Harbour Amusements, St Ives, Cornwall

AndyGeezer wrote:

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tb2000 wrote: Whenever we came to Cornwall (which was a regular thing, we'd go to Cornwall at least 3 times a year as my parents, especially my dad loved it down here) we'd usually go to St. Ives and I always made it a point to go to the Harbour Amusements as it was (still is!) one of my favourite arcades, along with a few others. As I say in my post above, where I now live in Mevagissey, Cornwall the little arcade I use to go in was closed a few years ago (probably a good 6 or 7 years ago at least) and replaced with a clothes shop or two, then a restaurant which it is now. I'll have to pop down to St. Ives and make another visit at some point! I'm only about 40 miles away! chriso wrote: matt wrote: I'll make a list of what they've got here... :) Quite frightening to think of what we've thrown away - was watching Antiques Roadshow recently when they featured a Jennings fruit machine - we threw away dozens of them - a non working one was valued at £700. I can remember loading onto a lorry for scrap... Buggyboy 3 screen TX1 3 screen Dragons Lair Hard Driving Time Crisis Super Sprint Mad Dog Mcree Terrible waste as we bought fighting games which soon became unpopular. I still have fun nowadays playing Mr Do on Mame - we had the real thing & Mr Do Castles & all the other release on Deco Tape - also Burgertime, Burnin Rubber...too many to mention -   I used to always, without fail have a go on the Buggy Boy (Or TX-1, can't remember which) whenever I went there! Just inside the front doors wasn't it - where you've got your ATV Track now (I think there was an ATV Track there last time I was there!) I remember being quite miffed and slightly saddened when I went there and the 3 screen cab was gone! They'd be worth a fair bit now if you still had them! I'd have loved to have got my hands on all of them at the time if I'd had the funds and space (no space now either!) I remember also my mum used to make it a point to have a go on the grabber machines inside the front doors to see if she could get a cuddly toy or something! Succeeded on a few occasions! The 18 Wheeler still had the (Mitsubishi/Hitachi?) CRT projection monitor when I was last there. Whatever happened to the Namco Shoot Away you used to have round the back where the dance machines are (or were - have you still got them?). Had that up until quite recently if i'm right? Have you still got anything unusual in store Chris? I wonder what happened to all the cabs from Cuckoo Land? Cheers, Tony

chriso wrote: Hi Tony Megavissey !! I used to get up there in the 60's when I serviced  Wurlitzer & Seeburg jukeboxes - still get up that way to visit the 'Lost Gardens'. Depending on how old you are  inside the door was the home of TX1 until probably 1994 when it moved to Lelant where we had an amusement park with a log flume. Buggy Boy was always near the cash desk. 18 Wheeler was a Toshiba CRT projector - Ghost Squad is next up for an LCD replacement as it's badly burnt in - that's a mornings work as the internals can be left in place - just remove the mirror - build a shelf - cut a polycarb shield for the LCD and plug in. I always regretted losing the ShootAway as it had such wide appeal BUT it continually suffered from the morons who burned holes in the screen with fags. Do you remember a similar game we had behind the cash desk called CosmoSwat - that was amazing for it's time as it used fibre optics before the 'internet' had been invented. Still got the fibre which I use to repair our Whittaker's Roulette. One Dance machine went and the top end is mostly occupied with driving games & Manx TT (how is that still running ???) I don't know for sure but I'd imagine that Cuckoo Land's gear went to PartyZone In Carbis Bay - recently bumped in John who owned Cuckoo - their nice Lady Judy now works for us. I hope we have nothing unusual in store as I don't like surprises - in the old days buying a new video usually meant finding 26" of wall space - job done....now you need 9' x 6' x 7' and when you've finished with the game nobody is going to buy it for their home games room. I'd imagine we might get that new thing with a gattling gun on it. Harping on about video games - we used to have walls full of Xenon cabinets and rotated games regularly -  as more stuff became dedicated  you get tied into manufacturers - you get tied into their spares pricing structure - if you have the time and skills you can sometimes get around this but owning modern gear can be a nightmare - ATV steering assembly £1500, NFS Carbon 32" LCD£1500, Grafix card for After burner £495 (get it from AndyGeezer), Final Furlong - spares unavailable, Offroad/Hydro thunder - Bally Midway went bust as these were released - the spares were locked up in the States and held for ransom - all the hard drives in our failed and that's how I got into hard drive recovery and improved my welding skills.

Hi Chris,

I'd have been 14 or 15 in 1994! I think I remember the Buggy Boy over by the cash desk now!

Do you ever manage to get big 4:3 LCD'S/plasmas for the rear pro replacements? I can see why as an operator you'd rather just have the CRT projector out and fit an LCD/plasma but if it was for a home arcade i'd have to try and get another CRT rear projection unit!  I have wondered for a while if it'd be possible to take out the CRT projector side of things and fit a cheap LCD/DLP projector in it's place.

I'd have loved the Shoot Away at home, nearly always had a go when I visited! I think I possibly do remember something like the Cosmoswat.

Do you by any chance still have the pool game where you actually shoot a proper cue ball in the machine - Slick Shot I think it's called? I think there was a similar Pool machine opposite it with a high res vertical widescreen monitor that you could win prizes on. Also liked the game in the rear left corner where you rolled a ball up an alley to get it into a catchment area to win points, as well as the Wheel 'Em In or Roll 'Em (or whatever it's called!) I remember there being an Operation Wolf in the same area many moons ago!

