The Arcade Experience

Thanks for stopping by and checking out this celebration of the home arcade I built with my late friend, Steve Flock.

In mid-July of 2002, I bought a 1987 Mercury Sable at an abandoned auto auction (check out the alliteration there). The car was in good shape except for its paint job. It also needed some minor work (which was way out of my league). As it turned out, I didn't need the car and decided to sell it.

Steve offered to trade a Sinbad Pinball machine and a Galaxian cocktail table (which needed a ton of work) for the Mercury. I agreed since having my own arcade was one of those childhood dreams that I refused to let slip into the abyss of adulthood.

Approximately a year later, I ended up with my own (albeit small) arcade that was crammed into a tiny family room. Regardless, it was still my own private playroom, so I didn't complain.

I kept the arcade going until 2005 when I sold off all of the games through e-bay. By that point, the arcade was no longer used much by anyone. I’d occasionally play a game of pinball, but even I didn't use the arcade as much as I should. It was tough to justify using an entire room for games no one played any longer.

Steve passed away in 2012.

This little page keeps those memories alive for me. For years, it had a separate address, but I’ve moved it under the banner of colinconway.com so it will have a more permanent home.

You can also read the article I sent into GameRoom magazine over on my blog.

- Colin

Note: Click on any picture below and hover over it for further information. There’s not a lot of detail, but I have tried to provide a little context.

Baby Pac-Man - 1982 - Bally Midway

In the fall of 2002, Steve won an eBbay auction for Baby Pac-Man, a game he loved since childhood. This machine resided in Trail, Canada which was several hours north of Spokane, Washington. 

On one beautiful Saturday, we hopped into his pickup and headed north. This trip was shortly after our marathon trip to Portland with the Silverball machine (see below). The drive was beautiful and fun. On both sides of the border, the crossing left a lot to be desired. Each side was slow, and the guards were jerks, but we didn't let that ruin the excitement of a new game.

We picked up the game from Robert, a strange man who tried to sell us a couple of other games when we arrived. Steve wasn't interested and I was broke. When we returned the game to Steve's house, he had to shop the machine and correct some goofy jimmy-rigging courtesy of Robert.

Baby Pac-Man was an interesting and challenging combination of pinball and video game. You must score points on the pinball playfield to earn the power pellets Baby Pac-Man needs to beat the ghosts.  Sound confusing? It is until you play it for a bit. Then it's addicting.

The game ended up in my game room as part of Steve's sell-off when he moved to a smaller place.

Double Dragon - 1987 - Taito

Another game that Steve picked up somewhere in the past.

Double Dragon is a JAMMA machine which allows the main boards to be quickly replaced with those of another game. Steve had a couple of board sets that had been in and out of the machine: U.N. Squadron and Growl. U.N. Squadron is fun but suffers from the same problem as Double Dragon which is low re-playability. Once you beat the game and know the patterns / tricks, why play again?

The game was not in the normal Double Dragon cabinet but rather a universal Taito-type cabinet.

I picked up the game from Steve when he moved into a smaller place.

Galaxian - 1979 - Namco

Of all the games I’ve owned, this was my favorite. 

Many winters ago, Steve and I were out hitting the thrift stores and ended up at the As-Is store of St. Vincent de Paul's.  As we approached the store, we both saw a cocktail machine sitting covered with several inches of snow. Since we had a rule that the first person to an item got first dibs, we both took off to the machine. Steve blocked me out (to his credit) and bought the machine for a whopping five bucks!

We loaded the game into my truck and took it back to Steve's house. After letting the machine warm up, Steve plugged the bad boy in, and it worked like a champ!

When Steve wanted the '87 Mercury, he traded a Sinbad pinball machine as well as the Galaxian cocktail table. He hadn't done much with the machine, so I had to put some money and labor into it. This baby had definitely seen better days.

After all the work though, the machine was beautiful. 

KISS 1978 - Bally

The holy grail of pinball. Steve picked this machine up for $50 from a guy in St. Maries, Idaho. The machine had extensive damage to it. I finally gave up my dream of reconditioning it and sold some of the parts and the back glass on eBay. The rest of the machine was laid to rest at the waste-to-energy plant. 

