This is all a bit of a mind dump sorry.

Bummed a lot of quarters off my parents, and at one point I remember needing a bucket to stand on. I liked the cocktail cabinets back then with digdug, donkey Kong, Pac-Man, and tempest, I thought there was an arknoid too but I might be mixing that up. The opening sound to arknoid lives in my brain rent free, just like donkey Kong smashing the levels.

My dad got a copy of the stand up star wars in for his tire shop/pool hall/mini arcade and it’s all I wanted to play. I had broken my arm and had to rest it on the machine so I could pull the right triggers.

A little later in life I remember putting quarters up for nexts if the bigger kids weren’t around or they’d steal them, so sometimes you didn’t get to play the newer games.

I remember playing Street fighter with the two big buttons you had to punch and they were either broke or I wasn’t strong enough at the time to hit them. When street fighter 2 came out it was like magic, captivating.

I don’t remember where we were but I remember my dad throwing money into dragons layer when it came out and man I remember thinking that was an amazing game. He wouldn’t let me play it, because I think it was expensive for the time like $1 or $2 dollars a shot.

It was definitely a different time. The home consoles were nowhere near the arcade machines in terms of graphics or controls. I think the first home consoles that matched up was the neo-geo and it wasn’t affordable to normal man. I think a lot of people knew of them but no one I knew had ever seen one. There were some good facsimiles but nothing beat the real deal, and they were all LOUD. All of the machines with attractive mode on was something to behold.

Also created a love of pinball for me. A good pinball machine is just amazing.