Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on December 10th, 2011 in Arcades/Arcade GamesI’ve had a lot of miserable experiences when it comes to moving arcade games. I’ve dropped machines, I’ve hit drive-thru signs with them … I even almost lost one off the back of my trailer once. Nothing, however, compares to moving a 720 arcade cabinet by yourself. 720 arcade cabinets are essentially a lesson in what not to do when designing an arcade cabinet. It’s tall, and top heavy. It has a 25″ horizontally-mounted monitor in it, precariously balanced on top of a thin pedestal. The pedestal goes into a base that, I think, may contain concrete. None of the… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on April 22nd, 2010 in Arcades/Arcade Games, MainWhenever I hear about cool little hole-in-the-wall places, even if they’re halfway across the country, I always make a mental note of it. With my job, you never know where I’ll end up. So a year or two ago when I heard an online acquaintance of mine (DreamTR) had opened a retro arcade in the middle of Nashville, I filed that information away. (Did I mention earlier this week that I took a road trip from Oklahoma City to Durham, North Carolina? Did you know I-40 goes through Nashville on its way from Oklahoma City to North Carolina?) Game Galaxy… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on March 16th, 2010 in Arcades/Arcade GamesOver the weekend Mason and I zipped down to Dallas to visit my friend Justin. One thing Justin wanted to do was take Mason to Gameworks, located in the Grapevine Mills Mall. Gameworks is definitely a new school arcade. None of the machine there take quarters or tokens; instead, everything works off of a “game card” that you swipe at each machine. I’ve never been a fan of game card systems as they cause you to overspend and it make it hard to keep track of how much money you have left (which is probably the point). Justin and Mason… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on March 7th, 2010 in Arcades/Arcade Games, MainA quick recap: in October of 2008, I visited an incredible privately-owned arcade here in Oklahoma for the first time. In August of 2009, the arcade burned to the ground. The owners had no insurance, and the building and all of its contents were a total loss. There are a lot of people — most people, in fact — who would walk away from this hobby after watching years of work and tens of thousands of dollars literally go up in flames. But not these guys. Nope. Instead, these guys have spent the past six months rebuilding. While a new,… (read more)
The second annual Oklahoma Electronic Game Expo (OEGE) took place Saturday, April 11th, 2009 at Oklahoma City Community College. OEGE was actually a weekend-long event for me, as out-of-town friends of mine began trickling in Friday afternoon. Not to be confused with the similarly named Oklahoma Video Game Expo (OVGE), OEGE is organized and thrown by a local college club/group. While the focus of OVGE is (mostly retro) video games, the theme of OEGE is a little more difficult to discern. It’s definitely different than your run-of-the-mill gaming convention; it’s more like a trade show. The focus really wasn’t on… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on April 5th, 2009 in Arcades/Arcade GamesFor those of you who don’t know, I have a part-time second job. I’m the maintenance guy for a local arcade … that just happens to be located in my backyard. I know lots of people who think it would be fun to own an arcade game, but most of those people don’t know what kind of work goes in to keeping one up and running. Sure, these beasts were pretty reliable back when they were new, but all of my games are somewhere between fifteen and twenty-five years old, and many of them are getting cantankerous in their old… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on April 3rd, 2009 in Arcades/Arcade GamesGreg Kennedy asks: “I have a question about your MAME cabinet: how much do you play it vs. the other real-deal machines you own? I wonder sometimes if the diversity offered by MAME is a match for dedicated hardware or not […] I asked because I just got my MAME cab working and was wondering how others’ experience pans out over time.” Greg, I’m so glad you asked! The debate between MAME Cabinets and Arcade Cabinets (aka: “dedicated arcade machines” or “real machines”) has raged, I’m guessing, since the day the first MAME cabinet was built and will continue to… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on February 9th, 2009 in Arcades/Arcade GamesBehind every collection there is a collector, and behind every collector there is a holy grail that drives him — that one, seemingly unobtainable item that always seems to be just out of reach for one reason or another. For those unfamiliar with the concept, “holy grail” comes from the 1975 comedy “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, and it was also featured in the third Indiana Jones film, “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.” There are multiple reasons why grails become grails. The first quantifier is typically the law of supply and demand — in other words, there are… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on February 2nd, 2009 in Arcades/Arcade GamesMan, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Three days in a row, three resolutions achieved. I’m like a resolution machine (watch me get down, watch me get down …) It’s been too cold to do any real gaming out in the arcade this week so instead I’ve been working on a couple of my “garage” projects, one of which is my Ms. Pac-Man cabinet. I paid $80 for this cabinet at an estate sale and let me tell you, other than my fully-working Q*Bert that I got for $100 at a garage sale (thanks again for the tip, Tim-Dog),… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on January 17th, 2009 in Arcades/Arcade GamesI get this question a lot: “How do I open an arcade game that I don’t have the keys to?” The answer is, “You drill it out.” It’s one of those things that’s easier to show than explain, so, here you go.
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