A bit of news from me to start us off. I was approached last month by Circus Journal Magazine here in the UK. They wanted to write a feature on the hobby and were looking for someone to share their collection and talk about the hobby of arcade restoration. They sent a reporter and photographer around to Arcade Blogger towers for a few hours and the results came out great! Here’s some pictures from the session:
The feature made the front cover. That’s my Streets Defender cabinet waiting for restoration
Here’s a shot of some of my games. Taken with an analogue camera for that 80s look…
Playing some Missile Command
Recently restored Robotron control panel
Hantarex monitor chassis ready for a re-capIf you’d like to read the article, I have a PDF scan of it here:Circus Journal Autumn 2019
Big thanks to the guys at Circus Journal for sharing some arcade love with the masses!
Elsewhere, an interesting cabinet has turned up for sale in the US. You might recall my article about the very rare Cinematronics Sundance cabinet that was the subject of some controversy. Estimates of the number of these cabinets around today do vary, but I would say it’s fair to say that there are less than five known to exist. Collector Dan Sullivan has put his Sundance up for sale, and its a beauty! Here’s some pics (click each for more detail):
Dan also linked to some gameplay footage showing the machine playing:Awesome stuff – and incredible that these things do turn up for sale occasionally!
Classic Arcade content on YouTube tends to vary in quality, and its not often that something worthwhile is posted in terms of arcade history. But last month a great quality video was posted up which ran through the history of arcade manufacturer Centuri. I wrote about Centuri a while back here. This video goes into more detail and shares great pictures. It is fantastically well done and is worth a few minutes of your time. Props go out to Cassandra, aka Vintage Arcade Gal for pulling this together. Can’t wait for part 2!
While you’re there, check out the rest of Cassandra’s channel, she does great work!
And talking of YouTube, the guys over at Arcade Repair Tips do regular live feed videos where they answer tech questions on the fly. Some interesting info and tips do come up. The videos are archived on their channel and are worth checking out. Give them a sub. Here’s the latest one:
Someone posted a cool picture on Facebook last week, source unknown, of a factory shot of Sega Astro City control panels being built.
Not the greatest picture, but cool history nonetheless!California’s premier arcade expo, California Extreme took place a few weeks back over the weekend of 27th to 29th July. I’ve yet to make the trip over (flights are prohibitively expensive at that time of year unfortunately). But if like me you couldn’t make it, there are plenty of walk-through videos around to give a sense of what was there. Here’s one from YouTuber Psychogeezer. Looks like there was some great machines out on the floor this year:And while we’re on the subject of Arcade Expos, you can expect to see me at this year’s Free Play Florida event again in November. Should be a great one, as we are joined again by Warren Davis of Q*Bert fame, along with his co-creator Jeff Lee. David Crane from Activision will be in attendance, along with plenty of other special guests. I’m hosting a few talks, so come say hi if you plan on going. Get your tickets here!
We’ve covered Coinopwarehouse before – these guys are pickers and come across some great classic arcade cabinets. A few gems have come up for sale in recent weeks, and I thought I’d share a few here:
This is Allied Leisure’s Street Burners released in 1975
It’s a two player arcade ‘bronze age’ driving game
Fantastic sideart! At the time of writing the game is still for sale at $425. Gameplay video here
Nice lookin’ survivor condition Atari Kangaroo sold for $300! Read more about this game here
Check out this tiny Mad Alien mini cabinet. Super rare game. Gameplay footage here
Here’s one I’ve never seen before. Universal’s Devil Zone. Note the flaky artwork on the left hand side. Gameplay video here
How about this? Electra’s 1977 Flying Fortress! Gameplay video hereSo there you have it. If you have an interesting new story worthy of everyone’s attention, drop me a line and I’ll be sure to include it next month.Thanks for reading this week!
Tony
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