Welcome to M.A.R.S. (Mark's Arcade Retro Site). This is my web page dedicated to those who love coin-op video arcade games. There's lots of information and hopefully some entertaining stuff, too.
04/04/24
One of the craziest days in an arcade collectors life is the day you have to move your collection. This last year, I had to move 20+ arcade games from one house to another in one day. As they say in Letterkenny, "More hands make less work". Fortunately a group of friends and family sacrificed their day and bodies to help move 20+ arcade games out of a basement through a window into a trailer, and unload them into a three car garage 15 miles away.
Unfortunately, due to new house restrictions, some of the games will not be making it down to the new arcade: the Doctor Who pinball, The Getaway pinball, the virtual pinball, Gorf and my Silent Scope multigame will be leaving for good, and Tron and Tempest have gone to friends' houses for an extended stay.
But all is not bad news...a new game has joined the collection! The massively popular pinball, and cultural icon, Godzilla is the newest addition!
Also, I was finally able to finish the Joust. I went with a different restoration approach by repainting the brown background only, and keeping the original patina for the actual art. Very interesting look. Happy with how it turned out!
Next mission: finishing the basement for the next version of Dark Star Arcade!
04/26/23
Been a while! Just means I've been busy...
Working on a Sega EPROM board tester...has already helped me fix one board that wasn't just caused by a bad eprom.
Joust is prepped for painting, just waiting for slightly warmer weather.Picked up a Virtual Pinball project. A few more tweaks and it should be ready.
The monitor in my Cruis'n USA went out. I'll be documenting a way to replace the old monitor with an LCD TV! (*gasp*).
Next up? Next few months should be exciting...
My current collection of arcade games
My VAPS
entry - contains
my list of boardsets. Every board is ready to play in minutes!
The whole sick story of how
this all
started - long sorrid details of my arcade life. Long and pathetic, but many in the hobby can relate :-).
Parts List - Updated 5/11/12
Rom Hacks
- free play hacks and bug fixes by yours truly
Small Tips
- a few restoration articles by yours truly
The Almost Complete Guide to Video Arcade Games in Movies
Beginner's Guide to Collecting
- prepare for your life to be changed!
The Sega XY FAQ
(text version)
- A document on those awesome Sega/Gremlin vector games of the '80's
The MCR FAQ
(text version)
- A document on those clever but fragile Bally Midway games of the early 80's
The Electrohome G08 FAQ
(new pdf version!)
- A look into the beast that doomed the Sega XY family
Eliminator Home Page
- my tribute to the best Sega XY game.Discs of Tron Home Page
- my tribute to the best MCR game.
Trouble Shooting?
My troubleshooting page contains links to repair FAQs, sites, tips, and people who can help you to fix your favorite arcade game or PCB.
KLOV: Killer
List of
Videogames
Need help remembering an arcade game from your past? You'll most likely find it here. Ignore all the rarity information, however.
The Video Arcade Preservation Society (VAPS)
An arcade game collection site showing game owners' collections from all over the world.
The
Sega Vector Game Page More selfless promotion of yours truly.
The
Basement arcade
A great site by a different Mark...he's got the most comprehensive list of video arcade game links I've seen, so instead of replicating them here, I'll just point to his page and he can deal with the maintenance :-)
Rick's Game RepairThe man, the myth, the Legend. Now working full time in the restoration business, Rick has done a lot of work for Williams in the past and knows his stuff. Has the BEST quality machines available for purchase and does service as well.
M.A.R.S. is dedicated to providing a quality web page for coin-op video arcade
information. This web page is "comment operated", meaning the more comments you send
me, the more it changes. Contact
with
compliments or criticism, comments or corrections, and what you'd like to
see (or not see) on M.A.R.S.
Listen to what Arnold says about M.A.R.S.