My Defender Story

But that's digressing.  

About me and Defender, that's what I'm hear to talk about.  I remember my first sighting of Defender in an arcade on North Main Street.  We played Asteroids almost every day there.  Unless Dave T. was there.  He was one of those guys who could play Asteroids for as long as he wanted on one quarter.  If Dave was there then we were off to the 'Teen Executive' downtown.  Except for this one day.  Sure enough Dave was ruling the machine and I was turning to the door when I heard the sound.  Video games just didn't sound like that.  So I checked it out.  The cabinet was cool.  And the name 'D E F E N D E R'.  I stepped up and looked at the control panel.  This was the time when games usually had a joystick and a fire button or maybe two movement buttons and a fire button.  Asteroids had five buttons and was considered insane (even though the hyperspace button was almost never used).  Defender had five buttons and a joystick.  I had to check this one out.  I read the bezel card and figured I would last maybe five minutes or so on a quarter until I got the hang of it.  I plopped my quarter in and hit the start button.  My first man lasted maybe five seconds, before I flew into a lander.  The second man was blown away seconds after materializing when I didn't get moving soon enough paid for it.  The last man lasted about as long as the first.  This time I hyperspaced and blew up on reentry.  All told my first game of Defender lasted maybe twenty seconds from insertion of quarter to GAME OVER screen.  I was hooked.  I played Defender every day.  I sat aside all my Pizza Hut tip money to play Defender.  

Eventually I joined the military and moved.  I was stationed in larger cities that had higher turnover in the arcades.  Occasionally I would stumble across Defender machines but fewer and fewer as the years went on.  Until sometime in the early nineties it seemed like they were all gone.  Sure there were clones available for home game units, but if you ever played on a Defender machine you know just how lame the 'home' versions are.  Defender drifted away to the world of '67 Ramblers, bongs and Billy Thorpe.

But it turns out you can go home again.  

I was reading the December 2001 issue of Maxim and I stumbled across an article about emulators.  Now I've known about emulators for a while but I remember my experiences with Mac emulators to run PC programs (don't ask why I was dealing with a Mac) and had always figured they would just kinda suck as well.  But the article was intriguing.  It mentioned MAME as being able to run 'almost every coin-operated game of the past 25 years'.  I have to admit I was curious.  A program that versatile would be impressive to see.  But I still figured game play would suck.  I downloaded and installed it.  I really didn't expect to find much in the way of games.  Defender hadn't even popped into my head.  As a matter of fact the first night the only game I had found was a lame East German deer hunting game. But you know what, it worked like an arcade game.  The controls were responsive and the graphics were truly like the old arcade graphics.  There was no glitching, the thing played smoother than I would have dreamed.  This was really cool.  The next evening I figured I would dig around and try to find something like pong or night driver I figured might be available.  While searching I stumbled on it.  Oh! My! God!  Defender!  Holy Shit!  DE-FUCKING-FENDER!  Not some lame Atari 2400 knock off, but the actual Defender rom sets.  Five versions of Defender rom sets.  I downloaded them.  I rebooted into Win98 and started up MAME and BAM! it's 1980!  The sound, dear lord, the sound!   The raster test!  The imploding logo!  I was giddy with excitement.  Now I'm not much into modern games.  About the only thing I play is the Command and Conquer series and occasionally I still pull out Doom.  But last year I got Moto-cross madness and fortunately had got a really nice joystick so I could play it.  Man I'm happy for that.  

So here I am with the most influential program in my life sitting on my screen. I just stare at it.  I'm afraid to press 5 (the coin button) because it might crash.  It might slow down and get jerky and suck.  Finally I start a game.  My first man lasts about five seconds before I fly into a lander.  The second one gets blown away seconds after materializing when I don't get moving soon enough paid for it.  The last man lasts about as long as the first.  This time I hyperspace and blow up on reentry.  All told my first game of Defender lasts maybe twenty seconds from pressing 5 to GAME OVER screen.  I am hooked once again. 

I told the guys at work 'All I need is a bong and I'm back in high school'.  I've been playing Defender every day.  I'm like really happy.  Stupid huh, this 20k of code has such an affect on me.  I bouncing around like I'm eighteen.  I was telling a guy at work about it and got to describing the arcade, I remembered it like I just walked out of the door.  I could tell him where every one of the 'star' machines were.  I can recall who 'owned' which machines.  It's like I have this time machine and I can jump back to 1980 whenever I feel like it.  This is great!  So Thank! You! Nicola Salmoria for a great program.  And of course thank you Eugene Jarvis for the perfect program.

Of course now that I have the roms I need a full blown machine.  I'm looking for a basket case Defender box that I can rip the guts out and restore with modern equipment.  Or I may, if I can't find an old Defender build one from scratch.  I've been digging and was surprised to find how many of us there are out there with the same feeling for this game.  I've gotten the schematics and found places that do the stencils.  Now I just need to find a marquee and bezel.

Life is good!

Oh yeah, I picked up Robotron, Stargate and Blaster too.  I'm covered on Eugene Jarvis code.