Coleco Pac-Man variations, and how not to open it...

Rik

Okay, in the high score thread for Coleco Pac-Man several questions have been raised by the 'pro players'. Cool

1- Billy discovered a pattern that seems to allow endless play. But he says it doesn't work on all games.
2- A 'monitor bezel' variation was brought up that I simply NEVER noticed before.
3- It was mentioned that Skill 1 and 2 seemed flipped on certain games
4- People have suggested it's possible to open Coleco mini-arcades without pealing back the sticker around the joysticks... (not in the high score thread, but I wanted to mention it- see below)

I've had a box full of 'abused' Coleco games that I picked up at an auction several years ago (20+ games in all sorts of states of disassembly, etc...), so I figured it was time to dig it out and go through the ones that I left in the box back then (after picking out one of each game that worked for display purposes...)

With regards to Pac-Man, I have 5 (and a 6th one that was actually Ms Pac-Man on the inside... Broken VFD though, that really sucks..) And I made some interesting discoveries...

1- The Pattern. Not all of my Pac-Mans work (yet), but Billy's pattern does work on all of the functioning ones. Although, it's much easier to do on one of them than the others. On the one easy one, you can make a mistake or two without dying... On the others, if you mess up the pattern even for an instant, you almost always die if you continue to follow it... This was all tried on Skill Level 2. I decided to switch to Skill Level 1 on one of the games, and the pattern wouldn't work at all... I died going up to the top of the maze EVERY time... But it worked in Skill 2 if I did it perfectly...

So, while there was some difference with forgiveness, I could still make the pattern work and reach 15,000+ points without dying on every machine, set to Skill 2...

2- Monitor Bezel variation. It was mentioned that some games have a border made of Pac-Mans all the way around the screen (playing area). I can see this in the box art/images, but have never noticed it on an actual game... But one of these games has that variation, so it does exist (out of 8 bezels I have, only one has this border, and it happened to be the one that the pattern wouldn't work on Skill Level 1... But that might apply to all of them as I didn't try it on the others yet). Even weirder, another one of my games has a sticker that provides the bezel artwork... I've never seen that before either... Pics of both below:

Pac-Man border variation: (most games look like this with the little Pac-Mans around the playing area)

And the sticker variation... Anyone else have/seen a game like this? I'm going to take it apart further and see if I can tell what's under the sticker...

3- Skill 1 and 2 flipped... On the game that the pattern didn't work on Skill 1, Skill 1 seemed harder... But it might have just been that I was trying the pattern and it wasn't working... More testing needs to be done.

4- Here's a sad one... While I've been told by some collectors that they've been able to open their games without removing the two screws under the upper corners of the sticker around the joystick, it's apparent that the previous owners weren't aware of these screws and tried to open some of the games anyway. What happens if you don't remove the hood first is that it catches on the circuit board. You might be able to wiggle it free, but two of my games were not wiggled gently enough, and this was the result:

Game #1: Huge chunks of the top corners of the circuit board completely broken off, and a crack all the way through the board a little above the half-way point. The only reason the two parts are still connected is because the VFD is holding them together.

Game #2: Upper corners of the circuit board broken completely off, only held on by the VFD solder points. This one is also missing (broken off) one of the posts that the circuit board screws to...

Fortunately, despite how bad these both look, they still work (they will power up and I can hear game sounds. No display though because of the board damage). I will be able to fix both of them. They won't look pretty on the inside... Cool

But they will work again... These will be more games to put on display for people to play with and have competitions with.

But, even though it does kind of suck to have to peel back that sticker, it's much better to do that then risk snapping your game's circuit board in half...

Well, that's what I spent part of my evening doing... Mr. Green

Rik

blanka · Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 12:37 pm Post subject:

I did manage to open a Coleco without removing the sticker, but I guess I was lucky on that one. I remember I bend the back of the hood a bit so the 2 hooks have more room to come out. Anyway, if you have opened a Coleco once with the sticker peeling, it is wise to sand of a bit of the 2 hooks on the inside (the part that locks the PCB). If you remove that, you can reopen them over and over again without removing the screws under the control panel overlay.

Rik · Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 4:12 pm Post subject:

Yeah, it can definitely be done, but just make CERTAIN you aren't applying pressure to the board. They aren't as strong as they may seem, and even if it doesn't break, it can crack the little circuit traces on the board.

It might also be possible to use a really short screwdriver and remove the 3 screws holding the board by reaching in... then it would all fall apart easily. Might be hard to get it back together though. Cool

You could also cut away the corners of the circuit board yourself once you've opened it... There is a lot of unused board there, and if you dremel it off yourself, you can control where it's removed... But if it's a collectible game, I don't want to make modifications to it at all.

serge1 · Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 4:33 pm Post subject: re

Rik,

Update! On my US pacman I also found that the joystick are a little bit longer compared to the canadian unit. Strange!

JoePal · Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 1:49 am Post subject:

Control Panel variation: the most noticeable difference is the Coleco logo. one (#1) version has a white lettered "Coleco" on red background along with white border. the other (#2) version has a red lettered "Coleco" on black background with red border.

also the font size for "Skill 1, Off, Skill 2" on (#2) is smaller than the (#1). everything else looks about the same. the "Pac and Ghost" art looks sharper on (#1) while the (#2) looks a bit washed out due to missing small details.

Battery Cover variation: everything is the same but the text font is very different. the instructions labels have different corners.. (#1) has sharp corners and (#2) has rounded corners. also the "OPEN" on (#2) is quite bigger than (#1).

Side Art variation: (#1) has a thick stock that brings out bright colors. (#2) is thin stock which is why the glue bleeds thru easily. the reds on (#2) looks orange-ish pink - this is NOT faded by the sun - it's a different "washed-out" color. it's on both sides and top, but the bezel is very little different.

for the true collector, i'm sure everyone wants to get the (#1) version - i believe the (#2) was a later version made in a hurry and rushed out to sell before the video game crash. a sloppy piece of work, i guess... :-/

speaking of bezels, did you ever find out what's under the bezel sticker? i am very curious....

blanka · Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 2:33 am Post subject:

You mind to compare the inside too?
Coleco mentions REV A etc on the PCB, and maybe the chip number is different too.
I wonder if one is similar to Gakken SPM too.