Jeff, there’s a place in Laconia, NH called Fun Spot with a Crazy Climber machine…and a ton of the actual classic arcade machines in good working order (not MAME, the real deal). Check it out if you’re ever in the neighborhood.
Anyone interested in classic video games, or anyone at all for that matter, should watch the documentary King of Kong.
It gives a new meaning to obsessiveness and the antics of these adults show that when it comes to video games they are still kids. Its an entertaining and fun movie.
At couple of years ago I was given a bunch of Megadrive ROMs (illegal ones I suspect) by a friend and I got really excited. It turned out that very few of the games I used to consider “classics” really hold up any more for me… Except Sonic the Hedgehog, and Street Fighter II. It’s funny how modern technology spoils us - at the time I remember thinking some of these games were amazing and would play them for hours simply because they looked so graphically lush, and because they felt like they played at 100mph… I guess one day we’ll look back at modern classics and say the same thing (although I suspect Super Monkey Ball will never lose it’s charm!).
The new font on your website is horrible. Different letters (A,w,M,v, etc.) are displayed in a lighter shade of gray than the other letters.
I used the books: 101 Basic Computer Games and 101 More Basic
Computer Games.
Yep, me too. Those books are based on earlier work in Creative
Computing and referenced here:
Same here! That’s how I got started programming. Different machines’ BASICs weren’t really all that compatabile, plus you’d always have a couple of transcription errors. So you couldn’t just type the games in and play. You had to learn to debug. After a while you (or I at any rate) learned enough about the language to start making improvements, and eventually making your own programs from scratch.
Its kind of a shame there’s nothing like this around these days to get kids interested in programming. My son at age 10 expressed interest in programming games like the ones he plays. But games these days are humongous man-decade projects. There’s just no way. The best he can do is scenario builders that come with a few games. But that’s not really programming.
I built a MAME Machine using original Xbox arcade controllers and a four port Xbox to USB hub.
The controllers were like $12 a piece and have a nice solid feeling joystick and all the buttons that the Xbox has. I think there are like 12 total buttons, with 6 or 8 of them being really nice and big. (Think like the old Nintendo Advantage controllers, but with more buttons, and interchangeable joysticks.)
I know they lack the nerdery level of hardwired, homemade controllers, but they work really good, and still bring you back into the arcade feeling. (Not to mention you can move them around, or hold them in your lap if you feel so inclined.)
I went full bore and bought the games. Boards, cabinet, artwork and all. Hence, arcade.melchman.net
I really don’t recommend it as a hobby (addiction) unless you have plenty of space, time, money (like gambling money), tools and patience.
With that warning, check out forums.klov.com and suddenly you will know you are far from alone.
Wow… I guess I’m not a geek then. I spent a small amount of time in arcades when I was little but outgrew it very quickly.
You guys are all geeks 
I’ve used this for my MAME cabinet : http://www.ultimarc.com/ipacve.html
I’ve been very happy about it. Used an existing cabinet, just connected the existing joystick and buttons to the card, connected it and presto : it was correctly configured for MAME out of the box.
Actually, in retrospect, maybe it was a little too easy. It lessens the sense of accomplishment.
They also have joysticks, buttons, etc. I don’t know how they compare in price to other places though.
I hope someone finds this handy.
I check this list of a href="http://arcadelocations.classicgaming.gamespy.com/"Classic Arcade Game Locations/a now and then when I’m in the mood to play a coin-op. It seems to be updated regularly.
I actually question the credentials of any geek who hasn’t felt compelled to build hardware for MAME at some point.
You probably meant “nerd”.
You don’t have to be like the others tell or expect it. You are you!
“the Schneider CPC 128 (the German version of the ZX Spectrum”
Sorry to be a geek, but Schneider was the brand name that was used to market the Amstrad CPC range in Germany. Neither of these machines were a ‘version’ of the spectrum - merely a competitor to them.
