Just wondering if any of you remember your first real arcade "experience"?  Being somewhat new here I thought I would share mine.

The year - 1976 - odd how I can remember this vividly but cannot remember where i left my keys 5 minutes ago.  Anyway, my older brother was looking after me one day, I was 8 years old and told me there was a new game he wanted to check out.  We lived is a small town in New Jersey and he took me down to the main street where we went into a record store, one of those mom and pop type stores circa 76 - 8 track tapes, vinyl, place smelled like pot, you get the idea.  We go in and go to the back of the store where there is a dark staircase and we start to go down, the wood creaks as you step on it, we descend into the dark basement - pretty scary for an 8 year old.  It's dank and smells like wet mahogony.  We get to the bottom and turn a corner where there is a hallway - copper pipes hang off the ceiling and one bare lightbulb lights the hall.
Towards the end of the hallway there is a lighted doorway with smoke billowing out of it...and sounds (chimes).
We get to the door and inside there are about 8 or 9 pinball machines all in one long row with a bunch of 12 year olds gathered around one machine, most of them smoking.   My brother tells me one just arrived and is brand new - Captain Fantastic.  I'd never heard of Elton John or Tommy so it meant nothing to me but obviously it was the coolest thing to these guys. Being the youngest kid I was not allowed anywhere near it.  The newer four player games - I remember Capt Fantastic, Wizard (because of those crazy magic flags) and Royal Flush were reserved for the older kids.  My brother gave me a few quarters and sent me down to the end of the room where there were 3 or 4 Gottlieb wedgeheads.  El Dorado and Gridiron were the only two I remember.  A while later a few of the older kids must have left because my brother let me come down and play Wizard with him and I thought that was amazing.
I wanted to go back but the place got shut down soon after that...so I never got to play on that new Captain Fantastic.
Although a bit creepy, it was kind of cool that this was the pinball version of a prohibition era speakeasy, pinball was frowned upon by many adults so there were probably a lot of backroom/basement types of shady arcades.  I think pinball was legalized in New York that same year.

Not sure if pinball was legit in Canada in the mid 70's - anyone from that era remember a place like that?

jayd

My first arcade experience was at the corner convenience store, they had two arcades. The only I remember playing a lot was Roadblaster...  As a teenager, Simplex was the arcade in Sherbrooke (still open) they had many game and some on big screen too. Probably played first pin there but only remember Banzai Run because of the backglass.

My first pinball encounter was in 1972, I was 6.

It was an old EM (...can't remember which one, but it had a cowboy theme ),
located at a campsite in Maine where we'd go to every summer.
10c per game or 3 games for 25cents.


Then, the next big leap came in early 1980
when I first saw Firepower at the Cape Canaveral Space Centre in Florida.
It was the first time I'd ever seen an SS machine and the sound effects blew my away.
I remember waiting over an hour  (...much to my parents dismay)
to play a 2 minute game.  That memory is still clear as day...

They also had an Atari Lunar Lander game (...how themactic... ! )
and I was so awed by that that I wrote my own version of it
on my C-64 two years later in PURE HEX code !
(...I had every PEEK and POKE mapped out on grid paper
and programmed the thing in 6802 assembler code.  I was all of 16.
I'm still proud of that feat today !  )

But my first "real" arcade Experience was that summer of 1980,
again in Maine,  on the York Beach Boardwalk where the Fun-O-Rama arcade ruled.
Rows and rows of 10c skee ball, pinballs machines and the latest video games.
God those were good times !

I don't really remember Arcades being big in Canada (...not for me anyways ),
until late 1980, early 1981,  by the summer of '81, we had one at every street corner !

....sigh....  I miss those days  !



Steph

My Dad used to go downtown to all the electronic surplus places that used to be on Yonge St. and Queen St. in Toronto. I was probably about ten when he started to take me down with him on Saturdays. After going through boxes and boxes of tubes and other "state of the art" electronics lying around in disarray in these dusty old buildings we would go over to the arcades at Yonge and Girard.

As for games there were so many I can't really say what the first one was.

