Repairing The Legendary 1981 Williams DEFENDER Arcade Game
Joe’s Classic Video Games
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20.08.2021
I put SO many quarters in this game!
My God at the quarters and time I spent on this game! LOL.
just here for the sounds
Nice walk through repairing the game. That was awesome. 👍
It's great to see a real Defender machine. One thing that surprised me – having never looked inside such a machine – is .. wow, how many boards? Tons – all jam-packed with ICs! Incredible. Although I love Defender, I'm terrible at it and always have been. I pride myself in having never achieved a score over 20,000.
Never liked Defender myself either, probably because I sucked at it! 😆 But cannot deny the nostalgia listening to the sounds. Good work, and thanks for the entertaining video.
stargate was my favorite game
37:04 hahahahahahaha epic!
Love this game! I noticed that the CREDITS: at the bottom were chopped off, so you need to adjust the bottom of the raster up or shrink to fit. Other than that, great job!
@46:12 there’s ton cortisone on one of the buttons connectors. You can see one of the terminals is all green.
I loved this video. It’s nice to know there are still techs out there repairing these old units. I’m going to subscribe now.
I remember Defender! It spawned a lot of copycats, but really was ground-breaking in its own right. Might have been the first or one of the first games with an on-screen dynamic level map. Wikipedia has an interesting article about the history and development behind-the-scenes at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defender_(1981_video_game)
There wasn't many defender's left in the UK, As a lot of the sound boards were used for the pinball tables repairs
Man I thought I was bad at Defender, but you are on free play and still suck more than I do! Good job fixing this old machine!
"Verdified" is a good word. You own that. I like it! I have to say I enjoy watching you work because I like the logical way you think when tracking down a problem. It's more fun than a video game! That sound is great! It's like phasing with echo. Great stuff!
This was the most difficult and rewarding cabinet video game to get good at. Thanks for posting. Would love to have a working cabinet in original condition. Thanks for posting.
I sucked at that game as well, there was this one kid we would watch. If my memory serves me well his high scores were in the millions and would be on it for a couple of hours or more.
Great job mate. Don't be so hard on yourself for the gameplay, I loved the game but found it very difficult. Brings back good memories hearing the arcade sounds. Galaxian was my favourite, loved that game. Thanks for the video.
I heard some Joust sounds 😀
Were some of the sounds used in Tempest?
I was shit at Defender too but damned if that wasn’t the most popular game everywhere it was installed. And you were right…those old sounds took me back! Cool video.
Awesome game, but certainly don't remember how much coin I've fed into this game over the years it was 'in', maybe I shouldn't try to remember, might remain sane that way :-O
Nice Work Earthling
You've Got A New Subscriber From Birmingham England
Bless Up Fella
Watching you play Defender brings back memories of what happened when I tried to play defender. 🙁
I used to work at Celanese on Cherry Rd. in Rock hill. Good times. 🙂
Being great at Defender was the unobtainable holy grail for me. I wanted to be great at it, but I was worse than everyone. I was good at tempest though! and that was good enough back then! Didn't care for pac man… i loved Sinistar Sinstar, whatever it was called. Loved that one!
You might want to get some lights so we can see into the cabinet.
The finesse it takes to properly control the motion and position of the ship is nothing short of Olympic level hand-eye coordination.
Boy didn't that take me back!!! Believe I was a freshman in high school when this came out. The first time that soundboard worked I swear I went back in time for just a second!!!! You Kids won't understand the thrill of walking into a little country store and hearing those sounds for the first time! God,to be 14 again. Anyway thank a million my man,made my day
"I feel good! Just like I knew that I would now!" Thank you!
Traveling that game's done your legs will be broke too
It's not a hard game just got to be a teenager been drinking a lot of Coca-Cola and you play the hell out of it
The scores getting corrupted has more to do with using a switching power supply instead of the original linear one because the CMOS relies on the linear voltage more slowly collapsing to complete the write cycle at the end of play. A switcher shuts down too quickly sometimes, and the write function doesn't have time to complete reliably. I prefer to always rebuild the original power supplies on Williams games for that reason, also the switcher causes ground issues with the buttons, but that can be worked around.
