Amusement arcade memories

When I was a kid our family used to go on holiday to the Isle of Wight. We probably went to Sandown every year from 1967 to 1976. My favourite part of the day was the visit to the amusement arcades on the sea front and on the piers, Sandown, Shanklin, Ventnor and Totland  Bay.  The machines were mostly on penny play and very inventive. Totland Bay pier had a vintage amusement arcade. During the day I would be given between 10 and 20pence to go up to the amusements with my brothers. When our money ran out we would stand by the penny pushers and give them a nudge and hope for some coins to fall out. Sometimes in the evening our parents would take us to the amusements and join in the fun. I only had a small amount of money to spend so chose the machines I wanted to play wisely. I always found a machine which paid out when it shouldn't. One time this happened I filled up two or three cigarette boxes with pennies. My dad used to really give the penny pushers a shake to get us some spare coins. He didn't care if the alarms went off  and the attendant came over. He would blame it on our dog which we had with us. The amusements always seemed more exiting and bright when you had just come in from the dark. In the evening more adults would be in there so it would be much louder and many of them would have had a drink or be out as a group. 

Many of the games I played then have long since disappeared from many arcades today, so I was pleased to find a few online amusement games I could play again. Tooty Fruity is one of them and I have posted a picture above. You get twenty coins to play with and can replenish them after you have lost them all. It is a very strategic game but also relies on a lot of luck. The odds as always are stacked against you. you can play it here: http://www.nostalgiapelit.fi/tooty-fruity.html  The simulation looks and sounds like the real thing. There are some other great games on the site too which I will leave you to discover. If anyone knows any other similar sites please let me know and I will post them here.

You can also play another oldie called Conveyor here: http://www.pennymachines.co.uk I found this page in the arcade section of the site and it took me ages to work out how to get the machine to work. If you get stumped get back to me and I will tell you how. It involves obtaining coins to play before it will work. Very authentic. If you are not careful you can drop the coins you have and they get lost. Totally frustrating even though they are just virtual coins. Very clever though. I remember this happening playing a game called Wheel 'em In  (made by Streets) which had a unique way of paying out your coins when you won. The coins would roll down a sloping piece of glass towards you and be stopped when they had hit top speed by a thin strip of wood so that they dropped next to the slot where you would put them straight back in the machine. This was if they hadn't rolled onto the floor and under another row of machines. The coins were also vunerable to older brothers or taller kids intercepting them before they even got to you.

Watch one in action here 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62v2drGElXQ

Some of the other games that can be found on the same site as Tooty Fruity are shown below.

There is a collector of these old slot machines who posts movies of these old machines working and opens them up to show the workings. It was always a treat when the man with the keys opened a machine in the amusements. 

You can watch the film stream at: http://www.youtube.com/user/supershotbattymanbor

HAVE FUN!!!!