A friend posted a link to a $400 Bally Star Trek on Craigslist. It was clearly bombed out, but I was looking for a restoration candidate. I went for it.
The seller said he didn’t have the head key. This meant two things: first, it was going to take a big vehicle to move it back to my house. Second, the computer was going to be corroded. But the game was mostly working, how bad could it be?
I a U-Haul van, a little Ford Econoline, at the place near my house, and headed to the seller’s place. I got there around 5 and after some smalltalk, I paid and then started figuring out how to get the game in the van. I have skates so it wasn’t too bad. I got the front legs off and we got the front of the game onto the van; then, the back legs off, and slid the game right into the door latch of the van.
That’s right, a classic solid state Bally game won’t fit in an Econoline van with the head on.
Fortunately, I was somewhat prepared for this eventuality and had my drill and a bunch of bits. But I didn’t think carefully about how the backbox works and spent two hours trying to open a door instead of just lifting the glass out.
I finally lifted the glass out in the relative dark and got the game home in three pieces: head, cabinet, and glass, which I won’t put back in until I have a proper lift channel on it.
Anyway, I bought the game in early November and am just starting to shop it. Eventually I’d like to restore it, but this is at the end of a long list of projects.