Retro Arcade Tube

With the incredible feedback I got for "PULSE" for the Commodore VIC-20 there was only one question left: will it appeal to non‐retro gamers? And the answer was: make a coin‐op machine with the game on it to find out.

So, Summer 2015, with challenge and a Raspberry Pi 1 in hand I headed over to the construction shop and came back with a drain pipe, a smaller pipe for the inside and lids to close the thing up. Also, I had to grab a microswitch, wire and resistors at some electronics shop to set up some coin drop detector.

The real feat was the software. Programming a new version of the game would probably have been a mistake as it'd be very hard to mimick the original game play. At least the game core had to be running in a simulator. All in all it seemed to be easier to write a VIC emulator and within 24 hours it was up and running – without sound or keyboard. Bringing on sound was a bad idea as I planned to place the thing in bars.

Being sinfully proud of myself I grabbed the thing and headed over to the Fargo in Berlin and placed it in the smoker's room that and connected it to a beamer there. That room was usually empty in midsummer. But that changed quickly. Within a month they played about 700 rounds on the thing despite boiling temperatures. Guest even went for a round before they ordered their drinks. Surely something to be repeated some day.