The Free Mr. Do! Project

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I bought Mr. Do!.
I brought him down the stairs.
The bottom started to become separated from the rest of the cabinet. I unplugged some wires and got it down.
I plugged the wires back in.

Been working on it for the last 12 hours and I have not got the game to run.

I am the angriest person in the history of recorded rage.

This might do it for me - I get this game (and Spy Hunter) working and I'll never buy another one again. I'm running bad luck constantly and I am tired of it.

Please, God, if you're out there...

help me and my Mr. Do!.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Also, do electricians ever work Sundays? Don't get me wrong, I'll take a half day on Monday if need be. But I am curious as it's not an emergency, but it is an emergency for my mental health.

I can't understand why the circuit isn't putting power to either the marquee, PCB or monitor. Nothing. Zilch. Zip. Arrrrgh!

[hygraed]

make sure the switch on the back is on

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Yeah, the seller had moved it back away from the door and pulled it, to put it in "always on" position.

I need a multimeter to check the current. Mine broke, I found out tonight. I'm seriously in a major bad luck streak recently. I'll start a new thread.

[Vitriola]

If only luck was measured in health, amount of loved ones, cats that pee in boxes, or good homecooked meals. Wouldn't that be nice? If only...

[pinbacker]

There ain't no such thing as a free Mr. Do!

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

There ain't no such thing as a free Mr. Do!

I got it working. I had a bad interlock switch. What I ended up doing was cutting the wires going into the (two) (one for the back door, one for the coin door) switches and tied them together. Then I wrapped them in electrical tape.

I should say, this is after I got the multimeter out and verified that power was going to the thing correctly.

What a pain in the ass.

On the other hand - it's Mr. Do!!!!

[AArdvark]

AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!




THE
WIDE WORLD OF
AARDVARK

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!

I also realized why there aren't pictures of every thing I encountered with this. While working on it you don't want to get your camera, because you are frustrated, and when finished you don't want to open it back up.

Ah, well. I'll grab a picture of the whole arcade and that'll be that. Conversions are really tricky, be... well, THIS conversion was tricky to trouble shoot, because I did not see a manual. It's odd to me that Universal (the makers of Mr. Do!) would make a conversion kit for a Taito cab because I am not aware of them having any relationship.

OK, I should now look this up because for all I know they did do business together.

I remember Da King once telling me that people who worked at the House of Guitars in Rochester, NY had to memorize the record labels for each band. That blew my mind. Of course, I learned the publisher of every video game released while I was at EB (and kept up fairly well until the last year or so) and I could probably score 80% on a quiz when it came to what manufacturers made which arcade games. It's funny how you end up soaking it all in.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

In Mr. Do! there are groups of 8 cherries. If you get them without pausing, one right after another, a scale will be played. That do-ri-me-fa-so-la-ti-do thing.

Do-Ri-Me.

Mr. Do.

Ah... it just hit me that - - ah! okay. I get it. I get why they did that.

It was only 26 years, I bet in another 26 I'll understand half the keystone cop nonsense going on in that game.

[The Bad Theory Fairy]

Do-Ri-Me.

Mr. Do.

::fingerguns!::

[co]

I remember Da King once telling me that people who worked at the House of Guitars in Rochester, NY had to memorize the record labels for each band. That blew my mind.

That's bizarre because they can't even be bothered to help you find anything in the store. I thought they were just ignorant assholes but really they have all this information and they choose to keep it to their smug selves.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I remember Da King once telling me that people who worked at the House of Guitars in Rochester, NY had to memorize the record labels for each band. That blew my mind.

That's bizarre because they can't even be bothered to help you find anything in the store. I thought they were just ignorant assholes but really they have all this information and they choose to keep it to their smug selves.

Here's my HOG story. I think our opinions of the place are similar.

I bought a 4-track cassette recorder in Syracuse in 1993. It worked okay for a couple years, except the fourth track had a wiring issue that always caused it to fail. I just wanted to get a new one that performed the same functions, so I went to the House of Guitars during summer break. They had a used model available, and I bought it.. Took it home, plugged it in... and it was completely dead. It had the power supply with it, meaning they couldn't be bothered to simply plug it into the wall before selling it.

