#spacezap

As some of you may recall, I picked up a Space Zap back in 2021 - another game I fell in love with at @grinkers years earlier.

Unfortunately, it crapped out almost immediately after arrival. I won't go into details but the short of it is that, after a lot of troubleshooting on my own and then with a buddy's board set, the data custom had shit the bed. Exactly what happened is anyone's guess but I have my theories. Perhaps we'll speculate on that some other time.

There aren't a lot of options out there for replacing those customs - you either need to pull one from another board set or pull one from the Bally Astrocade console/computer. I'm hopeful for a repro someday but that doesn't help right now.

You can see where this is going now...

I looked for a long time trying to find one for a decent price but as their numbers fall, more die or are used to fix other consoles or arcade boards, the prices even on non working systems can get pretty nuts. Ultimately I just couldn't bring myself to pay the premium after paying so much for the Space Zap to begin with.

Flash forward a little over a year later and a buddy surprised me with a working Astrocade to help repair my Space Zap 😯 Here's hoping he found a really good deal but it's not like I'd turn it away!

It came with several controllers and a bunch of games so I felt it only right to spend some time with it before stripping it down. Full disclosure: I have no nostalgia for this thing so it wasn't easy to get into the games except for a few home versions of arcade games I appreciate.

First signs of life...

Space Fortress - the home version of the game that this is all about: Space Zap.

I have to say, this version is pretty faithful to the arcade, all things considered. The scoring seems low but maybe the intensity setting adjusts that, I didn't really pay attention.

The controls take a toll on your wrists, much like the arcade can, though in a different way...Shooting so much with the trigger begins to get uncomfortable after a while and the little joystick is perhaps not responsive enough (though that could be the specific controller I was using - the other three I have were even worse).

😲😲😲 So excited! 🤩🤩🤩

I've been looking for a Space Zap for about 5 years now. I've only seen a few come and go in that time, none "local" to me that I recall. Those out of state were hard to justify for the asking price + shipping + the work they needed done.

In this case, I was able to ship it + a gutted project Taito classic cab for significantly less than any of the others I ever saw... And it works!

There's definitely some minor work to be done, most likely just some loose connections after the trip, but I'm more than happy.