Restoring the first arcade video game ever

What was the first video game ever? It is complicated, the first video game dates back to the 50's with Tennis for Two, a laboratory computer turned game by Ralph Bayer which was a one off. Later a game was made in a lab that took coins but was a one off university project. In the end it took the meeting of Ted Dabney and Nolan Bushnell to create Syzygy engineering to create Computer Space, their second game with Al Alcorn was Pong, which I am sure you all know.

My podcast's interview with Ted Dabney;

http://www.retrogamingroundup.com/shownotes/2010/roundup024_2010.10.htm

And Al Alcorn;

http://www.retrogamingroundup.com/shownotes/2011/roundup031_2011.05.htm

Computer Space was the first commercially marketed coin operated video game ever. Interestingly enough, it had no ROM, no RAM, and no CPU. It was a pure state machine made up of 7400 series logic, and nand or xor etc. that made up a game. It had three PCBs with about 300 ICs, where Pong had one board with about 100 ICs, Computer Space was 3 times the scale of Pong.

This restoration is being done for the Classic Gaming Expo www.cgexpo.com as an out of pocket expense for me because they do so much to serve the rero gaming community.

Here is is arriving;

http://www.retrogamingroundup.com/images/events/cge2012/CS/CS1.JPG

Out of the box it looks easy, but the is allot of damage.

http://www.retrogamingroundup.com/images/events/cge2012/CS/CS6.JPG

The control panel is cracked;

http://www.retrogamingroundup.com/images/events/cge2012/CS/CS3.JPG

The coin return was corroded;

http://www.retrogamingroundup.com/images/events/cge2012/CS/CS2.JPG

The fiberglass was delaminating from the plywood back

http://retrogamingroundup.com/images/events/cge2012/CS/CS5.JPG

The edges were ragged;

http://retrogamingroundup.com/images/events/cge2012/CS/CS7.JPG

Mouse pizz had delaminated the base;

http://www.retrogamingroundup.com/images/misc/CGE_CS/CSAB.JPG

 

Fixing the cabinet;

http://www.retrogamingroundup.com/images/misc/CGE_CS/CSAC.JPG

Here the coin return is re-chromed;

http://www.retrogamingroundup.com/images/misc/CGE_CS/CS8.JPG

And the control panel as it was;

http://www.retrogamingroundup.com/images/misc/CGE_CS/CS9.JPG

And after restoration;

http://www.retrogamingroundup.com/images/misc/CGE_CS/CS10.JPG

 

And could a MOD or someone smarter than me make my pics come up a pics rather than links? And tell my why I can reverse engineer a 40 year old game but not post a pic in 2012?

 

How 2002, I'll stick with links..