I am one small puffy envelope away from resurrecting a Williams Defender upright cabinet. Got it for free, I’m about $75 into the repair and recently gained a LOT of ground…got good stable power to it, got good grounds to all the components, got the diagnostics up and running. Which told me at least one of the 4 kbit RAM chips is dead…
Hearing the sound card cycle through all the sounds took me back 30 years.
I can’t wait! <wiggle>
<squee>
plunks down a quarter to get in line to play
I always sucked at the arcade version of Defender. Got decent at the atari version, but it wasn’t really the same…
I’ll put a quarter down to be next in line after aruvqan! I play this and Robotron: 2084 a couple of times a month at the Pinball Museum. Now if only I could find a Blaster machine!
I’ve got two up there already, but I’ll let you cut…if I leave it on quarter play, I hope to fund my kid’s college education.
I bet in the right market there would be profit in running an old school arcade, all the classics. Put in a regular old 80s style bar, with classic pub grub and it would beat the hell out of Johnny Rockets.
You mean you have to use your hands? That’s like a baby’s toy!
I don’t think they make a lot of profit, but we practically have this here in Vegas. If you’re ever in town, be sure to go to the Pinball Museum. They have a few dozen old video games in addition to the pinball machines. It’s one of my favorite places on the planet.
There’s such a place (more or less) about 5 minutes from me. They charge a flat-rate admission fee ($15 regularly), but then you can play until they kick you out. I’m not sure that I’ve ever really gotten my $15 worth, if I were playing one quarter at a time, but it’s still a lot of fun. They have snacks and sodas, but no hot food (and no beer 
).
I’ve been to the Galloping Ghost once. They have a really nice selection of the 80’s-early 90’s era games.
See, that’s how you’d have to do it, I doubt a quarter-a-play Arcade would last nowadays.
Around Denver, they’re in the usual Bowling alleys, and Dave and Busters, but I could see a standalone being a money losing proposition.
I’m hopeful that these guys are able to make a go of it. They seem to be doing a fair business on weekends (they’ve been open for a little over a year now).
Yeah, they have quite a few of the Mortal Kombat-style fighting games, and the FPS-style games, which I don’t care much for (I guess I’m a few years too old for those to have been the core of my arcade memories). But they do have a lot of the early-mid 80s games which I played in HS and college (Tempest, Gyruss, Gauntlet, Galaga, etc.), and so, there’s plenty of appeal for me. Now, if only they could get a Cyberball game, I’d never leave the place. 
The Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda charges a flat $15 fee as well. I went to take pictures of the machines, and I figured I’d just a do a quick run-through. I don’t consider myself a pinball aficionado, but I ended up spending almost a whole day there. What fun!
Now, if I just had space for a Ferrari F355 Challenge sit-down…and a Sinistar…
I can still hear “I HUNGER!”
The wiggling has turned to twitching. DEFENDER LIIIIIVES!
That’s awesome! I’ve been playing alot of the old games on MAME but you can’t beat an old upright or tabletop arcade game. The big buttons and joystick interface are irreplaceable.
I was surprised to see the buttons are all exposed reed switches. I was expecting something with microswitches…very crude, but also very effective. (once the corrosion is polished off)
The key, of course, is to tell yourself the humanoids are members of your family.
Now all that is needed is a crappy bar stool, and something alcoholic to drink, and really loud music going on in the background