On the drive out to visit James’ place, Jeff filled me in on some of the details. Not only did James like vector games, but he has a bunch of super rare titles in his lineup. Some of them I had never seen or played before. The kind of games that just can’t be played in MAME. Rather than ramble on about his stuff, I’ll just let the game list speak for itself:

Armor Attack, Asteroids, Asteroids Deluxe, Aztarac, Battlezone, Berzerk, Black Widow, Blaster, Bubbles, Computer Space (yellow), Crazy Climber (deluxe), Cyberball, Death Race, Defender, Dig Dug, Donkey Kong, Dragon’s Lair, Food Fight, Frogger, Galaga, Gravitar, Gyruss, I,Robot, Joust, Lunar Lander, Major Havoc, Missile Command, Moon Patrol, Quantum, Reactor, Robotron, Space Duel, Spy Hunter, Star Castle, Star Wars, Tempest, Tron, Wacko, Warrior, and Zookeeper. That is 40 amazing games in one space, including every Atari vector (right? I’m not missing any?). I was truly going to be in Arcade Nirvana.

We arrived at James’ house late morning, in a little subdivision with modest homes and well kept yards. His was a neat little house, hiding one of the most amazing game collections I will probably ever see. I couldn’t wait. James greeted us at the door and I liked him right away. Friendly, courteous and eager to talk shop. We wasted no time heading into the arcade and immersing ourselves in the sights and sounds of the glorious 80′s. The games were organized in long rows in the one main room, with a bar and access to the backyard close by. A handful of games were in an overflow area adjacent to the main space, with all possible floor space used up. Excellent. Not only were there a TON of amazing games, but every single game was WORKING. Let me repeat that so it sinks in. All 40 games were working. Enough babble, here are some pictures.

The Wacko, Food Fight, and Death Race were placed in the little overflow area near his hvac and water tank. I was so in awe of the rest of the collection, I forgot to go back and play Death Race! I have played Wacko and Food Fight before, but I really wanted to try Death Race. I guess I have an excuse to go back for another visit

Jeff and I stepped up and played Two Tigers for a bit as I had never seen or played a dedicated cab in person. The game has some amazing artwork, but the game play was a little lacking. I wanted the planes to react more like the ship in Time Pilot, but it just wasn’t happening. Maybe a little more play time and some strategy would have helped, I try not to judge any game on the first play. Still amazing to see one in person. I also gave the computer space a try, it felt odd playing that little bit of history! I like simple black and white games so I actually enjoyed this one. I can understand why it didn’t do well though, as it isn’t very engaging. The yellow example that James has is in beautiful shape and a real treat to see. Let’s not forget the Reactor, I, Robot and some MCR goodness. Moving on…

We played a little Crazy Climber in a beautiful Nichibutsu Deluxe cabinet, some Warrior with its stunning artwork and black light backdrop. Warrior game play was OK, just a little tricky to maneuver at first. That game is definitely about the wow factor, it is truly amazing to see all lit up in person. Then there was the Williams row with a couple of duramold cabinets, some Cinematronics vectors, a Berzerk with the bat stick, and a Tournament Cyberball 2072. I should have given that one a try, but just kept moving, we had so much to see!

On to the next row of games which included an Aztarac, Missile Command cockpit and the Atari vectors. I have to say that Aztarac was the standout game for me during this adventure. It was a blast to play and the funky bubble plexi bezel made it that much cooler. I’m told that it gets ridiculously hard at higher levels, but I thought it was just loads of fun to play. The MC cockpit was another surprise for me as I really enjoyed playing it wrapped inside the cab with the booming base. Much more fun than the upright. As for the Atari vectors, what can I say? Incredible to see them all lined up looking so pretty.

Whew! That is one heck of a collection and having them all working at the same time seems like a small miracle. How is it even possible? It turns out that James has a knack for fixing the games, both the electronics and the cosmetics. He’s a bio-medical engineer by trade and the electronics repair came easy, the restorations he just takes his time with. All his games were immaculate, and his dedication to the hobby really shows. Of course the only thing that could possibly match such an amazing collection is an equally impressive bank of electronic test equipment. Let’s check out his “work bench”. His work space is adjacent to the arcade, you actually walk through it to get to the game room. I suppose that makes game repair a little easier, having everything so close. It certainly was neat, well organized, and loaded with the kind of test equipment most of us can only drool over. So drool away…

At this point we had spent what seemed like only moments, but must have been a couple hours down in James’ basement arcade and workshop. I thought we were done, until I looked up and was reminded that James also liked Showbiz Pizza memorabilia, or more specifically the Rock-afire Explosion show. But what was the rest of that stuff up there?

