This post will be about video games I started to get into in the early 90's. Let me preface this by saying that I was really into pinball when I was young. By the time video games came out I had moved on to more adult pursuits, so I never got why they seemed so addictive.
When I started working in a warehouse in Concord, California in the early 90's I was working with a couple of guys about 10 years younger than me. They told me about an arcade in Walnut Creek called Virtual World. I went with them and was surprised by the way they had decorated the place. It had dark wingback chairs, tables and lamps with ornate decorations and Persian style carpets. This lobby was enormous. In back were booths you actually played the game in.
Back in the back were racks of computers, Mac Quadras, the most advanced graphics computers of the time. They were linked together on networks and I'm guessing there was one for each booth on the network. There were eight booths on each network.
The booths were what really blew me away. You had a large display in front of you with your view out the cabin. Below it was a small single color display with an overhead view of your machine. This was your radar. Above the main display was a row of toggle switches that programmed your booth. To your right was a joystick with two thumb buttons and a trigger. To your left was a throttle that increased your speed when you pushed it forward. A button on the side put you into reverse. Your foot pedals steered the thing.
You were asked for your screen name, or "handle." I worked in an electrical warehouse at the time and we had switchboxes the mount in the wall nailed to the studs. These were usually side-nailers, but sometimes we used back-nailers or front-nailers (face-nailers). My handle became "Facenailer."
I bought the manual and learned to program the thing, usually just setting the buttons for different missiles and the trigger for machine gun. I believe there was a way of programming the foot pedals and joystick, but I don't remember. We played Battletech, but at least one other game they had was Red Planet.
It was too expensive for me to go regularly, eight dollars for ten minutes, and I don't know how some people could afford it. I only went three or four times, even though I bought the manual. They went out of business after about a year, I think. Since then I've read that some people bought entire setups, so they have the eight booths in their garage with the computers hooked up. Instead of an arcade with four or so sets of eight, they just have one. I wonder if there are YouTube channels about gameplay or websites about this. I got all my information from Wikipedia.
