Hi Guys,

The memories always seem to flood my midn when I'm mowin; the lawn, and today I recalled the first videogame coin-op, or otherwise, that I ever encountered...

I was a young child, and this was before the arcades really existed. Sure, there were pinball halls and billiard rooms, but no establishments of videogames yet. At this time, games would soon pop up in public places such as grocery stores, K-Mart entryways, and such.

For me, a bit earlier. I walked into a local Dairy Queen with my older brother and a pocket full of change to obtain a Mr. Misty refreshment. Sure enough there was a new unfamilar box sitting smack-dab in the middle of the restaurant. It had giant greenish monsters on the side and it immediately drew my attention and it made a loud repeating thumping noise. People were gathered around it, and it was all really fascinating. It turned out to be the now classic game of Space Invaders, and at the time, it was the coolest thing ever!

Needless to say, we did NOT buy any Dilly Bars or Mr. Misty concessions that evening, and all our change became the property of the Space Invaders Machine.

Okay, who's next?

Michael Thomasson

I've been trying to think of my first coin-op, and the only one that's coming to mind is Pac-Man. I started playing so young I don't know if that's even 100% true, but I have a feeling it is. Because I know I've always been looking at that yellow dot and ghost-covered cab.

I don't think I'm alone when I mention Super Mario Brothers/Excitebike at the local Pizza Hut. (Playchoices were VERY rare back then.) Nintendo was in total command of videogaming itself and those coin-ops there were proof. The enviroment and memories of 8-bit coin-op adventure and racing while waiting on a thick supreme pan pizza will never again be duplicated.

I don't know which was first, but I do remember galaga, space invaders, centipede, ms pac-man, double dragon, dig dug, the donkey kong series, mario bros, joust, battlezone, defender, carnival, berzerk, frogger, popeye, asteroids, missile command, joust, congo bongo, and several others...

We never had any type of arcades around here growing up, just most of the small stores (kangaroo, 7/11, etc) had at least 2 arcade games in each one.

This is going to show my age a little bit but i remember the 5 and 10 store in town when i was a kid and they had an Asteroids and a Battle Zone game, they might be the first that i remember. So long ago and too many drinks between then and now. LOL

Its tough to remember, but I think Golden Axe or Streetfighter were the first coin ops I really got into playing. I was never really into arcades that much, except for the Xmen vs streetfighter/Marvel vs Capcom series, wow!