Post by: RussG on July 04, 2018, 03:04:11 PM
Were you a kid, teen or an adult? Where was it and what are your greatest memories?
I'll start off with my first memory of ever seeing an arcade game and my first real memory of pinball machines- it was 1978 or 1979 and there was a new arcade in our mall called the Nautilus and it looked outside and inside like Jules Verne's depicted Nautilus submarine from 20,000 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
Anyway I walked in in awe and complete wonder. I was around 8 years old at the time. I remember seeing classics like Lunar Lander, Tail Gunner, Asteroids, Death Race, Sea Wolf, and the pins I remember were Future Spa (big muscle bound dude/s and women with bigger "guns" :roll:.
Anyway it was thrilling and I was hooked. Later I remember Galaxian coming in and the colors were amazing! Battlezone and Missile Command came in and others like Warlords table top.
It was an enchanted time I'll never forget!
My first pin of infatuation but I wasn't good at at the time was Gorgar! How can one not forget that big devil on the backglass and playfield with that fighter and hot chic! The speaking was the icing on the cake! "Gorgar!" "Beat me!" It just sat there evil and enchanting at the same time!
Post by: tufnel1530 on July 04, 2018, 03:56:48 PM
The first game that really blew me away was Space Invaders.. that was a whole new thing.
It seemed like it was so advanced at the time.. the sounds, the look, everything about it.
First pin I ever really got into was Funhouse in the 90s... I was in a band that played a bar in New jersey that had one and i would stand there between sets plopping quarters in it non stop. I never really cared for the 70s and 80s pins, still dont.
Post by: k7 on July 04, 2018, 05:46:34 PM
used to ride my bike about 9 miles to the boca mall on federal highway, and leave it in the bushes. played dig dug there. early 80s.
a dennys on federal highway. a pacman with The Glob hack roms, in the early 80s. i really liked that game.
gran prix raceorama in hollywood. late 80s, early 90s. played race drivin', street fighter ii, time killers, dig dug, and elevator action. game cabinets were generic and white. i remember hating gran prix for doing that.
friend managed a movie theater, and there was a small arcade 2 doors down. played rbi baseball in a nintendo orange cabinet and 720 there. 1990-1995.
i played 1 pinball from birth to 2008. never cared for it. this damm village changed all that. :P
Post by: Old Pin Guy on July 04, 2018, 07:20:43 PM
I was allowed to play the roll the ball Bingo game for tickets, which usually meant a smelly plastic coin purse, or a wood paddle ball, rubber ball on a string! The sounds of Transistor Radios playing the current Yankee Game, Coppertone smell, and the Hot Dogs on the Boardwalk.
Next was the local soda fountain stationary store,which was on my way to school. The first pin I can remember battling was brand new...Shangri la, 1967.
In elementary school, Id get $1.00 for Lunch, which meant a slice of pizza and Soda for $.50, and either 5 games of pinball, or a comic, and some games....I was So excited to win a free game, sometimes after school, when it got dark shortly after school got out in Winter, Id be still playing, and my father would drive up and smack my ass for not coming home....."But Dad, I still had 3 games on it"
Lastly were summers on Atlantic Beach....the tip of a barrier island. The Beach Club, was like the movie Flamingo Kid,
and the Concession stand always had 2 pinball machines.
We quickly learned we could plug them back in after hours, and slam the door and get credits.....we played all night...
Gottlieb Melody, was a favorite. Im sure they saw the meter run, so later, they cut the plug, and we brought our own.
Then they locked the outlet up, and we brought extension cords.
Finally they put a fence cage around them and locked it at night....They won...But at Nathans, you could use their hot dog fork
in the coin slot and get free games.....I spent all day Saturdays playing, and getting kicked out, of course.
I did of course put all my allowance in these games too.....
Happy 4th!
Post by: Steve O on July 04, 2018, 09:05:37 PM
Missile Command is the only video game I was hooked on, probably because it is the only video game I can play well. At college, my friend Stuart and I played that game for hours. He was the first one to reach 810,000 and get a bonus 100 cities or whatever the number is. I eventually got that score. I almost got into fights at bars from guys wanting to play while I could last a long time on one quarter.
Post by: Weeze on July 04, 2018, 09:25:30 PM
Then in college there were a few machines but the one that really stuck out was Gottlieb "DIMENSION". cool game with drop targets up the almost entire length of both sides of the playfield. unfortunately that is a game that can be mastered to the point of being able to turn it over literally 10 times or more until you get sick of the continued play for hours if you want. Still tho from first playing to the point you vou got the game down si a very fun expierience. Not too many of those were made and they are really hard to find, people dont part with them. You see a lot more of the 2001 games which were free game style which just isnt the same.
When I think of all those add a balls all over New York State when i was younger that I got to play.........and then when I got to a place when I could afford to actually buy them, and have space for, the add a balls have become hard to find and quite frankly usually overpriced since they need complete rehabs most ot the time!
No matter how old ya are, we all have the good ole days dont we?
Cept for "OLD PIN GUY" when he first started playing it was on a bar top "BALLYHOO"!
Post by: paul400 on July 04, 2018, 09:41:31 PM
Post by: Rasavage on July 04, 2018, 10:53:31 PM
Post by: Old Pin Guy on July 04, 2018, 11:44:54 PM
Come on Weeze, You KNOW I invented Ballyhoo!
Post by: RussG on July 04, 2018, 11:49:37 PM
Another memory I had was gathering 16oz glass soda bottles that littered the end of my street where teenagers and such played in vacant fields.
