A One-Man '80s Arcade Revival

[Minzoku]

This article ran in today's Washington Post. It's a pretty interesting read, even though it's really nothing new to the forum

[icycalm]

And, really, he loves only about half of the '80s, anyway. There is a stopping point in his collection that he is reluctant to cross. The golden age of the arcade came to an end, after all, and for him, the end was around 1984, when the arcades started to fill up with shooter and fighting games.

1984 is when the golden age of the arcades started, as far as I am concerned.

But then again, the dude is 40 and I am 28.

[sffan]

And, really, he loves only about half of the '80s, anyway. There is a stopping point in his collection that he is reluctant to cross. The golden age of the arcade came to an end, after all, and for him, the end was around 1984, when the arcades started to fill up with shooter and fighting games.

1984 is when the golden age of the arcades started, as far as I am concerned.

But then again, the dude is 40 and I am 28.

The guy is right. After 1984 a lot of the originality was gone and most games were in "genres," which basically meant most games were rip-offs of earlier games after that.

[JBC]

But really good rip-offs

for the most part.

[icycalm]

But really good rip-offs

for the most part.

exactly

[PC Engine Fan X!]

That Washington Post article about one man's 1980's arcade revival was a great piece. I do remember quite well that in 1984, it was the last year as far as original arcade gama ideas came out. Some arcades had to resort to special deals such as 2 games for the price of one (just to survive the "Great Video Game Crash of '83-'84): meaning 2 credits for one quarter.

Every year at the San Jose Convention Center's Parkside Hall Room, a classic arcade game & pinball show/sale is hosted for an entire weekend under the name of "California Extreme". Check out their website for this year's July 8-9 2006 CAX show: http://www.caextreme.org

Even a surprise forum visit from legendary arcade game creator of Defender & Robotron 2085: Blaster will be there at this CAX '06 show to tell some his stories of what it was like to make arcade games back in the early 1980's. Should be some interesting stuff to listen to. ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Dave_K.]

Even a surprise forum visit from legendary arcade game creator of Defender & Robotron 2085: Blaster will be there at this CAX '06 show to tell some his stories of what it was like to make arcade games back in the early 1980's. Should be some interesting stuff to listen to. ^_~

Woah, Eugine Jarvis is going to be at the show? Damn, I might just have to go now, and bring my original control panel so he can sign it.

Unfortunally the website doesn't say exactaly WHEN he is going to be there.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Even a surprise forum visit from legendary arcade game creator of Defender & Robotron 2085: Blaster will be there at this CAX '06 show to tell some his stories of what it was like to make arcade games back in the early 1980's. Should be some interesting stuff to listen to. ^_~

Woah, Eugine Jarvis is going to be at the show? Damn, I might just have to go now, and bring my original control panel so he can sign it.

Unfortunally the website doesn't say exactaly WHEN he is going to be there.

For Dave_K.,

I got an e-mail from the guy in charge of putting on the CAX '06 show and it said that Eugene Jarvis will make an apperance on Saturday, July 8th, 2006.

Eugene Jarvis works at his own arcade game company called 'Raw Thrills' which produced "The Fast & the Furious" arcade racing game among other arcade game titles produced.

----------------------------

More interesting info on 'Robotron 2085: Blaster' arcade upright --

Having played the real-deal of William's 1983 Blaster arcade upright (with the early prototype Robotron 2085: Blaster PCB installed) at last year's '05 CAX show, the framerate of that particular game is faster than 60 frames-per-second. Mame's rendition of Robotron 2085: Blaster & the final arcade release of Blaster plays at 60fps (which really doesn't do the two games justice IMHO).

I had a rare opportunity to play the early arcade cabinet version of William's Robotron 2085: Blaster (with different arcade marquee than standard Blaster marquee ) at a local 7-11 back in 1983 (that featured enemy characters from the earlier Robotron 2084 game during the "Robot Grid" level). That version lets you continue via additional credits to play all 30 stages. (I haven't seen it since then...it must be extremely rare alrighty.) ^_~

Both Eugene Jarvis & Larry Delmar were the two sole guys to work on both versions of Blaster and used a whopping 1 MHz CPU for the ultra-smooth scaling sprites. There was no hardware scaling back in 1983...so all the sprites shown were done entirely by hand (very tediuos & time-comsuming process + the animation is out-of-this-world & it shows quality art design). Blaster was very advanced for it's time and had a general distribution release in arcades across the USA.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~