Yup, that's from the same issue of the magazine where they printed my "Confessions of a Coip-Op Fanatic" where I told my story of how I was hooked on Tron in the arcades, and eventually got my own upright machine for my family room.

If anyone's interested, I can try to dig up my .doc and post it in here for a fun read.

Okay, here's the article I had published. Hope you enjoy it.

Confessions Of A Coin-Op Addict
Subject's Name: Curtis Hart
Case File: ??
Occupation: Technical Analyst
First Coin-Op Addiction: When I saw a Space Invaders at a local Pizza
Inn back in the late 70's
First Coin-Op Owned: Tron upright
What can I say? The 70's and 80's were a great time to grow up. The video game
craze was at its peak and arcades weren't the only place you could play these
games. You couldn't throw a token without hitting a grocery store, 7-11 or Taco
Bueno that had a few video games at your disposal and I played them all, in
any shape and form. Having a quarter meant I had 15 or so minutes of bliss.
Hell, there were times I was broke but I still I went to see others play. I
just wanted to be surrounded by the games. As much as I loved the games however,
none captivated me as much as one particular game I first saw at a local theatre…
It was 1982 when I just left the movie theater watching a new Disney film with
some spectacular computer animated graphics - TRON. And lo and behold in the
lobby was some new video game bearing the same name. I was instantly hooked.
Forget about getting the latest issue of the X-Men comic book, my money was
shoveled into this game. I've never felt this way about any other game either.
For the next year or so if I ever saw this game anywhere - I had to play it.
Then I got older and got more interested in girls and less in video games until
eventually I forgot about those games altogether.
Then about 1997 I was surfing the internet and came across something called
MAME (An arcade emulator) and found out I could play Tron again on the PC. "Great!"
I thought -- 'Wrong.' I soon found out. Technically, I could play the game again,
but something was missing. The original arcade controls were a combination of
a spinner and joystick with a trigger button. Hard to do the equivalent with
a $10 PC joystick and mouse. But it wasn't just that - the whole experience
wasn't there. The black lights, the lighted marquee, even just staring at the
cabinet itself were all missing from playing on my computer. This had to change.
As time passed I learned of a newsgroup called rec.games.arcade.video.collecting
which consisted of people that actually collected and played those original
coin-guzzling wonders that I was so enthralled with back in the 70's and early
80's. So I started reading the newsgroup's posts. Damn! Seems everyone wants
a Tron as much as I want one. What's worse, I've seen some pictures from private
collector's websites of their Trons and the side art on these cabinets were
either scratched beyond recognition or faded beyond repair.
Shortly after this I heard Super Auctions was having an auction near where
I lived. I figured I'd head over there just to see what an arcade auction was
like. So, I grabbed some money I had stashed away, a large mug of coffee, an
extension cord and was off to the auction.
After inspecting the games they had there I noticed they just unloaded my favorite
game - a cherry looking Tron with about 95% of the side art on both sides intact.
Wow! I wanted this. But I knew this game would probably be out of my price range,
so I made a last look at the game and moved onto other games I might want to
try to bid for.
The auction started with the 'cherry row' as I like to call it. This is a row
of games that looked mint, or at least like they've been taken well-care of
over the years. Ms. Pac Man, Donkey Kong Jr., the Tron I noticed earlier and
a few others were lined up ready to be bid on. When they got to the Tron to
start the bidding, I figured 'What th

flynnsplace Wrote:awsome story program! yeah I feel the same way Tron is my first arcade game. I have punch out and space duel also but Tron is my baby. Sounds like you got a great deal on your Tron machine. you have any pics of it?

Yup:
http://users2.ev1.net/~curtishart/badger/gameroom.html