A reader describes how his love for 80s arcade coin-ops led him to become a collector and get deeply involved in the UK fan scene. It all started at the seaside, either Llandudno or Weymouth, when his father took him to arcades. The first two video games he remembers playing were Seawolf and Boot Hill. In Seawolf, players looked through a submarine periscope to shoot torpedoes at ships, while Boot Hill was a two-player cowboy duel. Both were timed games, offering about a minute for 10p.
The Space Invaders Obsession
In 1978, Taito's Space Invaders was released. The reader was blown away by the game, which featured you against the machine, stopping aliens from landing on Earth. The amazing graphics and sounds made it a worldwide hit. He became obsessed, spending all his school dinner money on it and other games appearing in chip shops, pubs, and cafes. He would cycle or take buses to nearby towns to find the latest games. Family holidays in Great Yarmouth became his favourite week, as he trawled seafront arcades for new machines like Pac-Man, Missile Command, and Battlezone in 1980, followed by Gorf, Tempest, and Defender in 1981, and Robotron, Donkey Kong, and Pole Position in 1982.
First Machine Purchase
After leaving school in 1984, he worked in a computer games shop and then a video rental store. His boss offered him a cocktail arcade machine from a hotel bar for £30, which turned out to be a poor Galaxian clone named Defend The Terra Attack On The Red UFO. He sold it for £40. Over the next two decades, he owned many home computers and consoles but grew nostalgic for golden age arcades.
Building a Collection
Around 15 years ago, he found a cocktail Phoenix machine on eBay for £154, still in use at a Chinese takeaway. He bought it and it worked perfectly. He continued checking eBay and bought an Alca Bomber, a bootleg of Scramble, for £250, his first upright machine. It ran a 60-in-1 multi-game PCB, which emulated 60 arcade games but with some imperfections. He joined the UKVAC (UK Video Arcade Collectors) website to connect with other collectors, avoid eBay fees, and find repair advice. He bought a faulty original Taito Space Invaders for £260, got it repaired for £150, and it is now worth around £1,200.
Expanding the Collection
He acquired a Cosmic Guerilla cocktail table for £280, which later stopped working. After his grandmother passed away, he bought an Atari Star Wars machine, one of his favourites, which has cost a fortune to maintain over 10 years. He also bought an Invaders Revenge upgrade kit, which added new alien attack patterns and sound effects. During journeys, machines often develop faults; his Invaders Revenge stopped working after delivery. He fell in love with Asteroids at Arcade Club in Bury and bought one, which required PCB repairs costing around £15. He added a Pac-Man cabaret, which worked perfectly except for a joystick issue. An Atari Tempest upright was imported from the US, and he bought a Gorf as well, both developing faults over time. He bought a Williams Defender, his favourite game, which died within hours. He imported a Jrok multi-Williams FPGA board from the US for around £400 to replace the unreliable PCB, but installation took five years until a UKVAC member helped.
Trade and Modifications
He traded his non-working Cosmic Guerilla cocktail for a working The Invaders cocktail from a collector who also installed the Jrok in his Defender. The collector rewired the machine and installed a new power supply. Some UKVAC members can modify games, adding high score tables or freeplay options. The reader installed a multi-game PCB for Space Invaders himself, allowing it to play about 10 variants including Lunar Rescue and Invaders Revenge. He now has 11 arcade machines and no space for more, but recently bought a Sega Astro Blaster cabaret that fits in his hall. He still wants games like Ladybug, Bomb Jack, Moon Cresta, Mr. Do!, Zaxxon, Tron, and Paperboy, though the latter two cost £3,000–£4,000 each.
The UK Fan Scene
He has made friends with world record scorers on Defender and Star Wars, a guy from the film The King of Kong, and retro arcade managers. He met Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar, creators of Defender and Robotron, and chatted with Jeff Minter about his machines. He recommends visiting retro arcades like Arcade Club Bury, which charges around £18 for free play on over 400 machines, or other venues like NQ64 and The Retro Realm. Annual events like Play Blackpool also offer opportunities. As the title screen on Moon Cresta says, 'You Can Get a Lot of Fun and Thrill!'
