced collectors. Beat from the weekend of relaxing , Sunday was low key before the grind started back on Monday.

Chris headed out Monday morning fairly early, and soon after I saw the Pepper II posting. Once I heard back from the poster I realized Chris was about :30 minutes north of Lafayette and needing to get back. I decided to not call him, he could back track a half hour on a wild goose chase for all I knew. Knowing that I had a busy week and that the Pepper II cabinet would surely be claimed soon, I archived the email.

Craigslist adventure – New life

Having already figured the Pepper was gone and end of story, I was extremely surprised to get an email Tuesday afternoon. The seller shoots me a message out of the blue to say “The Pepper is still sitting on the curb as of noon today“.

Bizarre! I can’t believe its still there. The few arcade game collectors in Lafeyette must not be active anymore.

Even this anomaly couldn’t last and by the time I got home the Pepper cabinet would be gone. But I made some calls at 6:30 anyway to see if I could get some eyes on the ground.

I got a confirmation at 8:30 that the Pepper II arcade game was still sitting on the curb! Honestly, what the heck is going on?

Patiently waiting to get the game

By the time my wife got home to relieve me, it was after 10pm. It was going to be a long night and I’d be the only crazy person in the truck. Headed up to Lafayette, sure enough, there sat Pepper II with a lined piece of paper stuck to it reading “Free”.

No one could tell from the photos what condition the game was in. Sadly, the sides are painted over in black with no indication that the original Pepper II sideart is still there. The back door absorbed some water from sitting on the curb and will need to be replaced. However, the control panel and artwork in general are in excellent condition. Time will tell if losing three hours of sleep will be worth it.

I loaded the cabinet up in the truck, made sure everything was secure and headed back home.

Pepper II for sale in Indianapolis

I don’t plan to keep Pepper II, so it is currently up for sale with an offer pending. If you are interested and want to pick up in the Indianapolis area, drop me a line.

Many of these cabinets will have wear and tear from 20 years of moving around from location to location and some restoration will be necessary to make your Donkey Kong look like the arcade game you remember.

Here is a photo gallery showing someone who restored their Donkey Kong (not me), converting back from a Rastan to its original Nintendo glory. From hole patching to side art placement, this photo tutorial has a lot of good information.

Feel free to leave comments with any questions, and even though it is not my machine, I will do my best to answer them. You can also visit my Donkey Kong arcade game page which contains a lot of information and resources to answer your questions.

Donkey Kong cabinet restoration – Part 1

Finding a Donkey Kong in your area should not be all that difficult. But usually, a complete working cabinet will cost $400-$450. Sometimes it makes more sense to buy a cheap cabinet and restore it. That is what this one home owner did.

This was originally a Donkey Kong cabinet that looks like it was converted to a Vs. cabinet then later converted to jamma Rastan cabinet. $60 dollars later and 3+ hours we had the cabinet home, and in the garage. As you will see, we had to do alot of filling and sanding ahead of us – The first photo is showing the cabinet converted to a Rastan and then the second shows some of the scratches and dings.

First step, use bondo to patch all of the imperfections on all sides of our Donkey Kong cabinet, even including the back door.

After the Bondo dried, time to sand down the sides of the cabinet.

The front had been repainted in black at some point in its life, but it was an extremely sloppy paint job. We started to use paint stripper on the Donkey Kong and get it to a base to be repainted.

After that we taped off the sides so we can paint black on the inside.

Donkey Kong arcade restoration Part 2 – Primer

Coming in the next part of the tutorial, we are going to start to lay down the primer on the sides of the cabinet before we give it a fresh coat of blue!

A Sundance arcade game in Little Sweden

The story of this Sundance arcade game is truly a riveting one. It started out simply enough – a collector was doing some surfing on a site called ArtificalOwl.com, a site dedicated to photographing some of the most fascinating abandoned man-made structures.

One of the sites was an old lodge named Little Sweden, 22 miles east of Sonora, CA on highway 108. This old lodge had been abandoned but not cleaned out. If you take a look at the Little Sweden photo album, you will see a decaying time capsule of 70′s furniture, appliances and other commercial relics. The album as a whole is bewitching, at times amazing and at others spooky.

