The TDE Podcast Ep 32: Eugene Jarvis

Episode 32 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: Eugene Jarvis cut his teeth in the Atari pinball division before going on to produce the groundbreaking Defender for Williams Electronics. Also for Williams (contracted as Vid…

Williams Defender Restoration 1

So, with some decent weather around these parts over the past couple of weeks, I thought I’d make a start with the restoration of the Defender upright that I picked up. Catch up on the details here. Our starting point isn’t exactly great, but there’s enough here that’s complete to get this thing back into…

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Weekend Pickup! Williams Defender

If you’ve been following this blog over the years, you will know that space is now at a premium here at Arcade Blogger Towers. Simply put, I cannot see a way of squeezing another cabinet into the loft arcade space that I have, so future acquisitions in theory are not possible, unless I start selling…

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Anatomy of Arcade High Score Tables

The arcade high score table. A chance to get your name in print on a CRT screen of your local arcade. For those of us fortunate enough to frequent the arcades during the Golden Age of arcade video games, it was an opportunity to establish early bragging rights in the arcades of the early eighties….

The Development of Robotron

Is there a classic arcade game player out there that doesn’t like Robotron? Released by Williams Electronics in 1982, it is the quintessential arcade shooter. Ferocious enemies, panic-inducing gameplay and sounds that match the action on screen like no other game of its time. Having spent 18 months developing the wildly successful side-scrolling shooters Defender…

Williams Inc. Arcade Marketing Materials

In the early 80s, the obvious direction for arcade manufacturers to market their product, was towards arcade operators. When we as players, look back at this time – the boom years of arcade production – most of us will recall going to a traditional arcade to play the latest titles. This was the line of…

Where did all the Defenders go?

It’s hard to resist Defender as a classic arcade game. Recognised as one of the best shoot-em-ups of all time, Eugene Jarvis’ monumental arcade game for manufacturer Williams remains top of the pile in every sense of the word. Aside from a Pong clone released a few years earlier, Defender was the first arcade game…

The Wonderful World of Arcade Cabinet Conversions

Those of you with good memories may recall I wrote an article a few months back on the subject of brutal arcade machine “conversions” – you can catch up on that article here. The practice of converting an original dedicated arcade cabinet was commonplace back in the mid to late 80s. Those of us who…