1983 Zaxxon Mini Arcade Teardown

A wonder of the early 80's gets a fresh look inside and out in 2018. How can I be jaded about these mini arcades? They're impossible to play, but just so undeniably cool. Enjoy!
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[@JamieJamez]

2:40 You may notice almost all mini cabinets from the 80's had a little notch cut out of the battery cover. These were for battery eliminators, which were dummy batteries that you could plug a cord into, and get power from your wall outlet. You could play forever, and never have to change batteries again.

[@welltell.]

Ha ha i had that game when i was a kid.... i played it so much... I got so good that in one sitting i would just keep playing until the batteries would go dry. My mom pitched it off of the balcony and that was the end for Zaxxon.

[@ExecutionUnit]

I'm a game developer, thanks for tearing this down. So much videogame software and hardware history is lost. That is a thing of pure beauty. You're amazing.

[@Laurabeck329]

Honestly the fact they were able to even approximate a game like Zaxxon using only VFDs is really impressive IMO

[@Fnordathoth]

I had a Zaxxon board game back in the day and I loved it. Of course I wanted the mini arcade but that board game was a lot of fun when I was a kid.

[@damama4209]

What fun - I'm close to 70 and I remember scrounging around and finding things to crack open to see how stuff works - when I was about 9 I did a dumb thing and opened up an old car battery- this was before they were made in one piece - I remember my dad would have to keep checking the battery to make sure water level in the battery was covering up the plates inside - well, I found an old battery someone else had thrown out - took it apart and played with those plates- found out later that I think those were made of lead- dumb thing to do as I never thought about the possibility back then of battery acid- lucky battery was dry - I don't always know what I'm looking at but always love to see inside stuff- I was the son my father never had so I watched him fix many things before everything became throw a way. Thank you for sharing.

[@obsoletebutneat]

Got several of these to fix (Ms. Pac and QBert), always nice to see what I'm in for

[@we-got-green__lightsabersy1807]

Holograms were the sheet I loved "Stand off " a awesome western fighter game !

[@Larry]

That's really quite impressive, and the Pepper's ghost effect for the ship, really clever!

[@sodadrinker89]

Larry, you show up in the most random places.

[@bryede]

@@sodadrinker89 He watches all of KZbin!

[@BlackburnBigdragon]

That is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I remember seeing this in a Sears Christmas Catalog and begging my parents for it because I collected these kinds of games when I was a kid, but my parents never got me this one, probably because this one was expensive. They always bought me the cheaper ones. If I got one of the more expensive ones, it was a miracle.

[@Johnny2Bags47]

My brother was asking for a full size Dragon's Lair , but got this instead. He was still happy. My sister got a cabbage patch doll & I got the ATC (3 wheeler) Power Wheel. Those were our main gifts.

[@isoguy.]

Straight from old DOD display technology into toys as the more flexible lazers were introduced for the later DOD displays. So much tech in a toy, thanks for sharing.

[@misterjib]

Super ingenious solution for achieving the isometric scrolling illusion. Amaaaazin

[@Lane42]

Thanks Fran. That was a cool look inside. I would not have guessed that the optics would be so complex in a toy. It turns out that the HD38820 is not a custom chip but rather an off the shelf 4-bit micro. Looks like it was popular for tabletop and handheld games from the 80's.

[@user-qf6yt3id3w]

Yup. You can get a datasheet here amigan.1emu.net/aw/ "Entex HD38820 MCU (handheld/tabletop) patent application" amigan.1emu.net/aw/entex.zip

[@TT-RR]

i'm reading the datasheet and its an all in one solution , so it makes sense for them to use it instead of something custom. this kind of reminds me of the AY-3-8500 Ball & Paddle chip by General Instrument, almost all pong consoles used it.

[@Patchuchan]

I wonder if the same chip found it way into other things such as VCRs,microwaves, and CD players as according to the data sheet it seems fairly general purpose?

[@HerrRussoTragik]

Bandai's Pair Match and Silverstar's Battleship had one HD38820 too! Ohh the 80's!

[@laserhawk64]

Beat me to it! The architecture looks a little to me, just from the block diagram, kinda like they took a 6502 and cut it in half. Could be way wrong tho -- I'm just going on a somewhat sleepy first impression here.

[@horacegentleman3296]

Even the mighty Fran mixes battery brands.

[@Fireship1]

Horace Gentleman HA I was thinking the same thing when I saw the two different brands.

