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Another project game I recently got up and running is my Atari Quantum that I picked up from the Kalamazoo warehouse in July 2003. I had to purchase a new flyback as the original red was all chewed up (darn mice) and probably dead anyways. Just when I decided to buy a new flyback, Wintron decided to quit making them. This was probably a blessing as Mark over at Cinelabs started working on building a replacement transformer that would be a drop in replacement, unlike the Wintron. It was also quite a bit cheaper. After installing the new flyback and rebuilding both the deflection board and the HV board, Quantum was alive after setting in storage since October 10th, 1988, when the monitor died (according to a note written on masking tape across the top of the machine). This was short lived as when I attempted to adjust the X size on the deflection board, two resistors went up in flames - and took out about $12 worth of parts with them. So after replacing all these parts and putting in new size pots on the deflection board, it was up and running again. I’ve been playing this game like crazy lately and it’s very addicting! My high score so far is just over 122,000. You can really rack up some points by continuing to circle the particles again and again. I rebuilt the trackball unit with new bearings, rollers and a shiny new trackball. This makes it very easy to circle those particles. I’m making it a personal goal to get at least the second highest score on Twin Galaxies. Since this is such a rare game, I don’t have alot of competition. And with my current high score, that already puts me in fourth place.

The game came in the same cabinet as Space Duel and Gravitar, but it was not a conversion kit. It had totally different art, and was only available in full dedicated cabinet form. Like all vector games, Quantum is very problematic, and monitor failures are very common.