It was all Pinball. Video games didn't exist. There were two rows of pins the length of the unit which is still there, Funland on Yonge St. (pretty deep unit). There used to be two other locations in the same area. One that was across the street downstairs (kind of cool like a pin/vid dungeon, mind you my recollection is this openned later during the vid craze when you couldn't have enough of a good thing.) and the other further up Yonge on the west side.

First vid I remember was Computer Space. Again my Dad took me to some electronics show in T.O. and here was this thing sitting there on display.

Quoted from necro_nemesis

.

It was all Pinball. Video games didn't exist. There were two rows of pins the length of the unit which is still there, Funland on Yonge St. (pretty deep unit). There used to be two other locations in the same area. One that was across the street downstairs (kind of cool like a pin dungeon) and the other further up Yonge on the west side.

The one across the street was the PINBALL SPOT (downstairs under the music world) .. there was also one to the south of that pretty much at the corner of Yonge and Dundas. We used to go down and each buy a roll of quarters and spend the entire day (or at least that's what it felt like) going from one arcade to the next .. later we found a few of the smaller arcades located farther north on Yonge (Wellesy and Bloor areas).

Quoted from SquidVicious

The one across the street was the PINBALL SPOT (downstairs under the music world) .. there was also one to the south of that pretty much at the corner of Yonge and Dundas. We used to go down and each buy a roll of quarters and spend the entire day (or at least that's what it felt like) going from one arcade to the next .. later we found a few of the smaller arcades located farther north on Yonge (Wellesy and Bloor areas).

In thinking about it the one across the street from what I remember was more vid, which would have put it there in the early 80's. I think I remember a room on the right that was pin, but not sure.

Quoted from necro_nemesis

In thinking about it the one across the street from what I remember was more vid, which would have put it there in the early 80's. I think I remember a room on the right that was pin, but not sure.

That's about right the Pinball Spot had Pinball on the right and Vid on the left. During it's last days I was at Ryerson and would wander in but by then mid/late 80's it was mostly Vid .. I can't remember the name of the place at Yonge and Dundas it was more like Funland in that it was fairly narrow but very deep .. maybe something like Fun N Games but that is just a guess.

I also remember the 'private' arcade at Jane and Wilson .. you were required to buy a membership (something like $5 and then you had a card that you had to show to get in) but I can't remember the name of that one either

I think it was 1979, a laundromat in Portland Maine across the street from my dad's apartment got a Space Invaders video game. After that it seemed that video games and SS pins were all over the place - every laundry, bar, pizza joint, plus arcades. Both in Portland where I spent the summers, and in Ottawa where I went to high school.

For a while I worked in a tobacco shop in Portland, they had one pin on location, rotated out every couple of months. I always preferred these one-game locations where the sounds could be clearly heard vs. the noisy arcade environment. Usually the game settings were friendlier too.

I wrote my first Commodore game in Basic, it was a scrolling shooter. I don't remember the model but it was a business computer, well before the C64 came out.

My very first pinball experience was at O'Connor Bowl in East York. I was 8 or 9 years of age and belonged to a youth league that played every Saturday morning. They always had 2-3 pins tucked under the stairwell and I would always spend whatever money I had on those games after bowling. I vividly remember playing Spirit of 76, Buccaneer, and Royal Flush.

Later on, I discovered my very first real arcade at Eglinton Square around 1978. It was this plain-looking, barely-flourescent-lit store space in one of the dark, less travelled corners of the mall. I forget the name of it but it was mostly pins and a few vids. Playboy, KISS, and Mata Hari come to mind. Of course, that changed over the next few years and most of the pins made way for videos, but I remember getting my first taste of Firepower and Black Knight there in between playing Asteroids and Galaxian.

After the early 80's, I lost touch (and interest) in pinball until I discovered an arcade in a strip plaza around Eglinton & Brimley (Star Amusements, I think). I worked close by, so I would go there on my lunch hour with a few co-workers. It was there I discovered T2 and I was hooked again!

Later on, I forgot about pinball completely until 2000 when I dropped by a friend of mine's indie music store and he had a Rolling Stones set up. I played a few games and really enjoyed it. For some reason though, it never crossed my mind until that point that you could actually "own" a pinball machine and have it at home!

