Not only that but there are a lot of people restoring the older machines and building home arcades. I know more than a few people doing this and because of this I think there are more working classic arcade games today than there was ten years ago. They are just in private collections these days since all of the arcades are gone. -JM

I've got it for the PC and it was still working the last time I tested it. I have been meaning to get it out and see if I can make a "backup copy" to the hard drive or something other than the 5.25 disk that it's on. I think it had a bad sector and would copy up to the point of hitting it. When it would get to it then the copy would fail. I may see if I can put something together and see if it still works, if I've got a drive that is still working. - gg

Believe it or not, there are several companies out there that have started to reproduce a lot of the hard to find items. With things like artwork there will only be a short run every few years for some of the more rare titles, but the more popular games have reproduction parts available from many vendors.

There's a company that has actually reproduced the yoke for the Star Wars games and they are also looking into having the vector tubes reproduced for the old X-Y games. So the rare stuff is getting easier to find in some cases. It'll be expensive, but at least it's available.

I picked up a Dragon's Lair cabinet a couple of weeks ago that has been converted to some generic 1990's era game. The area where the marquee mounted had been cut to allow a generic marquee to be installed. I can buy the replacement wood panels, marquee brackets, marquee plexi, and the repro marquee itself to restore the cabinet back to its original shape. So a few months of work and a few hundred dollars in parts will get this classic back into working shape.

Videotopia is a museum display that travels. They currently have a setup in Tallahassee, Florida. I saw it last Friday while passing through there. They have everything from the first commercial video game (Computer Space) through some late 1990's era games.

There are more working classic video games today than there were ten years ago. It's not cost effective to refurbish and keep them running commercially, but there are hundreds of home arcades where people collect, restore, and share their games with their friends. I have a home arcade with 60 video games and 5 pinball machines. My collection is small compared to many of the others. So the arcades and games are not gone, just no longer in public.

Do a search online and you may be able to find someone locally with a nice arcade in their home that has an occasional game night open to everyone.

The Xandros on the 701 is spot on for school use. It limits the computer to an appliance that the student can use to type, print, and browse on in a classroom setting. We remove everything not related to the appliance type use from the desktop so that there's nothing to play with on it or that will allow them to change the settings. Sixty of these machines were purchased to test this year and the teachers prefer them to the full-sized laptops. We're looking to buy several hundred of them for next year, but only if the small-sized ASUS is still available. If not, can an off-the-shelf copy of Xandros be modified to look and feel the same on an Aspire One? Thanks, -JM