More Tales From the Arcade Factory Floors

Thought it was about time we did another one of these. Looking through my archives, I found a bunch of arcade production line photographs that to my knowledge, haven’t been shared before. I originally posted some arcade factory pictures exactly a decade ago here – which is also worth checking out if you missed it….

Exidy’s Howell Ivy

Some sad news to share on the blog this week: the passing of Exidy co‑founder and arcade pioneer Howell Ivy. His impact on the early years of arcade gaming cannot be underestimated. After serving in the US Air Force, working on missile instrumentation and drone systems operation, Howell entered the arcade industry in 1972 when…

The TDE Podcast Ep 39: Rob Quinn of Stern

Episode 39 of the Ted Dabney Experience podcast is available now for your listening pleasure! If you enjoy reading ArcadeBlogger.com, you’ll love the other project I’m involved with: Rob Quinn joined Stern just as the company was branching out from it’s core pinball business to explore the brave new world of videogames. Rob talks about…

Atari Pole Position: Factory Assembly Line Footage

The development and release of Pole Position is probably worthy of an in depth deep dive for another time, so look out for that in a future post. In the meantime, I’ve come across some more extended footage of the game being constructed on Atari’s assembly lines that I wanted to share. If memory serves…

Vintage Vault – The Arcade by the Lake

Mukwonago, Wisconsin (pronounced muck‑WONN‑a‑go) isn’t the sort of place you’d expect to find one of the Midwest’s strongest arcade lineups, but that’s exactly what Vintage Vault Arcade delivers. A recent visit to Milwaukee (for the Midwest Gaming Classic event) allowed me to take some time out to find this arcade that I’d heard good things…

Williams Sinistar Arcade Documentary

I’ve been meaning to share this documentary on the blog for some time. I met its creator, Max, a couple of times while visiting the Freeplay Florida event a few years back. He mentioned that he was playing around with the original source code from the Williams arcade title Sinistar and hoping to add some…

The TDE Podcast Ep 37: Jersey Jack Pinball Founder Jack Guarnieri

Episode 37 of the Ted Dabney Experience podcast is available now for your listening pleasure! If you enjoy reading ArcadeBlogger.com, you’ll love the other project I’m involved with: From 1975 to present day, Jack Guarnieri has seen and done it all; from servicing mechanical pinball machines in the dive bars and laundrettes of Seventies New…

The TDE Podcast Ep 36: Strong Museum Assistant VP Jeremy Saucier

Episode 36 of the Ted Dabney Experience podcast is available now for your listening pleasure! If you enjoy reading ArcadeBlogger.com, you’ll love the other project I’m involved with: Jeremy Saucier is Assistant VP at The Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, New York. Jeremy talks to us about the history and evolution of the Strong…

The TDE Podcast Ep 35: Atari Inc Coin-Op Engineer Jeff Bell

Episode 35 of the Ted Dabney Experience podcast is available now for your listening pleasure! If you enjoy reading ArcadeBlogger.com, you’ll love the other project I’m involved with: Jeff Bell was a hardware engineer in Atari Inc’s coin-op division and officially the longest serving employee of the company; literally the last person to switch off…

Puck Man PCB (Namco)

44 years ago (22 May 1980 to be precise), the first Puck Man machine was placed in an arcade in Tokyo’s Shibuya district, starting a worldwide global videogaming phenomenon. Today, Namco’s Pac-Man remains one of the most recognisable video game characters, transcending popular culture. I won’t rehash the story, but I wrote about the development…