So James is an avid collector of Showbiz Pizza memorabilia, but not just any type of memorabilia. He collects Rock-afire Explosion stuff, that funky animatronics band that used to play at all the Showbiz Pizza resturaunts. For James, some of his fondest memories were playing the games and watching the shows at the famous Showbiz Pizza. I won’t get into too much detail about Showbiz Pizza and its history, if you’re a collector you know all about it. If you want more information, there is a great website called showbizpizza, check it out and you’ll get all the info you care to read. So when I asked what the labeled cases were on the top shelves, James said, “They’re the shows for the Rock-afire Explosion.” Hmm, I didn’t realize there were any DVD’s of the old show, let alone that many. I was wrong, they are actual show tapes for the animatronic sequences. Oh my.

Of course you can’t have all those animatronic show tapes without something to use them with. That’s right, he’s got some of the actual animatronics as well. James took us for a short drive to a storage unit that was packed full of characters from the famous show. It was a little eerie because they were lacking “skin” and looked more like the movie robots from I, Robot (how appropriate). He had signs, compressors and other accessories for the show, blips from my childhood memory. James explained that the character costumes were safely packed away, along with more parts. His ultimate goal? To expand his arcade with enough space to have a fully working Rock-afire Explosion show! Think he’s a little ambitious? Perhaps, but have you seen his game room? I would say that if anyone could pull it off, James certainly can.

And what good is a storage unit if you can’t tuck a few games into the corner? Hidden among the robots was a nice looking Atari X-O football and a cinematronics space wars, two great games waiting for a little TLC. We finished up at the storage unit and went back to the house. James mentioned he had another character in the garage, so we decided to take a look. Whoa! Not only did he have a wild Uncle Klunk animatronic, he also had a bunch of classic arcade projects that any avid collector would love to have.

So the projects consist of an EDOT, Tailgunner, Solar Quest, Tapper, Red Baron, Space Invaders, Space Invaders Deluxe, XO Football, Space Wars, Rip Off, Gyruss, Starhawk, Space Fury, and Qbert. 15 more impressive games for his list. I look forward to visiting again and really hope he can do the expansion to fit all of these games and the Rock-afire Explosion, what an amazing space that would be! I didn’t want to leave vector heaven, but it was time to get back on the road and head home. I had a great time, made some new friends and really enjoyed seeing and playing such a variety of classic games. I’m looking forward to the next road trip…maybe we’ll head West next time.

The first thing that grabs you is the blatant Star Wars X-Wing imagery plastered all over the control panel, bezel and marquee. Why not? If you’re going to make a bootleg game you might as well slap some artwork on it that people recognize. It would get a few tokens for the art at least, while the gamer attempts to figure out what, if anything, Astro Attack has to do with the iconic franchise we all know and love.

John was able to get the game working pretty fast, “I actually got it going late last night. One of the circuit boards wasn’t seated in the edge connector properly and then the vertical hold needed adjusting but then it popped right in. Not a game I’ve ever seen before. The marquee is interesting. Each letter has a separate bulb and they alternate turning on and off randomly making a kinda cool effect. I’ll try to get some video or something later today if I have time.” He did have some time and shared this video with the collecting community. Pretty interesting how the marquee lights flash on and off, probably with the use of “blinker” bulbs. Might be a little distracting during game play, but still cool. (refresh the page if you don’t see the video)

John determined that the game play is identical to Astro Fighter by Sega/Gremlin/DECO. Interesting to note that the SEGA/Gremlin version of the Astro Fighter flyer has some blatant rip-off going on as well, beam me up Scotty! The game was released by a bunch of sources, perhaps that made it ripe for bootlegging, who knows? The cabinet has a simple design with an odd upright coin box and single slot coin mechanism. Done cheaply to keep costs down I’d imagine. Maybe it’s the Star Wars artwork, but I like the cabinet and would have dropped in a token or two to give it a try.

The printed circuit board mounts on the side of the cabinet, in a cage that doesn’t look like it was meant to go there. You can see slots in the wood that would fit a larger pcb. So is this pcb a bootleg or an actual Astro Fighter pcb? Tough to tell, as Astro Fighter pcb images from the internet vary. The monitor is nicely mounted with the chassis positioned on the side of the cab for easy maintenance. Everything inside the cab looks original and the overall clean, unhacked look of the cabinet got me thinking. Maybe this generic cab would accept a number of different bootleg games. Just mount a new pcb and connect the harness to the existing cab harness with those molex connectors. No hacking or rewiring necessary, just a new control panel and some new artwork. That would make this a pretty sophisticated bootleg cab, as it was made specifically for that purpose, with multiple games in mind. A multi-bootleg? I suppose the millions of dollars being made in the 1980′s on coin-op would have brought out all the scammers!

