Frequently Asked Questions

Are you Licensed in Texas?

Yes, we are licensed in Texas. We hold a Repair license.  There is also a Location, Operator and Distributor license. Most cities and counties also require permits and registration for property tax reasons.  No license is required for personal use of amusement machines.

You may wonder why the Amusement Industry is regulated. In the 60's and early 70's the game business had some shady businesses that liked to launder money, make shady loans and just be fronts for racketeers. This was a nationwide problem. Texas created the Amusement Machine Commission that deployed investigators and created a number of strict rules. The commission was later retired and the duties for the existing regulations fell to the State Comptroller. Still we in the industry must have a Texas Resident owning at least 10% of the company, have no felonies, can not make loans to locations without permission, can not give more than 50% of the cash in a cash box to a location, must purchase a annual license sticker for every machine, must keep records for 4 years, must pass a background check and purchase an annual business license. One good rule that still exists is the cash box revenue is not sales taxed.

As a repair shop we do not operate games on location.  Still the state requires all the rules and restrictions listed above. To import games into Texas you must hold a Distributor license.  To operate games in commercial locations for profit you must hold an Operators license or a Location license.  We have held all 3 licenses simultaneously in the past.

Our Texas Amusement Machine Repair License is: 32021076578 under the name Lee Morris. This is also our Sales Tax number which is also required.  If you search the Amusement License database you input my name or Tax number.

You can check this at:
https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/coin-op/search.php

Why do I need to login to order service?

We really need your full name, address, email and phone number to do business with you.   We are required to keep complete records by the State of Texas for 4 years (1 year more than most businesses).  This is part of getting licensed for "Amusement Game Repair" with the State Comptroller. This is in addition to a State Sales Tax Permit.

Our Texas Amusement Machine Repair License is: 3-20210-7657-8 under the name Lee Morris.

Why does it take soo long to get my machine repaired?

We are a very small company with limited time and storage space. Please be patient with us. The work we do is not common. There are not many businesses like ours so please understand we do the best we can to get to your machine. We do not accept all jobs and some are too far away for us to do. Many jobs take months to accomplish. Parts are often hard to find on antique machines. The machines we work on are very time consuming projects that can be risky for us in both money and time. We feel it is better for a machine to wait at your place until we have space and time to bring it in. Thank you for your patience and thank you for your business!

Why won't you ship old games on your website?

Old games, jukeboxes, and pinball machines are difficult to ship because they are difficult to insure through the freight carrier. If we, Alamo Game Shop, call for the truck and pay the freight bill we are on the hook if the game gets damaged in transit. We would have to pay to bring the damaged machine back to us and we have to file a claim with the shipper. The maximum amount the shipper has to pay is only the amount of the sale. Many times an antique machine cannot be repaired for the sale price. This is due to the nature of antique machines. It can take a long time to find the correct parts, if ever. We have to refund the customer and eat all the loss.

If the customer ordered the truck and pays the freight bill then they are on the hook for the shipping damage claim. If a customer sends the truck it would be the same as if they picked up the machine personally. We would have no financial interest in the transport.

This is why many shops have "Pickup Only" for old valuable machines.

How do I hire a shipper to ship a machine?

Hiring a trucking company to transport a machine for you would seem as easy as filling out the form on that webpage you found.  Read on to gain some insight and hopefully save you a lot of trouble.

There are 2 types of shipping companies to choose from when having a valuable game, jukebox, pinball or what have you, shipped. 

Freight Company:
The least expensive shipping type is a "Freight" shipping company.  This is the majority type of trucks you see traveling down our national highways.  The Truck Driver usually travels alone and has limited equipment to move machines to and from his trailer.  The price for this service is less because the driver is expecting to pickup your machine from a loading dock, not from your garage. Further the driver is expecting to pick up the machine on a shipping pallet with industry standard size limits, wrapped in shrink wrap, wrapped in protective cardboard and or bubble wrap and strapped down tight to the pallet.  The truck driver usually has a "pallet jack" that is rolled under the pallet and jacked up a few inches so it can be rolled on the truck.  The machine is expected to ride on it's pallet without any additional ropes or straps needed to hold it on the pallet.  Under these conditions your shipment can be eligible for the reduced standard freight charges.  This service usually has very limited insurance to cover damage to your property.  You should consider buying additional insurance for this type of service.  It is more likely this service will incur damage due to the various loadings and un-loadings as the machine moves through the freight system from terminal to terminal.