Lost Tomb - 1983 - Stern

I got it as part of Steve's sell off. Stern was the maker of Bezerk (one of my favorite games when I was a kid).

Lost Tomb is a basic game where you move through a pyramid and avoid all types of baddies.

To quote the great Stan Lee, 'nuff said.

Lost World - 1977 - Bally

Shortly after I acquired Sinbad and Galaxian from Steve, I purchased Lost World from a local arcade supplier. When the supplier plugged it in to test at the shop, it started smoking from behind the back glass. The look of embarrassment on his face was priceless. This is the same guy who had tried to over-charge Steve and I whenever we were there looking around. He ended up dumping the machine for $125 which I figured was a great deal because the game was beautiful. There was only a small wear spot on the playfield, but other than that the machine was sharp.

We loaded the game up and got it back to my very small garage which also housed Sinbad and Galaxian - both in various stages of repair.

Steve checked out the machine and found that the power supply was fried. A funny fact (and an expensive one as well) is that the power supplies for these old pinball machines are not being made anymore.  Therefore, you need to purchase reconditioned ones for the mind-boggling cost of $125. I still shake my head that I could buy a full pinball machine for the price of a power supply.

Anyway, we got the supply installed and the game worked like a champ. Even though it was an older machine, I still enjoyed playing Lost World over and over.

Mad Planets - 1983 - Gottlieb

This was one of Steve's all-time favorites. We never got the game to work although I purchased a brand-new joystick for it. Steve was working on it when it suddenly started smoking near the motherboard.  That's always a nice thing to experience.

The poor machine never worked properly before I sold it. 

Night Driver - 1976 - Atari

I picked up this beauty one afternoon from my friend, Jay. He heard about my arcade and told me that he used to have his own arcade in his parent's basement. The only game he had left was Night Driver which I negotiated a deal for as quickly as possible.

The game was in decent shape but had seen better days. Jay had originally purchased it from a company that put the game out at county fairs. They don't do it much anymore, but companies would erect a tent at a local fair and stock them with video games. The games would sit on dirt or straw and kids (along with some adults) would beat the hell out of the machines.

I did some extensive cleaning on Night Driver as well as multiple repairs. The game was fairly fun considering the age of the machine.

Silverball Mania - 1978 - Bally

Even though this machine never made it to my arcade, Silverball Mania was a part of the arcade experience. Steve picked up Silverball Mania along with Kiss and Time Machine from the guy in St. Maries, Idaho. He paid $50 for each machine.

Steve worked on Silverball while we both worked on Sinbad and Lost World.  When Steve finished the machine he sold it to a pinball collector in Portland, Oregon.

When Steve was ready to deliver the machine, he asked me to join him on a single day trip from Spokane to Portland and back. After I agreed, he told me we had to stop in Hayden, Idaho the day before our trip to pick up, Spanish Eyes, another machine for the collector.

We made that trip on a single Saturday - to and from Portland. We were in Portland less than thirty minutes to drop the machine off. It was a hell of a trip, but Steve did make sure we stopped for a Burgerville hamburger in the Dalles. He had told me for years how great their burgers were, and he was right.

Sinbad - 1978 - Gottlieb

Part of the trade package for the '87 Mercury Sable in July 2002, I brought Sinbad home along with the Galaxian cocktail machine. I'd never played Sinbad before but when a friend offers up a pinball machine you take it and thank your lucky stars. Steve had purchased the machine a year or so before but never did much work on it. When we got it back to my house and really started checking it out, Steve discovered that the main CPU on the machine was bad. Unfortunately, buying a replacement board for an old machine is a risky proposition. There was a modern option in the Ni-Wumpf board which replaces most Gottlieb CPU's from the '70s era. Although it was fairly expensive, the Ni-Wumpf board was an excellent choice.

There was some fairly substantial flaking on the back glass. I used a technique discussed in some of the pinball newsgroups about spraying a clear lacquer on the back to prevent it from flaking further.  

Sinbad, one of the few double flipper games, was fun on replays. Mastering the double flippers was challenging.  Lifting the flippers at the wrong time would allow a ball to quickly drain by slipping in between the two flippers.

