Your first arcade videogame
Chris M.
arcade, bowling alley, etc.) and which game was it? I don't know why, but
this question has been gnawing at me for awhile. I think it's because I was
at just the right age to see the dawn of arcade and electronic videogaming
in the mid-70's and am curious to see how others in the hobby were also
introduced.
My first was probably the original breakout at a bar/restaurant. After
that, it would be at the mall where one of the first arcades in the area was
located. It had mostly pins, but the first few arcade games scattered about
that I played were: Hustle! and Starship 1. They also had Space Wars but I
never liked that game. This arcade was always on the cutting edge, and
later they moved to a corner of the mall that had one of the largest arcades
in the area and rivaled (to some extent) the ones down at the boardwalk at
the shore.
chris
Scarlet Otter
wrote:
>Where was the first time you played a videogame (ie. grocery store, mall,
>arcade, bowling alley, etc.) and which game was it? I don't know why, but
>this question has been gnawing at me for awhile. I think it's because I was
>at just the right age to see the dawn of arcade and electronic videogaming
>in the mid-70's and am curious to see how others in the hobby were also
>introduced.
My first was n 1976 or 1977 (3rd Grade). My dad was going to college
in LaGrande, OR (Eastern Oregon State College). Me and one of my
sisters were visiting him there, since he was renting a little
apartment in order to avoid having to make a 45 mile commute from
Baker City every day. He showed us the rec-room at the college, and
there were a couple games there. I remember there were a couple
pinball machines, Pong, and some sort of black and white tank combat
game. That tank game was the first video game I ever played.
Not long after, we got our first Pong console. I think it was a JC
Penny brand; sort of a dark orange unit with the basics:
Tennis/Hockey/Squash/Practice. A year later, we got an Atari Video
Pinball Console, then the following year, we got the Atari 2600, and
I've been hooked on video games ever since. :)
Oh, and here's a song that someone on another board gave me the link
to...Well, just the lyrics. I may hafta fire up Kazaa-Lite soon and
see if I can find it... I think a lot of folks here might appreciate
this one...
Nineteen-Something
Oh yeah.
I saw Star Wars at least eight times,
Had the Packman pattern memorised.
And I've seen the stuff they put inside Stretch Armstrong, yeah.
Oh, I was Roger Staubach in my backyard,
Had a shoebox full of baseball cards,
And a couple of Evil Knievil scars on my right arm.
Well, I was a kid when Elvis died.
An' my momma cried:
Well, it was nineteen-seventy-something,
In the world that I grew up in.
Farah Fawcett hair-do days,
Bell bottoms and eight-track tapes.
Lookin' back now I can see me.
Oh man, did I look cheesy.
But I wouldn't trade those days for nothin':
Oh, it was nineteen-seventy-something.
It was the dawning of a new decade,
We got our first microwave,
Dad broke down and finally shaved them old sideburns off.
I took the stickers off a-my Rubik's cube.
Watched MTV all afternoon.
My first love was Daisy Duke in them cut-off jeans.
Space shuttle fell out of the sky.
And the whole world cried.
Well, it was nineteen-eighty-something,
In the world that I grew up in.
Skatin' rinks and black Trans-Ams.
Big hair and parachute pants.
An' lookin' back now I can see me.
Oh man, did I look cheesy.
I wouldn't trade those days for nothin':
Oh, it was nineteen-eighty-something.
Now I got a mortgage and an SUV,
But all this responsibility,
Makes me wish sometimes:
It was nineteen-eighty-something,
In the world that I grew up in.
Skatin' rinks and black Trans-Ams.
Big hair and parachute pants.
An' lookin' back now I can see me.
Oh man, did I look cheesy.
I wouldn't trade those days for nothin':
Oh, it was nineteen-eighty-something.
Nineteen-seventy-something.
Oh, it was nineteen something.
