Vintage Video Games, Bipolar Milkshakes, and Potato Donuts
The 2004 Classic Computing and Gaming Show
October 23, 2004
I drove from Toronto to Mentor, Ohio, to attend a vintage computer and video game show. The show itself took place in a Presbyterian church, but when vintage computers are on display I've learned that us atheists have to make allowances.
My main goal for attending the Classic Computing and Gaming Show was the hope that I'd be able to pick up some Apple II software, in particular an Infocom game or two. Sure, I could play them through an interpreter on my PowerBook, but that wouldn't be the same. I'm looking for authentic vintage gaming experiences, and this show seemed just the ticket. Barring an Infocom gem, I was sure I could pick up some cartridges for the vintage Atari 2600 game console I'd just ordered.
No matter what I dug up, Vintage tech fun would abound. I was very excited, because I am a nerd.
My pal and Big Woo Films partner Colin Foster joined in the road tripping fun. He brought goodies, too: bottles of water, animal crackers, and logic puzzles to pass the miles in nerdhood He also brought a compass, but let us not dwell on the fact that I have a reputation for getting lost.
My iPod supplied the soundtrack. It was the first long distance test of my NewerTech Roadtrip FM transmitter and it worked a treat. The iPod's battery lasted all the way to Ohio and back with juice to spare.
I wrote that I wasn't going to dwell on my reputation for getting lost, but let's do so anyway: I missed the border. Well, not the entire border, but I did take us to Niagara Falls instead of reaching the Fort Erie crossing I was seeking.
There is exactly one highway that runs from Toronto to Fort Erie, and yet still I somehow got lost. I'm special.
No matter, we could cross at the Falls and find our way to I-90 from there. Going over the bridge to the U.S. side we got a good view of the Falls from the car. The first photo op! I handed the camera to Colin to snap a picture of this natural wonder of the world.
Instead he took a picture of some girls. I'm sure he'll insist he was trying to shoot the falls behind them. Riiight.
On the U.S. side, I took the camera away from the perv Colin and grabbed a snap of the Twist o' the Mist ice cream shack:
Nothing says "hey, I'm in America!" like moulded buildings in the shape of ice cream cones, cameras, turtles, or the occasional giant lumberjack. Well, nothing except maybe a sign:
We found our way to I-90. After rolling along for a while Colin wondered aloud if we were headed the right direction. I hadn't really thought about it: I figured we'd go toward Cleveland and worry about the details once we were in Ohio. Basically, the plan in my mind was "take I-90 West until Ohio, then look for signs." (c.f. my reputation for getting lost, above.)
The problem was, Colin's compass was telling us we were driving South. Puzzled, he lifted it up off the dashboard ... and the needle spun around. Turns out my dashboard is strongly magnetized right above the passenger side airbag. Pushing the compass over to the side gave us a true reading and we were Westward, ho!
We made it right to Mentor without incident or further lost-ed-ness. It rained lightly most of the way, and as is usually the case I thought about how much more comfortable I was on this road trip than on previous motorcycle jaunts in the rain (though I'd still prefer a two wheeled trip any day).
In Mentor I was surprised by the tiny size of the stop signs. That, and the fact that other drivers seemed to be ignoring them. Why was everyone in Mentor running the stop signs with such abandon? Had the signs been shrunk to reflect their relative importance to drivers in this crazy Ohio town? We didn't figure it out until later, so I'll leave you in suspense for now.
It was easy to find our way to the church where the show was being held, and I was excited when we pulled into the parking lot.
Inside, we registered (for free -- can't beat the price) and walked down the hall toward the unmistakable sound of vintage games. Bleeps and pings were calling to me, and I'd say "resistance was futile" but I'm not that much of a nerd.
Oh, who am I trying to kid?
The lady taking the registrations let us know there would be half-hourly draws for door prizes, with the big prize given away at the final 10PM draw. The prize would be a Briel Computers Replica 1, a clone of the original Apple computer. Jinkies! We were suddenly very motivated to make sure we were around for that last draw.
Walking into the main room of the show, I knew I was among my nerd kin. It was a rare and delightful experience to walk into a room and not to be the biggest geek in sight. That alone was worth the trip.