[@robjohnson1138]

Cats and dogs living together. Mass hysteria!

[@raymondcourtois67]

It's like crossing the streams!

[@ivanthecheese9119]

20 Bucks, cheaper than when it first came out, And you fixed it , what a great deal......this rocks

[@lyradlyradlyrad]

OMG! I Had one of those. My older brother shot it with the BB gun. Then we put a 9v on the screen and it made sparks.

[@white-anthony]

Hey Fran, I'm an electrical engineering student who watches your videos almost religiously. I have to say, my focus in school is on controls and I hope to one day work for the space industry. But watching your videos, I'm so enthralled by all the electronics and its history it almost makes me want to switch my focus to that. It's rough because there's so much history and little crevices in the timeline of electronics, I'm only starting to learn about it in small chunks. You've lived the history, experienced it. I'm jealous and I feel I will never be able to experience that. Sometimes I wish I was older or had someone to get me into electronics when I was younger so I would have been exposed to it. Now at 26, I only know through school and KZbin videos such as yours. Thank you, at least I have this.

[@pradaman1999]

I was so fortunate to have one, I loved it beyond my bmx. As I watched your lovely beautiful video, thanks you so much for explaining the impression structure. I will buy one and order the best rechargeable samsung batteries for it and display it in my glass cabinet for my sons to have also. Bravo. Brillant Video. Nostalgic.

[@presstodelete1165]

Just listening to this takes me back

[@TRCFL]

I did a restoration on an old Tomy electro mechanical game called Daring Driver which used the same techniques to superimpose the moving road, vehicle, and inevitable crash explosion into an aggregate image. The road was simply a couple of LED's which reflected back to the player via a moving partial mirror, to create the illusion of the road curving left and right. Some clever mechanical collision detection triggered the explosion when you ran off the road. My favorite is Cosmic Clash, full of mechanical trickery to create incredible animated explosions...and a tiny record for speech and sound effects. Based on the event triggered, the stylus moves to the correct audio track. The early Tomy EM games are so much fun to tear down. Just take lots of reference pics as the number of tiny parts can be staggering.

[@sameregarde]

thank you fran for bringing me back my memorys from the 80s i had tears in my eyes

[@keithfulkerson]

I was not expecting that layout inside. That's a trip.

[@buckgill3021]

Dear Fran!!! You are just like me, love to look at the cleaver ways the old toys we're engineered ! That Zaxxon game is like a little work of art! Well if you liked how clever that Zaxxon game is built than you must look at Hit and Missile! When I was little it was the very first toy that I ever saved up for and bought myself!! Compared to Hit and Missile, that Zaxxon game it down right futuristic! Ha. Ha. Hit and Missile is no joke literally a fully mechanical video game! You really need to get one and take a look inside! It's really amazing on the inside, I don't want to say and spoil the neato inerds! If you can find one that is!! You'll love it and so will the viewer's!!!

[@Zenodilodon]

That really is a clever optical set up for the era indeed.

[@LeonardCaldwell]

I was telling my 8 yr old son about Zaxxon the other day.. How much I loved that game!! Thanks for ALL your videos, Fran. :-)

[@DanHarkless_Halloween_YTPs_etc]

Thanks so much for this teardown! When I was a kid in the early '80s, I learned about the Pepper's Ghost effect by asking an attendant at the La Brea Tarpits how they did a caveman sculpture ⇔ skeleton live-morph (followed by some additional library research). I also played the Coleco tabletop Zaxxon back then at least once (didn't own it, though I had Coleco's single-VFD Pac-Man), but I don't think I ever put two and two together to realize that the superimposition of elements indicated the Pepper's Ghost effect was being used here. Now I kinda want one of these again. 😁

[@sakiagio1751]

Wow...an uncle bought me that exact Zaxxon back in the day...looking at it brings back memories... although as you mention, it was impossible to play!!

[@UpLateGeek]

That's some pretty clever system engineering for back in the day! The VFDs have to align with the boards, as well as the mounting posts on the case, and they all have to be at the correct angle in respect to the mirror and each other. And all that without the help of 3D modelling! Not to mention the design of such complex VFDs, which are really impressive all on their own!

[@booboo699254]

Well, there was 3D modeling back then (if by that you mean CAD systems)... but yes, no 3D printers.

[@chiqueshatogroup5378]

wow I had one of these I was just showing my kids what game I had as a child. Wow memories.