Admittedly Amstrad eventually boought the Spectrum product range, but the machines were decidely different (Apart, maybe, from both being based on the Z80 processor)
I’ll just get my anorak…
My first experience with programming was on a TRS-80 in a middle school programming class. Used tap drives to backup and load your programs. I can’t even remember programming like that. When I entered the workforce, it was in IT Support, Network Design, and Management and I never really did any development work at all until I started working on Linux, first I learned shell scripting and gradutated to troubleshooting already written C programs. I wrote the patch that fixed uname in coreutils to properly recognize the i386 based family of processors above the i386. Doesn’t seem like a big deal until you realize that unix development environment generally used (do they still?) uname to discover processor architecture. After that I got out of programming and this time IT altogether due to the 9/11 crisis and the problem was compounded by the Enron/Arther Anderson debacle. My IT career ended that day. I was lucky to return to IT about 2 years ago, by perserverance and gathering as many certificates are I could get a hold of quickly, and a government contractor took a chance at hiring me after my hiatus. I have been working for the government in Enterprise Solutions and Tier 3 now since that day. I had to learn windows all over again, since I had a firmer background in unix than I did in windows. I started out learning vbscript, and today I have graduated to working on C# projects. Though I am still in the steep learning curve phase of learning this language, it is so very much like and very much unlike KR C. My biggest issue isn’t the syntax, but wrapping my head around the utterly inescapable and deeply entrenched object oriented format of developing in C# using the visual studio developement environments. It’s definately been fun and I am happy to be back in IT and now getting more heavily back into development.
Can I say that games were my first programming experience. NO, I cannot. However I can say that games are what drew me to computers. I am obsessed with games, especially good ones. My current game is EVE Online, and there is nothing else like it. On of my programming projects is actually writing a player aide for that game to help players make better decisions when it comes to things like skill selection, trade and commerce and choice of ships based on what attributes and skills your character already has and what your end goals are for the current set of choices.
Games I say are an important part of creating market share for any successful computing platform. Even Unix had excellent games very early on and within a year of it first being put in production. Primitive games maybe, but excellent for the technology that was available. Interest in gaming is very often the spark that turns users into successful developers.
Yep my interest in science and technology pretty much came from games as well. It’s how I ended up studying Computer Science and becoming a professional developer.
It was May 1998 and my older brother brought home a copy of Gran Turismo for the PS1. He fired the game up and I was ABSOLUTELY FLOORED! The graphics and life-like physics of the cars just fascinated me. I just had to know more about how it all worked.
I ended up reading books on automotive engineering, math and physics and later the software itself that made the game tick. I ended up sticking with the software since it was general purpose enough for me to write applications in all the areas that interested me and I haven’t regretted the choice. Great Post.
I guess I’m in the “middle school” of aracde games. My parents had an old Atari 2600 and refused to by a Nintendo for us, so we got our fix through those games, late 80s and early 90s really 8^D To my “nerd” credit, I actually beat Pitfall 2 (some really long weird map with no real points, just get all the goodies) and even had made a map of things at one point since there was the potential to get lost.
We had a pizza place in town, and that was where the Arcade games were. It was classic. I loved the 1941, Raiden, top level shooter games, and I coveted getting the original Star Wars arcade game (are they still out there other than Disneyland?) I blew many a quarter on Street Fighter II (Mortal Kombat was only so-so) and knew about all the weird variants that snuck out (Turbo Edition Rainbow was like LSD induced fighting 8^D)
Ahh, the good old days. I’ve had MAME up on my box at a few points in time and I should pull that one back up.
Say, has anybody seen the Ultimate Arcade 2+ before? I guess this might be a “cheap and legal” way to get your fix! www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11231741whse=BCtopnav=browse=lang=en-US
OMG, South of the Border reference! My parents moved to South Carolina two years ago. During the move (from New York) I was sucked into this place under the guise of authentic Mexican food (I was dying for a burrito after 14 hours of driving). Lo and Behold, the place God forgot, an incredibly tacky and awful alternate reality, where the burritos were NOT authentic and everything truly sucked. Thanks for making my day!
Hello,
Mine and my friends nostalgia lead to starting a club. What could be more fun then play the games, drink beer and dance to the music. As we discovered it was great. We have the club open once per month and each time have between 150 to 300 guests. Standing in the DJ booth seeing the people dancing to Super Mario is truly awesome.
So what is my point? I think it is that love to arcade games comes in different shapes and if you take it all, put it in a bag and shake, all kind of weird things will come out. At our club i can see happy faces jumping around to this weird 8bit music and they were not even born when it was made. Ok, I realize that I do not have a point, but lets pretend that I did.
Man, that guy in Virginia has really got it going on. How many of us, growing up in the 70s and early 80s didn’t dream of having our own arcade or movie theater? I have a new goal in life. Oh, wait, I’d have to give up partying with hot chicks. Nevermind.
Using a Cocktail kit is one thing, but it’s far more fun to actually build it yourself, from scratch.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/code_monkey/sets/72157594508186562