If you do not have a dock to ship from you have 2 choices to get it picked up.  You can order the shipment with "Lift-Gate Required" at an additional cost.  This cost varies between $75 to $150 depending on the shipper.  With "Lift-Gate Required" the shipper sends a smaller truck with a special elevator like device on the back of the trailer box.  The driver will have a pallet jack and move your pallet to the lift-gate and bring it to the terminal for you.  The driver must have unrestricted access to the "ready to go pallet", no stairs, steps or grass, etc..  The second choice you have is to take the pallet-ed  machine to the local shipper's terminal and save the pickup charge. Of course it must be ready to go on a pallet.

Moving Van Company:
The most convenient way to move your machine is to hire a Moving Van Company.  This is a furniture mover,  the same you would hire to move your household items from house to house.  These professionals do not pallet the machine.  They carry it into the trailer up a ramp and wrap it in blankets.  They usually strap it to a wall and secure it.  This type of service is 2 to 4 times the cost of a freight company.  This service usually has excellent insurance to cover damage to your property.  This service usually means the machine is delivered in the same truck it was picked up with.  It never leaves the truck.

A note about insurance:
Freight shipments usually have some shipping insurance by default.  This rate is usually $25 per pound, but can be as low as $5.  This amount may not cover the full cost of your machine!  You must check the insurance price per pound before shipping. Also, the freight company will (in a damage claim) make you prove your declared value by asking for your purchase invoice.  How do you get the full value from a 40 year old pinball machine?  How about a 1930's slot machine?  Another problem that can happen is when you decide to refuse a delivery because of damage.  Note, if you refuse a shipment you no longer own the product.  The machine now goes to an auction to help offset the shippers self insurance costs.  You now must plead your case to an adjuster with no evidence and you have no chance of getting the damage repaired.  In our experience in shipping games, jukeboxes, and pinball it is much better to make a claim through the driver before he leaves and definitely keep the machine.  Take lots of pictures immediately and keep ALL the packing material.  Part of your case includes how well the machine was pallet-ed and if there is any evidence of external damage, like forklift holes in the cardboard.

When sending a shipment the guy/gal you bought the machine from is not responsible for the machine as soon as the truck leaves his/her dock. If the sender did a bad job of palleting the shipment you may have problems. If the truck driver accepts the freight it is the trucking company's responsibility until you sign for it.  You can write the damage on the bill of lading and ask the driver to make a damage claim.  He will call it in and give you a copy of the bill of lading with the annotations you wrote included.  The truck driver will then leave you the machine.  In a few days an independent adjuster will come by and investigate the claim.  You can expect a 30 day to 6 month delay in getting a check.  We have gone through this dozens of times.  One final note is about shipping brokers.  Brokers sometimes do there own insurance.  Be sure you know who is your responsible party and what are the rates.

A final note about ownership. The person who hires the trucking company and calls for the pickup is who owns the product when it is on the truck. In other words, it belongs to you as soon as it leaves the seller as long as you ordered/paid for the truck. If the seller ordered/paid for the truck he/she owns the product until you sign for it. So if you refuse a shipment that you ordered you just gave the product to the trucking company, they will charge you to re-deliver it when you realize your mistake.  If you refuse a shipment ordered by the seller you just forced the seller to pay to bring the damaged product back to them.

Will you pick up my machine for repair?

We pick up machines for repair within 50 miles of our shop.  We charge $80 for this service.  This is in addition to the repair charges.  We pick up only from the ground floor with no steps.  We do not bring machines up or down stairs.  Only one person arrives with our truck. If you have a machine that needs to be carried we may decline the job.  We reserve the right to refuse any job. 

We will bring an appliance dolly for video games.
We will bring a hydraulic lift table most of the time.
We will bring a pinball dolly for pinball games.
Our truck has a hydraulic lift.

Bad weather may cancel a pickup/delivery.

This is a discounted convenience service for our customers repair needs.  We are not a moving company for hire.  If you need it delivered to a different address than the pickup address, there will be an up-charge, if we take the job.

What is a pinball "Shop-Out?