[@exorcist1998]

After looking for around 5 years, I have finally tracked down a mint boxed example of this game. Its coming from the USA as I gave up looking in the UK for a decent one and it will take pride of place in collection. Great video too.

[@RokkitGrrl]

I did get this for Christmas back then! I was fortunate enough to have had a lot of VFD games which were very popular in the early 80s.

[@kane100574]

Zaxxon was one of my favorite games back then, as well as Moon patrol and a pinball game called the Funhouse!

[@gillesbillault1515]

Hello from France. Thank you for full teardown and présentation. Yours faiithfully

[@jackphillips3512]

Amazing the way they did the 3D effect too.

[@drewcillasworld4373]

OMG Love Saves the Day! Gotta love the village ❤️

[@K3vinK]

I had one just like this, but it was a Tron game. I was SOO into Tron when it first came out. Even had a Tron necklace.

[@followingbreadcrumbs]

i would have loved to have this in 83! i was 7. my brother had a colecovision console which was pretty sweet!

[@gameroomwizards448]

Thanks, Fran for this amazing video! Always wanted one of these when I was in high school (Coleco was all the rage in '82 and '83!) They got all the cool arcade games! Zaxxon was always in my top five favorite games! When I was an arcade technician at Disneyquest, I got to restore a Zaxxon machine!!! I even love the the even harder Super Zaxxon!!! Had that on my Atari 800!!! Keep up the amazing work!!!!

[@PatrickOTreat]

I saw the title and thumbnail and thought “Wow, someone else did a Zaxxon video. I wonder if Fran has seen this” I didn’t notice it was yours until I started watching. Keep up the good work, I’m loving your videos.

[@AnonymousFreakYT]

I love the fact that they got the isometric angle look not by actually having the VFD display elements be isometric, but by simply rotating "conventional" VFDs at an angle! That is a quite brilliant approach. And the dual VDs is great, too, because it means they don't have to "carve out" space for the ship among the wall/enemy elements on the other VFD.

[@teddybasterd9415]

Takes me back to the good old days skipping school to hang out at the pool hall LoL

[@MichaelAStanhope]

Thats pretty impressive technology for 1983. Its amazing how much it does resemble the full size game considering the limitations of the VFDs in there.

[@lurkerrekrul]

Very cool design. :) Back in the 80s, I was fascinated by the game Zaxxon. I never saw an actual arcade machine, but I'd seen the ads for the Colecovision version and it looked great. When this tabletop came out, I thought it looked cool, but I was well aware of the limitations of portable displays at the time. I'd seen other similar games and always thought that they were unplayable with the way that objects would just blink from one position to another. Even so, I couldn't help kind of wanting one of these. I never got one though. I have to say that the movement looks smoother than I was expecting. I'm sure that doesn't make it any more playable, but it doesn't look as jerky as I thought it would. Finally, I thought I was the only one who turned screws backward to find the start of plastic threads. I've been doing it since the 80s. Nobody ever told me to do it and in fact, a couple people have "corrected" me and told me that I'm turning the screws the wrong way and I have to explain why. It just seemed logical to me that if the screws are self-tapping, you don't want them making new threads rather than following the original ones.

[@MarkSeve]

Very cool. Thank you for sharing Fran.

[@TheShutterNinja]

Oh man, I loved Zaxxon! I remember begging for the ColecoVision version; I had no idea they did a mini arcade for it!

[@lucm6476]

the new camera output a very nice picture...good stuff

[@kartwood]

Fran Blanche is the Funk Queen of tiny Zaxxon realignment.

[@nutsnproud6932]

Thanks Fran.

[@terryolsson4145]

Thanks again Fran, I love your channel.

[@netrioter]

Another interesting fact...only 11 years earlier..Pong came out in the arcade. They managed to pull a piece of trick like this off in only 11 years and made it affordable. Technology exploded in the 70's on a level we will never see again. Coleco raised the bar as far as consumer electronics. I remember when i got my ColecoVision for christmas in 1982. I was like OMG...THIS IS REALLY LIKE THE ARCADE. Zaxxon was amazing on it as was Donkey Kong. I had the Atari 2600 attachment for it and the steering wheel and the trackball and the super controller as well. I was only missing the Adam attachment as it was 299 dollars. Thats a lot of yards to mow back in 83

[@Diablo-D3]

This is a work of art.

