A Peek Inside Boris’ Home Arcade on Pac-Man’s 35th Birthday

I was 9 years old when I played my first game of Pac-Man. Ever since that moment I was hooked, and vowed that one day I would own my own Pac-Man arcade game.

Of course, that was always a dream. As a kid it was a special treat to be able to go to the arcade with a pocket full of quarters for the afternoon. We had an amusement park near my home called Bowcraft that offered miniature golf, go karts and a huge tent filled with video games. Donkey Kong, Crazy Climber, Kangaroo, Dig-Dug... they were all there. But the one game that I always came back to was my first love, Pac-Man.

I remember watching the debut of a show called "Silver Spoons" back in 1982. It was about a kid who went to live with his rich father in a big mansion that had every toy a kid could ever dream of. In a few episodes there was a Pac-Man arcade game sitting right in the living room. To me, that was the ultimate status symbol of all time, to be able to play Pac-Man in your house... whenever you wanted to!

Fast forward to my first full-time radio job. I was hired to host a morning show on a little startup alternative station in Middletown. It was a tiny signal with not much of an audience, but an amazing opportunity for someone just starting out. As it happened, the radio station became quite popular during its first few years (and continues to be very successful to this day). As a reward for doing particularly well one year, I was given a nice bonus check. It was a considerable amount of money, especially for someone who wasn't making much to begin with. Instead of investing it or putting it away in the bank I knew there was only one thing to do with it...

I bought a Pac-Man machine. After researching video game dealers and online auctions I found an original machine that was once used in an actual arcade for sale by someone in Newburgh. One weekend I "borrowed" the radio station vehicle and had a friend help me pick it up and bring it home to my "man cave."

Well, today the cave has turned into playroom for my son, but Pac-Man remains. In fact, we've even decorated the walls with Pac-Man artwork. Although it's 35 years old, the machine is still in remarkably good working order. I've made some cosmetic and mechanical upgrades, removing some wear and tear, rust, old paint and I've replaced the innards of the joystick control, which had become loose after decades of play. I've also restored the coin drawer with original parts so it accepts actual quarters instead of being set to free-play. There's nothing like hearing that coin drop and seeing the credit register on the screen before starting a game.

Internally, the game is extremely fragile. The hundreds of small wires that are soldered to the giant circuit board have become dry and brittle over the past three-and-a-half decades. Occasionally the game will crash or the screen will scramble because of loose connections, so I have to open it up and jiggle things around to get them working again. I keep putting off a major restoration, but as parts become harder to find I know I'm going to need to tackle that project sooner than later.

Someone recently asked me if it's still as cool to have a Pac-Man arcade game in my house as it was 20 years ago when I bought it. My answer? It's way cooler. I'm not a classic car guy and I don't collect any sort of memorabilia, so for me this is my prized possession. And I gotta say, it never gets old playing a game of Pac-Man with my son and thinking I'm just as cool as that dad on Silver Spoons was. Although it's clear that my son would much rather be playing with my iPhone.