The phrase "Shop-out" as it relates to pinball machines is a relative term at best.  Different repair shops have different ideas of the amount of work, time and money to put into a pinball machine to achieve a certain level of repair.  Our belief is everything must work, and we mean everything.  Everything must be cleaned and protected with wax or lubricant or whatever the factory intended the machine to have when new.  The game must be brought to as close to factory fresh as possible without painting or otherwise destroying the true patina or hiding the true nature of the game and it's history.  Further we believe the electronic and mechanical parts must have the required preventive maintenance procedures completed such as flipper rebuilds, sleeves replaced on coils, solder joints re-worked, low voltage capacitors replaced, burnt connectors replaced or any other items that would likely break and cause a malfunction if not addressed.

We believe the original manufacturer recommendations are not sufficient for machines 30 years old or more.  You will see other shops on the internet insist no grease or other lubricants should be used on motors and stepper units.  We disagree with this position.  Most pinball games were designed for 5 years of operation and they had excellent parts suppliers that made good money selling replacement parts.  Today, with no sources for new parts, every wear item in the game must be protected.

In the 80's we did a much shorter version of a "shop-out".  We generally charged $175 to clean and fix everything on and under the playfield.  Our primary customer was the "coin machine operator". An operator would sell a game if the electronics started to give too much trouble.  To operators, it's business math, the number of service calls to pay for versus the game's net income.  These days the "operator" does not operate pinball games.  The price of new pinballs has reached "collector" status (over $7000) and the number of skilled technicians has dwindled. These days the old pinballs we see are in such a horrible state of disrepair.  What used to take a day now takes 10 days or more to repair.  Today there are no easy jobs on old pinballs.  There are no short cuts.

In summary, our shop-out is part repair and part restoration.  We flat-rate the labor on electronic or electromechanical types, but will up-charge things like rust, mold, cabinet work, painting, ridiculously damaged printed circuit boards that are unavailable, water damage and rush jobs.

What is the difference between an electronic or electro-mechanical pinball?

Electro-mechanical pinballs are older machines made before computer electronics went mainstream, generally before 1978.  These older games had mechanical scoring "reels" behind the back-glass.  No LED or Gas Discharge displays, no sounds other than mechanical bells and usually simple side art and other graphics.  These games were sold for less than $1000 new and built mostly in Chicago.  EM pinballs can be much harder to repair.  Parts and technical information (schematics) can be a real problem. Few repair shops still take EM pinballs in. We do.

Electronic pinballs (usually built after 1978) have DIGITAL electronics inside.  These games cost much more new than "EM" type games.  Electronic pinballs have modular electronic components that can be swapped between games of the same model types.  There are a lot of aftermarket support for electronic pinballs.  Parts and technical information is in general good supply.

How much does it cost to repair my Pinball Game?

We charge $950 labor to completely shop-out an electronic pinball made after 1977.  We charge $1000 labor to completely shop-out a electro-mechanical pinball made 1977 or before back to 1965. For pinballs before 1965 please call for price.  Parts needed are added to the workorder as we work. Your workorder gets updated as this happens, check your invoice in your account on our website.  Our labor includes repair of electronic and mechanical assemblies if possible.  Not all components are repairable, such as printed circuit boards destroyed by leaking batteries.  The final cost really depends on the condition of your game and how far you want us to go with new parts.  Most pinballs cost about $200 - $600 in additional parts like new targets, new pop bumper caps, flipper rebuild kits or a display glass.  Sometimes we call to discuss expensive parts that should require your approval.

There are a few pinball machines that are known to be very difficult to repair.  In these cases we will ask for more labor.  For example: An old Gottlieb or Bally electronic pinball with severe corrosion of the printed circuit board connector pins.  These take many hours to replace all the tiny crimp pins in the wiring harness.  Another example:  A very weather damaged machine with rust and playfield mold.  Please realize, we must charge more for a game left to the elements, they take much more time to finish.

If you are missing large components we may not take your project.  We do not store games until parts can be found on the used market.  If we determine your machine can not be repaired at a reasonable cost to us, we will return your machine and charge you nothing.

Please note that pinball machines can take a long time to get repaired.  Some repairs can take months.  This depends on parts availability and our current shop workload.  If you are in a hurry please tell us so we can try to accommodate you.

