The Rise & Fall of ALCA | Copyright, Piracy & British Arcade Kingpins
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- Опубліковано 27 тра 2024
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ALCA were the kings of the British arcade, from electro-mechanical to video gaming, they cleaned up, but they fell as quickly as they rose. Today we find out why, and it's thanks to Alan Meades, author of Arcade Britannia.
● Episode Links
Alex's Arcade Archive channel: / @thearcadearchive
Alan's book Arcade Britannia: www.amazon.co.uk/Arcade-Brita...
MIT Press: mitpress.mit.edu/author/alan-...
Alan on UA-cam: / @arcadebritannia
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● Chapters
00:00 Introduction to ALCA and Alan Meades
01:05 Who are PCBWay.com?
01:27 The origins of ALCA
09:20 Who is Martin Bromley?
12:05 ALCA hit the bigtime
13:28 ALCA discover Atari's Pong
15:18 A closer look at ALCA's Ping Pong
21:39 ALCA are on a roll
23:13 A return to video games in the '80s
27:20 The Law catches up with the Pirates
37:02 Outro
38:50 Bonus: The Story of The Pit
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Neil
A reminder we actually used to manufacture world class goods in Britain. (I love urban exploration and you see the crumbling wreckage of British industry everywhere)
Aye.
Globalisation made things cheaper but now the goods need travel so far.
The jobs went and also the coal, but they didn’t cease to exist, they only exist elsewhere.
I remember The Pit. Played it a lot in the day.
I love the synergy of you guys joining forces to bring the guests to the Cave and in turn, to the public at large. Another great video.
You guys are SO knowledgeable and Allan is absolutely incredible in his familiarity and easy ability to recall that interesting, exciting tale just off the top of his head like that. There is so much about the UK arcade scene that we just don`t hear about and this is truly getting that incredible story out there.
Wholeheartedly disagree!
He comes across as someone who has just read up on Wikipedia and then just blagged his way along.
Count the number of times he says "I don't know"... "I'm not sure"... "I guess"... etc etc
You might be surprised at the number, almost as surprised as me by your praise for the guy, not related by any chance are you?!?!
Fascinating stuff. At 58 I'm just about old enough to remember some of those electro-mechanical games.
The history of ALCA would make a fantastic TV mini series.
It really would!
That really is my dream!
@@ArcadeBritannia Cool. Have you written a screenplay etc?
@@freedomvigilant1234 Hi, I'm working on a second book that embraces the more colourful (and very British and entrepreneurial) history of the development of the British arcade landscape that I couldn't cover in Arcade Britannia. The characters, at times unbelievable situations, and the high drama is something else... and ALCA is only a footnote in that really. Arcade Britannia was briefly optioned but that then fell through. The next book is a popular history / historic fiction.
Think a mix of Only Fools and Horses, battling inventors and pioneers, and a tiny sprinkling of Sopranos, and you'll not be too far off it. Seriously, wonderful people, wonderful stories, and the taxman always trying to scupper things. Millionaires one year, destitute the next, then back being millionaires.
@@RMCRetro fun fact paramount used to be owned by gulf+Western
Really enjoyed the talk, so I ordered a copy of Alan's book - something to look forward to over the weekend before the speccy next turns up.
It's a great book, I took it on my honeymoon!
Great watch, thanks guys
Very interesting and informative to find out about the UK arcade industry. I like the collaboration videos with you both.
Let's go Alan!!! So extremely proud of you! ❤
I love both of your channels
Lets not forget I tagged Alex in all those machines that were found in the USA in Fresh Condition and one of them is Wimbledon. Bob is driving to the UK about now too
Always a pleasant surprise to spot retro Tom Hardy
Great, informative video! And I think it was nice of Lee Mack to take time out of his busy comedy schedule to come talk about this subject..
This was a fascinating watch. I didn’t know how important Oldham was to the story of the arcade and video games.
Find the video very informative and interesting. The only bit I found annoying was he keeps moving from one side of the display to other and I found it off putting and then he craned around the pillar.
But apart from that: brilliant!
Yep.....just pick a side and stay there!
Glad it wasn't just me!
This was incredible!! I did not know this story. I hope to get over there one day to see your place in person. Thanks for all you are doing.
My pleasure, thanks for watching and I hope to make you a cuppa here one day 👍
I can recall seeing a game like that Ping Pong one in our local barbers many years ago. It had one major difference - it would pay out money if you managed to beat it. I never played it, and on the next visit it had gone. This would be when home Pong clones were starting to appear.
Fascinating! My first arcade memory is of the Alca Target UFO.
Really loved this video style, well done!
Thanks!
Fascinating stuff, well done guys!
Cheers Dean!
The copying the rom's only happened because a lot as the 1980s arcade shared a common design so swapping the roms worked it was less of an issue with later custom boards however rom copying was still an issue then say a gauntlet could be updated to a gauntlet II with a simple rom swap as they used the same boards..
Yes, the Namco Galaxian design was so clever, many other games adopted it. Often needed sub-boards for ROM or RAM expansion. Even one of the biggest games ever, Donkey Kong, used the Galaxian design. Did Nintendo license the hardware design from Namco? Dont know.
Great story well told, I need to buy the book now
love this style of video and look forward to more.
I believe $10M USD in 1969 would be $86,250,280 in late 2023.
Again, top quality content. Fascinating story.