I'd gather enough of them up at 10 cents each return deposit and also cutting lawns gave me enough money to ride my bike to a local Majic Market and if I was really adventurous a 7-11 that was further down the road. Sometimes I''d ride up with wsrainc here from the village and other friends. I'd buy a Slurpee or Slushie, a comic book, and some candy and play some games. It was here that I played games like Berzerk, Defender, Phoenix, Pleiades, Ms. Pacman, and later games like Twin Cobra.
EVERY convenience store at that time like most pizza places and most restaurants had at least a game or two in them. They always seemed to grab the quarters out of my pocket and my parents!
Were these the best and simplest of times or what!?
Post by: lutesaware on July 05, 2018, 06:11:17 AM
Post by: scarabaeus on July 05, 2018, 07:01:24 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.
used to ride my bike about 9 miles to the boca mall on federal highway, and leave it in the bushes. played dig dug there. early 80s.
a dennys on federal highway. a pacman with The Glob hack roms, in the early 80s. i really liked that game.
gran prix raceorama in hollywood. late 80s, early 90s. played race drivin', street fighter ii, time killers, dig dug, and elevator action. game cabinets were generic and white. i remember hating gran prix for doing that.
friend managed a movie theater, and there was a small arcade 2 doors down. played rbi baseball in a nintendo orange cabinet and 720 there. 1990-1995.
i played 1 pinball from birth to 2008. never cared for it. this damm village changed all that. :P
My memory of the old Boca Mall is pretty hazy at this point. Was there an arcade there in the early to mid 80's or just an alcove with some games?
Post by: Pinsanity on July 05, 2018, 08:00:53 AM
My memory of the old Boca Mall is pretty hazy at this point. Was there an arcade there in the early to mid 80's or just an alcove with some games?
The movie theatre had some games. We used to take the bus from west boca to boca mall just to play hang on when it first cane out
. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Post by: Pinsanity on July 05, 2018, 08:05:53 AM
Those times were the best like was said above. So simple and the adventures we had left us all with some awesome memories. Most Kids today have no clue.
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Post by: k7 on July 05, 2018, 09:14:29 AM
so boca has the 1980s built town center mall, which is still there. i did go there less often (parents drove to sears for something)...i remember going upstairs, by myself, to play the sears telegames cloned 2600 TV arcade game. then the 1st store on the left as you left sears was a kay bee toy and hobby, and they had atari games hanging on a hook close to the entrance. i took a decathlon and dropped it into my dad's sears bag...ah, i learned much so young. :)
but the boca mall (75ish to 88ish) was on federal highway, just south of glades road (now mizner park). that mall had a DINGY almost pitch black full arcade, across from a meat shop which is actually in the only picture i could find. the arcade was inside, across from whatever that import meat shop was named...
Post by: k7 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
Post by: Marcel G on July 05, 2018, 10:11:31 AM
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.
Post by: RussG 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!
Post by: RussG 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
Post by: tufnel1530 on July 05, 2018, 12:38:02 PM
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.
Post by: MilitiaMan on July 05, 2018, 03:45:04 PM
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
MM
Post by: zenbone on July 06, 2018, 08:03:12 AM
Post by: RussG on July 06, 2018, 08:06:37 AM
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!
Post by: Pchdetc on July 06, 2018, 10:19:06 AM
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
Post by: HighProtein on July 10, 2018, 08:49:20 AM
Post by: NormaJ on July 10, 2018, 09:43:53 AM
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.
Post by: Flpinball on July 10, 2018, 03:52:19 PM
Post by: Tecumseh Plissken on July 11, 2018, 10:44:20 PM
Post by: number six on July 12, 2018, 08:52:04 AM
On Pinballs it was looking at the cool artwork (Iron Maiden, Flight 2000) at the Skating Rink in the early 80s.
Post by: number six 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.
Post by: scarabaeus on July 12, 2018, 09:12:10 AM
that mall had a DINGY almost pitch black full arcade, across from a meat shop
I have vague memories of that arcade, but in my minds eye the entire Boca Mall was a kind of dark and odd little mall. The rooftop parking lot was the hangout for my older sister’s high school friends.
And the Town Center was the “fancy new mall” that we rarely visited.
FYI: KB Toys may be making a comeback:
https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/20/news/companies/kb-toys-toys-r-us/index.html (https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/20/news/companies/kb-toys-toys-r-us/index.html)
Post by: TimothyC on July 12, 2018, 10:10:11 AM
I also remember going to a local sandwich shop in town (btw, this was Graceville Florida a town that didn't have a red light when we got there) named Joezells and playing a beautiful new Burgertime in the back room. Sadly I was too young to 'hang out' in arcades all day during the time and didn't start doing that until '85/'86, but I always tried to play whatever game I could when I saw one.
Post by: PinFever on July 12, 2018, 02:58:20 PM
Amusement Park Is Demolished For Interchange
By MICHAEL LASALANDRA, Staff Writer, December 3, 1986
A Broward County landmark vanished Tuesday when the Grand Prix Race-O-Rama castle in Davie was demolished to make way for an Interstate 595 interchange. The demolition ended a 15-year residency at the intersection of State Road 84 and State Road 7 for the popular amusement park, which was closed for business in September. Many of the huge stone castle`s hundreds of amusements, games and attractions had been auctioned off shortly after the business was closed, and others were moved to a new site, the former Malibu Grand Prix off Interstate 95 in Dania.