Can you repair my pinball in my home?

Sometimes.....  If you give us a good explanation of the symptom and we bring the correct parts this will work.  We carry an assortment of common failure parts with us.  We cannot camp out in your house and do the equivalent of a shop-out.   It is impossible to carry all the parts needed to fix all failures on every type game made.  The price of the repair can get high if we have to come out many times as we discover issues, order parts and return to install the parts.

Generally,  if your game just came out of a barn,  is 30 years old and has wasps and rodent nests inside,  it is not a service call candidate.

Electro-mechanical pinballs are especially hard to fix in your home.  They have a tendency to "set up" after many years.  The moving parts become gummed up and the contacts on the relays become dirty, loose and unreliable.  Even if we fix a single issue, another can pop up after we leave.  These games should be shopped-out.

We can pickup the game if it is on the ground floor and no stairs prevent us from using a pinball dolly to move the game to our truck. If the game is upstairs, you need to get it to the garage, or on the ground level.

Our truck has a hydraulic lift-gate.  Loading the game is a one person job for us.

My batteries have leaked, is my game ruined?

More and more games are experiencing this common problem.  If your NiCad or standard "AA" batteries have popped open and leaked onto your printed circuit boards you may have serious trouble.   We can fix minor leaks if caught early.  Major leaks that have been sitting for years on that game sitting in your barn or garage has probably toasted your circuits.  The chemicals travel like a creeping fungus along metal parts destroying your printed circuit boards.

There are after-market replacement boards available.

My gameroom is upstairs. Will you pick it up?

Games on the second floor or in a basement are not picked up by us. We would suggest you get a few strong fellows to help you get it to the ground floor before requesting pickup. If requested we can come out and disassemble the game to help your "strong fellows" get it down, for a fee. We charge a fee to come back for re-assembly.

How do I transport my pinball?

Unless you have a pinball dolly you will need two strong backs to carry the pinball to your pickup.  Put the back of the pinball near the tailgate of your pickup truck.  Take 1 back side leg off  and set that cabinet corner on your tailgate.  Take the other back leg off and slide the game onto your truck 3/4 of the way on.  Take the front legs off and slide it the rest of the way on.  Secure with rope or straps.

On hot sunny days, either cover the game or put paper towels (white paper) under the playfield glass to keep the heat buildup on your playfield plastics to a minimum.  Down here in Texas you can ruin your plastics in an hour.  Plastics can "yellow" or curl  or otherwise just get bent . You might also cause bubbles in your playfield overlay (if installed), a real messy problem.

If your game has a hinged head (the part with the back-glass in it), you should fold the head down.  Place cardboard on top of the playfield body (towards the front where the head touches the metal) before folding the head on to it.  You may need to unlock the back-glass, carefully remove the back-glass and remove the 2 to 4 safety bolts inside the bottom of the head.  Put the back-glass back into the head and be sure to lock it.  Unlock your rear hasp or allen wrench lock on the back of the head if you have one.  Hinge it down onto your playfield cabinet.  It's a good idea to rope or strap the head to the cabinet so it does not bounce and put dents on the edge of the head or the metal sides of the body..  Remember the cardboard to protect that edge against the metal sides of the playfield body.

If your game is upstairs you should first hinge the head down as described above.  Next secure the head down with rope or a strap.  Go under and over the cabinet/head with the rope to keep it down tight.  Now with 2 people holding the cabinet remove the back legs and set the back-end down to the floor.  Stand the game on it's rear and remove the front legs.  Now put a strap-on appliance dolly to the bottom.  We also wrap a strap or rope through the bottom of the dolly near the wheels.  This makes a good hand-hold for the 2 helpers on the lower end of the staircase.  With 2 helpers on the top end and 2 on the bottom, walk the game down the stairs one step at a time.  When bringing the game back up you will really appreciate the hand-hold strap for the 2 lower helpers.

On older games the head does not hinge down. On these you should remove the head from the cabinet.  First remove the glass.  Remove all the connections inside the head that go down into the cabinet.   These connectors are keyed (idiot proof) and marked.  There are 4 long bolts connecting the head to the main cabinet.  Have a helper hold the head box while removing the bolts.  It takes 2 people to set the head on the floor.  Put the back-glass back into the head and lock it. Take care moving and securing the head.  The glass is very fragile and many times, irreplaceable.  As before... remove the legs, strap a dolly and a hand-hold strap near the wheels.  2 on top and 2 on the bottom (as before).