I remember watching a Quatermass And The Pit film back in the late 80s/early 90s. I was around 14-18 at the time and extremely used to horror films, even watching a lot that ended up on the Video Nasties list at 10 years old or younger (they were banned in 1984 when i was 10) That old black n white British shocker genuinely creeped me out and impressed the Hell outta me, it musta been terrifying on release!
Very informative. Knowsley Safari Park has an arcade, and it was filled to about 80% with Alca video and fruit machines in the early 80's. Didn't realize how diverse ALCA was.
Geoff Ellis at 11:17 looks like some unholy hybrid of Alan Sugar and Jimmy Hill. Egads!
I remember John Richards place in Villiers Rd, Surbiton very well. I used to go there quite often, I probably was a bit of a pain in the arse for him actually as I found what he was doing so interesting I spent too much time there. I dabbled a bit with the cloning, I still have a switch box for decoding PAL chips which were used as a kind of basic copy protection. Almost all of the copies were done on Galaxian boards. I have an amazing board still, which has piggy-back boards on top of other piggy-back boards and still works! Donkey Kong was the most valuable clone although the sound was never right. As soon as I could, I started a proper electronics design business well away from any cloning activity.
Considering in the 1980's Sega allegedly still had multiple board members missing fingers below the knuckle, this was a ballsy move.
I live in Surbiton, I never knew it was a hotbed of arcade chip piracy!
This is my dad 😎
Love the news presenter saying the name of that ROM copier with a straight face, clearly oblivious to its other meaning 😆
Born in Oldham, had no idea all this went on here 😅
Think about alca as the bloke in the pub with the black bag of pirate films 😂
It was a really good event. I'm yet to start reading my book, but have skipped through some interesting sections.
These electro-mechanical are fascinating as I don't remember ever seeing them. Sure they pre-date my childhood but its interesting how quickly they completely vanished in favour of video games.
Sometimes the ripoff version of a game is better than the original.
Got an example?
Ms Pacman anyone?
says Marrio
@@jst6502That was a sequel.
the pit plot sounds a bit like neon genesis evangelion lol
wonderfull!
anyone know of any uk arcades where some of the classic mechanical games shown early in the video can be found
SEGA originally started out setting up arcades for military servicemen and women and that's where the name comes from: SErvice GAmes.
That's interesting. I was wondering why the speaker seemed to hesitate while bringing up Martin Bromley and the founding of Sega. He even says he's choosing his words carefully.
Cool beans!
4:04 Alan shows Tank Assault and it lists 1968 as the year. Is there a reference we can check? I wonder if that year is incorrect.
Sega's Combat was 1969. Satomi's Tank, which also might have been copied for Tank Assault, was around 1970, maybe earlier.
Hi, thanks for the question - and a really good one it is. I've checked my sources about Tank Assault and have this from the November 16th 1968 issue of Coin Slot: "Two new shooters were
featured by Alca Electronics
Ltd. Tank Assault and Space
Gunner both allow players as
many shots as possible within
a time limit, directed
against luminous, moving
objects on a dark background.
Space Gunner, the larger of
the two single-player
machines, has swiftly flying
targets seen at intervals between clouds and as they are
hit they seem to disintegrate
with a loud roaring noise."
The other thing that is worth bearing in mind is that prototype machines were often seen by people within the trade long before they hit the market. That might explain some of the year discrepancies. So yeah, Tank Assault was 1968 but late 1968.
Don’t think the link to Alan’s page works?
This makes the Video Game Crash of 1983 make way more sense. You learn about Pong clones but you don't learn about this bit here. And this makes the Crash even more tragic.
Crime never pays, until it does 💰 💰
35:58 Did you mention Electrocoin? Of mr Stergidis?
Electrocoin is mentioned towards the end. On the day Alan also gave us a wider talk about British arcades but we focused on ALCA for the video, Electrocoin is covered in his book also
Electrocoin and John Stergides are absolute saviours of the British videogame landscape from the early 80s onwards. I credit John as the chap who in my view did the most to stabilize the unchecked importation of Japanese games onto the UK market. He showed great business sense and restraint... and as a result my childhood arcade looked the way it did. There's a chapter or two about this in my book!
ALCA Pops!
Aherm, “allegedly”…
How is it possible that you don't have a review of the Atari 2600+ yet?
You'll hear us discuss it on This Week in Retro but I'd far sooner explore the kind of history we see in this video than rush to review a new gadget. I'll check it out in 30 years when it's retro :D
@@RMCRetro ok.
28:00 I'm sorry it's called a what?
You heard :D
Hahaha! That threw me for a loop, too. :-D
It was an interesting talk which was detracted by the presenter constantly walking in front of the screen.
Moral of the story: Pay your taxes. lol
Couldn't watch this one - speaker bouncing from left to right all the time is just too distracting. :(
Not trying to be rude here, but this "So called" expert comes across as just some random guy who's read what Wikipedia has to say.
Lots of answers of "I don't know"... "I assume"... "I'm not sure"... "I guess"... etc etc
Not very impressed to be honest, definitely not a book I'll be buying
Why does the bloke keep walking from side to side ? It's so annoying
Doctor of video gaming, seriously? 😂 Universities must really be struggling to stay relevant.
Not anymore....he has just become a Professor!
It's no different from somebody becoming a professor of Shakespeare history . Shakespeare human is history and computer games are them same thing all be it 20th century history.
Have you seen the size of the industry now?
Ikr! Who needs experts in a 500billion dollar industry....it's for kids.... 🙄
I just wish he'd keep bloody still. Walking back n forth in front of the TV constantly!