Atari - 1984

6/24/07   Paperboy, what can I say. I always wanted one and me and my buddy Todd would play the heck out of this thing and slam those handlebars hard at South County mall. Yeah we went there to pick up chicks, and ended up playing Paperboy at the arcade. Its a wonder that we are even married right now. So I paid a decent amount for this game but I have seen them go for more than twice that amount. I ended up being the only bidder for this game on ebay, and got it for the starting price. The monitor is nice and sharp and the cab is in decent shape. Well that's good news, because I am sure those medium resolution monitors aren't cheap and I didn't want another monitor project on my hands. I played it onsite and thought the sound was a little off but after a 700 mile round trip road trip I wasn't going home empty handed. After getting it home I discovered it had a bad right amplifier on the ARIII board. Well, the auction did not state that. An email to the guy said he never noticed it. OK, so this guy is deaf. Well I replace the bad amplifier chip on the ARIII board and it fixed the sound. WAIT....not so fast, about a week later the portions of the video became corrupted. I tried swapping the video RAM chips around but it didn't fix the problem. After emailing the seller he told me "Yeah I noticed that problem off and on and I would adjust the power supply to clear it up. Maybe you can rebuild the ARIII board for a more stable power supply." WOW......you never mentioned that in the auction either. I seem to remember the words "works, game plays great!" for the auction description and follow up email. So this guy is both deaf and blind. What the hell is wrong with these Ebayers? Of course I already gave him positive feedback. Well that'll teach me. Next time someone will only get positive feedback after I see it has been working for 30 days. Good golly miss molly. And to top things off messing with the power supply voltage as he mentioned didn't fix the problem. And he was an arcade operator? Nice diagnosis man.

Well something was definitely not right on the video board and swapping the video RAM didn't fix it. Someone on the arcade message boards offered to sell me just the lower video board. I bought it, replaced it, got the T-shirt and saved the whales. Now everything works great....just as it should have to begin with. First seller, BONEHEAD... Second seller, a man of few words but HONEST. From now on, I think all my arcades will come from Craigslist. I can show up and look over the game, and if it isn't as described I can laugh loudly, make an obscene gesture, and go home with cash still in hand. Stupid Ebay. Anyways I now have a working Paperboy, a classic and fun game to play, gotta love it. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

Update 7/31/10:
Around the summer of 2008 the red color on the game screen started flaking out. It would phase in and out, and eventually it was more "out" than in. Although 99% of color issues are monitor related, I was able to confirm that somehow the game board was losing the color red. This lack of red somehow always turned me off from playing it in my arcade. Luckily I had the spare video game board for Paperboy with bad graphics. Previously I had just swapped the RAM of the same type around on the board. The problem was still there. This time I replaced the RAM with a different type which was similar but newer. This time I was able to fix the bad graphics by replacing that RAM chip at location 3B with the newer type. I put in the fixed board and I now have Paperboy in full color again. I give the game a quick play and finished all 7 delivery days in the game. It's like they say, you never forget how to ride a bike.

Now you have a friend in the paper business!
Repairs and Restoration
  • Right channel sound not working - Replaced right amplifier chip on ARIII board
  • Adjusted power supply for 5V at main board
  • Video kept getting artifacts during gameplay - Replaced entire video board
  • Clean off 25 years of built up smoke and grime off of marquee, bezel and monitor
  • Replaced potentiometers in handlebars for smoother gameplay
  • Tightened springs in handlebars so handlebars return to center more evenly
  • Video board that got replaced started losing the color red. Fixed original video board by replacing bad RAM at location 3B
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