---

Lots mre to come. This was the store I started in Columbus Ohio.

Outline

• The location (w/ pics)

• I even starting writing a letter to id software to get permission to have the store! But never finished/sent it. Later with Quake, there were provisions in the license to allow you to start stores like mine with set payment percentages (naive, on their part).

• How it's still not rented
• How I found it, the other loser places, how it wasn't the best idea in some ways, how Robert ran his shop in tha back with all the ovens
• DavidCulberson's plans to run a cafe there too
• Learned to build computers
• The nightmare Steve Lovering PC buildup!
• The TV's, Brazil-like hoses for wiring, drilling the TV mounting bolts w/ the magnetic drill
• Nightmares getting city approval
• The Raves, running the Klipschorn speakers
• Toilet installed backwards
• Learning on the fly
• Other friends, like the rice paddy
• The indestructable 'open' sign

GameBoothOfDeath - I converted a Turbo sit-down cabinet into a PC game chamber...

I met some fascinating people:

• Marshall Barnes: An X-Files real life researcher. Writes books. Researched the Philadelphia Experiment. Totally serious guy. I remember one time he told me about he interviewed a guy that was used for top secret government psychic research. Anyway, the way I knew him was that I advertised in his paper, the "Transcendental Times". here's an interview with him as well as some links
• SagentGrafitiArtist : A spray paint grafiti artist who did some phenomenal work painting the outside of my storefront. Pictures to come.
• Ele-mental: these guys had 4 really great rave parties at my shop. Tomy Ramos did some great video work, and some of the DJ's came all the way from Detroit and Indianapolis. Here's a flyer from the first event 'Trans'...

...And here's some reviews of Trans! Review #1 Review #2

Interior Shots (more to come)

In this shot you can see

• The hanging open-frame plexiglass surrounded monitor hanging off the I-Beam by chains. Note the Brazil-like tubing for the power and video wiring (actually hose for vacuums). These monitors all ran to the back where I could run Blade Runner, Star Wars, Anime, etc. This was what Tony Ramos used for the Rave parties well-recieved video presentation (including an old Atari Music box!)
• The 'built into the wall' TV monitor.
• The all-grey floor, ceiling and walls (my dad's idea! Like the holodeck!)
• The red accents on the I-Beams and support poles
• The all-but-useless air conditioner in the foreground
• In the bottom left, the little Radio Shack project box Don Hackman built for me to let me experiment with using a cannibalized keyboard controller to control arcade style buttons. Still have it, someday to use as a perfect Robotron/Mame combo.

The Sign

The sign has the golden ratio in almost every proportion. I designed it in 3D on a Mac using the 3D features of MiniCad. I used the same model to have the metal laser cut as I did to make the T-Shirts (which I printed using cool iron on ink jet paper). Steve Lovering, a great guy I worked with at Battelle, had it sent out for the laser cutting and did the welding. The sign's frame is aluminum, and came from a surplus metal yard in Columbus. The rest of it is stainless steel.

Under Construction

These shots show the assembled sign, before it was sent to Columbus Sign for neon installation. These pictures were taken by my friend and photgrapher Tracy Elsinger. I was in the process of polishing the stainless.

The Black box to the right was a custom box my dad made for one of the custom Wells Garner 19" monitors (copied from one made by JohnYates' dad). The joystick behind it was the one that went into the GameBoothOfDeath.

As it Hangs Today

JohnYates took my old sign down from the store in Columbus, trucked it all the way back to Illinois, changed the neon to say 'Pinball Paradise', added the white hoop neon, and hung it outside his store where you can still see it today in McClean Illinois.

Here's the original sign as it hangs today in McCleanIllinois about JohnYates home/pinball showroom. John changed the Neon from VR games to Pinball Paradise. I'm so thankful that John saved the sign from eventual destruction, as I had nowhere to put it.

A really funny coincidence

I am almost certain that this taco bell/7-11 are the exact ones that were right next door to my shop. This got circulated around as an internet joke

Some ancient usenet posts from the era

• see MyUsenetThreadOnThe486

A review from Usenet!

From: Minuteman (despindl@postbox.acs.ohio-state.edu)
Subject: Re: Cross hairs? 
View: Complete Thread (15 articles)  
Original Format 
Newsgroups: rec.games.computer.quake.misc
Date: 1996/05/29 
 

In article <4oe9i8$jgh@uruguay.it.earthlink.net> jaffee@earthlink.net writes:

>Does anyone else feel that a cross hair of some sort is needed in Quake?  I 
>found that I was having some diffuiculty in accurately sighting targets 
>vertically in Deathmatch, especially when they were really far away.  My quick 
>and dirty solution was to put a dot dead center on the monitor using a black 
>marker (non permemant, of course).  My aim has improved tremendously.  Has 
>anyone tried this, or do I just have a sighting defeceincy (sp?).

Here in Columbus OH, there is a place called Virtual Overdrive which features 
customized hardware and controllers for 4-player Doom and Doom II deathmatch.  
The guy who runs it set it up in his spare time and charges $5 per person per 
hour for 4-player games.  He has made some modifications to the game to 
optimize it for deathmatch (moving barrels which chase you down and explode, 
etc.).  One of the tweaks he put in was a laser sight which appears as a red 
dot in the center of the screen.

The best thing about his setup is the customized control layout (uses 
arcade-style buttons for all controls, no keyboard in sight).  Each player 
wears a stereo headset with a microphone.  He has it set up so players 1 and 2 
can talk freely to each other through the use of their microphones, and 
players 3 and 4 talk to each other with their headsets.  This makes 2 on 2 
play really exciting, because you and your buddy can communicate without the 
other two players hearing (make plans, set up ambushes, warn each other, etc.)

The only thing I didn't like was the fact that with the all-button control 
setup, as a mouser, I was at a significant disadvantage, because I was used to 
the fine-aiming control of the mouse.  The owner acknowledged that that was a 
problem, and has plans to install spin-knob controls (like was used for the 
old arcade game Tempest) for use in turning/aiming.  That setup would really 
be cool: you could spin 360 degrees in a split-second!

Tony Ramos Usenet Posting on it

Date: 1996/07/23 
 

I'm doing it again, operating my fully-restored classic games like an 
idiot. (Well, just three of them)

If you're in Columbus, Ohio for some reason and want to play classic 
Atari vector games, here's where you can find my machines:

My Asteroids cocktail with B+ original glass tabletop is at the Galaxy 
Cafe in nearby Powell, Ohio. The Galaxy is famous for it's spicy Cuban 
dishes and kitschy decor. (They love having an old Atari game as part of 
the campy environment!)

And, my like-new Tempest and Battlezone uprights are in Virtual 
Overdrive, at 9 E. 9th Street just south of the Ohio State campus. Check 
out their 4 networked 'Doom stations' if you're in the mood for more 
modern gaming.

So far the games have done fine, the Asteroids' wiring is a little flaky 
and gives me trouble sometimes though. I turned down Tempest's monitor 
voltage and X / Y width, to make the game run cooler. OK so far!

If you have any ?s about operating classic games, feel free to e-mail 
me.

Later,
Tony R.
-- 
                Tony Ramos  :  http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~aramos
   1322 W. 7th Ave. Apt. A  :  ramos.15@osu.edu, tony_ramos@fitch.com
        Columbus, OH 43212  :  ***  computer-mediated environments  ***
             (614)486-6253  :  ***  interface  **  image synthesis  ***

VOConceptSketch.jpg