-- Otter
Michael Smeal
Mike
krs...@nospamnetscape.net
"Chris M." wrote:
> Where was the first time you played a videogame (ie. grocery store, mall,
> arcade, bowling alley, etc.) and which game was it? I don't know why, but
> this question has been gnawing at me for awhile. I think it's because I was
> at just the right age to see the dawn of arcade and electronic videogaming
> in the mid-70's and am curious to see how others in the hobby were also
> introduced.
>
>
Definitely Pong in a bowling alley. Memory's too far gone to remember the year,
but it must have been just after the game made it to Pittsburgh.
-Ron
John in NH
~~~
Check out "The Shield" on the FX cable network. Amazing TV:
http://www.theshieldfans.com/
eBay stuff I've got up:
http://tinyurl.com/304q
mrculpy sucks (highscoreamusements on eBay):
http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3rxvx/
Aaron R. Schnuth
"John in NH" <rush...@aol.com--SP4M--> wrote in message
news:20030221120514...@mb-mo.aol.com...
> IIRC, Death Race at a K-Mart.
Asteroids in a bowling alley. My Dad held me up with one arm since I
was too little to see the screen. He controlled the ship, and I punded the
hell out of the fire button. :) To top if off I also got my initials on
the game too. I had to be about 3 or 4 at the time, and I've been addicted
to games ever since.
Aaron
Roagie
super-imposed on a 3D canyon. The 3D canyon was just a plastic molded canyon
painted to look like rocky/moss covered walls. Anyone else remember that? I
think the game used a mirror to display the image over the canyon as I
recall looking up into the game and seeing the monitor mounted on top.
"Chris M." <chri...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:xcadnQE_GrZ...@comcast.com...
Scarlet Otter
wrote:
>Mark Wills sings that..Check out his video on CMT if your into country :-)
>
>Mike
>
I would check it out if I had cable. But since I don't, I guess I
won't. :p
-- Otter
Christianscott27
had a side room full of pinball machines and air hockey type games. i can
remember the atari football game and lunar lander being there. i cant recall if
i ever got to play lunar lander but i can remember watching some older guys
play it and thinking the must astronauts since they were so good at it.
>>> New England Classic Gamers Group <<<
http://www.gis.net/~bertulli/
bringing geeks and their games together!
Dane L. Galden
games. I think I played Frogger the most.
Dane.
"Chris M." <chri...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:xcadnQE_GrZ...@comcast.com...
John
It was the one and only space invaders, set up in the closet they normally
have the mats for the gym in, at school fair. I sucked at it, at the time.
The next year they hired a little caravan that had about 7 machines in it...
I remember it had robotron, paint roller, and guttang gottong. My best
friend's older brother ran the machines, and gave us an extra token whenever
we got into a highscore list.
SKY
>Where was the first time you played a videogame (ie. grocery store,
>mall, arcade, bowling alley, etc.) and which game was it?
I think the earliest game I clearly remember is Midway's Racer:
http://arcadeflyers.com/index.php?page=flyerdb&subpage=flyer&id=850&image=1
Our family sometimes went out to eat at the local bowling alley,
and that's where I played Racer for the first time, maybe in 1975 or
early 1976. I vividly remember Dad showing me how to know when to shift
using the tachometer. As a kid the most exciting thing about the game
was the awesome sound effects for the engine and collisions.
Years later Racer turned up in the lobby of my baseball team's
motel during the 1986 state tournament. At age 16, even after brief
but passionate affairs with Turbo and Pole Position, I came to appreciate
the game for its pacing and overall quality of play. In my opinion
it's one of the most historically underrated coin-ops.
The case could probably be made that Pole Position is a direct
descendant of Turbo, Turbo is a direct descendant of Monaco GP, and
Monaco GP is a direct descendant of Racer.
http://arcadeflyers.com/index.php?page=flyerdb&subpage=flyer&id=850&image=1
http://www.klov.com/M/Monaco_GP.html
http://www.klov.com/T/Turbo.html
http://www.klov.com/P/Pole_Position.html
Just my 25 cents on the subject. :)
Kurt
Michael Smeal
Mike
Eastboundanddown
>arcade, bowling alley, etc.) and which game was it?
