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How A Game of Pac-Man Cost Me $200 in 1982
The year was 1982 — for all intents and purposes a true heyday for the video gaming industry. Arcades were booming. Pinball machines and pool tables were being wheeled out of recreation centers and pubs, making way for rows of heavy brightly colored video gaming cabinets sporting names like Space Invaders, Donkey Kong and Zaxxon. With them came the chance to face off against aliens, a giant gorilla and some weird space ship at the low cost of just twenty five cents (which rarely lasted more than a minute or two).
My mother worked as a cleaning lady for a local ‘rec center’; one of those places where you could do it all — pool, Foosball, those little punch out gambling table top games and of course get sauced and eat cheap food.
The Rec Center opened about 10:00 A.M. on the weekends, meaning my mother had to be in there about 7:00 A.M. to have the place cleaned and ready for the rousing day of patrons.
Now, a 13-year old boy doesn’t typically like to get up at 6:30 A.M. on a weekend to go play janitor — but the Rec Center was like a toy store for the kid who spent his nights hammering out BASIC code on a Commodore VIC-20. The latest video games … the…