The elusive Ice Cold Beer. This is an arcade game, that is not quite a video game. Why not a video game? Well, there is no video monitor in it.
Apparently this game is highly collectible and quite fun to play. However, price and availability have kept this game as a pipe dream.
I was lucky enough to come upon this game during a warehouse raid and picked it up for a reasonable price. The game was non-working when I bought it, but the
electronics seemed to all be in order. After opening up the back of the game I noticed the belts in it were broken. This game uses a rod that raises
and lowers a ball via the 2 joysticks. Your goal is to get the ball in the correct numbered hole without losing the ball in any other hole. After getting
it in hole #1 you then move onto #2, #3 and so on. The rod is raised and lowered by 2 belt driven motors on each side. After 25 years these belts become brittle
and break, which is quite common. Imagine a 25 year old car with original tires on it, the tires would have dry rot.
So it appears the only thing wrong with the game was the belts were broken so I bought it and took it home. A tip from a local collector was that arcade operators
used windshield wiper tubing to replace the belts since you can't find the belts anymore. I picked some up and fixed it right up. The game cleaned up nicely
and works quite well, and has become a favorite in the gameroom.
One final repair is that my son finally beat numbers 1 thru 9, and noticed the rod would not get any higher to get to the #10 hole. I opened up the game
and adjusted the stop switches and now the game goes up to number 10 correctly. Of course my son then proceeds to get it to hole number 10 soon after,
which the game starts over with additional difficulty.
The elusive Ice Cold Beer. This is an arcade game, that is not quite a video game. Why not a video game? Well, there is no video monitor in it.
Apparently this game is highly collectible and quite fun to play. However, price and availability have kept this game as a pipe dream.