The Saturday Night at the 80's Arcade Web Page

Preserving Our Gaming Heritage: The year was 1971, a new style of entertainment was about to change the way we spent our free time. That was a time when Penny Arcades were filled with Skee Ball, Pinball and Prize Cranes. Suddenly, a new game appeared. It had few moving parts and was mostly electronic. Very crude controls and a Black and White monitor (actualy was a TV!) were standard. The game was called COMPUTER SPACE. It was housed in a metallic painted, fiber glass cabinet; and it came in two variations: 1 player only, and 1 or 2 player. (See www.klov.com) This was the dawn of the Video Arcade Game.

In the following years, the arcades began to acquire games with other futuristic titles like Space Invaders, Asteroids and Space Duel. Sports games consisting of Paddles or driving games with very crude graphics like Night Driver also made the scene. I was an eager witness to the explosion of games during the 1980s. Many Quarters fell through the open slots of games with titles like: PacMan, Asteroids, Cloak and Dagger, Wizard Of Wor, Joust, Centipede, Pole Position, Mr. Do!, Dig Dug, Elevator Action and later games like Arkanoid and Hard Drivin'.

These and many others can be viewed on the pages of the best Arcade Game rescource on the Internet: The Killer List of Video Games. This is the legacy of our new lifestyle of computers and home game systems. Atari and other home game systems were created to bring the Arcade into the home. Many games of today are still made with lessons learned from the early Arcade and Atari programs.. the SHARK ELEMENT in many games came from Activisions Fishing Derby. A great fishing game but no real challenge, until a shark was added to liven up the action. Look for many similar elements in other games too.

My own desire to own more than just a console version of my favorite classic Arcade Games drove me to start my collection with Ms.PacMan. A few years later, in search of a Christmas present for my wife, and hoping to find Centipede, I came across a TRON game. TRON was my old favorite, since it beat me silly every time I played it. I happily drove 4 hours to meet the owner at a rest stop in Maryland, while he drove up from Virginia.

A few months later, I bought Capcom Bowling in a Cocktail style cabinet that probably housed Space Invaders early in it's life. A power spike fried it's board a few weeks later, so I began to search for a replacement board on the Internet and came across 2 great deals on Ebay. I got my CapBowl board for a good price, plus I won a very low bid on 4 games... Kangaroo, Marvin's Maze, Mr. Do's Wild Ride, and Arkanoid. All needed some work but my collection was well on it's way to being very large.

My Current Collection can be viewed on the Video Arcade Preservation Society web page. At this writing it is almost 20 games large, though some are in need of repair. My Collection includes a few rare titles and some beautifully kept games that look 15 years younger than they are. Starting in the beginning of 2000, I held my first Saturday Night at the 80's Arcade party for invited friends and family. Dress code calls for 80's style clothes and hair style. Music is WPLJ 95.5FM NYC, 7-12 Saturday Night at the 80's, 5 hours of music from the Arcade Era. After Midnight, the 80's CD's go onto the sound system. Future partys will include tracks from the PacMan Feaver album, with tribute songs to many of the classic games that were big news back in the early COLOR game days. (Tracks and info to follow)

Below you will see the beginnings of my venture to preserve the 1980's Arcade experience.

The games are now in my garage, and it is being converted into my new Private 80's Arcade. I am proudly doing my part to keep the younger generations aware of where their Sony, Nintendo and Sega games came from. Fortunately for many classic games, other collectors also have been saving them from the junk yard. Sadly, it seems most kids today don't know the special feeling of having the First Atari on the block or the anticipation of having to go to the corner store to play a game.. it's all sitting in front of them, much as you sit in front of your computer seeing this.

You too can own a piece of arcade history, as some games are available affordably on Ebay and on the Internet Newsgroups. For a new collector, the refurbished games are usually much better. Though they will be more expensive, they will work and sometimes have a warranty. My best deals were basket cases that were repaired by me. You can appreciate a game more if you are the one who brought it back from the dead.

I'll add more photos as they are taken. I hope you enjoyed this trip down my personal Memory Lane.