No doubt many of you will know me already from Aussie Arcade but anyhow, heres my story.
As a kid I always spent my free time at the arcades in the area, or on holidays etc I was always looking out for a machine to play. Spent quite a bit on Xain'd Sleena in my time and found a Wardner once near my Nana's and used to walk there to play it whenever we visited.
Once grown and in the workforce I always had the want in the back of my mind to get an arcade cab. Then when I discovered Mame I just wanted an arcade mame machine so I could play all my favourites. That would be sweet.
After years of doing nothing about it I finally decided it was time and bought a cab from ebay.
This peaked my interest but this cab was not to end up being completed by me. It did however spur me on to ebay watching and soon after I bought myself a working Neo Geo cab that had a game with it. I bought some more Neo games and ended up with about 7 carts. My plan was to have the neo (1 slotter) as an original arcade machine running original boards etc, and have the original cab bought above as my mamer.
Reality set in and with 3 kids I was not likely to be diverting masses of cash towards game boards all the time so I sold the original cab I bought, plus all my neo geo stuff and converted the Neo in to a mame cab.
So I had my mame cab finally. I was nightly re-living my childhood favorites and loving it.
Then opportunity knocked again and I bought a Final Lap 3 driving cab from a member on AA. This was not working at the time but I worked out the cause with some advice and got it going. It still does not fully work but boots and works fine, just an issue with the steering and pedals thanks to the harness missing some connectors.
Then one day, as luck would have it I was surfing AA and noticed an add for a mint condition Roadshow. I somehow talked the wife in to buying it and we ended up driving down to Sydney to pick it up. Indeed it was very nice and all it achieved was to fuel my pinball fires. Having never really got in to Pinball as a kid it was surprising that I enjoyed it so much. This Roadshow was Rollerballs.
Now at the moment I had the Roadshow, the Final Lap 3 and the Neo Geo all wedged in to a corner of our lounge room. Man paradise
In my garage I had a 1974 GT Falcon Hardtop that was quite a rare colour. I say "had" because I recently sold it as it was just not getting driven and I got sick of it sitting there. So my brain hatched the plan to sell it and put much of the proceeds in to pinballs.
With the car gone, and some cash to splash I embarked on a pinball spending spree. Within maybe two months maximum, I have acquired a further 6 pins and converted the garage from a GT storage shed, to a bit of a pinball/arcade room.
The pins I bought in order of appearance:
Roadshow: Rollerball
Theatre Of Magic: Honkey
Hook: Dealer
Flintstones: Dealer
Funhouse: Hamish from AA
Medieval Madness: Pauls 50's Germany - Arriving tomorrow
Party Zone: Rollerball - Picking this one up Saturday.
So I have morphed somewhat from an arcade kid to a pinball collector/enthusiast. Go figure.
That's my story anyway.
