Game Story
Then there was Ms. Pac-Man. I wanted a Ms. Pac-Man to make my arecade 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. The price was right, so I grabbed it!
For those of you who 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.
Mr. Wolf had the full size upright cabinet which is comparable to the Centipede.
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 G07CBO Monitor seems to last about 20 years than 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 biggger trouble. I connected with Arcadeshop 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 Arcadeshop 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 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.
Photos: Ms. Pac-Man
Restoration Log: Ms. Pac-Man
Game Facts: Ms. Pac-Man