Of course I’m just speculating about this cabinet and its origins. If you know any facts about this cabinet or have seen other games in this style of cabinet, I’d love to know about it or see some pictures. Use the contact joystick and drop me a line.

I was really looking forward to opening up this package to get a first hand look at the artwork. I ran some errands with my kids, recapped a wg4900 series chassis, and just kept busy. I would check the FedEx website every 30 minutes or so to see if anything had changed. Nope, it was still on the truck for delivery. By about 6pm I started to get a little worried, but the status hadn’t changed so I figured the holiday packages had kept the driver behind schedule. At 8pm I figured I was screwed, but it wasn’t until 8:20pm that I saw this…

I could think of lots of things to say, but none of them are nice. It looks like I’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Stay tuned.

While a few arcades still exist in the wild, they are typically filled with redemption machines and kiddie rides. You might get lucky and find a random pinball machine or arcade game, but who knows if it will be working properly. Today’s arcades are nothing like what I remember from back in the day.* These days, the very best classic 80′s arcade collections are in the hands of private enthusiasts. This trip would prove just how true that really was.

First stop was New Albany, Ohio to visit the Freecade! Greg and his lovely wife Christy were gracious enough to let us stay at their home during our trip which was a big help. We arrived late on Friday and socialized a bit in the arcade while finalizing our plans for the weekend. The Freecade is an amazing place. While I had seen the before and after photos of Greg’s basement arcade, the pictures didn’t do the space justice, you really had to see it in person.

Saturday morning we spent some time helping Greg move stuff around. We moved a gutted Omega Race out of the basement and a nice Crystal Castles in. Moved a High Speed pin into his garage and while we were there, decided to organize his projects into a nice row. We managed to get all evidence of arcade related stuff out of the living room and we’re now Christy’s favorite guests. There was a kid party planned for that afternoon and when the guests started showing up, we disappeared into the basement. Jeff and I pulled out the non-working Chicken Shift and Arch Rivals and had them both up and running in about 20 minutes. I had to play Chicken Shift. We would have tackled more but the kids finally discovered the basement and quiet time was over

Greg’s space is divided into two main sections. At the bottom of the stairs sits the full wrap around wet bar, token machine and pool table area. There was a Wii hooked up to the big flat screen and a Rampage and Gauntlet sat alone near the washroom. This was the perfect hang out space, I got to chill with a cocktail while watching TV and simply enjoying the arcade ambiance. The orange cove lighting surrounding this space gave off a nice soft glow and set a relaxed mood.

To the right of the pool table is the first row of arcade games and to the right of the stairs is an alcove full of more games. Walk through the aisle to the other side and behold two more long rows and a center row of cockpits! I didn’t count all of the games in the space, but I’d guess there were at least 40 to 45. Greg has a great collection of fun games along with a couple odd balls like Flicky and Chicken Shift which I had never played outside of MAME. Jeff and I played games all day and night on Saturday. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a marathon gaming session before and it was fantastic. Unfortunately the Star Trek cockpit and a few other games were down, but there were so many good working ones, it didn’t really matter. The cove lighting in this section was loaded with black lights and they put out a good amount of light as everything was glowing nicely.

We did meet a few of Greg’s non-arcade buddies and fellow collectors Kyle and Trent from the Ohio area. Trent and Kyle were destroying high scores everywhere. I developed a new appreciation for Dragon’s Lair which I have always disliked, Chicken Shift which was just too fun, Omega Race and Spy Hunter. Played the crap out of those games. It was after 1am by the time I gave in to exhaustion. We had a full day ahead of us, it was time to get some sleep. I had a great visit at the Freecade and hope to make it back again soon.

*Of course there are exceptions ~ the Galloping Ghost arcade in Brookfield, IL and John Yates Arcade Museum in McLean, IL are full of vintage arcade games and NO redemption. If you have a chance to visit either of these fun filled locations, you should! Worth the effort.

This one is a pretty cool looking Sega Combat EM game. According to Marvin’s site, you control a tank and blast away at targets with only 12 shots. I really wanted to grab this one as it was in great shape, just didn’t have the extra money or space at the time. My friend was interested in these…

A pair of 1974 Midway Chopper’s according to Marvin’s site. Amazing to find one, but two was unbelievable. Even stacked on top of each other, they still looked to be in great shape. A fun variation of the typical helicopter themed EM game such as Whirly Bird.

