I'm sure you already saw this, but in case others haven't: https://blondihacks.com/veronica/ is required reading for anyone into 6502. I was trying to rehabilitate a Cocktail Joust arcade cabinet I'd had in storage for years, and instead went off into a 6809 time warp for a while. Quinn's 6502 blog articles were helpful for inspiration while I breadboarded a really basic 6809 computer.

I ended up giving away the Joust machine to a guy (https://web.archive.org/web/20200709102945/http://www.robotr...) who had poured his heart and soul into Robotron disassembly and also was the Joust world-record holder in 1983, so I knew he'd appreciate it at least as much as I did. He happened to live in the area, and was more than happy to drive over and load it up. It's been 13 years since then. I hope he and it are doing well!

Factoid: It takes about six hours to reach 10 million points on Joust. Christian's record was 98 million points!