It is possible to move pinball games in vans and suburbans.  We do not recommend it but if you must, please remember to strap it down securely!  If you have an accident the games could fly around in your vehicle and cause serious injury.

How much is my pinball worth? Should I fix it?

Pinball values are based on rarity, condition and play appeal, and more recently, repair-ability.  We have a book that purports to be a good starting base for prices.  It is supposed to be for "collectors" so I assume the prices are what "collectors" would like to pay.  We generally take the book price and add a shop-out charge plus a little profit (not a dirty word you know).  The condition of the game adds more value to our price and the rest is pure speculation.

When a customer asks us, "Why fix it if my purchase price plus repair ends up costing more than it's worth?", we say it will be worth what you end up paying in total.  If you want to own a pinball in good shape, and working, you will pay more than what a collector would pay.  Most collectors repair their own machines.  If you buy a pinball from a "dealer" you will pay two times or more because of overhead.

Here is the math on our typical used pinball sale:  Cost $600 + repair $750 = $1350 + profit = $1650   or  Cost $1200 + repair $750 = $1950 + profit = $2500.  This is what we call the retail price.  Opinions vary....

Pinball games are expensive toys that can last a lifetime.  They are many times handed down from generation to generation.  Pinball games are getting harder to find.

Some games are rising in price more that others.  Currently "DMD" pinballs are rising at a fast pace.  DMD stands for "Dot Matrix Display".  A Dot Matrix Display is a gas discharge display screen introduced around 1989.  If a pinball has a DMD screen it is part of a group of games with many similar attributes.  This type of game is the target of many aftermarket parts suppliers.  The printed circuit boards, playfield toys, plastic ramps, coils and most other parts in these games are being recreated and sold in relatively large numbers.  This parts availability is creating a large following of "do it yourself-re's" who can simply buy a main CPU board for $500(example) and repair the game.  These games are also the most complicated because they were the last of the genre. 

Older electronic and electro-mechanical games are still valuable.  They represent a slower time when pinballs had character that showed artistic style and workmanship. Older games are harder to repair in some ways and fewer technicians are available.  These games can demand large prices if kept in good condition.

What do most vintage Arcade Video Games cost to repair?

Almost all old arcade video games need the capacitors replaced in the video monitor. Even though the game monitor may be working these electrolytic capacitors may be dried out and ready to destroy other components when they fail. When your monitor finally blows up you may destroy your flyback transformer, a costly repair. Capacitors are relatively cheap parts that are akin to changing the circuit breakers on an old house, it needs to be done. There are other capacitors in your power supply and game printed circuit boards that should also be replaced. If the monitor has already blown up the cost will now have more labor included. Dead monitors mean blown transistors, blown resistors, open circuits, shorted diodes and many other possibilities that all take time to debug and replace.

The cost to "re-cap" a monitor generally is $150 to $235.
If the monitor needs a flyback transformer add at least $100.
If in addition to a flyback you have other issues add $75 (more labor).
If the monitor has a bad picture tube (CRT) then the monitor needs to be replaced.

After the capacitors are replaced the other costs include repairing the game printed circuit boards and power supply. The "boards" on very old games can be time consuming to repair. Usually they have many corrosion issues on connectors, IC sockets and any place metal is exposed. Sometimes rodents camp out in these games and cause severe damage to the boards and wiring. Batteries can leak over 20 years and can ruin the boards completely. Old MASK ROMS (factory made Read Only Memory) devices have a tendency to rot their legs off due to chemicals leaking out the legs. These IC chips destroy the sockets they are plugged into.

The cost to repair the "Boards" in a video game can run from $150 to $300.

If you have trackballs, guns or driving controllers that need parts add more costs.

If you want new T-molding, paint, control panel overlay or other cosmetics and more costs.

Most of our arcade video game repairs cost $250 to $800.

Should I fix my monitor or buy new?

Arcade game monitors are sometimes a tricky question as to fix them or buy new. First you need to know what type of monitor you have and what type of game you have.