The dominant systems were the Atari 2600 and both the NES and the SNES, with scores of carts and joysticks available for all three. Less was on hand for computers, although there were two tables displaying Apple II hardware and a handful of vendors had Atari and Commodore goodies. There were also vintage handheld and tabletop games, magazines, and lots of accessories.
The first thing that really caught my eye was the Replica 1. Seeing that made my old Apple Nerd heart swell. I had a chance to chat with Vince Briel, who designed the clone, and he's a good guy.
While I talked with Vince, though, my eyes were darting around looking for Infocom games. I could see a boxed one on the other side of the room under a vendor's table. It was Planetfall. Huzzah. I went around the room, perhaps a little speedy, and snatched up the box!
But it was a Commodore 64 version.
Oh, how it taunted me. I considered buying it just to raid it for those famous Infocom accessories, but I couldn't bring myself to ruin a still complete set like that -- even a blasted Commodore version.
While I was on that side of the room, the thing that really grabbed my attention was the Treyonics Devastator II, a massive arcade controller that put to shame the tiny joysticks around it.
But while I was admiring the Devastator II I spotted another boxed Infocom game down at the end of the aisle. It sat there as if in answer to my ethical decision not to break up that Planetfall set. I was to be rewarded for my goodness, which was fine by me. This second box was The Leather Goddesses of Phobos.
Colin was already down at that end of the aisle, and he held it up to show me ...
... that it was an IBM PC version. Confound it, I'd been taunted again. And again, I decided not to buy this "foreign" version to rip it apart for its inners. I hoped the Collector Gods would soon reward my double good deeds when it came time to draw for the big Replica 1 door prize.
We looked around the tables for a while, and then Colin and I headed back out into Mentor to grab dinner and to catch a movie. On my list of things to do before I die is the goal of seeing a movie in every continental U.S. state, and this was a chance to check off Ohio.
Our first stop was a bank machine. Just as the giant ice cream cone shack was a sign that we were in America, so too was this drive through bank machine. We have a few of those in Canada, but they're not nearly so prevalent North of the 49th Parallel.
On the way, Colin sussed the mystery of the tiny stop signs: they were for bicycle and foot traffic on the lanes adjacent to the roads. Once I knew what they were for, I liked the little stop signs. But I always felt a bit of a jolt of Canadian Guilt whenever we'd zip on past one without stopping.
Next up was dinner. We seemed to have a choice of three restaurants. There may have been others, but these were the only three we saw in the town: a Quizno's sub shop, a steakhouse, and a Steak 'n' Shake. We opted for the Steak 'n' Shake because that seemed the most definitively American choice. And neither of us can resist the call of milkshakes.
As you can see, it's actually called the Steak 'n Shake (just one apostrophe before the "n") but that implies some strange spelling of the word "and" without any letters after the "n." I'm quite sure that even in America they spell "and" with a "d."
The signs hanging from the ceiling in the Steak 'n' Shake were heavily promoting new milkshakes that combine two different flavors. Not two flavors mixed together, though. Oh no, nothing boring like that. These milkshakes have one flavor on the left side and another flavor on the right. Pure genius in shake form.
We ordered a couple of "steakburgers," which also struck me as being a very American thing to eat. Of course we also ordered those lauded milkshakes. Mine had chocolate on one side and strawberry on the other. The shakes themselves were excellent. I can see why they get equal billing in the restaurant's misspelled name.
The burgers were mediocre. Colin's had cheese, but instead of a melted slice it was a ladle of nacho cheese sauce. Our bespectacled server was Amanda, and she was as fast and pleasant as they come. Great staff and fantastic shakes make up for blah burgers in my book.
We saw a young couple go into the Steak 'n' Shake just as we arrived. They were a pair of teenagers dressed to the nines: him in a suit and tie, her in a black and white dress. Her hair was up in an intricate series of braids that obviously took someone considerable time to fashion. His shoes were as shiny as rentals. I watched them as they quietly stood in front of the Steak 'n' Shake cash register in their best clothes. They broke my heart.
After dinner Colin and I headed across the street to the cinema. I love going to the movies in a new town. I like the new-but-familiar feeling of being in a strange cinema, and I like noting the details that set it apart from my local movie houses. (Hey, we all have our quirks, mine just happen to be more geeky than yours.)
