Space War at Bill's Classic Arcade

Space War : Picture Library	Space War : Monitor Modifications

Space War : Control Panel Help	Space War: Key Switch Problems & Solutions

Download high resolution scans of the original documents in .pdf format (right-click, save-as):

Vectorbeam_Space_War_Display_Electronics_Deflection_Circuits_Fig_A-1.pdf
Vectorbeam_Space_War_Display_Electronics_Power_Supply_and_Intensity_Circuits_Fig_A-2.pdf
Vectorbeam_Space_War_LV_Power_Supply_Chassis_Fig_A-5.pdf
Vectorbeam_Space_War_Manual_BW_1200dpi.pdf
Vectorbeam_Space_War_Manual_cover_color_400dpi.pdf
Note: Flaws in the above drawings are not the result of a bad scan or a bad original document. The images are exact copies of the original documents as they were shipped with the machine.

The following drawing is a "redraw" of the original audio schematic that is intended to greatly improve readability and clarity.
I present this as an aid to servicing your machine. I have added some useful information such as signal names, named sections, and notes on amplifier bias adjustment.
Space_War_Vectorbeam_Audio_Schematic.pdf

The Story:

Nov. 16, 2008: This is a big day for me with respect to my arcade game collection. Ever since I got into the hobby, I've been trying to find either a Cinematronics Space Wars or a Vectorbeam Space War (the one that I prefer) to add to my personal collection. Over the years I have seen only a few of these games appear for sale on eBay or on the forums. I could've bought one back in 2006 on eBay but I hesitated just one hour too long and I missed it. I tried to buy one this past summer and I offered a very substantial amount for it but again it was not to be. I started to believe that I would never find one so I started buying bits and pieces thinking that I would eventually build a reproduction cab from scratch. So far, I have a board set, the power supply, a Cine control panel, an Armor Attack monitor that will require an overhaul, and that's all.

Now that has all changed. Around May 2006, someone on the cgcc.ca coin-op forum contacted me to see if I was interested in what might possibly be (wait for it...) a NIB Vectorbeam Space War. Yes, you read that correctly, that's new in box. No way! Suffice it to say that I was, as one might expect, skeptical to say the least. Still, I responded positively. It took about a year and a half to work through it and clinch the deal. Along the way, there were other interested parties, such as a game museum that someone was putting together. Their interest waned only because they didn't really believe in the existence of this machine either. Can you blame them? Even I never really knew that it was real until I saw the first pictures about 1 week before purchasing the machine.

How does this sort of thing happen? The story that I got was that a long time ago in the Great White North, a fella living in Ontario personally knew someone that worked in the arcade games business way out west in B.C.. That connection lead to some games being shipped cross-country into Ontario. This particular Space War was made in Sept. 1979. It was purchased in bulk and was supposed to be put into Canada's Wonderland for its grand opening. It was to be located in the arcade there called "The Crystal Palace" . They did put other Space War games in there but unfortunately they didn't have room for this one so it was left behind. That explains why the game sat for so long. There was a planned location for it to go to but sadly there just wasn't room. This was very fortunate for me as it turns out.

After that, the game sat in its original box inside a warehouse full of games ever since. A well respected member of the cgcc.ca forum was helping the original owner to sell and move whatever was left in the warehouse. This activity had been going on for quite some time, but the Vectorbeam Space War was sitting so far back behind piles of other stuff that it wasn't discovered until 2007. It took until Nov. 2008 to finally uncover it.

So what does a NIB Vectorbeam Space War look like after so much time has passed? All things considered, I think pretty darn good. The outside has some surface stains from possible mildew but that will clean off. Some labels pealed but they are the foil type so they are still good. Some new spray-on adhesive will fix them. The carriage bolts and screws all have surface rust but that's easy to fix. The side art is absolutely mint. The edges are perfect, no pealing, no scratches, no fade. The keys were still taped to the control panel so the glue from the tape will be hard to remove but I'm sure that it'll clean up nice. The interior is pristine, aside from a small amount of debris from the original packing foam, some spiders, and so on. Five minutes with a vacuum cleaner will take care of that. The plywood is absolutely clean as is all of the wiring and cables. The monitor frame and coin box metal surfaces are still shiny. The circuit boards look like brand new except for a few chips that have slightly blackened pins.

Did the game work? Have I played the game yet? No way. Truth be told, I'm a little nervous about turning it on. I'm afraid that something will burn out and put a black mark on the circuit board or something. My plan is to reseat all of the connectors first, vacuum everything clean, and then finally to power it up. It would be pretty cool if it actually worked right away, but frankly, I'd be surprised if it did work after sitting for so long... but you never know. I'll find out soon enough. After I get the machine cleaned up and running again, I'll take lots of new pictures and post them.

Below are some photos that were taken on box-opening day. Click images to embiggen.

Nov. 17, 2008:

Vacuumed the cab interior.
I spent the evening cleaning everything inside and out. I cleaned the top, bottom, front panel, and sides. The artwork is perfect! The control panel looks like new again. It's simply amazing to look at. There are no scratches, the paint looks perfect, and the buttons are nice and white, not yellowed or broken. There's not one cig burn of course. The coin door looks like new. The mechs are spotless and they work on Canadian quarters.

