Q*bert, why did I fall in love with this game as a kid?
Possibly the funky thumping sound inside that cabinet when something fell off the pyramid, maybe it was the ultra cool retro speech processor used in the game, or
maybe it was because I got so good I could make 1 quarter last 15-20 minutes. Any arcade I went to as a kid, Q*bert always got my first quarter. That crazy thumping sound
inside the cabinet drove me crazy as a kid, I could never figure out what that sound was! My brother and I debated whether the machine was somehow dropping a marble in there or
whether it was only a trick being generated by an electronic speaker. I remember we even put our ear to the cabinet while the other one played but still couldn't figure it out.
Well now I know! A solenoid strikes a piece of metal inside the cabinet. On 3/01/08 I picked up my very own Q*bert. This was another top 5 most wanted game. What can I say, it's a Q*bert! I purchased this arcade from a gentleman whom
I will refer to as "Randy The Hoarder". See picture to the left.
hoarder [hôrder, horder] -noun
1. a person who accumulates things to hide or carefully guard them for preservation or future use.
He considered himself a collector with a collection of around 800 games, none on location earning money. However a collector has his prizes
displayed in neat little rows all wired up and ready to play. Randy The Hoarder had his collection crammed into 7 buildings as tight as they would go, were you couldn't play most of them.
He was the nicest gentleman you could meet, and was kind enough to give up 1 arcade out of his hoard.
Anyways...welcome to the basement arcade you furry orange football!
8/16/08 - Installed the rare Q*bert swearing marquee. For you history buffs out there, the swearing marquee was supposed to be the
header of choice until it was decided that no one at an arcade would know how to say the name or what to even call the game. That is
when they came up with the name Cubert, which was a combination of the words Cube and Hubert. Being concerned that people would
pronounce it "cub - bert", they shortened it to the now classic name Q*bert.
11/26/08 - Installed Multi Q*bert kit. Purchased and installed a Multi Q*bert kit. The Multi Q*bert kit allows you to play several rare and prototype Q*bert games on the original
hardware. Installation of the kit was fairly easy. You pull several of the game ROMs from the original Q*bert board. You then plug the kit boards
into the existing ROM sockets. This boots the game into a menu screen and allows you to then run the original game code of 8 different games. To
get to additional games you just jump your Q*bert off the bottom of the pyramid onto the awaiting disk and it takes you to the next screen.
The multi Q*bert allows you to run the following games:
Q*bert, why did I fall in love with this game as a kid?
Possibly the funky thumping sound inside that cabinet when something fell off the pyramid, maybe it was the ultra cool retro speech processor used in the game, or
maybe it was because I got so good I could make 1 quarter last 15-20 minutes. Any arcade I went to as a kid, Q*bert always got my first quarter. That crazy thumping sound
inside the cabinet drove me crazy as a kid, I could never figure out what that sound was! My brother and I debated whether the machine was somehow dropping a marble in there or
whether it was only a trick being generated by an electronic speaker. I remember we even put our ear to the cabinet while the other one played but still couldn't figure it out.
Well now I know! A solenoid strikes a piece of metal inside the cabinet. On 3/01/08 I picked up my very own Q*bert. This was another top 5 most wanted game. What can I say, it's a Q*bert! I purchased this arcade from a gentleman whom
I will refer to as "Randy The Hoarder". See picture to the left.
11/26/08 - Installed Multi Q*bert kit.