Author Topic: Your first memory of that special pinball machine or arcade game  (Read 2708 times)

Offline k7

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Re: Your first memory of that special pinball machine or arcade game
« Reply #15 on: July 05, 2018, 09:16:15 AM »
...so simple and the adventures we had left us all with some awesome memories. Most Kids today have no clue.

funny thing is, that's what our parents said. "no stick&ball? you don't know what you're missing."

that, and nancy reagan's damm slogan had my parents asking me every couple of weeks, "are you on the drugs, son?" :P
WTB:  HotDoggin'
              ...seriously, would grab one. thanks.

Offline Marcel G

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Re: Your first memory of that special pinball machine or arcade game
« Reply #16 on: July 05, 2018, 10:11:31 AM »
My first memory with any game was at the old racerama in fort Lauderdale, I am pretty sure I just moved to Miami from PR , was 6-7 years old, 1975-1977. I remember rows of pins, but one game that got stuck to me was a really HUGE driving game with a big screen. I can only think it was a Namco F1.
The one special pin for me was Xenon at Aladdins Castle in Midway Mall, Miami FL. I'm assuming sometime in early 1981. The girls face on that glass with the surrounding frame lights never escaped me.
The special video was a Galaxian in the same arcade, that came out several years before. I recall the videos were black and white, until this one game came out. Such beautiful times I wish I can relive for at least one day.
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Offline RussG

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Re: Your first memory of that special pinball machine or arcade game
« Reply #17 on: July 05, 2018, 11:29:31 AM »
My first memory with any game was at the old racerama in fort Lauderdale, I am pretty sure I just moved to Miami from PR , was 6-7 years old, 1975-1977. I remember rows of pins, but one game that got stuck to me was a really HUGE driving game with a big screen. I can only think it was a Namco F1.
The one special pin for me was Xenon at Aladdins Castle in Midway Mall, Miami FL. I'm assuming sometime in early 1981. The girls face on that glass with the surrounding frame lights never escaped me.
The special video was a Galaxian in the same arcade, that came out several years before. I recall the videos were black and white, until this one game came out. Such beautiful times I wish I can relive for at least one day.

Marcel I remember too. Galaxian was the first color game I remember and it blew me away. The colors were incredible and I was hooked.
Before that Night Driver and Sea Wolf were some of my favorites.  Lunar Lander was way too hard and at the time I didn't understand fully the concept of fuel conservation.  ;)
Oh the sounds of all of these are forever impregnated in my head too. Just the sounds of the arcade was mesmerizing too.

What great days and great stories! Thank you all for sharing. Keep them coming!

Offline RussG

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Re: Your first memory of that special pinball machine or arcade game
« Reply #18 on: July 05, 2018, 11:57:15 AM »
Wow, what a journey down memory lane!  The first pin I recall playing repeatedly was at a bar in the early '70s called "Cramers" near the University of Dayton.  It was an EM and a buddy and I would spend hours drinking beer (Wednesday was "quart" night, two-for-one).  Once while I was playing he had a beer in one hand and another under his other arm piinned to his side.  I was struggling to get a higher score than him and he tried to nudge the game with his shoulder and dropped the quart bottle of beer he was holding pinned to his side, it hit his ankle and broke, cutting him badly.  Because the place was jammed with people the bar tender thought he got jostled by the crowd and, after bandaging his leg, gave us free beer the rest of the night.  I went on to play pins all over the world during a 24 year Army career.  I remember being in San Antonio at a military conference once, staying in a hotel that had a small bar with a couple of vids.  Several times we went across the street to a bank and got rolls of quarters for Centepede, probably putting in over $100 between two of us in one night.  That's when the fascination started I think.  It wasn't until I retired and moved to Florida that I was able to get my first pin.  I watched them on eBay for a year or so and quickly realized that I didn't know anything about buying one.  I found a guy on ebay that was selling quite a few and I sent him an email and asked if he had any projects, I couldn't afford the ones he was selling on eBay.  He was in Orlando and said to come on down, he had a storage building full of them.  My teenage son and I went down and met "Wayne".  He had all kinds of coin op stuff all over his house, nicely restored and very pricey.  He took us to his storage unit and it was a double bay, littered with pinball cabinets and separated heads, along with video cabinets.  We found a good head and cabinet for a Williams "Pokerino" and paid him $400 for it in 1995.  It took me two years to learn how to fix it, get boards repaired, find parts and learn all the ins-and-outs of bringing a dead machine back to life.  That's when the addiction started . . . Hi, my name is Tom and I'm a Pinaholic!  Then I started finding pins all over the place for sale; looked forward to the auctions a couple of times a year over at Orlando, found you guys, and started feeding the addiction.  Now, after over 20 years, I can say that I'm curred.  I don't currently own any pins (sold off most of my hoarded part stock), went through about 50 pins or so, a couple of dozen vids, dozens of juke boxes, and shuffle bowlers.  I've got a new crop of grand kids keeping me busy, but they're getting to the age when their very interested in the bar-top game I have, and the EM shuffle bowler that is setting in my shop, waiting to be put back together.  It blows me away to see the prices, both new and resale of pins today.  I wish I had kept my Tommy, Fun House, Medusa, Pinbot, PlayChoice Ten (several of them) and many others just so my grand kids could enjoy them.  We have a juke box in the house, a bar top, gum ball machine, and the aforementioned EM shuffle bowler.  My neighbor has a Donkey Kong and a Pac Man in his garage that he keeps asking me to restore for him, but I keep putting him off, not sure I can fight the addiction . . . you see I'm still in recovery.

