Flack

I contributed to this as well! I wrote two and a half hacks. A picture of my MAME cabinet is in the book as well. Unfortunately all I've done so far is read my own articles -- I hope tonight or tomorrow to read the rest of them!

What area of OKC are you going to be in? Most of the malls have arcades of varying quality. There are also several kid-friendly places like Chuck E. Cheese, Celebration Station and Incredible Pizza that all have games. On the corner of NW 10th and Council Road is Cactus Jack's arcade ( www.cactusjacksokc.com ), which has a nice mix of new and old games (complete game list on their site). I have Q*Bert, Karate Champ, Gauntlet II and lots of other games in my own personal arcade. Unfortunately, I'll be out of town this weekend or I would just tell you to come over and bring quarters.

I'd be glad to do that for you Steve. PM me on one of our normal hangouts and we'll work out the details.

I thought for sure this was going to end with, "...pick up some steering wheel slip-on covers."

I just picked it up last night. I haven't had enough time to get really in depth with it, but like the others have said, there's a lot there this time around. I'm glad the Blitz series got away from the realistic approach they took with Pro. There are enough realistic football games out there already.

It's also used to dump games, although I can't imagine that would be driving the price that much.

I've reviewed several of these recently. Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary http://www.thelogbook.com/phosphor/edit/namco50 Taito Legends http://www.thelogbook.com/phosphor/edit/taito Next week is a review of Capcom Classics Collection. It's a retro summer, baby!

One theory I came up with was that arcade owners didn't want people simply sitting around. In a normal arcade, if you're standing in front of a machine you're likely to be playing it, and when your game's over, you'll mosey on. On cocktails, you can sit and not spend money. My Nintendo Vs. Cocktail takes two or three people to move -- although the dual monitor setup doesn't help things.

My first cabinet (Elevator Action) sat in my kitchen (in a trailer, no less) for a couple of years. Trust me, there's no better way to make your wife give in and let you have some arcade floor space. Getting games out of their dining room is good leverage.

FYI, all three games (1942, 1943 and 1943 Kai) are available on the new Capcom Classics Collection for Xbox/PS2, if you want to check them out.

I have seen a couple of Donkey Kong machines here at auctions that look BRAND NEW for $800. I've seen Mario Bros machines in "played" condition for $200. If you can live with the games being in separate cabs, I'd go that route.

Be sure to check out one-switch's website. They have special games for disabled gamers, as well as adaptable controllers for those with handicaps. http://www.oneswitch.org.uk/

I've been wondering this as well, as my dart board has about 2/3 of the light bulbs burnt out. I'll check them out as well!

Two points of good news, Tim. 1, we do this several times a year. 2, the next one is due to take place at place in OKC. Maybe right after the first of the year or something, weather permitting.

I know it's all relative, but every time I go there I never see anything I think of as OLD. Back when I used to hang out in #oldwarez, "old" meant "released on floppies, not CD." I check it from time to time but I've had better luck with the Underdogs (and my own archives).

The earlier AtariSoft version of Donkey Kong for the C64 is the "wider" (fullscreen) version. Ocean's version (released three years later) looks very close to the arcade version. You can compare the two versions here: http://www.lemon64.com/games/details.php?ID=749 http://www.lemon64.com/games/details.php?ID=750

I'll be there! Anyone else making the trek? The last two have been a BLAST!

These multi-game boards are everywhere now, including on routes and in auctions. This is the first one Google turned up but you can get them lots of places. http://www.bumper.com.au/parts/jammagames.asp

I have a SuperGun. The games play just like the arcade because they are the arcade games. The only difference would be A, the look, since you're not playing them on an arcade monitor, and B, the controls, because you're playing it on a custom controller instead of an arcade control panel. You also have to be careful about picking up JAMMA games that use vertical monitors, unless you have a television that you're willing to regularly rotate 90 degrees. Swapping JAMMA boards out takes approximately five seconds, give or take. I don't collect JAMMA boards but like many other people who collect arcade games, I've ended up with a pile of them.

Are you sure you're not talking about my kid? My son Mason did all the same things. In fact, on my vgXpo picture, I've got pictures of him getting his toothbrush and petting the dogs. And, there's a shot of Ulala in there somewhere. http://www.robohara.com/albums/vgxpo2005

The arcade games were a no show. Instead there were small centers where you could play console games. We had no problem playing any of the games. When we walked around, half the games had no one playing them. The plus side to all that is that the vendors were constantly available for questions and general chatting.

I got one of her sitting down, playing a game. I felt too dirty to take too many shots of her. http://www.robohara.com/albums/vgxpo2005/ 915429[/snapback] There are free compression tools for thumbnails. Using html to resize a photo into a 100x100 square, that's still 175kb is just silly, not to mention cruel to anyone still on dialup. Every single one of your albums were that way. 915445[/snapback] Fortunately for me, every single one of my family members (including my grandparents) have high spped internet access, so it's not really a problem for us. I plan on resizing some of the pictures when I'm not sitting in a parking lot on my laptop stealing wifi access. Thank you for spending the time to go through every single one of my albums!

Was it much more crowded before I got there?

I got one of her sitting down, playing a game. I felt too dirty to take too many shots of her. http://www.robohara.com/albums/vgxpo2005/

Has there been any word on who/when speakers will be speaking? It's going to be a crazy weekend for me. My 10th wedding anniversary is the Friday before, and my birthday is the following Monday, so we're cramming a quick trip to Dallas in the middle. I know I'll be there Saturday for sure for a few hours, and maybe a couple of hours Sunday morning depending on the fam's schedule.