The Golden Age.....I missed most of it.

[robxf]

It was a large machine with a see thru center where the chicken lived.

When you were playing, you would select your box. When it was the chicken's turn, it would peck at the board on it's side to do it's play.

The way it worked was the machine would calculate the best counter move and deposit feed on that square for the chicken, which would peck at the food and select the box.

I remember being like 10 and seeing it for the first time and thinking 'WTF?'

Looking back it's amazing it ever made it to the arcades, nowadays the Animal Society groups would go nuts about having such a machine I think.

I wish I could find a pic of the thing, there must be a picture somewhere out in the ether.

Ok, so this little tidbit cought my interest. Did a little googling and this is the only picture i could find. Crappy but you get the idea. Wow, i can't imagine anyone getting away with doing that.

 

[RareHero]

18 in '81... I put the age in 'Golden Age'. Yeah, you 8 - 10 year olds sure 'lived' the Golden Age alright:... mostly by annoying the living daylights hell out of me while I was trying to play a game. RugRats...

Pffft, I was too busy getting high scores on DK Jr. to annoy anyone!

***I'm no "champion" player...but I think being able to pass Mario's hideout on DK Jr. at 6 years old is pretty good.

 

[Hyde]

I missed the golden age by a long shot.

However, I do remember games like Mortal Kombat 4 and Police Trainer when they were still relatively new. I'd always want to play them at the local Laser-Tag arena, but my mom would never let me!

 

[elfyhead]

my first memories are Sea Devil, then Sea Wolf at the BYU bowling alley, in the early to mid 1970's (my dad was going there getting his doctorate, so he'd send me off to play while he was at the library). then Space Invaders at Lagoon after that.

i was at least _one_ of the first to play the Asteroids at our local 7/11 when it was uncrated. i got so good at it i'd rack up extra ships then sell the game to other kids for profit ...

the single game i remember causing the most stir at the local mall arcade was Dragon's Lair. it was so very different than what had come before. always a long line at that one, for some time after it came out...

 

[RareHero]

I missed the golden age by a long shot.

However, I do remember games like Mortal Kombat 4 and Police Trainer when they were still relatively new. I'd always want to play them at the local Laser-Tag arena, but my mom would never let me!

If those are your memories, you definitely missed the "magic" of growing up w/ the 80's games. The concepts were new, the art was vibrant, the sounds were iconic - and there was nothing at HOME that compared. By the time MK4 was in the arcades, you could play the same exact game on your Dreamcast. Sure, we played the shitty Atari Pac-Man at home -but when you played it in the arcades, it was magic!

 

[nomore25s]

If those are your memories, you definitely missed the "magic" of growing up w/ the 80's games. The concepts were new, the art was vibrant, the sounds were iconic - and there was nothing at HOME that compared. By the time MK4 was in the arcades, you could play the same exact game on your Dreamcast. Sure, we played the shitty Atari Pac-Man at home -but when you played it in the arcades, it was magic!

I think you're exactly right. There was the atmosphere of the arcade - the sounds, the lights, the cabinets themselves (and yes, the black lights). The sounds of quarters/tokens dropping, etc.

My friends had atari 2600s (I didn't, I was so mistreated - and while they were a fun distraction in between arcade visits, nothing compared.

I'm not entirely sure I want to try and re-create that atmosphere at home. I'm a little scared I'll be disappointed. Right now they are just a bunch of games in my unfinished basement.

Ok, so I'm old

 

[Homepin]

I was born in '56 so I'm a fair bit older than other posters on this thread.

I was TV tech when Bally Playboy was released in Australia and the pinball techs at the time were basically all ex telephone company guys (wire jerkers we called them).

I knew one pinball tech who invited me to have a look at this new Playboy - they were all gobsmacked looking in the backbox and couldn't believe I had a reasonable idea of what it all did.

They offered me a job on the spot and so I was in the thick of things during that golden period - involved in airfreighting Taito Space Invaders from Japan and all of that stuff.

They were great times and I certainly look back on them with very fond memories as a tech and operator rather than player.

We got to unpack and play all the new release pins and the place I worked was buying two or three new titles a month - often between three and ten of each title. We had to trace and cut clear 'contact' and apply it to the playfields as there was no diamond coating at that time.

I remember junking so many EMs and ripping out reel assemblys, score motor assemblies etc - after a while we had so many parts from them that we would never use we just used to dump complete machines - sometimes 20 a week. What a waste it was looking back now......

 

[viewsonix]

I think you're exactly right. There was the atmosphere of the arcade - the sounds, the lights, the cabinets themselves (and yes, the black lights). The sounds of quarters/tokens dropping, etc.

This X 1000.

It's the atmosphere of playing with friends that made it great. I remember getting excited to go to the mall with my 3 friends with the explicit plan of taking over the Gauntlet machine for several hours that night, emptying our wallets into it. The other one we used to do that with was Tournament Cyberbowl.

 

[viewsonix]

Ok, so this little tidbit cought my interest. Did a little googling and this is the only picture i could find. Crappy but you get the idea. Wow, i can't imagine anyone getting away with doing that.