Time Machine - 1988 - Data East

Steve picked up Time Machine as part of the three-machine deal from a dealer in St. Maries, Idaho. He got the machine into shopped condition and sold it on eBay. He talked me into making a marathon trip with him to Kent (a la the Portland trip) to get the game to a shipping company. This was after he built a custom crate to ship the game in. 

On one Friday afternoon, we hopped into his truck and took off. We made it about forty minutes outside of Spokane when his truck broke down. We limped the truck back to his house and he vowed to make the trip in a couple days after he fixed the truck.

A couple of days later I get a call from a very bummed out Steve. He made the trip across state but arrived at the shipping company too late. They were closed and he finally decided that all the trouble wasn't worth the sale. He ended up selling the machine to me.

I absolutely loved Time Machine! Of all the video games and pinball machines, it was the most fun to play.  The Galaxian cocktail may have been my baby, but Time Machine got the most attention.

Game Room - 2003

This is where all the magic came together. The room might have been small, but when the lights were off, and the games powered up, it turned into a little bit of electric heaven.

I couldn't capture the real essence of the game room with the lights on, but here are the pictures anyway.

The Unfortunate

Here are a couple of unfortunate machines that never made it to my arcade.  They were too far gone for us to save.

Marquees and Back Glass

Here are some marquees that were picked up along the way as well as back glass for a couple of machines that never made the arcade.

Meet the Players

COLIN

YEAR BORN:  1969
PRIMARY SKILL:  Staying out of Steve's way when he's working
SECONDARY SKILL:  Cleaning
TERTIARY SKILL:  Cabinet work
FIRST FULL SIZE GAME:  Galaxian Cocktail (Namco 1979)
FIRST PINBALL:  Sinbad (Gottlieb 1978) 
 

FAVORITES

VIDEO GAME:  Robotron 2084 (Williams 1982)  
PINBALL MACHINE:  Terminator 2 (Williams 1991)
ARCADE:  Sharky's Arcade (Eureka, CA 1980)
HOME ARCADE SYSTEM:  Intellivision (1980)
HOME ARCADE GAME:  Comix Zone (Sega Genesis)
HOME COMPUTER SYSTEM:  Commodore 64
HANDHELD GAME:  Mattel Football
ARCADE MEMORY:  1986 - In my junior year of high school, my family spent a week camping near Ainsworth, BC.  Clouds crowded the skies for the entire week and the water temperature never rose above teeth-chattering cold. 

To pass the time, my brother, Jason and I played hours of Fire Truck (Atari 1978).  The black and white game allowed two people to play. One steered the truck's cab while the other player controlled the back of the truck.

Things may have changed in our lives, but that's one of the fondest memories I hold onto about my brother.

SECOND MOST MEMORABLE:  Hanging out with Steve, Derek, and Mark at Wonderland throughout high school.  We'd ditch class occasionally (or go on the weekends) and play hours of games.

One of the games I remember playing a ton of was Gauntlet.  Even though you could play up to four people at a time on it, I usually ended up playing it just with Steve.

There were a ton of other games to take our money and we made sure we gave often.  A lot of quarters were dropped at that place. 

Unfortunately, Wonderland closed up almost a decade ago, thus leaving our fine little city with a very limited supply of game locations.
 
TAG LINE:  It's my arcade, and I'll reset the high scores if I want to.

JUNGLE LORD - AFTER T.A.E.

As a quick postscript, I thought I would share this.

I purchased Jungle Lord in 2018, almost fifteen years after ‘the Arcade Experience.’ A former business partner owned the game but hadn’t used it in years. When I told him about the arcade I once I built, he suggested I buy his pinball machine. It didn’t work right so he gave me a decent deal. If I remember correctly, it was about $300.

I immediately sent it to a local repair shop to fix and clean it up. That cost me over $700! I never realized how much money Steve and I saved by working on the above machines.

Anyway, we brought the machine home and played it. A similar thing happened as the Arcade Experience. Everyone played it for the first few weeks. Then it tapered off. Soon no one played it.

A year later, I sold it on Craigslist. A guy drove over from Portland to buy it and take it home in the same day. It reminded me of our crazy Silverball trip!

Thanks for checking out The Arcade Experience. I truly appreciate it. If you'd like to leave a comment, please send me an email. You can find my info in the contact page.