Game Story


My First (Ms. Pac-Man 1)

Then there was Ms. Pac-Man.

I wanted a Ms. Pac-Man to make my arcade complete. I shopped all over for one, but the prices and shipping costs kept scaring me away. I finally found one in York, Pa. Carl Wolf had a few Ms. Pac-Man machines for sale. Mr. Wolf had the full size upright cabinet. The price was right, so I grabbed it!

For those of you who either lived through World War II or are too young to be surfing the web alone, Ms. Pac-Man is a Midway game. It features the mazes, ghosts and power pellets just like Pac-Man but has better (IMHO) intermissions.

The side art on the Pac series was painted directly on the cabinet, no stickers. My cabinet is faded (hey, she's old enough to drink, what did you expect?) and someday I will get the courage to buy a template and an airbrush and restore the original colors.

First things first, the monitor went black after a few weeks. The Electrohome G07 Monitor seems to last about 20 years then something breaks. The Centipede's original monitor needs a cap kit (at least) and this one blew a fuse. As many techs out there know, that means bigger trouble. I connected with Arcade Shop to get a refurbished monitor chassis (The PCBs for the monitor) with nice new capacitors and a good flyback transformer. This worked better (I could see the game again) but after a few games the Vertical Hold didn't. I called up Steve at Arcade Shop and he suggested I replaced the IC501 Video Oscillator chip. I did that and it sees to work fine.

When I moved her to Arizona she did not take the heat well. She is exhibiting a common problem in the Midway machine like Pac-Man and Galaga. It is called the "hum bar" problem. Noise is introduced into the video signal by the power supply. The symptom is a horizontal "bar" travels across the screen. It is only mildly distracting to the player, but it makes me crazy because I know it can be fixed.

TypeUprightSerialunknownStatusSOLD
RestorationLogPhotosGalleryOther 

Beth’s Cabinet (Ms. Pac-Man 2)


When people see the game room, they get ideas. Beth decided she might like an arcade game for her game room. Her first thought was Pac-Man, but I asked her to look on line and see if she wanted a Ms. Pac-Man instead. She saw some screens and said, “Yes, Ms. Pac, please!”

I found a great cabinet with good art in working order. I picked it up, replaced the parts that usually god bad and deliver it to her place. She had the nieces and some of their friends over for the evening. The kids played the games for hours and were thrilled when the Moms and Aunts played really well!

TypeUprightSerial32605StatusSOLD
RestorationLogPhotosGalleryOther 


Technical Information


Title


Ms. Pac-Man was released in 1981 by Midway. The title was developed by GCC (General Computer Corporation) as Crazy Otto and Sold to Midway. Namco (owner of Pac-Man) was granted all rights. It features a color raster display with a vertical orientation at a standard resolution (224x256).

Architecture


This game is built on the Namco Pac-Man hardware platform. Common features are 3 Z80 microprocessors and custom Namco PSG sound. Ms. Pac-Man is essentially a Pac-Man board with an additional daughter card.

Video CPUZ80Zilog
Audio CPUPSGNamco
DisplayG07Electrohome
Power90421Midway

Controls


ActionControlUprightCocktailNotes
MoveJoystick12Red Ball
PlayerButton22White

Production Notes


The pure profit of this title is the only reason it still exists today. Namco developed Pac-Man and licensed it to Midway. This established the Pac-Man franchise. Namco was working on a follow up title, Super Pac-Man which was not ready for release.

GCC developed Crazy Otto as an upgrade kit for Pac-Man board. Crazy Otto looked like Pac-Man with blue eyes and legs*. The ghosts now had antennae and shoes. The fruit moved in the maze like another ghost instead of being stationary like Pac-Man. GCC had already lost a lawsuit with Atari for creating and upgrade kit for Missile Command called Super Missile Attack. The settlement barred them from creating upgrade kits to titles licensed by others without permission.

In an attempt to salvage the investment in Crazy Otto, GCC approached Midway with the project. Midway, impatient for a new Pac-Title, put together an agreement with GCC for Crazy Otto. They quickly changed the sprite to Pac-Man with a Bow and lipstick (literally putting lipstick on the pig) and released it as Ms. Pac-Man.

Namco threatened to sue and never license another game to Midway. The two giant reached an agreement that gave all rights to Ms. Pac-Man to Namco. The bad blood persisted. Midway would go on to release several more unauthorized sequels leading to the termination of the Namco-Midway licensing agreement. Namco would go on to release many more Pac-Man and Galaga based titles with other manufacturer-distributors.
* as pictured on the Pac-Man control panelCrazy Otto