[@hannahmich7342]

Very clever design. Great video Fran

[@ecj272]

Imagine being a kid wanting Zaxxon for your Colecovision, but, unable to afford a $50 game back in 82/83 and finding that game by chance at a Odd Lots store for $10 in a discount/clearance bin. To say I was freaked out by the price is a understatement, not to mention finding it it to begin with since it was always sold out. That game ended up being the most played game of all my Colecovision games

[@videolabguy]

Very sweet! I love the old games. When you had a 4 bit micro with 64 bytes of RAM, not necessarily this Zaxxon game, you find out who the real programmers are! Give me a Texas Instruments Merlin any day. Simple can be soooo good!

[@davidsierra1574]

I remember love saves the day, got some cool vintage TV guide magazines once from there, it was a great place!

[@raymondheath7668]

Great tear down. Never knew what was inside, more complex than I thought

[@locouk]

It was probably a gift for kids to someone that you want to annoy, a 1980’s kid would be really into it, yet the parents would be going crazy at the noises lol Opps.. it fell off the table and broke!

[@brunoprimas1483]

I had a Tomy PacMan, Scramble, Tron, and a Cosmi Clash tabletop games in the early 80's. Had the boxes, styrofoam, and instructions. Gave them away in the early 90's to a friends younger brother. I wish I still had them. Scramble and Tron were a blast to play. Very enjoyable. Very good gameplay.

[@KanalFrump]

What a neat machine! Somebody had a blast designing that optical system.

[@mrmorphic]

that's really cool. The optics are really interesting.

[@JackT_Music_on_Vinyl]

I know this way off topic but I love that Fran has albums in her shop. Also, this is a very cool video!

[@jobsgarage]

I love that kind of gear. I am a proud owner of a working (thanks to a donor unit) Galaxy II aka Astro Wars mini arcade game.

[@itsGeorgeAgain]

wow. awesome solution to the graphics problem.

[@albinekb]

The new camera is such an upgrade!

[@Jimmeh_B]

Thank you Fran!! I'm a MASSIVE fan of VFD's also! Thank you for taking the time out of your incredibly busy life atm, to make use of what you have left in your current situation to try to keep your audience happy! We do appreciate it! I hope you also did it just to "stick it to em" and that you got some enjoyment out of it too. For your own sanity! :)

[@stuartpeters115]

Hello Fran, subscribed to your channel after Bigclive did video about you. Thank you for taking time to do your videos .. I love watching folk taking stuff apart.. Love your guitar work also.

[@BlackEpyon]

Good ol' mini electronic games. I had Donkey Kong, and whatever that game was where you hop on cubes to change the colour.

[@electron-1979]

Interesting device! Thanks!

[@shoofle]

that display is so cool!!!

[@doktoruzo]

I always find the sign...'Made In Japan' very reassuring. Most interesting design. Great video, thanks

[@machintelligence]

In the 1950's "Made in Japan" meant cheap junk, but in the 1960's it was precision optical gear. Then came the electronics explosion. I even own a box of glass ball ornaments stamped "Made in Occupied Japan" 1940's?

[@TheGorillafoot]

That thing is sweet. I used to have a Donkey Kong that was like that. My mom gave it away when I was in college.

[@saracade69]

Hi Fran! I've watched a few of your videos and subbed just to see if something would catch my eye, cause I liked what I saw. This one did it. I was never lucky enough to have a Zaxxon mini like that and always wanted one. Thanks for doing the break down on it. It's neat how they used the dome switch style contacts that Atari used back in the day but amped it up for an 8 directional pad. Also, the optics are brilliant! I imagine the reason the game is so hard is that the processing between boards A and B that is seen on the "screen" was harder to manage in real time. Thanks for what you do and I'm glad you were able to get on and move into a new place. As a 49 year old geek girl who fixes and restores classic machines, consoles and endeavors to not let these things be lost to history , I applaud you.

[@Fireship1]

Cool 80s tech. It’s amazing what we could build and engineer back then without the technology we have now!

[@MickeyDJ1]

Wow, yeah I remember that one. but never had my own. Just as well, because I would, at some point, have got inside it too. Nothing lasted too long without me taking it apart. But I can honestly say I got more fun out of cardboard boxes, time and again (as an only child). 😊

[@marreroafreddy9332]

That was the best game ever, wow 🤩

[@we-got-green__lightsabersy1807]

Oh I got to find it I have one the motherboard looks melted I miss it was fun !

[@robertdix8515]

That was real cool! Thank you for sharing. Be safe and have a good day.

[@TheSquaredM]

Very ingenious design. Thanks for sharing!