While trying to climb over stuff to see what was there I saw a few Davy Crockett’s, a Midway Dog Fight, Fun Land (or Play Land?) and a couple western themed EM shooter’s. There was also a Pitch and Bat or two and a handful of older pins. Unfortunately for us we waited too long to follow up. A collector off the RGP forums (Mark the fireman in Hoffman Estates ~ I don’t like you!) swooped in and picked up 8 or 9 of the best games in the warehouse. Lesson learned for me. If you find something good you’d better make the deal and haul it away, don’t wait or hesitate, you’ll be sorry later. Oh well, I won’t make the same mistake again. Mark, if you’re reading this, I’d like an invite to play Combat once you get it working

An 80 gallon, single stage air compressor by Industrial Air, from Farm and Fleet. Industrial Air is just a store brand made by a well known major manufacturer, so I was happy. I opened up a store account and got an additional 10% off the sale price and several months interest free. Out the door this was just under $700, a good price. For another $20 I rented a uhaul trailer and took the 450lb monster home.

The guys at Farm and Fleet used a fork lift to put the compressor in the trailer, how exactly would I get it out? Well, I removed the annoying chains that keep the trailer gate from opening all the way and then I used my trusty plywood ramp. I made this specifically for uhaul trailers and it has made moving games in and out a lot easier. It works for compressors too. Surprisingly I was able to simply slide the whole skid down the ramp to the driveway without too much effort. I then slowly dragged the whole skid into the back room of my garage where it would be permanently mounted.

With the compressor parked in the garage, it was time to sketch out a rough layout and buy pipe and fittings. People tend to forget that besides the compressor you’ll need lots of black pipe, fittings, filters, regulators, flexible hose, shut off valves, etc. You will easily add a couple hundred bucks of cost on top of the price of the unit itself. Next time I’ll discuss the layout and installation.

Now don’t get me wrong, there are some nice games in this garage, but wouldn’t it be a little nicer with just one or two project games and lots of space to work on them? Or maybe even a spot to park the car? I think so. Of course you’d have to grab that Major Havoc that was left at the curb, but until that really happens, stop grabbing projects and focus your energy. Restore those games and thin out the project list. Projects always come up, even more now that the arcade market is depressed. I’ve got to run, I have some games to work on! (special thanks to Tim B for the unauthorized use of his garage photo)

My kids love the game and it looks great next to Mad Planets, so I’m going to have to get a jump on my project this Spring. If you spent any time at an arcade growing up, the Q*bert sounds are very unique and instantly recognizable. How could you forget?

Thanks to Jeff of rotheblog I was able to connect with the man responsible for the Q*bert sounds, Mr. David Thiel. He participated in a great little chat session which is archived over at coinopspace, a classic arcade game forum, check it out! Sound is David’s business and he’s still very active in gaming sound, recently doing work for Stern Pinball. To hear some of his work you can visit his site at daudioguy. Let’s get back to the game.

Keeping Jason’s game for awhile allowed me to send out his marquee for a nice little thank you surprise. David Thiel was kind enough to autograph it for Jason, making this Q*bert just a little more special. I know Jason is a big fan of the game and I hope he continues to enjoy this classic for many years to come. Hop on!

I had never heard of Enviro-graphics, or known about artwork packages that operators could use to decorate their arcade. I was too busy finding my next quarter for that new game, or waiting for the 6 tokens for $1 special at Aladdin’s Castle. Who paid attention to the décor? I vaguely recall the way my local arcade looked back in the day, with a simple neon exterior, lots of games inside and a pseudo space theme. The atmosphere did contribute to the overall memory, though my strongest memory seems to be of dark and smokey spaces, with lots of flashing lights and sounds! Even so, perhaps Willis had a good idea. Token signs, out of order signs, score boards, event schedules, specials, rules…all things the operator needed to communicate with his customers. The random space scene posters remind me more of the black light posters you’d find at Spencer’s gifts in the mall, along side the edible underwear. The brochure states that the posters were directly screened onto 1/8″ thick foam board, which made them more durable and easier to hang, but is also probably why so few (if any) survive today. Once they came off the wall if you couldn’t store them, they got tossed.

One thing I noticed is the apparent change in relationship between Willis and Wico around the time this stuff was being produced. If you recall my post about the partnership they shared, apparently it didn’t last or just wasn’t working out. Whatever the reasons, the brochure above is a lot different from the unopened one you see below. Dated September 10, 1982 it has the Wico name and distributor information prominently displayed. A few additional pieces of artwork can also be seen on the back. The almost identical brochure above has all traces of the Wico name removed and “Now operators can buy direct from Willis”. Interesting move and even before the industry crash really took hold. If you can shed any light on this relationship or if you have a Willis Enviro-Graphics poster you’d like to sell, let me know.