That kind of looks like it. I vaguely remember the one at Springfield Mall Time Out (the one upstairs by JCPenneys and Sports and Hobby Warehouse!) being red.

I still remember Spaceway Raceway downstairs by Monkey Wards having a bumper car track at the back of the store, before it became Time Out 2..... Ah the memories!!!

 

[OregonPacman]

Whatchoo talkin' about? You were right there in the golden age! I'll be 34 this month and I don't feel like I missed it. I was playing Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Q*Bert, Burgertime, Popeye, Space Invaders, etc when I was 4, 5, 6...arcades were everywhere - and every restaurant, mall, bowling alley, movie theater, hotel, motel, 7-11, etc had arcade games. OK, sure I wasn't a teen or adult at the time....but I'd still consider all those games at the arcades of my youth to be "brand new".

Yeah, well, I was a little sheltered. Oh well. I can't be sure exactly but my first memory if arcade games was probably when I was 6 or 7, which would be about '82. Fortunately, my daughter is already well schooled at Ms. Pac-Man and she is 3.5. She first played at the tender age of 1.5 years old.

 

[RareHero]

Yeah, well, I was a little sheltered. Oh well. I can't be sure exactly but my first memory if arcade games was probably when I was 6 or 7, which would be about '82. .

See, this is why I don't understand why you think you missed the 'golden age' ...'82 was IT! You were there, man! You were there!!!!

 

[gutsman004]

Being born in the late 70's,I was lucky in the fact that a lot of my earliest memories are intertwined with arcades.I pretty much was playing arcade games as soon as I was able to get to them on my own power.

And you really didn't even have to look for an arcade joint,or even just an arcade or two,they pretty much found you! They were freaking everywhere! I remember this hair salon in Dallas that my mom used to go to that had a Pac-Man machine.A hair salon of all places?!

My mom would give me 3 or 4 quarters to go cram into the machine while she got her hair done.Probably the best investment that place ever made.It was a money maker and a babysitter.

 

[groffdaddy]

Im 35 and grew up in an ocean town with TONS of arcades. In the early 80's every business had arcades in OC,MD. I wasnt there when a crate was opened..but I do remember noticing new games for sure. We would go specifically to certain venues based on what games where there.......

I played many games at the Arcade on the Boardwalk in Ocean City during our summer vacations. Is that arcade still there?

 

[Brogner]

18 in '81... I put the age in 'Golden Age'. Yeah, you 8 - 10 year olds sure 'lived' the Golden Age alright... mostly by annoying the living daylights hell out of me while I was trying to play a game. RugRats...

Yeah, and didn't you like the way they would try to push you out of the way to watch YOU play the machine? Man they were annoying!!

I used to "accidently" slip off the fire button and "accidently" smack them out of the way

 

[sosage]

I'm younger than you and I distinctly remember seeing the local bowling alley unwrap a Pole Position sit-down. It was out of this gawd-damn world at the time. I remember all of the adults talking about how this is probably the sort of set up pro-race car drivers use in order to train for the track.

 

[Steve W]

I was at my local arcade when they uncrated Cliff Hanger, so awesome.

 

[mcfreak]

I lived in a small town and was born in the late 70's and the only thing we had were two arcades at the local "Morley Theater" (Two Screens). One was Karate Champ and then later an Arkanoid. It wasn't until later that the local skating rink started to get some of the older classics.

 

[vintagegamer]

I will be 40 the beginning of next year.. Although I didn't get to spend 'a lot' of time in the arcades, I did get to play my fair share. There was one pizza place within bicycle-riding distance of my house that friends and I would ride to for some games, slices, and cheese fries. That was always a good time.

There was another one on Main St. in the town that I grew up in, only remember riding our bikes there once because it was quite a hike on a bike. But I remember getting there to play. There was a store in the same mall called "The Days of Knights" (D and D stuff). That was the driver for the trip originally.

The one that I remember the best (aside from the boardwalk 'cades at Rehoboth beach) was GALAXY in the Christiana Mall in DE. Every time we went to the mall, I would find a way to get in there, even if just to walk around. It later became CHAMPIONS.

The campground we went to a lot also had an arcade, so I spent many a day in there playing Asteroids, Pole Position, Karate Champ, Ms. Pac, and some other games that I can no longer remember. They also had a pool table and 3 or 4 pinball machines.

One of the memories that I cherish most about that era was getting to go to the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville, TN. They had a section that had arcade games in it, and even made commemorative tokens highlighting 7 of of the best games of all time. I was there with my grandmother and my uncle, and there was no way in hell they were letting me spend all of my time (and their money) playing arcade games at the World's Fair!! But I now have all of the tokens, which makes for an excellent 80s gaming memory.

 

[local413]

Holy Sh$t! The Chicken Machine!!

There was a place on Cape Cod, MA. that had the chicken game.. It's been so long that I thought I was making it up.. Awesome.. I never could beat that chicken.. heh

http://newyorkdailyphoto.blogspot.com/2009/08/blog-post.html

Found something about them..

 

[local413]

Here it is..