Welcome to the Game Room

This is the sign on the game room door. Somehow, it's utterly appropriate.

This is what you see when you go inside.

As close as you can get to a view of the entire west wall. 18 systems. 3 screens. 5.1 surround. And lots of glowy lights.

A great concentration of the aforementioned glowy lights are dedicated to showing off the collection of marquees to greatest effect.

The left rack. Top shelf: Atari 5200, DVD player. Upper middle shelf: ColecoVision, Intellivision (Sears Super Video Arcade II, to be precise). Lower middle shelf: Atari 400, TI 99/4A, Mattel Aquarius. Bottom shelf (not really visible): AC adapter city.

The right rack. Top shelf: Atari 7800, Commodore 64, Apple IIc. Upper middle shelf: Gamecube, U.S. Playstation 1, Japanese Playstation 1. Lower middle shelf: Atari 2600, NES, Odyssey2. Bottom shelf: storage.

Several specimens from my LP collection, especially game-related ones like these Pac-Man children's records and the original Pac-Man Fever LP, have come out of retirement to hide the wires that run down the back of the racks.

Still the best joystick in the world, and still happily hooked up to one Playstation 1 or the other. Never stay home without it.

If there's one item in the room that best exemplifies where my classic gaming and science fiction interests meet, it's this Sega Star Trek arcade game poster. I still have no idea how many were made or how easy it is to find one.

Intellivision posted signed by the Intellivison game designers themselves at CGE 2003 (with special thanks to Mark Holtz).

Quite possibly the pride and joy of the game room.

Proof that everybody loves to play Kickman. The chest of drawers in the background holds my entire loose cartridge collection.

Right next to the Kickman arcade machine: a real live Vectrex, sitting on top of a shelf of various other memorabilia.

The Vectrex again, this time with the lights out.

This dandy display cabinet was once a stereo cabinet/entertainment center in another life. Now it holds my complete Coleco mini-arcade collection.

Glowing circuitry! Yes! Throw in some wall-mounted keyboards and certainly this would be THE FUTURE!

The enclosed part of the display cabinet holds many tiny treasures...if you go looking for them.

There's just enough room on top of the Kickman machine for a few more bits of classic gaming memorabilia.

A fairly large closet holds various other goodies - my CD collection and, in these two plastic drawer units, my action figure collection. If you want to be eight years old all over again, you've come to the right place.

The other end of the closet, which holds the actual CDs from those jewel cases (in the 6-disc magazines for my CD changer) and boxed Odyssey2 games.

Not all of the toys live in the closet - some of my favorites have come out of the closet to hang around on this corner shelf next to the Kickman machine.

And trying to pilfer my cartridge collection can quickly lead to being ejected from the nearest airlock - they're under the watchful eye of the trusty HAL 9000 "computer."

The enormous Atari 5200 is propped up by an equally enormous (and working) Atari Video Music.

Want to listen to some tunes while you're playing classic consoles? We can do that. (This mixer's nearly as old as some of the games are...)

At left, a look at the goodies that live in the shelf beneath the Vectrex. Above, some of the room goes with me wherever I go - somewhat embarrassingly, I tend to have this much gadgetry on my person when I'm on the go - handheld PC, GBA, camcorder, NetMD minidisc player, and an infernal telephonic device. I'll let you guess which of these I'd rather do without on a daily basis...

System selector #1 offers access to the most frequently-played RF-based consoles in my collection: the Atari 2600, Intellivision, ColecoVision and Odyssey2. And the "AUX" channel? Keep reading.

RF system selector "AUX" - 7800, Atari 400, TI and others here. This is daisy-chained to system selector #1's "AUX" channel. A bit convoluted, but it beats swapping cables all the time.

My computer desk is underlit by a red light rope. The electroluminescent keyboard glows a cool blue. The screen on the left is a non-HD Samsung LCD monitor which has both VGA and NTSC TV modes.

The same, with the lights out.

Another lights-out shot of the computer desk in action.

Thanks to my super-secret recipe for outputting old RF-based games to component audio/video, games can be played via the LCD screen too. This photo may, in fact, show the first time anyone ever bothered to show the output of a Magnavox Odyssey on an LCD screen.

Lights out! It's almost like a submarine on silent running sometimes.

Even with the lights out, you can just about read by the light ropes. Not that we recommend it, of course. It's sorta like a Radio Shack store, circa 1983, assimilated by the Borg.

A demonstration of different lighting configurations of the triple-headed tree light. Be warned, this place is anathaema to the kind of people whose retinas scream out for abundant overhead white light.

Another lights-out shot, this time showcasing the Kickman machine and the lighted shelf next to it. If you like to do it with the lights out, and by "doing it" I mean "playing Kickman," this is the place for you.

Building the Beast

The opening volley of turning a spare bedroom into a game room. That's no giant squid on the floor, that's just some of the wiring.

Probably doesn't look that impressive at this stage, does it? Taken in December 2003.

Things are starting to take shape. Note gap left for display cabinet.

Lighting test, December 2003.

I really love this open steel shelving. And it's a federal law that any such shelving that enters my game room will have light ropes attached to it.

This shelf originally held blank media and other assorted goodies. Oh, and the Enterprise too.

Read about the game room in my last rental house here, and about the remodeling of that room here.

Earl's Cool Stuff
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