Nostalgia photos: an arcade from the 80s

[Cold Blooded]

From someone else's Flickr album (http://www.flickr.com/photos/petromyzon/sets/553223/), not my photos.

[GregB]

Damn... major nostalgia.

[MauxFaux]

Awesome link. Made me want to watch Dawn of the Living Dead again as an added bonus.

[Lynxara]

God, I miss arcades like that.

[Fugitive]

I miss the old Fantasyland arcade at West Edmonton Mall. Unlike these photos it was a dim and dingy place, but it was freaking *huge* and seemed to have every game ever made (as far as a young kid would know, anyways). It was way too far away though, so I usually had to settle for the little place at the local mall.

[DeepT]

If I was rich, I might design a few rooms in a house to look like that.

[Enduro_Man]

I can almost smell the carpet.

Here's the home arcade of some guy in Oregon. (http://www.hammerco.com/arcade/arcade.htm)

[shift6]

http://www.peterhirschberg.com/arcade/gameroom.htm

Also: http://www.caextreme.org/ is only two months away. I'm not missing it again dammit.

[Jamie Madigan]

Wow, that takes me back. I practically LIVED in the Games People Play and Aladin's arcades near my house in Tulsa when I was growing up. I just hung out there with my friends and got to know the guys working there, who in retrospect were teenage losers but who at the time I thought were incredibly cool. They used to pay me in tokens to do little odd jobs, including one time when they paid me to help them doctor some reports they were going to give the regional manager. I think, I was just a kid and they were offering like five bucks worth of tokens. That was a fortune!

[Enduro_Man]

I miss the old Fantasyland arcade at West Edmonton Mall.

Hey, I went over there in my one and only visit to Edmonton near the end of the 80s! After a couple of days at that mall, I was bored to pieces and spent my evenings on the Final Lap machines.

That arcade was big, but it couldn't hold a candle to UBC's SUB arcade, which was hitting its prime around that time. RIP.

[Jeremy Johnsen]

Arcades really suck now. They're full of games designed to spit out tickets you can redeem for crap.

[Slainte Mhath]

Oh hell yes, that brings back the memories. My friends and I used to live at TimeOut and Alladin's Castle when we were pre/early teens (1982-86 or so). I still have some Alladin's Castle tokens floating around the house that the kids play with sometimes.

I love the picture of the "Maneater" shark shaped cabinet and the TRON tourney poster. I used to love the TRON games. I can still remember being like 12 and playing all day on Donkey Kong, Tempest, Theif, Track and Field and Bosconian, then still having a few quarters left over to buy baseball cards with (when they were 25 cents for a pack of 15 cards). Awesome.

[asspennies]

Arcades really suck now. They're full of games designed to spit out tickets you can redeem for crap.

It could be worse. In Japan, they have "metal" games, essentially the coin games that spit out tickets in the states, but instead they just spit out more coins. And here's the rub - you can't exchange the coins for anything. Not toys, not cash, nothing. You just get more coins, if you're good at them.

[Aszurom]

http://timeouttunnel.com/

[Moore]

some of these would make swanky tattoos.

[fuzzyslug]

Holy crap. I think that cowboy (http://www.flickr.com/photos/petromyzon/24167880/in/set-553223/) was in every arcade I entered in the 80's.

[Alan Dunkin]

Bah the guy's a roper, a fake cowboy.

--- Alan

[Supertanker]

Being on the west coast I never saw that particular chain, but it brings back a lot of arcade memories anyway.

Don't forget to watch Arcade '84 if you have never seen it:
http://www.cinemarcade.com/arcade84.html

[Igor Muravyev]

It could be worse. In Japan, they have "metal" games, essentially the coin games that spit out tickets in the states, but instead they just spit out more coins. And here's the rub - you can't exchange the coins for anything. Not toys, not cash, nothing. You just get more coins, if you're good at them.

Aren't there shady places that you can exchange these at for cash as a way to get around the gambling laws?

[Clay]

Wired has an article about Soviet-era arcade games that are being rebuilt:
http://www.wired.com/gaming/hardware/news/2007/06/soviet_games

[Aszurom]

Dance Dance Russian Revolution is not in the list. WTF?

[Supertanker]

Dance Dance Russian Revolution is not in the list. WTF?

I remember that one, it was really tough because you were only allowed to step on the white squares. And the dissident ones.

[z22]

Great memories. I would save every penny from my paper route to spend all night Friday and all day Saturday in my local arcade (Putt Putt). My claim to fame was being able to play Robotron endlessly (until they kicked me out at the evening Adults only deadline). :|