Defender

Model number 517 - Released December 1982

(Part 1 of article. Part 2 is here)

I’m not a big video game fan, but Defender the video came up at just the right moment for my early teen 
‘arcade years’ and I remember playing it quite a lot, though never being very good at it.  I also played 
it later on my PC courtesy of Williams Arcade Classics (before Mame was so widely used) and so I have fond
memories of the game, especially of the great sound effects.  It is, in my opinion quite rightly, hailed 
as one of the classic video games of all time.

Yes, everyone knows about the video game, but fewer about the pinball.  Only 369 were made.  If it had 
been made a year or so earlier that figure would probably be a lot higher, but the early ‘80’s pinball 
crash (ironically helped in part by Defender the video) was in the middle of happening by the time of 
release (December 1982) so pinball production figures were low.  Defender was pretty much the lowest of 
the lot though, so either it was spectacuarly bad timing, or people just didn’t want to play the pinball 
version of the video.

But anyway, one of those 369 was sold to the seafront arcade in Clevedon (North Somerset) and while I 
have some vague memories of playing it, Clevedon was a 10-mile bike ride away as against a bus ride to 
Weston-super-Mare (and Weston had loads of arcades) so I went to Clevedon infrequently.  Anyway, not 
long afterwards the arcade was burnt down one night and so was the machine, so that was that.

Ever since then I have always wanted to have one, but had rarely seen one come up for sale and on the 
occasions they did I was always too late, even if I could have afforded the high prices being asked.  
Bob Thompson’s auctions last year came at a bad time for me and so I missed out on the Defenders there 
too - but perversely it made me more determined that I would, finally, own one of these games.

The question ‘why’ is more difficult to answer, both why at all, and why so much now?  I’m not interested 
in rarity for it’s own sake so it can’t be that.   I can’t really remember how it played, so it can’t be 
because it’s a great game either as I don’t know that it is!  (PinMame, though an amazing thing, just 
isn’t the same as playing a real game so I couldn’t judge through that either).  So the only reasons I 
can think of is that I like the theme, I love the sounds (the same as the video, well, it has exactly the 
same sound board!) and recently I have had early ‘80’s pins like Jungle Lord and Firepower and really 
enjoyed playing them, much quicker and somehow sharper then the equivalent Bally games - though Xenon is 
still an all-time favourite.

So anyway, with my new-found resolve in the months following the auctions I put feelers out…and nothing.  
But asking around again just before Christmas produced a lead and several email later, early in the new 
year, I was standing in a cold garage in Bognor Regis looking at not one but two machines!  The guy would 
only sell them as a pair (but, as he pointed out, it would have been foolish to only take one of them as 
when would the opportunity arise again?) and despite it being more than I wanted to pay, and I really didn’t 
have room for two more games at home, an hour later I was on my way back with both of them in the van.  I 
did try half-heartedly to haggle but I knew, and he knew, and I knew that he knew, that I wasn’t planning 
to leave empty-handed…. 

So what did I get?  Well, two non-working games!  More specifically, two cabinets and two heads.  Both 
cabs were good, one had a good playfield while the other had very bady applied mylar, though the playfield 
underneath looked good too.   Both heads were physically good, though both backglasses had an amount of 
fine cracking of the paint.  One set of electronics looked clean, while the other set looked a bit more 
haggard…. 

When I got them home, the better game was set up, although this proved to be more of a job than anticipated.  
On the rare occasions I have bought two of one game before, I‘ve not been concerned with matching the 
right head to the right body – but in this case I thought that I should.   Unfortunately the head that 
went with the better body had the poor electronics, so a lot of board swapping was needed!  The boards 
all had a variety of serial numbers on so that wasn’t really an issue (and anyway an obsession with authenticity 
down to that level is definitely not me) and eventually it was all set up, and I did what I tend to do - and 
you are definitely not supposed to do - and just switched it on to see what happened.

The answer was not very much really, a locked CPU and a hum from the sound board.  On the inspection that 
I should have already done, it turned out that while the CPU seemed jumpered correctly (Defender and 
Hyperball had different jumper settings to all other system 7 games) the roms were in fact from Time 
Fantasy.   Hmmm.  The roms in the other board said Defender but not which Ics they were, so though I 
installed them in the same sockets on the board I wasn’t confident in them, and not surprised that the 
board locked up with these in too….

At the time of writing, that’s pretty much the situation.  I ordered a new set of roms, used Leons test 
rom to test the CPU and driver board (which indicated that they were - at least mostly – OK) and I fitted 
new sockets in anticipation of the new roms arriving.  They have now arrived and are waiting for me to 
fit them, and see what happens this time!

Part two of this article will follow me through getting the game working, doing any repairs or restoration 
work needed and finally playing it!  Will it all have been worth it???  Only time will tell, and due to 
the fact that I always seem to have too much to do, part two might not be for a while – but I will get 
there!