The penny #arcade was dead.

The game fad of the first decade of the 20th century faded and the coin-op industry retracted.

In 1931, a reinvention of the arcade emerged and caught the new wave of pinball.

This is the story of Chester-Pollard and the Sportlands.

Ah yes, so this Japanese dude goes into a place like this and what does he do? Reviews the Coke vending machine.

I was once bored enough so I paid this place, Silverball planet, a visit in Osaka.

https://youtu.be/yp45sV92JPw?&t=418

Revenge from Mars (Bally, 1999) attraction mode was just so damn mesmerising when I first saw the game back in '99. The image kind of floats over the playfield, but you can still see through it.

Technically the game has a special (and very expensive) semi-mirrored glass and a CRT hanging above the playfield, with a similar trick Asteroid Deluxe had the pretty background image added.

The game integrates the CRT pretty well, there's virtual targets the game projects over existing playfield parts and uses them to register hits. This way you can see a martian on the playfield and hit them with the ball, even when in real life the ball hit the standup target behind the projection.

But as Marge Simpson would say, I just think it's neat.

Trip to Funspot today! I definitely feel lucky being an hour away from the largest arcade in the world!

Hey, it works! No more reaching under the control panel when switching between 4-way games like Pac-Man, and 8-way games like The Simpsons!

Drilled 4 new mounting holes under the control panel to replace my old OMNI2 (Sanwa JLW) joystick with a new Sanwa JLF. Replaced the "Select" button I had mapped to Enter (and never used) with the 4-way / 8-way toggle duo-button. Rearranged some wiring... And it's good to go!

Highly recommend this bad boy!

https://thunderstickstudio.com/products/tos-grs-switchable-4-to-8-way-restrictor-1

Now to get it all scripted up so it automatically switches modes when launching the game. (Will be a little extra effort, because their Linux support software assumes Debian/Retropie, and I'm on Arch/Manjaro).

Also, now that I have one LED button, am I going to be a lunatic and light this whole thing up now? (maybe just the 4 admin buttons)

A few more impressions from the #BlastGalaxy #arcade in #Amsterdam.
#RetroGaming #Sega #Darius

Here's Hopeakuula Arcade's main room. Located in Kouvola, Finland, this hobbyist run, not for profit arcade has been welcoming the pinball-curious folks since 2011.

Mostly run by yours truly and my partner in life and crime, @quester, we aim to keep pinball alive for the next generations of players. The collection has over 35 games, ranging from 70s electromechanicals to the latest 2020 ones.

Believe it or not these things were for sale in Spain during the 80s. At that time everything was new, possible, amazing,...
As a kid think about having an arcade like machine in your bedroom connected to your computer or console. It was also a computer desk. I've never met anyone with one of these but it looked, and still looks, cool

Hello people! I've been on the Fediverse for couple of years now, so here's my re-#introduction

I'm Ari, better known by my tag APZ and this is my #pinball repair, #arcade and #retrogaming account. I mostly post about playing and repairing pinball machines, but I also work on #retrocomputing with all the classics.

An IT guy by day, I moonlight as a pinball arcade owner here in #finland with my partner @quester. This is purely a hobby of mine, I do this to keep my sanity and to keep pinball alive for the next generations of players. At the moment I own a bit over 30 pinball machines from 70s to 2020s.

A lot of what I do involves #electronics, #CAD for now obsolete parts and #3dprinting and tabletop #cnc to recreate them.

I love to #travel, usually to meet like-minded arcade collectors. I have a strong preference to #repair stuff instead of throwing it away. I'm a #linux user since mid-90s, having been part of #foss movement most of my life. I also edit arcade related videos.

If you really must know, I'm like the Bob Kane of getting the pinball stuck where it was never meant to go...

Getting obsessed with Arkanoid. First time playing it with the paddle controller. So much better than controllers/joysticks. Currently can make it to level 3! #Arkanoid #Arcade #Gaming

So you replace a fuse with an iron nail, which causes a transistor to run so hot it burns a hole in the PCB. What do you do? Apparently some fine repair tech came to this problem and the apparent solution was to jumper over the now totally burned traces and then add wires and hang the now missing transistor from those. Because why not?

This is a WhiteStar pinball platform driver board I got for spares long ago, but I think it's glorious in all of its tech goreness.

Under Fire (1994)
By Taito
[Gifs: https://imgur.com/a/under-fire-1994-taito-Z2lvUPK ]
[Sources: https://youtu.be/G1Kl1qTwJRQ, https://youtu.be/2t8M4Aghihk ]
#RetroGaming #Arcade #DinoArcadeGifs

Here's the Sunday ball mystery. In the center we have a pinball ball in rather rough shape. But what are the two others? #pinball #arcade #mystery

Crude Buster (1990)
By Data East
[Gifs: https://imgur.com/a/crude-buster-1990-data-east-qMcCwud ]
[Source: https://youtu.be/gPBuAg38slc, https://youtu.be/WSAj0yhrPA8 ]
#RetroGaming #Arcade #DinoArcadeGifs

We really enjoyed the game museum in Tampere. #tampere #museum #pelimuseo #arcade

We're visiting the museum of games in Tampere. In addition to a lot of board games, home computers, consoles and other stuff, they had an arcade section with couple of pins and video games. #arcade #pinball #museum #finland #tampere