I believe my first Video Game experience was a SPACE INVADERS machine at the La
Parisian theatre in Garden City michigan, Circa 1980.
Mike Gedeon
those first B&W games there. They also Had Football but I didnt like that
game. Or it may have Been that B&W Train game at Sears. Mike : )
Come check us out !!!
http://www.videogameconnection.com/
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/vgc/
ATARI 2600 to X-BOX !!!
I Collect /I\ & NES
classic-gamer
Gremlins!
"Chris M." <chri...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:xcadnQE_GrZ...@comcast.com...
Itm0001
store. It was 1981 or 1982 and I was 4 or 5 years old. I asked my father what
that machine was and he gave me a quarter and told me to put it in and showed
me what the screen did.
My parents said they had a pong machine in the late 70s, but I was too young to
remember it. However, I bought a pong machine a few years ago, and when I
plugged it in, the pattern on the screen seemed vaguely familiar, as if I had
seen it before. Perhaps in my subconscious memory??
Ivan
Eastboundanddown
>IIRC, Death Race at a K-Mart.
WHAT DOES IIRC MEAN PLEASE? WHAT DOES IT STAND FOR?
Scarlet Otter
wrote:
>>
>>IIRC, Death Race at a K-Mart.
>
>WHAT DOES IIRC MEAN PLEASE? WHAT DOES IT STAND FOR?
If I recall correctly, it means If I Recall Correctly. :D
-- Otter
Eastboundanddown
>If I recall correctly, it means If I Recall Correctly. :D
>
Thank you, now what does RSVP stand for??? I really don't know?
Scarlet Otter
wrote:
>>
>>If I recall correctly, it means If I Recall Correctly. :D
>>
>
>Thank you, now what does RSVP stand for??? I really don't know?
That's one even I don't quite know. I suspect at least the R stands
for Reply and the P stands for Please though.
Android
> arcade, bowling alley, etc.) and which game was it? I don't know why, but
> this question has been gnawing at me for awhile. I think it's because I
was
> at just the right age to see the dawn of arcade and electronic videogaming
> in the mid-70's and am curious to see how others in the hobby were also
> introduced.
My first time was at a place called Camp Sacramento--a camp near Echo Summit
on the way to Lake Tahoe, CA. We used to go there every summer. In the main
lodge, they had a stage and a screen where they would show old movies at
night. One summer, my Dad and I saw this odd-looking cabinet inside the
lodge. It had a television inside of it, with the image of two sets of
paddles and a ball bouncing back and forth. It wasn't Pong, but Super Pong
(doubles) if I remember correctly. We never saw anyone using it, and a
quarter seemed like a lot of money to waste (ha!), but we ended up trying it
anyway. For a 9 year-old kid who was stuck at a camp for a week with no
television, it was heaven!
I remember seeing a few cocktail table versions of Tank and Space Race in
restaurants after that. Not too long afterwards, Galaxy Games arcade opened
in the mall. It had a Space Wars, a Star Fire, Starhawk, and a bunch of
pins...including those fat Atari pins like Superman. The roller rink had
Sprint and Super Bug. The pizza place got Space Invaders and Tail Gunner
(replacing the old wall "light" games like skeet shooting). The mini-golf
course had Night Driver, Frogs, and Boot Hill. Soon, it seemed like arcade
games were everywhere!
Sadly enough, I have forgotten nearly everything I learned in high school
and college (and nearly everyone I met there) but I can still remember the
first time I played most of the classic videogames! I first played Donkey
Kong at the Scandia mini-golf, Q*Bert at Straw Hat pizza, Frogger and Joust
at the Game Room, Missile Command at the nearby 7-11, Asteroids at Lake
Bowl, and Centipede at Time Zone.
Good memories!
jaschultze
please.
Bruce Tomlin
Scarlet Otter <Secret...@SoftHome.net> wrote:
FWIW it means "respondez sez vous plais" or however you spell it in
French. BTW, ICBW. HTH, HAND. IHGUTPOAFW. (that last one separates
the _real_ usenetters from the posers)
PS: IANAL.
