Super Bug

  • Manufacturer: Kee Games
  • Year: 1977

Useful info

  • Cabinet type: Upright
  • Measures (WxHxD): 64,2 x 174,7 x 100,5 cm
  • Working voltage: 220V
  • Maximum consumption: 144,0W 1,000A
  • Technology: Vertical B/W raster monitor with colored overlay

This game is one of the first race game  where the car remains in the center of the screen turning on itself during the curves while the path is moving all around. At the beginning of the game the player can select two difficulty levels: novice or expert; the route is a city, indeed woodland and it is littered with oil stains, bends and other machines. The car is equipped with an acceleration pedal and a 4-speed gear.

The cabinet in the collection is completely original by Kee Games and completely restored. Both the control panel and the side art have been regenerated and are in excellent condition. The plexiglass have been restructured removing scratches and burns. Kee Games was a company that produced Atari games with another name.

Inspecting the cab

21 April 2014

As usual this cab come from Germany so I could find some German coins inside 🙂 In the end the cab was in good conditions and complete; more in detail:

  • Dust and cigarettes inside (some coins too)
  • Cigarette burns on plexi
  • Scratches and some rust on CP
  • Sidearts blackened on the bottom

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Cleaning – Before

21 April 2014

I removed everything from the cab

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Cleaning – After

21 April 2014

This is the cab after cleaning

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Bezel

22 April 2014

I removed the cigarette burns and remade the white

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Pedal

22 April 2014

This is the pedal before, during and after the restoration.

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Control Panel – Before

22 April 2014

This is the CP before any action


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Control Panel – Resto

22 April 2014

I covered with transparent plastic the panel, removing it in correspondence of the black areas. Then I used the sandpaper and then I painted with black spray. In the end I removed all the remaining plastic.

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Control Panel – Final result

22 April 2014

This is the Control Panel now

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Cabinet Final result

22 April 2014

This is the cab as it is now.

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Board troubleshooting (Car)

28 July 2016

During the last party (VMASP_2016) this game became to have a problem to the car sprite.

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A “black” bar was in the center of the car. Actually that part of car was missing so we had a sort of “transparency”… First of all I removed the mask prom for that sprite having a confirmation that something was going wrong with the vertical signal that identifies the sprite zone to draw

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This part is shown on the schematics and you can see H and V are controlled by the same flip-flop.

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In fact checking the signal to the  7474 pin 6 in M7 I had the following waveform (very similar to the problem I had on the screen)

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I was quite sure H and V signals were ok (in any case I made a check)  and so I replaced the 7474 having, now, this waveform.

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Definitely better… Plugging the board I had this pattern

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and re socketing the PROM I could verify the problem had been solved.

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… mission complete!