Tom I can see your recovery waning!  LOL   :o


Offline tufnel1530

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Re: Your first memory of that special pinball machine or arcade game
« Reply #19 on: July 05, 2018, 12:38:02 PM »
Pretty easy to see how old people are based on answers..

Bunch of old farts like me on here.  :P

I can remember playing the old mechanical gun games like Haunted house, they used to be everywhere where I grew up.

Offline MilitiaMan

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Re: Your first memory of that special pinball machine or arcade game
« Reply #20 on: July 05, 2018, 03:45:04 PM »
I have a million memories floating around up there (amongst the cobwebs) about arcades that I frequented or machines that I found in the wild in places like the local Pizza Hut (a cocktail Moon Cresta), the convenience store at the end of my road (Commando and Black Knight), and one of my all time favorite places to find arcade games, the laundromat (Ladybug, Pac-Land, and Gladiator)!

But, the place that truly "HOOKED" me was a little place called The News Depot in my hometown, Harvard, Ill. The News Depot wasn't exactly an arcade - I would describe it as more of a news stand/coffee shop/ice cream parlor. It was absolutely filled with racks of newspapers and magazines and had sort of a lunch counter up one side where random, boring adults would always be drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, and reading newspapers. I hardly noticed them as I hustled past to the small arcade in the back of the building. Even today, I can picture it perfectly in my mind and can even list which games were there and the order in which they were placed. They had a Defender, a Centipede, an Asteroids, and a Pac Man against the left wall. Against the back wall (positioned from left to right) were Donkey Kong, Tempest, Star Castle, and a Firepower pinball machine. The right wall only had room for one game, Frenzy, due to the coin operated candy, toy, and super ball machines that were taking up valuable real estate on that right wall.

Over time, Defender was replaced with Stargate (huge upgrade, IMO), Pac Man was replaced by Ms. Pac Man, and Donkey Kong was replaced by Donkey Kong Junior. I'm certain other machines also came and went, but I vividly remember those new games showing up. I played in The News Depot almost every day until a real arcade opened up down the street featuring more games than I could ever imagine even existed. The News Depot eventually closed down, as did the other arcades in town, but it will always be the genesis of arcade games for me and a place that I will never forget.

The time I cracked 100k on Donkey Kong for the first time with about 10 kids watching over my shoulder is a moment frozen in time that will likely stick with me forever. I was 10 years old and thought I was on top of the world. Getting that little carpenter to the top of those girders safely and saving the girl from Kong was my whole world then. And it's still a small part of my world 36 years later.  :-)

Steve
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Offline zenbone

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Re: Your first memory of that special pinball machine or arcade game
« Reply #21 on: July 06, 2018, 08:03:12 AM »
There was a bowling alley in the tiny town where i grew up in Pennsylvania. Back in 1982(ish) they had a star castle game there, every week my pop would drop me and a friend off for bowling league. I would quickly badly bowl then play the video games and pinball they had there until my dad came back to pick us up. I remember playing that star castle game all the time, i miss that game. That is one of the games i keep thinking about recreating as a from scratch build.