Robert Morgan
>the _real_ usenetters from the posers)
Now, I could get all of them except "IHGUTPOAFW," which interestingly only has
*one* hit on Google. IDGI. Guess I'm not a real usenetter. IMHO, I'd use
OTOH to replace BTW.
Scarlet Otter
<bruceNS+...@fanboy.net> wrote:
>
>FWIW it means "respondez sez vous plais" or however you spell it in
>French. BTW, ICBW. HTH, HAND. IHGUTPOAFW. (that last one separates
>the _real_ usenetters from the posers)
Well, I've been a real Usenetter since the early to mid 90s, and I've
never seen that last one. :) Still, another long one I was able to
instantly parse the very first time I saw it was ROFLMAOAPIMP. :p
>PS: IANAL.
First time seeing that one too... Does it mean I Am Not A Loser?
-- Otter
Geoff Voigt
Arizona, but my Dad says that when I was 3, I was playing the Pong
machine at the Shakey's Pizza Place he Managed in '76.
Geoff "Scramble, Battlezone, Asteroids
and Galaxian. Loved Safeway" Voigt
Geoff Voigt:irasc...@coldmail.com
Yet another Art Student(TM) also interested in
80's music-Classic Video Games-Anime-Techno Music-Coffee-US History
Tries to keep up the rec.games.video.classic FAQ
E-mail deliberatley and obviously munged
Russ Perry Jr
> Where was the first time you played a videogame (ie. grocery store,
> mall, arcade, bowling alley, etc.) and which game was it?
The first for me was Breakout (I think the real deal, but possibly
a clone) at a restaurant/pub. I'm not entirely sure how old I was,
or where this was, but I was with my uncle from the Antigo WI area,
and so it could have been up there, and probably somewhere between
1974 and 1976. He gave our family a Pong machine for Christmas that
year or the next as well, but it was before I ever saw the VCS/2600.
I'm thinking it was 1976, when I would have been 8.
--
//*================================================================++
|| Russ Perry Jr 2175 S Tonne Dr #114 Arlington Hts IL 60005 ||
|| 847-952-9729 slap...@enteract.com VIDEOGAME COLLECTOR! ||
++================================================================*//
John
"Eastboundanddown" <drsmi...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20030222022158...@mb-cj.aol.com...
> >
> >If I recall correctly, it means If I Recall Correctly. :D
> >
>
> Thank you, now what does RSVP stand for??? I really don't know?
reply, si vous plait, i.e. please reply.
Russ Perry Jr
> "Eastboundanddown" <drsmi...@aol.com> wrote:
>> Thank you, now what does RSVP stand for??? I really don't know?
> reply, si vous plait, i.e. please reply.
Technically speaking, isn't it "respondez si vous plait", or
something like that?
John
"Russ Perry Jr" <slap...@enteract.com> wrote in message
news:slapdash-3EF758...@news.rcn.com...
> "John" <ue...@DELETETHISunite.com.au> wrote:
> > "Eastboundanddown" <drsmi...@aol.com> wrote:
> >> Thank you, now what does RSVP stand for??? I really don't know?
>
> > reply, si vous plait, i.e. please reply.
>
> Technically speaking, isn't it "respondez si vous plait", or
> something like that?
Technically speaking, I don't care :)
SKY
>>mall, arcade, bowling alley, etc.) and which game was it?
Mike Gedeon <mgede...@aol.comSPAMENOT> wrote:
>STUNT CYCLE at the Neighborhood Rec Center. They made Tons of
>Quarters off those first B&W games there.