So, I did some snooping around on the net and one of the things I found was the Microsoft Pinball Arcade for PC. I downloaded it, opened it up and, lo and behold, there was my old friend Spirit of 76! It was the first real pin I bought and the rest is history

Dave
http://usergallery.myhomegameroom.com/gallery/dmp65

Quoted from SquidVicious

That's about right the Pinball Spot had Pinball on the right and Vid on the left. During it's last days I was at Ryerson and would wander in but by then mid/late 80's it was mostly Vid .. I can't remember the name of the place at Yonge and Dundas it was more like Funland in that it was fairly narrow but very deep .. maybe something like Fun N Games but that is just a guess.

I also remember the 'private' arcade at Jane and Wilson .. you were required to buy a membership (something like $5 and then you had a card that you had to show to get in) but I can't remember the name of that one either

Actually just confirmed the place at Yonge and Dundas was Gameland

confirmed in a little article

http://linguafresca.com/portfolio/pinball.html

that has a few quotes from TOPL members

First experience was around 8 - 10 years old (early 70's) at my Uncles' showroom in Vancouver J.E. Weatherhead Enterprises, a lot like Startburst.  Half a day many Saturday's, all free play (mostly we had to flick the switches inside the coin door - the "free play" concept wasn't really developed yet, all the newest games when they came in.  I remember our favourite coin op (later on) was a karate board that had a soft plastic front that lit up various spots that you were supposed to kick and punch.  Later I got a Swing Along for my birthday so the arcade was at my house.  Video arcades (in Vancouver) seemed to thrive after I wasn't really interested any more (I was stuck on programming my own games in micro computers and mainframes).

I don't remember dropping a lot of quarters, maybe sometimes at the movies when they had mini arcades, and the PNE (but mostly I played Skee Ball and Pokerino).  I did spend a number of summers at seaside resorts in England and Wales, so I developed a taste for coinop, penny arcades, coin pushers and slot / fruit machines very early on.

I love these types of threads.  I guess there are several different answers to the ?first arcade? question.  I?ll also expand on the entire ?arcade era? of the early 80?s, for some reason they feel like one unique experience:

First arcade could be seen as the travelling arcade that was part of the Super Ex (was it called ?Central Canada Exhibition back then?).  Every year, I just couldn?t wait to attend the Ex, wasn?t much into the rides but my favourite two things was: The Tiny Tom donuts (cinnamon of course, shake the bag!) and their arcade.  It?s getting foggy with age, but I can still remember playing one of those pitch/bat arcade games, some older vintage pins (all reels of course, this was back in the early to mid 70?s) and a few of the first arcade games (in the late 70?s) such as the 2 player driving games, the submarine game with the scope controller, etc.  I may have played ?Night Rider? or whatever that racing game is called where all you see is a dark road but with the little white posts going buy.  Always looked forward to the Ex?s visit.

I guess my first visit to where there were dedicated pins/arcade machine was ?La Canteen? in Gatineau, on Notre-Dame street not far from where I lived. I remember playing an Eight Ball there, loved it to death!  I think they had 3 pins and a couple of pool tables.

My first real regular visit to arcades occurred in the early 80?s, during the arcade peak.  Regular pitstops where:

-     First real dedicated arcade was in Aylmer at the mall that?s right beside the Canadian Tire.  Played Atari Football there (it was so unique!), played lots of pins too!
-     A few years later, I started to work at the Burger King on Dalhousie and George.  That?s when there was an explosion of arcades, all within walking distance of each other.  The first I think I visited was the Rideau Arcade (above the old Rideau theatre).  That?s where I played Hercules, the largest pin ever.
-     Another Rideau Arcade (Rideau st. below the Hayloft), quite a large arcade and I have distinct memories of it and this is where I played the most pinball machines).  Upon entering the front door, the entire left side (except right at the end) were pins after pins. The second or third pin on the left was my fav: Superman, I seem to recall a Black Hole not far from it, followed by a Firepower and a Flash.  Right across from Superman on the right side was a Centipede vid.  Around the corner to the right was a Vanguard vid which I always found very unique.  On the far right wall was a Galaxian and a Gorf sitting side by side and maybe a year later they had a Space Harrier sitting right next to them.  The far wall facing the front door had the attendant?s booth on the right side, and on the left was a Frogger and a ms. Pacman beside each other and maybe an Amidar.  There were various vids in the middle (two rows of 5?) but can?t remember these.  At some point, I think I played Hang-on there (bike version) and Outrun (stand up version).
-     The Games Room (Rideau St. Beside Nates).  I seem to remember a few sit down cockpits there, some pins along the right wall.  The thing I remember playing the most there was a huge air-hockey, no recollection of any specific pins/vids.
-     King Arthur?s Court:  Located on the corner of Rideau Street and Dalhousie, I think it was right beside the old Rideau Theatre.  I think it showed up after the Rideau Theatre (and it?s arcade upstairs) disappeared.  It was a cool little arcade, I really liked it. I think I put in a lot of quarters on Tapper and Time Pilot there, as well as Donkey Kong or I think they may have had a Crazy Kong, I seem to remember it wasn?t the standard Kong cab.
-     There was another Rideau arcade that didn?t last too long; it was located on the corner of Rideau and Sussex (I think). I don?t remember any particular machines there, I only went twice.  The last time I went there, the attendant was making out with his girlfriend on top of a pin.  No, I?m not kidding.
-     There was another arcade, don?t remember the name, it could have been ?Rideau? (eheh) but it was located on Bank Street not far from Somerset I think. Anyway, it was this little out-of-the-way arcade, but I remember playing two vids there:  Front Line and Star Trek, which had me hooked so bad, I?d travel extra long distances just to play it.  I think they had 2 pins in the back as the back area was wider but can?t recall playing any.  
-     There was a Games Room located on bank not far from this little arcade, but although I visited once or twice, nothing sticks in my memory of it except for the various pool tables.
-     Finally, we have the arcade I spent the most $$$ in. I?m not sure if it was a ?The Games Room? or ?Rideau Arcade?. It was located on Dalhousie.  When it was closed down, I think it was turned into a Book Market (not sure if that?s still there) though that may have been next door.  What an arcade it was.  This was I guess nearing the mid-eighties, so some newer pins/vids were there.  That?s where I played Marble Madness, Gauntlet and a bunch of the newer vids there.  This arcade, along with the one beside ?Nates?, was one of the last to stick around before they all disappeared.  

As lame as this sounds, there are times when I ask myself: ?If I had a time machine, what would I visit?  The construction of the pyramids?  Check out of Jesus really did those miracles? See the Dinosaurs?  Check out the old arcades and bring a camcorder along??

One of my last visits to an arcade was the late eighties/early nineties when I visited Niagara Falls. In the Skylon Tower, they had an arcade on the lower floor, where they had a few of the large sit-down cabs such as Galaxy Force II and a few others (Rad Mobile was one of them).  The last time I?ve stepped in an arcade was a few years ago; I think it?s called ?The Wizard??  Anyway, I?d go there every now and then with my daughters, but I wouldn?t be playing any vids, and let?s not talk about pinball, they didn?t have any.  It was just ?whack the mole? type of games.  Haven?t stepped in there since someone was killed in the parking lot several years ago?

Sorry for being so lengthy...

Quoted from The Loafer

-     There was another arcade, don?t remember the name,  it was located on Bank Street not far from Somerset I think.

That arcade was called "Wizards" .
Long and narrow, with games along both walls.

There was another "Wizards" in my end of town,
at that Shoppers City East Mall.

Quoted from The Loafer

-     There was a Games Room located on bank not far from this little arcade, but although I visited once or twice, nothing sticks in my memory of it except for the various pool tables.

Went there alot,  had a Robotron that no-one ever played.
Would go there with 50 cents and play for 2 hrs !!  


There were also alot of "Mister Arcades".
The one at the Corner of St-Laurent and Montreal Rd. is now a Mattress Mart !   sigh....
That's where I first saw a head-to-head Joust Pin...

...God, I feel like I'm 16 again reading this thread !



Steph

Quoted from SquidVicious

I also remember the 'private' arcade at Jane and Wilson .. you were required to buy a membership (something like $5 and then you had a card that you had to show to get in) but I can't remember the name of that one either

Ok at Jane and Wilson there was the North York Sheridan Mall. Downstairs there was a movie theater and on the left there was an arcade.