Offline RussG

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Re: Your first memory of that special pinball machine or arcade game
« Reply #22 on: July 06, 2018, 08:06:37 AM »
Star Castle is a great game but becomes very difficult.
The sounds of that game are awesome too.

I love how you said you bowled quickly and crappy so you could play arcade games. Ha!

Offline Pchdetc

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Re: Your first memory of that special pinball machine or arcade game
« Reply #23 on: July 06, 2018, 10:19:06 AM »
For me my childhood included growing up in Ohio. Frequently going to the mall on a weekend and spending hours in Bally's Aladdin Castle. Yep, from then I was hooked. Pac Man, Donkey Kong, all the greats. Then came Dragons Lair, Ski-Ball and Pop-A-Shot. Cheesy games like Journey and the wholy grail TRON and Discs of Tron. But my favorite was Star Wars sit down with the yoke controller. Use the Force Luke. Red Five Standing By :-)

From there I bought a used Gottlieb Gold Wings pinball machine and really loved that pin. It was my first pin that I purchased using lawn mowing money , birthday, and working money while in highschool. I had saved and purchasing for around $180 or something around that amount. This was a couple years before graduating and going into the AirForce. To this day I still wonder where that pinball machine ended up after I sold it.  Those were great times and history recycles itself. Good times to be had again now that we are all older and have means to relive those great times. To share with our families and younger generations.  ;D

Offline HighProtein

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Re: Your first memory of that special pinball machine or arcade game
« Reply #24 on: July 10, 2018, 08:49:20 AM »
I grew up with a 1974 Sky Jump pinball machine in the house.
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Offline NormaJ

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Re: Your first memory of that special pinball machine or arcade game
« Reply #25 on: July 10, 2018, 09:43:53 AM »
Memories of these moments are very fuzzy (as are most of my memories, I guess...). A few things stand out.

I distinctly remember dragging a milk crate from pinball to pinball at the Jersey shore and begging my parents for quarters. Every game was electromechanical back then. And when digital scoring came out I was over the moon. (Those games were 50 cents, and I didn't get a lot of permission to play them.) Hercules was absolutely stunning.

At Woolworth's back home there was a solid-state Night Rider for a quarter. I would tag along with my mom and grandmother when they went shopping and hoped they would give me at least one quarter from their change purses. Five balls went quick for me in those days. Sometimes I got a second try.

I saw Pong at the bowling alley one day and nearly stopped dead in my tracks. What was this? They put a game on a TV! I watched my dad play his teammates and told myself I wanted to make things show up on a TV screen like that.

Between digital pinball scoring and video games I got hooked on computers, and that sealed my life's direction.

Offline Flpinball

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Re: Your first memory of that special pinball machine or arcade game
« Reply #26 on: July 10, 2018, 03:52:19 PM »
1965. Went to a local Bowling Alley with my Mother. I turned and then I saw it.  A Northstar Pinball Machine. All lit up in a dark room. Never been the same since.

Offline Tecumseh Plissken

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Re: Your first memory of that special pinball machine or arcade game
« Reply #27 on: July 11, 2018, 10:44:20 PM »
Double Dragon on some good acid @ Phineas Phogg's on Church Street

Offline number six

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Re: Your first memory of that special pinball machine or arcade game
« Reply #28 on: July 12, 2018, 08:52:04 AM »
I remember playing Space Invaders with my dad when I was too short to see the monitor so he'd tell me when to shoot. Must have been late 70's.

On Pinballs it was looking at the cool artwork (Iron Maiden, Flight 2000) at the Skating Rink in the early 80s.

Offline number six

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Re: Your first memory of that special pinball machine or arcade game
« Reply #29 on: July 12, 2018, 08:55:09 AM »
elevator action, chuckEcheese in the mid-80s. i remember well playing a single 50 cent game of dragon's lair. never played it again.

I remember how Dragon's Lair was like this mythical game.. I heard so much about it before I finally saw one.

The fancy mall Arcade had one and yeah it was the first 50 cent game.. but I remember being blown away by it. Years later (late 80s) I kept going to the Chuck E Cheese down the street to get better at it. By this time the place was dead and the Dragons Lair barely worked but it was still awesome.