Went back and talked to the same guy. I wasn't that agitated, but I wanted to go new instead of used. He showed me a unit which was (I can't remember how much, let's say $200) some price and I asked him if it would record at the same speed as my previous 4-track. If it couldn't, I couldn't use the old tapes we did.

The guy assured me that this new recorder would do that.

I bought it, took it home... the new one recorded at a faster speed, and there was no way to set it slower. Completely incompatible with the old 4-track tapes. I went back the next day, found the same guy and told him this. He said, "oh." We finally found a new 4-track that was compatible, but $100 less. I just figured I'd get a refund for the difference.

They wouldn't give me a refund for the difference.

"Store credit!" they said. Haha, like I want store credit to that fucking shithole after going back three times. I was a dumb kid and didn't know about doing chargebacks on credit cards so when the piece of shit wouldn't budge I thought I had no choice to accept it. You'd think that would be the end of the shitty service and incompetence.

But no. I had to go find the wasted, old owner and get him to sign the store credit check. Meaning, they did not call him up and have him come to the register. They told me to wander around the place until I could find this "Arman." If you've ever been there, you know that Moses had an easier time finding the promised land than a customer could a specific employee. To his credit he seemed like a nice enough guy, but Jesus Fucking Christ.

Single worst experience I've ever had at a store. It makes you appreciate national chains. When my brother wanted a guitar for Christmas one year there was no chance I was going anywhere else but Guitar Center.

[bruce]

When my brother wanted a guitar for Christmas one year there was no chance I was going anywhere else but Guitar Center.

Why didn't you try the pawn shop? Then he mighta gotten his own guitar back.

Bruce

[co]

It's exactly that, the fact that they completely disrespect their customers that makes me never consider going back there. I once bought a tuning meter there and dared to ask if I could write a check. It's one thing to have a no checks policy as lots of places do, but the guy arrogantly said, "no, because <i>our customers<i> always bounce checks we can't take them." How can you have a store that caters to musicians but seemingly loathe them at the same time?

[AArdvark]

The employees are WAY too cool to be bothered to actually help the customers. If you get a new guy working there then sometimes they will actually help. It's the ones that have been around for years that give the fuck-off attitudes.
I took drum lessons there for a year before I switched to Hochstein and let me tell you that store is something else. If you don't like to haggle then don't buy anything.
Case in point: Set of bass strings. The counter guy dint know how much they were as the labeling system at the HOG is akin to the safety regulations implemented at Chernobyl. the 'aged owner' announced that those strings were twenty dollars. My friend pointed to the sign that read "All guitar strings 50% off"

Friend] "Does that mean the regular price for these strings is forty dollars."

Owner] "Bass strings are excluded from the sale price."

Friend] "My bass is a guitar. It's a bass guitar."

Owner [becoming annoyed] "Do you want these or not?"

We left without the strings. I came back a week later. Because I had a lesson.


THE
WORLDS LARGEST
FRUSTRATION
AARDVARK

[Garth]

Did you play stairway to heaven dude?

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

To me, it's awesome that the inherent shittyness of the House of Guitars can't be contained by any one thread.

Here's an update on Mr. Do!: I had five games going the other night and Mr. Do! started acting up with graphics corruption and all sixes in the high score slots. End of days indeed! I toggled the dip switch that resets the high scores and everything went back to normal. Then, last night, on my second game since flipping the scores off and then on again I broke 100,000, which I had not done on the stand-up version before.

So... cool.

Not sure why it went wonky in the first place though.

[Jack Straw]

Mr. Do! hates you!

[Jack Straw]

I'll mail you $2.50 as advance payment for 10 plays whenever we can make it out to sunny Colorado.

look what came back to me in yesterday's mail. Damn man, you've moved TWICE (at least) since the last address I had for you?!?

eh, i have to do laundry anyway.