If you have an "XY" style monitor like Asteroids, Omega Race, Space Fury, Battlezone, Space Wars, Lunar Lander, Star Wars and many more, you are stuck with what you got or a good used replacement. "XY" type monitors are really a type of low speed oscilloscope that draws the picture like a very quick artist would draw a picture with a pen. The single dot is moved all over the screen quickly and the brightness is turned off and on as if the artist lifted the pen between areas. These monitors were made in small quantities and are no longer produced. We fix "XY" monitors, both color and black and white.

If you have a "Raster Scan" monitor like Pacman, and most other videogames, you can buy an LCD type monitor as a replacement as long as you do NOT have a Shooting Game. There are no more "Raster Scan" or "CRT" (Cathode Ray Tube) monitors being made. Our beloved EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has made the disposal of this type monitor expensive. Most non gun type games can be retrofit with an LCD but you will not have the same shape since most are made in widescreen format. Some of the LCD's specially made for the game industry can compensate for the format by displaying a shorter version leaving the ends of the LCD blank. Special monitor bezels then cover this blank area to help the machine look somewhat original. The screen resolution of your game must be available in the LCD monitor to sync up properly.

If you have a "Raster Scan" monitor and you have a shooting game (gun game) then you have no choice but to fix your monitor or find a good used unit of the same resolution. Older Shooting games use the raster scan part of the monitor to place a block that syncs to the optical gun sensor behind the lens in your gun. This is not possible with an LCD monitor.

The latest gun games have invisible LED emitters placed around (outside) the LCD monitor that create a light field picked up by the optical gun sensor that is calibrated to the screen. These games have different software that syncs this positioning data to objects on the screen. This system is very similar to analog input potentiometer designs. These gun sensors are much more expensive and the LED's do fail.

We fix all monitor types and install LCD kits. We also have a picture tube rejuvenator machine that can fix most (but not all!) CRT problems. CRT stands for "Cathode Ray Tube", or what we called "picture tube" in our old style TV sets. A picture tube will eventually wear out just like a light bulb. When they start to loose brightness we can use a picture tube rejuvenator to burn the carbon deposits off the electrodes inside the vacuum sealed glass tube. This procedure is risky and requires an experienced technician. If the tube will rejuvenate back to life it will only last for a few years and then require another rejuvenation. Each time this is done it becomes harder to accomplish and the time between procedures becomes shorter.

My Video Game is upstairs. Can you help?

As with other machines we work on we do not move Video Games up or down stairs. The liability from damage or injury prevent us from being a moving company. We can do simple service calls on games in your gameroom like joysticks, trackballs or optical gun repair. We can remove 19" monitors and repair them in our shop and sometimes we have a test jig, or will make one, for your game boards.

The best choice is always to take the game in for repair. In our shop we can perform a more thorough inspection, clean the inside of the cabinet, make cosmetic repairs and test the machine for hours after we finish.

We ask that you bring the machine downstairs for us. We currently charge a minimum $30 or $1 per mile each way for pickup and delivery. This fee does not include stairs. We have commercial appliance dollies, pinball machine dollies, lift-table dollies and a truck with a hydraulic lift. We can get it to the truck and back.

Where did you learn to repair games?

I (Lee) had the very good fortune of growing up close to my grandfather Michael Sloma.  He was a genius electronics savant if ever there was one.  He had TV's, radios and games in his basement going back to the early days.  His garage was full of bicycles.  He made bikes out of parts for all the kids in his neighborhood in Binghamton. New York.  He fixed TV's and antique radios or whatever interested him for friends and family.  Much of his education came from the Army in World War II.  He taught me to solder and use test equipment at a very young age.  I (with Gramps help) built my first crystal radio at age 7.  My first tube amplifier at 10.  Mechanically he made me build all my own bicycles.  He involved me in his copper recycling enterprise.  I got to take a lot of things apart and see how they were made.  He involved me with some of the mechanical games he fixed for local antique stores.  The old radios like Atwater Kent's and RCA Victor short wave.  It was a wonderful experience.

My first real job was a "Route Man" for a game operator in 1974 at age 15.  I repaired all his games, jukeboxes and the first video games ever made.  I remember a game called Spike It, a pong like game that gave me my first try at digital repair.  I worked in Italy on games while serving in the US Air Force.  Also in San Francisco I repaired mostly pinballs on the side while serving.  Worked for a food and snack vending company in Johnson City, New York also.