As I say, among others i'd have loved Cuckoo Land's Deal 'Em machine (they had two I think, one with a monitor with a colour gone) but never got round to asking them if they were interested in selling. As it is, I've managed to pick one up since, although it's not the same cab design.

When I say have you anything unusual in store I actually meant have you kept anything from the old days in your stores which was a bit unusual!

Modern gear is good but doesn't have quite the appeal of the old stuff really. I think it's a bit of a scandal in some ways that they don't still make some spare parts when there's still loads and loads of machines still in use.

Tony


Edited by tb2000 - 30 September 2010 at 9:39pm

[/QUOTE]Hi Chris,

I'd have been 14 or 15 in 1994! I think I remember the Buggy Boy over by the cash desk now!

Do you ever manage to get big 4:3 LCD'S/plasmas for the rear pro replacements? I can see why as an operator you'd rather just have the CRT projector out and fit an LCD/plasma but if it was for a home arcade i'd have to try and get another CRT rear projection unit!  I have wondered for a while if it'd be possible to take out the CRT projector side of things and fit a cheap LCD/DLP projector in it's place.

I'd have loved the Shoot Away at home, nearly always had a go when I visited! I think I possibly do remember something like the Cosmoswat.

Do you by any chance still have the pool game where you actually shoot a proper cue ball in the machine - Slick Shot I think it's called? I think there was a similar Pool machine opposite it with a high res vertical widescreen monitor that you could win prizes on. Also liked the game in the rear left corner where you rolled a ball up an alley to get it into a catchment area to win points, as well as the Wheel 'Em In or Roll 'Em (or whatever it's called!) I remember there being an Operation Wolf in the same area many moons ago!

As I say, among others i'd have loved Cuckoo Land's Deal 'Em machine (they had two I think, one with a monitor with a colour gone) but never got round to asking them if they were interested in selling. As it is, I've managed to pick one up since, although it's not the same cab design.

When I say have you anything unusual in store I actually meant have you kept anything from the old days in your stores which was a bit unusual!

Modern gear is good but doesn't have quite the appeal of the old stuff really. I think it's a bit of a scandal in some ways that they don't still make some spare parts when there's still loads and loads of machines still in use.

Tony
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tb2000 wrote:  You had a Prop Cycle at some point didn't you? Working in/running an arcade (wouldn't mind doing that myself!) sounds like an interesting job but also sounds like there's some fairly constant maintenance needed for some stuff - and I thought it was bad enough trying to keep my 3 cabs running! Tony

tb2000 wrote:   That sounds like a hell of a busy day, looks like you hardly got 5 minutes for a breather!

chriso wrote: I'm constantly amazed that we survive - cost are ridiculous - spares prices are stupid.

AndyGeezer wrote: chriso wrote: I'm constantly amazed that we survive - cost are ridiculous - spares prices are stupid. What I don't understand is why they do a huge mark-up on DLP lamps, the price is 100% more.   Also many parts can be oem'd direct from other places.   Look at the the OR2SP SDX motion controller drive board - direct from Panasonic is about 100% cheaper than offical spare part retailers.

I know what you mean about the lamps, prices are rediculous. Lately i've bought, repaired, and sold some rear pro LCD and DLP tv's. Some needed color wheels, new light tunnels, optical block cleaning, etc., but most really just needed lamps. I noticed the original manufacturer charges are madness - for example, Sagem want about 500 quid for a lamp with enclosure - as you can use the original enclosure you can get a proper original bare lamp from eBay for 100 quid! Same with the Sony one's. An original Sony one is about £230, eBay price for a bare lamp, about £85.

Similar thing with the parts. I remember when I was doing the car game a few years ago, we needed a part for a Volvo I think it was. Bought the part and fitted it, but when it arrived it was just a Bosch part in a Bosch box, inside a Volvo box! We knew someone who was a Bosch agent, and didn't think of it before but we asked them about it, and it turned out they could've got the part for us for about third cheaper than it cost from Volvo!

chriso wrote: tb2000 wrote:  know what you mean about the lamps, prices are ridiculous. Lately i've bought, repaired, and sold some rear pro LCD and DLP tv's. Some needed color wheels, new light tunnels, optical block cleaning, etc., but most really just needed lamps. I get lamps & stuff from Sound & Vision

Yep I think they sell on eBay as well.

chriso wrote: GAMESMONKEY wrote: [QUOTE=chriso] We live in the St.Austell/Par area and we used to have a great arcade at Cornish Leisure World/Cornwall Coliseum. It's nice to hear someone still has actual video games to play in their arcade!    We will make a point of popping in when we come down in the next week or so. I know John & Derek who put the gear in there. Never went there when it was open but saw the wreck it is now when  I walked from Charlestown to Par. Lot arcades I visit are just rows of fruits - our floor space is more than half video or at least not fruits. From the 10th Oct we're open 10-6 7 days.

Cornish Leisure World/Cornwall Coliseum! I can't remember it too well from the 80's myself but speaking to my dad recently he said they used to be the big venue in the south west and that a lot of big names played there! I noticed recently that it was also featured in the video to the Alison Moyet song "Is This Love?" Was about 1986, so it was still open to the public then! I noticed the old shipwreck still on the beach as well (was taken away ages ago for "health and safety" reasons apparently ).