Jason Torchinsky is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Jason has a book out now, Ad Nauseam: A Survivor’s Guide to American Consumer Culture. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is a tinkerer and artist and writes for the Onion News Network. He lives with his partner Sally, five animals, too many old cars, and a shed full of crap.
Before computers became small, cheap, and reliable enough for this purpose, people still had the desire to stand in front of armoire-sized cabinets, stare into a glass panel, and pretend to do things they normally didn’t do, like kill aliens, drive like a madman, or work in a junkyard. The way they did these things was with wonderful, complicated electromechanical arcade games.
These electromechanical games are incredible contraptions, using every kind of trick– projections, spinning drums, remotely articulated models, whirring discs, mirrors, lights– to give the illusions of speed, action, explosions, distance, and more. Looking at them, it’s amazing they worked so well in such a high-abuse public environment. These are real engineering gems, long gone, and very rare now. Luckily, there’s a bunch of videos out there, since stills really don’t do these justice: Speedway, Hill Climb, Invaders, Haunted House. Enjoy!