You have to move quickly when you get a sniff of acquiring a classic arcade cabinet that’s been stored away somewhere. As a fellow collector/restorer always reminds me, there’s no honour in buying and selling arcade machines. This is particularly true right now, as the supply has dried up. Very few machines are coming to…
Tag: atari
Arcade Loft: Video Tour & Interview
The Loft Arcade welcomed my old mate Alex last weekend, to help him record the first in his new video series where he travels the country and documents on video home arcade collections, whilst interviewing their owners. Alex is a good lad, and a hugely enthusiastic arcade collector. Specialising in Nintendo arcade cabinets, he has…
The Arcade House of Horrors
This week, we take a look at some examples of what are known in the trade as “Conversions”. But I’m talking bad ones. Real bad arcade conversions. The purists of the video arcade collecting community tend to collect dedicated cabs. These are totally original, unmolested arcade cabinets from the 70s and 80s. A level of…
Missile Command: talkin’ loud, sayin’ nothin’
I posted a couple of weeks back a talk I gave about the development and some background of the classic arcade game Missile Command. I thought I’d also share an old interview I gave to Manchester’s now defunct Channel M, back in 2008. Thankfully, some old wag uploaded much of their output for posterity to…
Let’s talk about Missile Command
Well it was bound to happen sooner or later. I’ve clearly run out of things to say about other arcade games, so now I have to talk about myself. You knew it was coming. There’s a few videos out there of interviews I’ve given about Missile Command and arcade gaming, and I’d like to gradually…
Atari Arcade Concept Art: A glimpse of the future
Some interesting early concept artwork from Atari has surfaced in recent years. These brightly coloured, hand drawn sketches are really “of their time”. Atari’s arcade division employed several artists, who would create everything from Industrial cabinet designs, to the final artwork to adorn the various arcade cabinet designs. In the 70’s, Atari clearly had a…
Atari Asteroids Restoration 3 FINAL
Part 2 saw the cab get to a point where it was looking good for the most part. The bulk of the work was done, now it was time to start putting the parts that had been removed back into the empty shell of the now restored cabinet. If you’ve been following this blog, this…
Atari Asteroids Restoration 2
So with the main cabinet sanded down at the end of part 1, I moved onto the wiring loom. For some reason the loom was taped up with electrical tape. A previous owner probably thought it was a good idea at the time, but now it was all sticky and collecting dust: That had to…
Atari Asteroids Restoration 1
Regular readers of this blog will have noticed a common theme in the cabs I’ve been restoring: I have a penchant for the smaller “cabaret” versions of arcade machines. This is partly out of necessity – my games room us up three flights of stairs at the top of the house, and being in the…
Atari Centipede Restoration 4 FINAL
Sharp eyed readers may have noticed that the Centipede cabaret I restored came without a marquee light from the factory – it appears this is a common thing. Atari put the light housing in some cabs (like the Tempest cabaret previously documented in my blog) but not others. Here’s the completed cab. With no marquee…
The Arcade Blogger 