We opted to see Friday Night Lights. We'd arrived only shortly before the film was to begin, so there wasn't time to take in much of the atmosphere. There wasn't that much to see anyway. This was just a typical multiplex: no automatic tellers for ticket purchases, one standard confectionary counter, 16 small to medium screens, and a dull yellowish color scheme that must have seemed like a good idea to the Atlas accountant. The place was clean, but worn. I noticed there were some love seats scattered about the rows of seats so couples could snuggle. Or maybe Atlas caters to people who eat far too many of those nacho cheese steakburgers.
I always head to the confectionary counter in a new cinema to see if they have something I've never tried before. The Atlas 16 offered me a few candies that were new to me, and I selected something called a Nerds Rope (a strawberry gummy rope covered in tart crunchy pieces - yum). Could there possibly be a more fittingly named candy for a vintage computer road trip?
After the movie, we went back to the show. I picked up a bunch of Atari cartridges to kick start my collection.
For those of you playing the home game (or squinting at the photo) the cartridges I selected were: Astroblast, Combat, Gorf, Grand Prix, Indy 500, Maze Craze, Pitfall II, Riddle of the Sphinx, Space Invaders, Warlords, and Wizard of Wor. Not a bad haul for a total of about twenty bucks.
It was only on this second visit to the show that I realized there was a whole other room I hadn't seen yet.
It was an Atari Jaguar showcase. There was also an additional vendor's table off to the side of this room, and three of the Atari cartridges I bought were from him.
Soon it came time for the big draw for the Replica 1. Surely I would be rewarded for my double good deeds. Surely the Gods of Collecting would smile upon either Colin or me so we could bring the clone back to Canada. What a great ending for this road trip story. We held our breath, and they drew the name:
Drawing the door prize [2MB AVI]
Drat, we hadn't won.
But then ... a twist! The winner wasn't there. The "rules" stated you had to be present to win, so another name would have to be drawn. There were only about twenty people in attendance by this point, so between Colin and I we had about a one in ten chance of winning this amazing prize.
We held our breath as a second name was drawn by the show's organizer. We had talked with him about the Replica 1 and how excited we were about the prize. We had talked with him about how we'd driven all the way down from Canada. And now with the winning ballot in his hand, he looked right at me and said the winner was "someone who is here, someone who'll be very happy." Then he announced the name:
And the winner is... [1.8MB AVI]
If you listen closely you'll hear a couple of voices at the end saying "fixed!" That was, um, some other guys standing right behind us. Yeah, that's it.
Oh well. We headed out into the rain (even Mother Nature had wanted us to win) and turned the car toward Canada.
Before we reached I-90, though, Colin spotted something very interesting. It was a sign for something called "Spudnuts: the upper crust of the donut world."
What could this be, we wondered? Some kind of donuts made out of potatoes? Some kind of donuts with a crust? How exciting. Naturally, we turned the car around and raced back. We were Canadians. We came from a land with donut shops on every block. We'd be the judge of whether these things were the upper crust of donuts.
We pulled up, and all but ran inside to find ... a plain old donut shop with a couple of trays of normal looking donuts. Oh Mentor, how you taunt us.
We screeched to a halt, looks of obvious disappointment on our faces. I'm sure we made quite a sight as we slumped toward the counter and ordered a half dozen dozens. The few patrons were all watching us the way people in the saloons watch strangers in Western movies.
But the donuts were actually very good, and they easily won the approval of this pair of picky Canadians. (I later found out, thanks to Google, that these Spudnuts donuts are made from potato flour. So that explains the name.) I'd eat 'em again.
On the ride home through the rain and strongly gusting side winds we listened to a few episodes of a BBC radio panel game show called The 99p Challenge. I've been thinking about writing a comedy panel show for the North American market, and we brainstormed about the show's format. Lots of great ideas came out of that, so when you eventually hear my voice on a panel show you'll know it all began on a stormy stretch of I-90.
We didn't win the Replica 1 and I didn't find an Infocom game for my Apple IIe. But I did get an armload of Atari 2600 cartridges and I checked one more state off my movie list. Plus I had potato flour donuts for the first time. It was a good way to spend a Saturday.
The Classic Computing and Gaming Show was great fun. I'll definitely attend next year's event, perhaps with an eye toward picking up an Intellivision or an NES. And I've learned an important lesson: when the Collecting Gods turn their backs on us, we atheists have to manufacture our own luck.
So next year I'm stuffing the ballot box.
