rmaerz, on Mon Dec 6, 2010 9:47 AM, said:
Your game room is really awesome. The fact that you have not only Tron, but also a cockpit Discs of Tron and a working Computer Space is something else.
I don't care for the modern titles (that's just preference) but I can really appreciate seeing Spectar, Space Duel and Wizard of Wor (to name a few) in your collection.
I have a few questions:
- What's the story behind the acquisition of Computer Space?
- What power considerations were made to support the draw of the arcade?
- What about insurance? This is something I've been thinking about the last few days when I stuffed the 9th cabinet into the Retrocade.
Well the story behind computer space goes back 10 years, my son was was going to be turning 5, and i had told my wife i would be buying a really cool game from when i was a kid and that my son would have a blast on it, now my son has been playing arcade games since he was 2 yrs old, he could kick most of my buddies asses on Mortal kombat 2, by the time he was 3 1/2, his first toy at 5 months old was an IBM keyboard, so he is not your average kid, so back to the story, the game was a Williams star rider - laser disc game, actually pause for a sec, i have to go back , "roll rewind tape effect", this story goes back much further, we have to go back 32 years, You see i was 10 years old and i loved arcade games like every other kid at the time, and that year I was going to the dade county youth fair in miami, back then they always had a tented arcade that they would put out every year, it usually had the latest and greatest arcade games, i remember my little brother and i would run to the tent immediately when we would walk in to the fair, this was in order to see what new games were in the tent for that year, when i walked in the tent, i saw this amazing game, that had graphics right out of the tron movie, i was stunned, i walked around the game looking at it from all angles for about 2 minutes just to take in it's beauty, It looked like a cross between the tron cycle and a rocket, i played that game at least 6 times that night and then played another laser game called funai's interstellar fantasy, both those games had graphics that absolutely blew away everything else that was around, i never forgot those games, or the incredible time i had playing them, in fact that is all i can recall about that day, even now many years later, "fast forward effect" flash forward now 15 years, Im a young adult, married to gorgeous young, tight hiney, big boobed sweet heart that lets me collect very large and very heavy things and im also a partner in a computer repair business, my partners birthday was coming up and i drive pass a warehouse that had some arcade games inside, it was actually a route operator and he was thinning out his games, so i bought a video arcade game as a gift for my partner, and it was downhill from there, we both began buying cabinets and collecting arcade boards. "Fast forward effect again" Now we jump to my son turning 5, which is where we started at the beginning of this rant, i remember how much fun the star rider was and my euphoric enjoyment with the game, and i thought my son would also share my enthusiasm, also the fact that the star rider game looks like a really cool outerspace motorcycle helps, so i told the wife i was getting the star rider, so son could have a kick ass birthday riding a rocket cycle, the vendor which was located in California told me he also had a computer space that he would sell me at a discounted price if i purchased both systems together, to tell you the truth i had no idea what computer space was at the time and he helped educate a bit in that area, so after thinking about it for some time, about "2.73 secs" i said heck yeah, add it to my order, i believe i paid about $1800 for both, i do not remember if that included shipping. When the games arrived, i had to go pick them up at a forward air terrminal, and the star rider which i was very excitedly looking forward to did not work, it took me 8 months to fix the game and every time it broke it used to take 6 months or more for me to fix it, until i acquired like 5 sets of spares, which greatly helped in the troubleshooting, reguardless of that, my son and my nieces and niephews loved sitting on it and pretending it was a rocket cycle, it also made a great seat, you see i have a pay phone that i installed in my living room wall, "yes a real one", my wife would not let me get a full phone booth which i wanted to put in the living room like the Tardis from Dr Who, but we settled for the payphone and the star rider was right next to it, so it doubled as a seat for many a butt that sat speaking on the phone. As for the computer space,believe it or not it worked right away, it is one of the main key pieces in my collection, and many people have played it just for a chance to say they got to play the world's first arcade game. Anyhow that is my story , sorry if it got a little long winded, and took a ton of twists, but now you know the rest of story.
Good day.
Rick
PS: whoops forgot you asked other questions,
i am running 3 - 20 amp breakers in 1 room, 2 - 20 amp breakers in the other and finally 2 - 20 amps in the last room.
I purchase the games under my company's name, so it becomes another asset like a piece of furniture, and i have it insured at replacement value, i tell the insurance company that i use it to entertain my clients and techs, so it is a legitimate business expense. I do not remember how much i pay in insurance,mainly becuase it is bundled with several policies for my business.