Hi there Guys,
I just found your channel by accident, it's the Best.
I love all these old Machines, I still remember going out with my Dad to the Pub, He would give me 5 x 20cent coins and said go try that noise box over there. Space Invaders was that game, and when you only get 5 games you soon become very good or very board, LOL.
Soon after that I started playing any Arcade Machine I could find, I Loved Defender, yes the sounds, but at that time the Graphics were very cool.
Although my Favourite was Donkey Kong, Crush Roller and Moon Patrol. Since then, I made my own Bar Top Machines and my Grandchildren asked me where I got all these new games from. They love them also.
So I can't wait to watch some more. Good Luck, and Thanks for Sharing.
Regards,
Gordon – Australia
Well done, sir – I'm sure that contraption will make someone very happy. Those arcade cabinets garnered some serious coin back in the day. It was a sort of coming-of-age ritual whereby the adolescent apes would demonstrate their prowess at squandering money so as to repel interest from the burgeoning females of the tribe. I had neither the interest nor the resources so any time I spent as a peripheral socialite in those places was basically saving myself a bob or two. Any money I purloined (including lunch allowance) was invested in Edison cylinder phonographs. In fact so little did I rely on penny arcades for emotional solace, I felt at liberty to cheek the Schutzstaffel prospects who ran them and took my banishment as a badge of inconsequence. And told them so, albeit rather more abruptly.
So, yeah, the Legendary 1981 Williams DEFENDER Arcade Game is slap bang on my nostalgi-o-meter – from an obscure perspective.
WMS industries did assembly of these since the 40s,the last batch of the pinball games left in 93-94,noisy place it was ,CEO after the crew of 500 was laid off moved all ops to gurnee,making casino slot machines and card games,,notice got back from casino owners the machines were paying out way too much ,,causing losses to casino owners,,problem was defective circuit boards from the chgo/lcalfornia plant,,,, oops hello CH11,,,,,
New field of work: Electronics Archeology!
That's what I thought when you brought in those schematic parchments to expose the history of the game.
1976 playing this game at the bowling alley now I see there are difficulty settings, they don't tell you what setting you are playing at which sucks
Great stuff 👍
"Two different types of widget boards: one is one, and one is the other"
Aristotle himself couldn't have said it better.
i had the high score on one of these games for three years in a local pizza place when i was in high school in the 80's. one of my favorite video games ever!
Oh my, I went to live in Trinidad from England there was a games arcade which was air conditioned with thick luscious carpets with large tinted windows so there was no glare it was beautiful you have brought back so many awesome memories of hanging out with great friends having a fabulous time thank you
Great job resurrecting the game. I always sucked at Defender but I'd still pump quarters into it until I was broke.
thickness = less resistance length = more resistance lol keep up the good work
The first ones I remember had track balls for the direction input
Man I love old school circuit boards you can actually work on. Surface mount created a generation of techs who only know how to swap out boards. Great video!
Early 80’s I worked in a mall and played this machine a LOT, but like you said its too damn hard and I always got blown up. I always suspected it takes a certain kind of brain or mind to manage all the stuff going on and do quick strategy to be in the right place at the right time without panicking. I also wondered if training or tips would have helped me. I think I’m average smart, but not mentally quick, and I think this game has let me know it. I wonder what people who ace this game are like – genius quick and smart? Average smart but quick? Or just maybe very calm? Please let me know! And Holy crap, that was 40 years ago. Am I getting old?
I always thought the ship in defender looked like a colonial viper from battlestar galactica, once you knew the tactic this was a great game.. Noisy, violent, addictive.. Happy days putting 10p in the slot in the arcadescin Blackpool…
The most awesome trick in this game can be done on most of the waves, ( minus the space battles – every fifth wave ). During the wave, finish every enemy off except for one last green alien. Wait for him to pick up one of your men, then proceed to shoot the alien, thus dropping your man. At this point you have to act quickly. Try and swoop down and catch your man the instant it plants itself back on the surface. If you do this correctly, the game will go “BERZERK” and award you with a big points prize!
Just the sound takes me back to the 80s as a little boy playing this for hours in Bronx New York!! Man I miss those days. This is a classic . Thank you for sharing 👍🏻