Photo via Artificial Owl

But nestled within this album was one lone photo with a caption “An old video game.”

Photo via Artificial Owl

Well, this is not just any old video / arcade game. This particular game was one of the first made by Cinematronics in 1979. While some of the Cinematronics titles saw wide pervasive distribution, other titles (such as Cosmic Chasm) had only a limited production run. These rare titles are still sought after by collectors that consider them “holy grails”.

This was the case with Sundance. Tim Skelly, the creator, is quoted as saying Sundance was a “very fragile game, and few lived long”. But being an early black & white vector, collectors still find this game highly desirable. Here is the original flyer;

Flyer from ArcadeFlyers.com

How rare is the game? Well, VAPS.org lists only two known instances of Sundance. There is very little information online about the game in general from photos to chatter about the game on forums. One of the few really interesting articles available is Brian Jones’ Sundance restoration from the brink of disintegration.

There probably aren’t more than 15 still around, maybe less. Couple that with the fact that Sundance is a Cinematronics game and is extremely rare, ‘collectors’ will spare no cost to step over each other to get one. Due to the low numbers it’s hard to know what this arcade is worth, and the kicker – we don’t know anything about the condition or completeness.

The Sundance Chase

The minute that first photo surfaced on the 27th of July, 2010 I knew there would be groups vying to acquire the game. Some would attempt a legal route of acquisition, some would stay completely silent until they had the Sundance cabinet in hand.

I would normally say – Go read how the whole story unfolded in the quest for this arcade game. Sadly, the forum is so poorly moderated the thread exploded to 60+ pages of information, 99% of which is useless postulating, greed, immaturity and general idiocy.

Photo via Artificial Owl

So here is basically what ends up happening.

Many collectors are trying to get a hold of the original owner of the Little Sweden property – Donald Williams to legally purchase the game. A ton of research and effort goes into tracking down information about the property, the owner, his property tax status etc. Maps are posted, neighbors in the area are phoned and interviewed, information is purchased – a tremendous amount of resources into finding more about the circumstances and the possibility of legally purchasing the game.

But in the end, its the guy who has the moxy to walk into a meth ridden, decrepid, feces riddled structure, pull the Sundance cabinet out and drive it home that ends up with it.

One forum member by the handle name of Jehuie ends up stopping off on a trip with his whole family and snags the Sundance out of the cabin and takes it home. He then proceeds to post photos of it online, and the condition of the game is amazing given the surroundings.

Enter the Little Sweden Sundance Arcade gallery

The Sundance arcade epic – Ongoing

The story is currently ongoing. After the photos of the cabinet were posted the topic reached a boiling point. The forum is completely public, so any individual can pop in and see the photos that were taken, what was said and who ‘appears’ to have the game. Letters were written and so many people locally to the area were approached that one old arcade game has hit a word of mouth tipping point.

Jehuie has said he’s been approached by the police and has been recommended to keep information close to the chest.

Conclusion

There isn’t a conclusion to the Little Sweden Sundance Chase. But it is a pretty amazing story. From one random photo album on the web, to an extremely rare arcade game out in the middle of no-where, to the collectors going out and rescuing the cabinet which is in decent shape.

What would you have done? Would you have just gone onto the property, grabbed the game and not told anyone? If you were within driving distance, and you thought you wanted the game, what would have been your approach?

Time Pilot 84 overlays even make a Twin Cobra conversion sing

This is always the best part, to see the artwork in use and applied to someone’s favorite game, one step closer to being restored. I was especially happy that the alignment of the yellow ship worked out just as we had measured.

If you’re interested in contracting me to reproduce arcade artwork for your machine, either a small run of prints or a custom one off, contact me today. You can purchase your own Time Pilot 84 overlay from ThisOldGame.com.

