THE READING ROOM

An Arcade Side B clubhouse for English-language arcade reading, watching, listening, playing, and research.

Curated for useful rabbit holes rather than link overload: period magazines, oral histories, developer interviews, original documents, technical references, video, audio, and playable preservation.

FEATURED COMPLETE RUN

TOP SCORE Amusement Players Association • Complete original five-issue run

ISSUE 1Fall
1986Fall '86READ → ISSUE 2Winter
1987Winter '87READ → ISSUE 3July / August
1987Jul/Aug '87READ → ISSUE 4September / October
1987Sep/Oct '87READ → ISSUE 5November / December
1987Nov/Dec '87READ →

READ / MAGAZINES & PERIODICALS

Play MeterCoin-op trade coverage: operators, manufacturers, new games, shows, advertising, and industry news.International Arcade Museum

Coin-Op Trade Press More period industry reading beyond Play Meter: Atari’s operator newsletter, early enthusiast reporting, and RePlay’s searchable research index. International Arcade Museum Library

ATARI COIN CONNECTION → COIN SLOT → REPLAY — RESEARCH INDEX →

Arcade Express / Electronic Games HotlineFast-moving 1982–1984 game news with especially strong value for the classic arcade period.Video Game History Foundation Electronic Games / Computer EntertainmentMajor early videogame run with substantial arcade-era reporting alongside home-game coverage.Video Game History Foundation JoyStikShort, arcade-heavy run presented as a simple chronological cover shelf.Atari Compendium Video GamesClean chronological run covering the heart of the early-1980s videogame era.Atari Compendium Video Games Player / Computer GamesComplete short run with the title transition preserved on one easy issue shelf.Atari Compendium Electronic Fun / ComputerFunChronological complete run, including the final ComputerFun issues.Atari Compendium BlipComplete seven-issue 1983 run in a direct VGHF digital folder.Video Game History Foundation

READ / BROADER PERIOD SHELVES

READ / MODERN RETRO & BOOKS

Old School Gamer Modern retro-gaming magazine with substantial arcade-history, collecting, developer, console, computing, and preservation coverage. Start at Issue 1, then browse forward through the free run. Official Old School Gamer magazine and arcade-news archive

START WITH ISSUE 1 →

BROWSE ALL FREE ISSUES → ARCADE RELATED NEWS →

Retro Gamer — Book of Arcade Classics Arcade-focused Retro Gamer bookazine available as a publisher-hosted free edition. Future / GamesRadar

READ FREE OFFICIAL EDITION →

The Arcade “Encyclopedia” Books Two creator-distributed illustrated books covering early arcade machines, with screenshots, cabinet photographs, and game information: 1970–1976 and 1977–1979. DaddaRuleKonge • name-your-own-price downloads

GET / READ 1970–1976 → GET / READ 1977–1979 →

NEWS / CURRENT ARCADE SCENE

Arcade News Desk Current English-language arcade reporting: new machines, location tests, trade shows, arcade openings and closings, preservation news, industry moves, and modern coin-op releases. Old School Gamer • Arcade Heroes • RePlay • Time Extension

OLD SCHOOL GAMER — ARCADE NEWS → ARCADE HEROES → REPLAY MAGAZINE → TIME EXTENSION — ARCADES →

WATCH

STARCADE! The wonderfully arcade-soaked 1982–84 game show: contestants answer videogame questions and compete on real arcade machines for prizes. The original producers’ site also preserves games, contestants, commercials, hotlines, and other period material. Official STARCADE! site • JM Production Co.