My next mentor was my first boss in San Antonio, Luis Ruis.  Luis was a very highly skilled part owner of a game distributor in SA called A1 Coin Machine.  He had patents on some of the first digital analyzer equipment ever made.  He really helped me understand how to use an oscilloscope like no technical school could.  He also was one of the first ham operators in the US.  This was my first experience with what I call "distributor level" repair.  A large amount of different machine types to dig into.  I loved it.

I started a business in 1980 called Arcade Service Company.  This was very successful and quickly grew to over 30 game rooms under service contract.  We also had Malibu Grand Prix and Castle Golf and Games, a single entity with over 200 games under contract.

In 1982 I found my next mentor in a gentleman named Gene Daniel.  Gene was a true master of his craft.  We worked at a Distributor called Southgate Amusement together.  I wanted to work with Gene soo much I closed my repair company and joined one of the best repair shops in the industry.  Here I learned all the cutting edge electronic repair techniques available.  I thought I knew allot about digital electronics, I found out how wrong I was.  Soon I was factory trained and connected to proprietary information that made me 10 times the technician I was before.  The company put me in a closed room with literally stacks of printed circuit boards all around.  This was the heyday of the game business when we had the latest and greatest tools and equipment to work on.  I eventually became service manager.

The collapse of the game business in 1984 put me back on the street selling my skills.  I worked for another operator for a while and then started The Game Shop.  This was a pinball shop that was successful.  We worked primarily for game operators with a few home repairs.  I started to self teach myself the PC Computer business.  I started Tech BBS, a local bulletin board that grew to 1000 users with 2 phone lines and Fido Mail and online games and file sharing.  This was way before the internet was available.  All connections were dial-up to my 2 phone lines.  Users had 30 minutes per day and could "bank" extra minutes not used, for later.  I loved coding mods and learning about computers.

In 1992 I was again employed at Southgate Amusement, the distributor in town.  This time enticed to come back with high pay and bonuses tied to my position as parts and service department manager.  This lasted for 3 years until I just got fed up with retail sales and excessive bookkeeping duties.  At this point I was burned out in the game business and needed a big change. So in 1995 I started Morris Technical Services.  We specialized in PC computer monitor repair and PC repair primarily for business customers.  This was a great business to be in at this time!  We had monitors stacked 5 high on all the walls and every shelf was packed.  Computer repairs were fun and challenging.  I thought I found my new home.  We continued to repair pinball machines at our home shop as a side business.  Just can't stop working on pinball.....

The PC monitor business was run out of business by the EPA in 1999.  I learned I could no longer discard monitors in the previously allowed landfills that had "liners" installed.  I was forced to pay $25 each to have them taken by lead recycling companies.  Of course the customers would never pay the fee if the monitor was not repairable, so I saw the eventual liability growing before me.  So a company that recycled monitors back into service was driven out of business.  Add to this the invention of the LCD monitor and the the crash of the PC business and the rest is history.  I got back to the pinball business full time and started taking video games in 2000. 

In 2003 I re-joined Southgate Amusement, now called Amusement Distributors, as service manager.  In 2010 I became President and a major stockholder in the company.  2 and 1/2 years later my partner decided the game distribution business was to risky and pulled his support.  The economy has forced manufacturers to sell direct.  The game operators need to cut costs so they have forsaken distributors. The internet is eliminating all distribution, not just game distribution.  Customers can buy a new pinball now for $400 over cost with free shipping and no tax on Amazon.  When I saw that, I new my partner was right... distribution is over.  The first thing a customer does now is search the internet to find the best price on any product.  They make sure to buy out of state to evade sales tax.  Manufacturers have fewer distributors to sell stock to, so service is scarce and all products must be in demand or they do not get sold.  Many jobs are being destroyed by the internet.  Many lower paying jobs are being created by the internet.  Value added service is disappearing.  Seems like soon we will all be consumers chasing the cheapest priced products made in China.

Now my wife Kerry and I are right back where we started 47 years ago.  Pinball repair is timeless and such a niche business that it will always be there for us.  We have our skills and love our work.

So the question was: Where did you learn to repair games?  The answer - on the job with a little initiative.