[@473mec]

I had the Zaxxon game for Colecovision when I was a kid. I had no idea they made a handheld game. The Colecovision game was awesome. It was a shame when they went out of business.

[@bj20715]

Very cool design, thanks for sharing! Never was a huge arcade gamer, but seeing how they figured this tabletop version out was really neat.

[@GadgetUK164]

Chip manufactured by Hitachi I think! Very interesting tear down! Lovely piece of gaming history!

[@netrioter]

That is the Hitachi logo....good eye

[@anasevi9456]

it is, and goes to show Sega's relationship with Hitachi went way back. Their processors would power the 32x, Saturn and Dreamcast.

[@Spritetm]

A Google search for HD38820 actually indicates it's a 4-bit microcontroller, with high-voltage outputs (to directly control the VFDs) with slightly more than 2K 10-bit words of ROM, and 160 4-bit nibbles of RAM. The entire thing runs at a negative voltage, the dataheet says -10V but probably -8V (4*1.5V) also works... my guess is that it'd be marginal, though, hence the need for alkaline batteries.

[@kaylaandjimbryant8258]

@@Spritetm yeah, i looked that up myself, recognizing the hitachi logo and distinctive HD part number. quite a versatile little controller. wonder if they had an prom/eprom version back then? it would have been common for the mask programmed parts to have prom/eprom versions available for development purposes. i was expecting to find the more common (back then) tms1000 and glue logic, but this was a rather elegant design. lots of thought went into this. wonder who did the panels? futaba?

[@jp-um2fr]

Just a little tip about screws into plastic. One can either lick the end of the screw or if you are a lady of some sensibilities like Fran a damp sponge and a bar of soap. I suppose any form of lubricant will help stop the screw tearing new threads. If I say a bit of chip fat you will no doubt work out where I live. P.S. Bar of soap when using wood screws, it works I promise.

[@robrobbins]

Love Saves The Day still has a store in New Hope PA.

[@kazriko]

I bet they really had fun designing that mirror system, and the angle of the displays. Clever way to make a Isomorphic perspective game with primitive technology.

[@royhenderson4085]

Date code on the HD38820 is 3E2, i.e. 1983, May, 2nd.

[@MikePepe]

the 2 is the week number, so week 2 of May, 1983.

[@tarstarkusz]

I bought mine about the same time you bought yours and it had the same problem. The inside is pretty neat. I keep rechargeables in mine because my desk has a top shelf and it is lined with VFD games from that era and i switch them out occasionally. I have about 10 or 15 of of them. They are so cool.

[@dementeddaniel666]

Zaxxon stole *a lot* of my quarters growing up. Oddly enough, I never wound up getting a home port, so I probably haven't played it since the early 80s.

[@ociemitchell]

Great video. I was a bit surprised to see a smd chip in a consumer device of that Era.

[@zarkeh3013]

What a TEASE! Fix the BIG Zaxxon! lol, Great Video! I always wanted one of these while perusing a sears catalog... at christmas.

[@Scott-K7sce]

back in the day i played pac-man, centipide, space invaders, dig-dug, donkey kong, duck hunt. many hours of fun & untold amounts of quarters

[@TomStorey96]

HD38820 is a 4 bit PMOS "microcomputer". If you google it you can find a datasheet. Interesting specs, particularly how they refer to RAM: 2048 program words (10 bits per word) 128 words of pattern ROM 160 "digits" of RAM (4 bits/digit)

[@mitchelwb]

I LOVE the little table top arcades. I have two Pac-Man (one is dead), Ms Pac Man, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr, Frogger, Scramble, and Zaxxon. My Zaxxon doesn't have a battery cover though. Feel free to take some measurements on that thing and I'll see if I can 3D print one!

[@beefaroni4733]

Horray!

[@fishfuxors]

Thrown at a wall more like. Years ago, I had a Zaxxon-like came on cassette for my Tandy Model 4. It took an easy 15-20 minutes to load and half as long to get red faced mad with the game.

[@avejst]

Nice, thanks for sharing😀👍

[@petertothRC-FPV]

Cool.I still have my coleco head 2 head football hand held 1or 2 player game.

[@joacimwennerberg8310]

Interesting look inside, Fran.

[@netrioter]

I had all of them. Zaxxon was the rarest..this sells used in okay shape for over upwards of $100 to $150 dollars

[@tekvax01]

very impressive! I love those old games, that were WAYYYY to expensive for me to own back in my childhood days!

[@anaglog77]

That's super cool!