Nov. 18, 2008:

Took a bunch of photos as record of assembly and condition of components before powering up.
Reseated all major connectors. The terminals look like new inside the connector housings.
Powered up without monitor. Game board made LED blink once and stay off (correct indication). Sound board made random sound for short time when powering up or shutting down (normal).
The original florescent tube for the marquee popped on within a couple of seconds and was nice and bright. Who would've believed that a florescent tube made in 1979 would light up in 2008? And with the original starter?
Checked power supply voltage levels. All okay.
Powered up with monitor plugged in. Did not trip breakers. Monitor immediately began making deflection chatter (excellent). Picture appeared at normal brightness (CRT is okay!) and correct size.
Some vectors were wrong. Stars okay, triangular ship parts spread out vertically. It looked like maybe a few mid-order bits of DAC on vertical channel were incorrect.
About 90 seconds from power up, entire picture began to shrink towards center. Vectors stayed proportionally the same but size began to reduce. Powered down immediately to prevent what appeared to be an imminent burnout of something in the monitor.
Tested both coin mechs with Canadian quarters. Both work perfectly.

I have a spare VSW board set to work with. The sound on it works, dunno about CCPU. I also have the parts to make new ribbon cables if I need to replace the old ones. I also have the working Star Castle sitting right there so the first thing I'm going to do is take advantage of its known-good power supply and monitor.

I'm not expecting the SW monitor to be okay to tell the truth, especially since the picture started shrinking like it did. I just realized that the power connectors on the Vectorbeam monitor (6-pin) and the Cine monitor (15-pin) are different so I can't swap the monitors even if I wanted to, at least not without making an adapter cable first.

I took the SW board set out of the cab and placed it into my Star Castle and plugged it in using the SW ribbon cable. The picture came up perfect. The SW board set is working great (what a relief!). I let it run for a couple of hours and it was fine. This proves that there is a monitor problem.

I suspect the Y DAC for the vector problem. Unfortunately, the DAC's are soldered into the PCB so a simple quick swap is out of the question. As for the screen shrinking, I'll be checking the power supply first. I have to keep in mind that both X and Y are effected at the same time but the geometry remains intact. That will help me narrow down the possibilities.

Nov. 22, 2008:

Space War is Fixed !!!
The first real game started at 7pm. My son dropped the first quarter. We played 22 quarters for 33 minutes of play time. Our hands and elbows actually got sore. The picture was perfect, all buttons worked great, the game played flawlessly.
Root cause was a bad DAC chip on Y axis. I changed it out and added a socket and a couple of standard upgrade components onto the bottom of the PCB while I was at it. Fired right up.
Talk about fun! I think that Space War is the greatest 2-player video game ever created.
As for the shrinking screen, that never actually happened. What happened was that when the game first started up, it had split up vertical graphics. At power up, the ships don't move at all. A minute or so later, they begin to drift, sometimes both towards the sun. That's all I was seeing but I got nervous and turned it off thinking that something was wrong. Now I know that the only bad component was the DAC chip. Everything else was working perfectly.

Nov. 23, 2008:

Powered up today and the graphics were all messed up. I can't say that I was happy about that. The problem was a bad quad-switch LF13331 chip. It was running fine last night for over an hour. These are known to fail and it is 29 years old, but I still can't help thinking that what blew the chip may have been the act of powering down. I already installed the diode that is supposed to protect the chip but the power had already been cycled several times before I installed the diode (when it was new and recently during troubleshooting) so who knows.
I installed a new LF13331 chip (good thing that I had a couple pf spares!) and the game is running okay now but now I'm afraid to turn it off. Gonna have to obviously.

Nov. 24, 2008:

Powered up today just fine. Phew!!

Dec. 7, 2008:

Hey! The Enterprise won't steer to the right! Aw man! Something else to fix. Switch? Cable? Logic?

Dec. 18, 2008:

Replaced reed switch in R2 button. Enterprise now turns right.
Magnets inside buttons seem very weak. The reed switch that I took out worked on the bench using another little magnet. New ring magnets installed in all buttons might be a good idea.

Oct. 11, 2009:

Replaced the ring magnets in all 21 of the buttons with new custom parts. I have a few extra sets that I can sell for $20 shipped. Email me if interested.
Replaced reed switch in key #3 with new part from Digikey #HE503-ND, Hamlin # MDCG-4 (12-33at).
Update Oct. 1, 2010: For more information regarding control panel key switches, see Key Switch Problems & Solutions.

Nov. 13, 2009:

After almost a year of troublefree operation, two failures occurred tonight after the machine was on for about an hour.
The marquee lamp didn't come on. I changed the starter and now it's okay.
Circuit Breaker #1 popped and the video went out. I unplugged the power transistors, reset the breaker and tried again. The picture came up (but smaller as expected) and I could see that the vertical deflection had failed. Suddenly, the horizontal line went away and there was a strange dim glow covering the entire screen. Then the circuit breaker popped again.
The problem turned out to be a failure of the U4 chip (TL081 op-amp) in the vertical control circuit. I installed a new chip and now all is well again. This is the kind of solution that I like... very cheap (about $0.50).

Oct. 1, 2010:

Still working great.

Space War : Picture Library	Space War : Monitor Modifications

Space War : Control Panel Help	Space War: Key Switch Problems & Solutions

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