START WITH EPISODE 001 →

BROWSE EPISODES IN ORDER → OFFICIAL STARCADE! ARCHIVE → 80s COMMERCIALS →

GDC Classic Arcade Postmortems The people who built classic arcade games explain how the games actually came together, in long-form conference talks rather than short retrospectives. Game Developers Conference • creator postmortems

MARBLE MADNESS — MARK CERNY → MS. PAC-MAN — STEVE GOLSON → PAPERBOY — JOHN SALWITZ → NBA JAM — MARK TURMELL →

LISTEN

Arcade Oral Histories & Podcasts Long-form audio for the people behind the machines. The Ted Dabney Experience centers firsthand golden-age coin-op voices; They Create Worlds adds deep company and creator histories across the wider videogame industry. Firsthand interviews • company and creator history

THE TED DABNEY EXPERIENCE → THEY CREATE WORLDS →

PLAY

The Internet Arcade Browser-playable emulated arcade games from the 1970s through the 1990s. Useful as an interactive preservation shelf alongside the Reading Room’s historical material. Internet Archive • JSMESS / MAME-based emulation

OPEN THE INTERNET ARCADE →

RESEARCH / ARCADE HISTORY

Arcade Historians & Deep Dives Evidence-heavy arcade history, cabinet archaeology, factory-floor material, restorations, prototypes, artwork research, and scholarly analysis—grouped here so the page stays curated instead of becoming a wall of sites. Independent historians • preservation research • scholarship

GOLDEN AGE ARCADE HISTORIAN → THE ARCADE BLOGGER → ED FRIES →

ED FRIES — FIXING COMPUTER SPACE → ED FRIES — FIXING COLOR GOTCHA → ED FRIES — FIRST ARCADE EASTER EGG → ED FRIES — FIXING GRAN TRAK 10 → ED FRIES — FIRST VIDEOGAME ROM → ED FRIES — FIRST COMPUTER EASTER EGG →

KINEPHANOS — SPACEWAR! HISTORY → KINEPHANOS — RECONSTRUCTING WARRIOR →

ROTHEBLOG →

ROTHEBLOG — REPRODUCTION CABARET CABINETS → ROTHEBLOG — ROBOTRON CABARET PROTOTYPE → ROTHEBLOG — MR. DO! CABINET INVESTIGATION →

Developer & Company Research English-language sources for the people and companies behind arcade games: contract-development research, translated Japanese interviews, Atari creator interviews, and firsthand UPL development history. GDRI • Shmuplations • Atari Compendium • Hardcore Gaming 101

GAME DEVELOPER RESEARCH INSTITUTE → JALECO DEVELOPER ROUNDTABLE → ATARI COMPENDIUM INTERVIEWS → RYUICHI NISHIZAWA — UPL →

System 16 — Hardware Reference Desk Arcade hardware organized by manufacturer and board family, with game search, hardware search, chronology, pinouts, base-hardware relationships, and thousands of game records. System 16 • arcade hardware database

OPEN SYSTEM 16 →

RESEARCH / WORKSHOP & TECHNICAL

Workshop & Technical Reference CRT and video engineering, arcade manuals, repair material, board-level research, diagnostic ROMs, hardware comparisons, restoration notes, hands-on tinkering, and practical preservation work. Museum of the Game • Shmups • Ian Stedman • Outerworld Arcade • Virtvic’s Tinkerings

MUSEUM TECHNICAL CENTER → ARCADE MANUAL ARCHIVE → SHMUPS TECH FORUM → GBS-82XX EXPERIMENTS → OUTERWORLD ARCADE → VIRTVIC’S TINKERINGS →

RESEARCH / SPECIAL HOLDINGS

Material worth keeping visible even though the surviving public run is incomplete or primarily useful as a cataloged research holding.

BROWSE VGHF MAGAZINE LIBRARYFull preservation library when you want to go beyond the curated shelf. BROWSE INTERNET ARCHIVE WAREHOUSEBroad fallback source for magazine runs, individual issues, and material missing elsewhere. This raw warehouse is intentionally unfiltered. ARCADE FLYER ARCHIVE — TAFAOpen directly in TAFA’s visual Arcade Flyers Gallery for original flyers, brochures, sell sheets, cabinet artwork, screenshots, and other promotional material.

RIGHTS & REMOVAL NOTICE
Arcade Side B curates links and selected preservation material for historical research and education. Most destinations are third-party archives, publishers, creators, museums, or video/audio platforms. Unless otherwise stated Arcade Side B does not claim ownership of third-party works. Rights holders may contact Arcade Side B to request attribution, correction, restriction, or removal of material hosted here.