well I finished My mame Cabinet, if you are not familiar with mame, its an arcade emulator that will let you play thousands of arcade games, presently I have over 6000 arcade games 1500 pinball machines and 50,000 nes, super nes, nes 64 and of course genesis games installed, All using different emulators. I just bought GP rider arcade system by Sega, it’s a sit down motorcycle racing game. Im not sure if I will be able to restore it back to its glory days but I,m sure I can get one of the bikes to interface with my arcade cabinet I might build another smaller cab for the second bike. Here is a link to the pics I have taken of my Arcade Cab http://www.ghostintheshell.ca/cpg/thumbnails.php?album=27
and a pic of the flyer for the GP rider.
Looks like an interesting project. I love my memories of playing arcade games at the local corner store and at the local arcades. I remember there was one downtown on the corner across the street to the right of Chevron. I want to say it was called “The Hot Spot” but that may not be right.
It even had a rep as the place where all the bad people hung out…lol
If I wasn’t so lazy I’d build one of those things for myself. 
Mike
What would I be looking at, to build something like that? ~$1K?
ya about that, if can get an old arcade cab, better, i was given mine bought a computer and then bought everything else of ebay. was not to hard to do, lots of good places to help a guy out. bought two 25 inch tv one with composit the other svideo svideo much better. paid 150 dollers for both… be very carful u dont kill your self i striped my tv out of the shell to fit in the cab.
[quote=“CrazyMike”]Looks like an interesting project. I love my memories of playing arcade games at the local corner store and at the local arcades. I remember there was one downtown on the corner across the street to the right of Chevron. I want to say it was called “The Hot Spot” but that may not be right.
It even had a rep as the place where all the bad people hung out…lol
If I wasn’t so lazy I’d build one of those things for myself.
Mike[/quote]
Yes, it was called the Hot Spot, and it did have a rep for being the palce where the bad people hung out. People were constantly selling drugs there, so they eventually got shut down. Same with the International (across from Tim Hortons), the 8-Ball (upstairs from some place that I don’t remember–I haven’t been in town for a very long time), and the 4th Street Arcade (across from Zeller’s, just down the street from Teddy’s, if that’s stilll there)
It’s too bad that all these places ended up getting shut down–Other than the old Happy Orange (Is that still there? Do they have games?), there was never any place for arcade machines. Still, I did have fond memories of spending inordinate amounts of money playing games in these places.
Dude, thats wicked… can i borrow it?
np any time…lol I cant waite to get the bikes and see if they work and if not then interface it with my cab… woo woo… will be fun fun for everyone.
you should start an arcade in town… something rupert doesnt have. We need one of those places where you drop $40 in 20 mins and win tickets to redeam for $.25 prizes. Those arcades are sweet!!!
the hotspot, beside Chevron, lasted many years, tons of games, only had one pool table…although the foosball got tons of use.
the international, across from Tim Hurtins, lasted years, some of the best games in this towns history were there, ie Sit down Star Trek with Voice!, and stars wars standup, plus tons of pool tables!
the Eightball, beside Thrift Store, upstairs, 10 games max, lasted months as well,
family fun centre, on corner in front of Rupert Square, very small, lasted a few months,
family fun centre, across from Moby Dickhead, 15 games max, but had a biker bouncer, aptly named “Tiny” hahah, was looked after by a group of australlians who lived upstairs, we drank so hard, flats upon flats, to much fun, free games, throwing knife contests with the walls upstairs. oh, and a unknown game called “Whiz”, oh man, if you know an Aussy ask them about this game…yeeee haaa!!
oh ya, good luck trying to start an arcade, ive been trying for years now, and nothing, everytime I go to city council, they want more, security plans, so and so distance from anything similar, plans for this and that, unless your related to the first ten people that got off the boat, you dont get anywhere…
WTF is flan, anyway?
You need to watch, Envy.
The only places I ever played video games in Rupert when I was a kid, were Happy Orange, Henry’s BY, and the bowling alley. I haven’t even heard of any of the other places people have been mentioning… I thought I was old, but I guess not old enough. Either that or I didn’t hang out in the right places.
Since elementary school though, I’ve only played at A&J’s or the old Fuzzy Monkey when it was still cool and Jim owned it.
Most of the places mentioned go WAY back. The hotspot is from around 20 years ago.
Mike
I must be old…I remember the Hot Spot. heh
[quote=“daemon”]the hotspot, beside Chevron, lasted many years, tons of games, only had one pool table…although the foosball got tons of use.
the international, across from Tim Hurtins, lasted years, some of the best games in this towns history were there, ie Sit down Star Trek with Voice!, and stars wars standup, plus tons of pool tables!
the Eightball, beside Thrift Store, upstairs, 10 games max, lasted months as well,
family fun centre, on corner in front of Rupert Square, very small, lasted a few months,
family fun centre, across from Moby Dickhead, 15 games max, but had a biker bouncer, aptly named “Tiny” hahah, was looked after by a group of australlians who lived upstairs, we drank so hard, flats upon flats, to much fun, free games, throwing knife contests with the walls upstairs. oh, and a unknown game called “Whiz”, oh man, if you know an Aussy ask them about this game…yeeee haaa!![/quote]
Oh yeah, I can’t believe I forgot about the Family Fun Center. I used to know Tiny pretty well–he really was the quintessential biker. though he was pretty cool for the most part.
As for the arcade across from the Rupert Square, I’m pretty sure it was called the Ninth Street Arcade or something like that. Ted Keene <sp?> from Teddy’s Record’s and Tapes ran it. You were sure right about it being small though. I also remember that Myles Moreau ran some kind of “youth center” there for a while too.
I also remember all the other places mentioned–Henry’s B-Y (what the hell does the B-Y stand for anyway?), the bowling alley, etc. I even remember waaaay back when there was this little corner store called Stop-Over about a block away from what was then Booth school that had about half a dozen games. It was always packed with kids, especially after school. Anyone here remember that one by any chance?
Was the Stop-Over the place that was on 8th east and they turned it into a store afterwards? You’d walk in what looked like a normal house front door and there was a big room in the front and a smaller room in the back?
It was on 7th East actually, but yeah, you got it. It was just down the street from King Edward Elementary as well. Jack Rudolph owned it for years, then he sold it to the guys who put the video games in there. He eventually bought the place again and got rid of the games.
They actually had a pretty decent collection in there too. They had some mainstream stuff like Tron and Galaxian, as well as some more obscure games like Spiders and Astro Blaster. All of which are available on MAME BTW.
Oh yeah, and how could we forget Bobbie’s News? It was a little Filipino-owned book and magazine shop as I recall, up on 3rd Avenue. I think someone said it’s now the Thrift Shop. Anyway, they had a few decent games there too, but one in particular was called Tiger Road.
That and “Bad Dudes” were actually my first taste of Engrish. All the dialogue screens had horrible writing, like “Enemy: I will turn you into stone!” Hero:" Says who you ugly creature?"
Anyone else remember that stuff?