Gabriel
New member
Greetings, programs!
I have an all original coin op Tron video game in Shreveport/Bossier, Louisiana that needs a new home.
Let me tell you how I got it! It was purchased in late '82 by my grandfather's company, Jimmie's Vending. He focused mainly on Pool Tables and Juke boxes for his bar route, but he did have a few video games.
This Tron spent 5 years at the Shreveport Regional Airport alongside a Satan's Hollow, a Joust, a Qubert and a Pole Position. There were 8 or 9 games total and some pinball machines in the little arcade but I can't remember them all anymore.
I was 10 years old and tagged along with my dad to help count quarters each Friday. It was usually the best part of the week! One lucky thing about these airport games is that the arcade was directly across from the security office so they didn't get the usual abuse route machines normally recieve.
In early '88 we lost the airport account and my dad and I picked up all the games and took them to the warehouse. They sat in the warehouse several years.
In my teens I got dumped at the shop for hours every day. Often I would drag a 100 foot extension cord to the back of the warehouse to plug in a game and waste a few hours-- not doing homework.
I can't remember the exact date. It was either '90 or '91 when we got a new contract with an interesting bar named Fud Ruckers. No, not Fud Puckers... Ruckers. By this time most of our locations would be classified in the "total dive" category but this one was even worse. I reluctantly moved the Tron, a pool table and a video jukebox there. The location closed a few months later and I got to pick them all back up. The Tron went right back to the warehouse in its same spot.
In '92 Louisiana legalized video poker and all of a sudden all of my dad's dive contracts became a lot more valuable. We went full out video poker and any floor space that could hold a video game was replaced with a IGT or VLC poker machine instead. I was 18 by this time and I got ALL of the physical labor jobs. In those weeks I was told to make room in the warehouse by throwing old equipment in the dumpster. I asked what specifically and dad pointed to my rows of games and old jukeboxes and said "those".
I trashed a lot of games that month. But I just could NOT touch the Tron. Instead of the dumpster I loaded the Tron on the back of my truck. He didn't say anything at all, so I took the Tron to a Uhaul Storage building. It stayed there until I bought my house in '98. I wrapped it in foam sheets of hardboard insulation (that pink hard stuff) and duck taped a tarp around it and put it in my workshop. That is where it sat until yesterday.
Its not that I ever wanted to own a Tron game. I never could throw this game away. I loved the movie as a kid and I always loved the cabinet and the artwork. It is just so different from all the others. The truth is, it would still be tarped in the workshop if Disney had not made the new Tron movie.
Ok, thats the history! Now lets talk about condition.
I don't have the old truck with the Tommy lift on it anymore so getting the Tron out of the workshop and into the closed-in garage was fun. We cracked one of the old wood stairs of the workshop but other than that it moved easy with the help of a nice dolly. After uwrapping it and opening it up I was suprised to find it looked pretty darn good, considering!
I grabbed a can of air and blew it out a little and after looking it over, decided to plug it in and see what happens. Here we go...
Nothing exploded. Lets hit some switches...
Its trying.
Time to re-seat some connectors! Ok, one more time...
I have an all original coin op Tron video game in Shreveport/Bossier, Louisiana that needs a new home.
Let me tell you how I got it! It was purchased in late '82 by my grandfather's company, Jimmie's Vending. He focused mainly on Pool Tables and Juke boxes for his bar route, but he did have a few video games.
This Tron spent 5 years at the Shreveport Regional Airport alongside a Satan's Hollow, a Joust, a Qubert and a Pole Position. There were 8 or 9 games total and some pinball machines in the little arcade but I can't remember them all anymore.
I was 10 years old and tagged along with my dad to help count quarters each Friday. It was usually the best part of the week! One lucky thing about these airport games is that the arcade was directly across from the security office so they didn't get the usual abuse route machines normally recieve.
In early '88 we lost the airport account and my dad and I picked up all the games and took them to the warehouse. They sat in the warehouse several years.
In my teens I got dumped at the shop for hours every day. Often I would drag a 100 foot extension cord to the back of the warehouse to plug in a game and waste a few hours-- not doing homework.
I can't remember the exact date. It was either '90 or '91 when we got a new contract with an interesting bar named Fud Ruckers. No, not Fud Puckers... Ruckers. By this time most of our locations would be classified in the "total dive" category but this one was even worse. I reluctantly moved the Tron, a pool table and a video jukebox there. The location closed a few months later and I got to pick them all back up. The Tron went right back to the warehouse in its same spot.
In '92 Louisiana legalized video poker and all of a sudden all of my dad's dive contracts became a lot more valuable. We went full out video poker and any floor space that could hold a video game was replaced with a IGT or VLC poker machine instead. I was 18 by this time and I got ALL of the physical labor jobs. In those weeks I was told to make room in the warehouse by throwing old equipment in the dumpster. I asked what specifically and dad pointed to my rows of games and old jukeboxes and said "those".
I trashed a lot of games that month. But I just could NOT touch the Tron. Instead of the dumpster I loaded the Tron on the back of my truck. He didn't say anything at all, so I took the Tron to a Uhaul Storage building. It stayed there until I bought my house in '98. I wrapped it in foam sheets of hardboard insulation (that pink hard stuff) and duck taped a tarp around it and put it in my workshop. That is where it sat until yesterday.
Its not that I ever wanted to own a Tron game. I never could throw this game away. I loved the movie as a kid and I always loved the cabinet and the artwork. It is just so different from all the others. The truth is, it would still be tarped in the workshop if Disney had not made the new Tron movie.
Ok, thats the history! Now lets talk about condition.
I don't have the old truck with the Tommy lift on it anymore so getting the Tron out of the workshop and into the closed-in garage was fun. We cracked one of the old wood stairs of the workshop but other than that it moved easy with the help of a nice dolly. After uwrapping it and opening it up I was suprised to find it looked pretty darn good, considering!
I grabbed a can of air and blew it out a little and after looking it over, decided to plug it in and see what happens. Here we go...
Nothing exploded. Lets hit some switches...
Its trying.
Time to re-seat some connectors! Ok, one more time...


