Into the arcade Part 3
Arcade cabinets are pretty simple inside despite their size. It's basically a tv screen, a power supply, some speakers, some levers and buttons, a bucket for the coins, some wire and of course the board where the game is actually stored. When things break the machine is moved forward and the back is opened up and you get to peek behind the curtain and actually see what makes it tick and this was the part I found fascinating.
It wasn't the repairs that got me excited, oh no. It was when a new game was released and the boards were sent out.New games came on new boards that had to be wired in. In the early days, chips were sent out and replaced directly onto the existing boards (Galaxian to pac man for example) this took ages and as most change guys were more apt at picking the right key rather than plugging in delicate chips, this was a pain and generally done out of sight when the arcade was closed. But later on, with the advent of JAMMA (basically the same idea as swapping a cartridge, the JAMMA system had the same edge connector and you slid the board in, changed the marquee and away you go)
This became simpler and even the most ham fisted change jockey could do it, and sometimes, some glorious times, he did it mid shift, right in the center of the arcade, right in front of us all where a crowd would form, kids of all sizes craning their necks to get a glimpse of the inside of the cabinet and maybe, just maybe, of the marquee that would tell us what the new game was.
And playing it first brought you untold kudos.
This was the most exciting and fascinating thing that change guy did. The machine would be pulled out and he would produce an old screwdriver wrapped in tattered electrical tape, unscrew the back to reveal the old board and from a thin cardboard box pull a shiny new one complete with marquee that announced the game title, still in its sleeve, ready to be put in the cabinet. How this worked was total magic to me, it never occurred it was the exact same thing I did at home on my 2600 going from Crystal Castles to Pitfall but watching him work, smelling the ozone and dust and the anticipation of that first switch on was like nothing I had ever seen.
I was desperate to know more.
Nyx
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