Sente Arcade Collectible – Tear Off Notepad

Still wrapped in the original packaging, this was a little freebie that the Sente guys took to the AMOA show, probably ’84-’85. Here are the photos of this piece of classic arcade history;

The 4×4 notepads were given out to customers, vendors and used internally. Since this one is still wrapped in plastic it is certainly an arcade collectible, perfect piece to add to the gameroom. When I asked for more information from Owen, he started to share a story about AMOA and how they got around Nolan’s non-complete clause;

I have a “No Comment” button that was given out at an AMOA show. Sente was at the show, but not allowed to show their games because of Nolan’s non-compete clause. So we had games under green sheets, and a gave out “no comment” button.

Short, sweet and to the point.

It’s been a month, I don’t know if Owen already eBay’d this piece of paraphernalia, but as soon as I get the auction link, I will post it here. Thanks Owen for letting me share.

If you are looking to learn more about the hobby please visit the official article page. Obviously, please browse around the website and drop me a line if you have any questions at all. Happy Gaming!

Nintendo molding is flat!

The conversation concerning the authenticity of white t-molding for Nintendo has been raging forth for some time. When the topic crossed my desk several weeks ago, I smiled, maybe chuckled a little but as I saw some of the photos showing the difference in original Nintendo molding and what is available I knew – this is going to be a huge deal to arcade collectors.

If you’ve been following the thread, and know that authentic Nintendo tmolding is now available, you can skip the story and find out how to purchase some today.

Otherwise, on with the story.

The murmurs of better Nintendo cabinet molding

In late 2009 this topic of reproducing more original Nintendo tmolding resurfaced. The differences were rehashed – how what is available is curved and almost crescent shaped where the original was flat and the surface had a uniform thickness. Collectors chimed in with all the typical viewpoints – That’s not correct, yes it is I’ve been waiting for X years for this, does it really matter, it will be too expensive, etc. etc. But not until some good photos showing a nice cross comparison of the differences in the original Nintendo tmolding to today’s stock did we fan the flames.

Quite the difference right? I was floored myself.

So what now? You’re informed, and you would prefer to either replace the tmolding on your recently restored Nintendo cabinet or you are fueled to finally finish an outstanding project because now you have truly authentic Nintendo t-molding. Oop, forgot, someone has’ta pay for this here molding.

Nintendo tmolding numbers

Options abound online for producing t-molding, one of the most well known is Outwater. Outwater will require a minimum quantity of 5,000+ feet. 5,000 feet sounds like a lot, but even if you break that out to 2 sets of 20′ lengths (Donkey Kong and Punch Out cabinets for example), you’d only need to sell 125 sets of 40′ to recoup ‘cost’. We’re not talking Centuri cabinets here, we’re talking Nintendo with some of the most popular games of all time including DK – thousands of cabinets. If Mikesarcade.com or Arcadeshop.com sells 10 sets of molding a month that means that at a year there is the potential to sell a similar amount and get your money back.

But 5,000 feet is still a significant outlay of capital, let alone cost to make a mold.

Who would be the facilitator?

Donnie was one of the guys fueling the dialog and he approached Dave from Ramcontrols about having the molding produced. No question Dave has skills in the fabrication department, and is a detail OCD man himself. But after no progress for two months, Bill stepped forward to investigate the feasibility, which was the best situation for everyone.

Fortunately, there is a manufacturer out there that doesn’t require such a steep volume for molding, and the mold cost was very reasonable. Not only was the manufacturer willing to produce smaller volumes, but they included sample material with the cost of the mold creation – nearly 60′!.

I want it! Where do I buy it?

You’ve seen the proof, a great product that will add that ‘like new’ feel to your game. To purchase a set (20′) of authentic Nintendo arcade game t-molding you’ll want to head over to Bill’s website Chomping Quarters.com.

20′ of molding will cover a typical Nintendo game, as well as larger sized games like Punch Out or Playchoice. Bill offered a tmolding pre-order deal to get a set for $30 shipped, but as of this writing that deal is over. He had a few takers

You can still purchase a set for $35 shipped (Continental USA). For repro project with low volume, you will usually see a 35-50% premium. If you were to buy a set of molding from most outlets it will run you $25 approx. $35 for a limited run project is an awesome price.