When children of Generation X
nostalgically remember classic arcades, games like
Frogger, Pac-Man and Missile Command come to mind.
Computer Space was created in 1971 by Atari founders
Ted Dabny and Nolan Bushnell, and Computer Space is
sometimes called the first arcade game. Many think
that Pong (released in 1972) birthed the video
arcade.
Coin operated machines have been
around for centuries, since 215 B.C. when the Greek
inventor Heron created dispenser that took coins in
exchange for holy water. In 1889, the
first public coin telephone was installed in a bank
by inventor William Gray. And in the 1930s
Penny Arcades amused customers with their collection
of coin operated games.
Some of the early machines included
Mutoscopes that beckoned patrons to crank their
handles and watch a short movie. These movies were
created by hundreds of sequential pictures, much the
same way that a "flip book" or a motion
picture gives the illusion of movement.
The early pinball machines were
very different from their modern offspring, and did
not include flippers; instead you shook the cabinet
in order to control the ball. Some were horizontal,
and you shot the ball upward, instead of across a
level playing field, similar to modern pachinko
machines.
From the 1950s though the
1960s, arcade machines began to look more like
the arcades of the 1980s. They did this without
television technology, instead using
electro-mechanical components. Without a picture tube
or electronics, these machines used bicycle chains,
mirrors, light bulbs, motors, relays and lots of wire
to display images on a screen.
During this golden age of arcades,
patrons could simulate driving a car across the road,
fly airplanes over the countryside, make miniature
clowns dance, have their fortunes told by a gypsy,
and enjoy hundreds of other diversions in the
neighborhood hangouts. And because there was no
television screen, the creative inventors of these
machines had to create three-dimensional miniatures
in order to achieve their illusions.
The next generation brought
Computer Space, then Pong, followed by Space
Invaders, and then video machines replaced the
mechanical machines.
Now the Xbox 360, Wii and PS3 own
the throne. Would they be humbled if reminded that
they may owe their existence to a coin operated holy
water dispenser?