Tony's Arcade

As with all classic vids, the first thing you do when you bring it home is… plug it in! Unfortunately, SID (Space Invaders Deluxe) doesn’t work. The only thing that comes up on the screen is garbage in the form of lines. I will have to adress fixing the SID boardset in another post. Well, on to the next step… cleaning the cabinet!

After I shop-vac’d the inside of the cabinet, it was time to clean the monitor bezel, control panel, and display. To remove the marquee / monitor bezel, there are two locks that are accessible from the upper rear of the cabinet. Just twist each lock 90 degrees and pull each black bracket back. This will unsecure the monitor bezel for removal.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ah, the sequel to Space Invaders… one of the most well known video games from the Golden Age of Video Games. In 1978, the orginal Space Invaders was licensed from Taito by Bally/Midway and released in the U.S. The designer of Space Invaders, Toshihiro Nishikado, said that his inspiration for the look of the “invaders” came from the creatures of H.G. Wells’ book, “War of the Worlds” (Edge Magazine, 2005). Space Invaders was so popular in arcades and pizza joints it spawned a few sequels, namely “Space Invaders Deluxe”. Space Invaders Deluxe was again licensed by Bally/Midway from Taito in 1980. The Taito title is actually “Space Invaders Part II” and is still on the title screen in Space Invaders Deluxe. Only a few changes were made to the game (such as changing any instances of “Taito” to “Midway” in attract mode). An interesting change was the color — Space Invaders Part II was a color game using a color monitor. Space Invaders Deluxe used a black and white display with a color overlay. This was probably done to keep the cost down and production numbers up as black and white displays were readily available and relatively cheaper than color. Most of Midway’s video games at the time utilized black and white monitors, too.

Read the rest of this entry »