I think Stunt Cycle is the second-earliest game I clearly
remember (after Midway's Racer).
http://www.klov.com/S/Stunt_Cycle.html
http://arcadeflyers.com/index.php?page=flyerdb&subpage=flyer&id=850&image=1
The most vivid memory is of Dad playing the game while Mom,
my younger brother and I looked on, maybe in 1976 or 1977. He was
extremely good. If I remember correctly, he successfully cleared
18 buses. Mom seemed genuinely impressed, and I know I was. We
must have looked like one of those goofy flyer pictures. :)
Stunt Cycle was mentioned in two of the original replies in
this thread. More interestingly, fathers played a prominent role
in at least a half dozen of them. For example:
Aaron Schnuth <asch...@woh.rr.com> wrote:
>Asteroids in a bowling alley. My Dad held me up with one arm since
>I was too little to see the screen. He controlled the ship, and I
>pounded the hell out of the fire button. :) To top if off I also
>got my initials on the game too. I had to be about 3 or 4 at the
>time, and I've been addicted to games ever since.
Never underestimate the role of parental influence in spawning
lifelong pathological addictions. :)
Kurt
Rob Mitchell
in 1972.
Death Race, Indy 800 in the bowling alley in 1977.
Gunfight and Tornado Baseball in the arcade, Northgate Mall, 1977.
Stunt Cycle and Steeplechase in the arcade, Gatlinberg, TN in 1977.
Atari Football everywhere ..
I would kill to have each of these consoles in my home!
Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA
SS
news:xcadnQE_GrZ...@comcast.com...
> Where was the first time you played a videogame (ie. grocery store, mall,
> arcade, bowling alley, etc.) and which game was it?
Space Invaders at a bowling alley, what else?
Petteri Höglund
: Space Invaders at a bowling alley, what else?
Pac-Man.
___________________
Under normal, non-Microsoft circumstances, simply reading emails and
newsgroup messages can NOT possibly infect your computer with a virus.
I've Got A Loverly Bunch Of Coconuts
"Chris M." <chri...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:xcadnQE_GrZ...@comcast.com...
> Where was the first time you played a videogame (ie. grocery store, mall,
> this question has been gnawing at me for awhile. I think it's because I
was
> at just the right age to see the dawn of arcade and electronic videogaming
> in the mid-70's and am curious to see how others in the hobby were also
> introduced.
ASTEROIDS at the local arcade SPACE PORT. I was in 5th grade at the time,
which makes it about 1979 or 80. I'd say it was almost as important to me
at the time as Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. I was obsessed with it
and drew little Asteroid game scenarios in the margins of my school
notebooks -- along with the snowspeeders and Imperial Walkers.
I wanted an Atari system since the first time I saw the colorful port of
this game. Space Invaders would have been an excellent bonus.
Kirk Is
> On Sat, 22 Feb 2003 07:43:26 -0600, Bruce Tomlin
> <bruceNS+...@fanboy.net> wrote:
>>
>>FWIW it means "respondez sez vous plais" or however you spell it in
>>French. BTW, ICBW. HTH, HAND. IHGUTPOAFW. (that last one separates
>>the _real_ usenetters from the posers)
What's ICBW? Oh, found it: I could be wrong.
Heh, haven't seen that one much, (though I like it's message),
I wonder why not? ;-)
The IHGUTPOAFW IS a variant of, I think YHGMTPOAFW -(I<-Y,U<-M)
and you can do a google search on that.
> Well, I've been a real Usenetter since the early to mid 90s, and I've
> never seen that last one. :) Still, another long one I was able to
> instantly parse the very first time I saw it was ROFLMAOAPIMP. :p
Heh, Google on that and you google asks:
Did you mean: ROFLMAOPMP
which makes sense; the first version omits the "the", so it might make
sense to remove the "and" and "in"
>>PS: IANAL.
> First time seeing that one too... Does it mean I Am Not A Loser?
Lawyer. A disclaimer when you're offering something that might be
construed as some kind of "legal advice", you don't want to be held
legally responsible for the consequences of that advice.
--
QUOTEBLOG: http://kisrael.com SKEPTIC MORTALITY: http://kisrael.com/mortal
DEFEAT "For every winner, there are dozens of losers.
Odds are you're one of them." --Demotivators, http://despair.com
Kirk Is
at some regional airport lounge.
Years later, I looked back and was smarter enough but close enough in time
to remember enough details to realize I had probably merrily been playing
through the attract mode once the game was over. Typical kid mistake.