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1984 Arcade Review (Springfield, Missouri)
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Level42:
Well the (brown) coindoor gives it away: it's a Midway Pong clone called Winner:

http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=10444


Taking another look at that picture of an original Pong: That coindoor is also a Midway :D It's exactly the same as the one on my Galaxian ! This was most likely retro-fitted. THe original coin "door" is much smaller on the original Pong pictures on KLOV:
http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=&game_id=9074
Donkey_Kong:
If this place was in my town they would be getting a lot of fivers from me and the family.

Nice job!
MinerAl:
Lots of games, classic or not, do not run the attract modes when set on free play.  They get stuck on the "Press Player 1 or 2" screen and burn in after a while.   The arcade would be dull as hell if there were no attract modes :)
1984arcade:
Hi guys!  As the owner of 1984 I thought I'd clear up the whole "why the blue buttons' question.

First off not all of the games have a free play mode, but that isn't actually the issue.  When a game is set on free play for the most part it will no longer go into the attract mode, and to us that's an important part of the overall arcade experience.  Also it will generally just sit there with a "Press one or two player" message on the screen, and that will burn-in in short order. 

But the most important reasons why we have the blue button is two-fold:  First off most games have a "credit recognition" sound that you can ONLY hear if the coin mech is operated, and in my memory that's an important part of the game.  Tron for example plays a snippet of music, Robotron will occassionally cheer you, Sinistar will say "I Hunger" etc.  Secondly and related to that is the muscle-memory associated with bending down to that level and activating something before you play the game.  Those of you here who are too young to have been in the arcades the first time around in the 80's will have no idea what I am talking about, but tiny details like that are a big, big deal to us here at 1984.

And it was a big decision too.  The Tron we have on the floor has been in my familiy since 1985 and saw virtually no arcade usage at all.  The cabinent was pristine.  My brother and I sat there and stared at each other with the drill in my hand asking "Do you really want to do this?"  All in all our decision to use the blue buttons is probably lost on most people, but it matters to us here, and in truth we built the arcade for US, the rest of everyone who comes in are just guests.

And to whoever pointed it out, yes that is a Winner, not a Pong.  It was a clone and we had to buy 5 of them in order to kludge together one working model.

PS:  We don't actually have a Gauntlet and a Gauntlet II, they are both just regular Gauntlet.
BobA:
Nice to see you here.  Thanks for the explanation.

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