They had a Highspeed in there.

Vids I remember.

Defender
Tempest
Spy Hunter
Gorf
Crystal Castles
Quix
Galaga
Some driving game that had a projected image, EM big thing. When you hit a car a big red fireball was projected on the screen.

a bunch more that I have forgotten.

Before that mall existed there was a pool hall/bowling alley. The middle of that Mall was actually a street and in that narrow street there was the bowling alley. I used to call it  "Billards Bowling" when I was little and get my Dad to take me in to play the gun game. I thought Billards was the name of the place because I never heard of "billiards" before.

That probably predates my pinball experience actually. I am certain it was this game in fact. Awhile back I was looking for one. Still am.

Quoted from necro_nemesis

I am certain it was this game in fact. Awhile back I was looking for one. Still am.

I love this quote on the flyer :

" Compact  73 x 33 x 31.5 "   !!!

I'd hate to see the full-size !  




Steph

Most guys into collecting stuff like this like the nostalgia.

Crap if I had some room I would buy this. It's not 1950's it's a 1968 and I remember this one too.

Anybody want to store stuff for me??


http://toronto.kijiji.ca/c-buy.....me-W0QQAdIdZ37544091

Quoted from The Loafer

... and a few of the first arcade games (in the late 70?s) such as the 2 player driving games, the submarine game with the scope controller, etc.  I may have played ?Night Rider? or whatever that racing game is called where all you see is a dark road but with the little white posts going buy.

Sea Wolf and Night Driver or 280 ZZZAP...  

There ya go, that's the names of them all right!

Well, my first official encounter with an arcade game was when I was almost 5... I still remember it, albeit vaguely. 1978... My mom took me to a shopping mall in Laval (Centre 2000... demolished LONG ago...) and there was an arcade in the mall. My encounter was brief, but I was completely mesmerized by a driving game... to this day, I cannot identify it (mind you, I didn't look hard...) but it was almost like a Chicago Coin Speedway (projecctor game with an 8-track sound...) but it was a sit-down. My mom gave me a quarter and I tried it. Of course I lasted but a few seconds but I got hooked.

2 years later, my parents bought a camping trailer and set it up in a campground which had a clubhouse with a few games... I still remember them:

Wizard of Wor cocktail
Flash Gordon pin
Lectronamo pin
Kiss pin
Silverball Mania pin
Big Game pin
Space Zap cocktail
Targ cocktail
Battlezone upright
Defender upright
Polaris upright

And the drive-in theater beside it always had 2 games... that summer, they had a Nitro ground Shaker pin, and a... DEATH RACE VID!!!! I still remember playing it! They had it on site for 3 years!!! Beautiful game, and always a crowd around it. It broke down after a while and never came back.

I remember going to Atlantic City (78 or 79?) and a new arcade had opened on the boardwalk near the amusement pier.  It was a very large place and when you wallked through the front door there were four long rows of games.  The cool thing was the first two rows (over 20 games per row) were all Bally solid state pins - no EM's, no Williams, Stern or Gottlieb - just Bally's as far as the eye could see.  I think there were 4 or 5 Eight Balls right by the front door.

We went back the following summer and I couldn't wait to go visit this arcade (there were several others on the boardwalk but this one was the best).  I walk in the door and the entire first row had been replaced by Pac-Man machines.  Not only that but I think every store on the boardwalk had a Pac-Man or Galaxian in it.

Years later (1999 I think), I was in Atlantic City on business and I actually met the guy who managed that arcade 20 years ago.  We got to talking and he told me they had bought 24 brand new Pac-Man machines at $1100 each.  The first summer they were in the arcade, every one of them made $200-250 per week.  Since they owned the location they didn't have to split and the games were paid off in a little over 1 month.  He said by the time most were replaced they had rolled over 100,000 on the coin meter.
Not a bad return:
Pac-Man cost $1100
Earnings:  100,000 x 0.25 = $25,000
I guess that is why they called it the golden age.

That's 25k per machine?  Holy cow, that's a lot of dough, $600,000 from an investment of $26,400!!!