Colored Gels for B/W Vector Games

Hey, all.

Just about ten years ago, I restored an Omega Race upright and added
it to my collection. It's been running great and has been enjoyed
ever since. The original yellow-tinted gel screen overlay was still
with the machine, albeit faded considerably. At the time, I contacted
a local theatrical supply house, obtained a swatchbook and set to work
matching up the colors (I was also working on a Battlezone and
something that used a blue gel... Asteroids Deluxe maybe?). I bought
the yellow gel, then shelved it, figuring I'd get around to it
someday. This week, I opened up and disassembled the Omega Race to
perform some overdue maintenance in the course of getting the gameroom
ready for a Halloween party. While it was apart, I remembered the
yellow gel and installed it when reassembling the machine. I had
always figured it'd make the graphics yellow, which I guess would be
nice but hadn't considered the fact that yellow cancels out blue. The
screen always had a bit of a background glow to it, which I figured
I'd have to "dial out" someday (wasn't thinking of the fact that
vector monitors HAVE no "black level" to adjust and the fact that
blacklights make screen phosphors glow). Holy cow! What a
difference. The background phosphor glow is gone and the floating
effect of the graphics over the blacklight-lit cabinet graphics is
amazing. Really pops!

Given this, just wanted to share the specifics (all gels are Roscolux):

For Omega Race, I used 312 Canary

So long as I've got the info handy, here are the others I've used with
good results:

Battlezone is 25 Orange Red and 90 Dark Yellow Green

I have no idea what the 71 Sea Blue would've been for. Omega Race
cabaret?

Very respectfully,
Kris Sandrick
Player Two
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Received on Wed Oct 28 22:02:02 2009