Looking for Nintendo arcade film?
 

Hello all! I'm a video game preservationist, and I'm trying to acquire EVR tapes and scans of slides from Nintendo's early arcade games.

There's a series of arcade games that used EVR, or electronic video recorder tapes. There were at least three titles; EVR Race, EVR Race-5, and EVR Baseball.

I was wondering if anyone could help to point me in the right direction as to where to look for these tapes? How they worked with the arcade is that you would "bet" on which horse, car, or team would win in a race, or game of baseball, and the screen would play a random tape of the race or game.

The other arcades used 16mm film to project an interactive video. These included; Shooting Trainer, Battle Shark, Wild Gunman, and Test Driver.

I run a video game museum, and I've also been researching Nintendo's early arcade games.

While I can't help point you in the direction of an EVR tape, I can hopefully clear up a bit about EVR Race. It came in six different versions, depending on how many players could bet on a game of horse or car racing (The EVR Race cabinet could be used with either the horse or car racing EVR tape). EVR Race supported one player, EVR Race-2 supported two players, EVR Race-3 supported three players, EVR Race-4 supported four players, EVR Race-5 supported five players, and EVR Race-6 supported six players. The EVR tapes were the same across the versions, as it was only the cabinet configuration that differed.

I see. Thank you for the clarification, and I'll check out your museum, as well. Maybe we can keep in touch?

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It appears your website is down. :hmm:

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Scratch that, I was able to get to it.

I could probably open my own museum. :P

- Odyssey
- Atari 2600
- NES
- Sega Master System
- Sega Game Gear
- Atari Lynx
- SNES
- Genesis
- Atari Jaguar
- Neo Geo Pocket

And those are just what I remember.
For NES alone, I have things like a Power Glove, Game Genie, etc.

I have a few later systems, but mostly for Street Fighter games, or a throwback like the Wii U Mario game.

That's great!

Nice collection. :) That's definitely a good assortment of gaming history right there. :)

I'll definitely keep in touch. It's always good to be able to talk to a kindred spirit when it comes to a rather niche area such as 70s era video game preservation. :)

I'm currently in the process of setting up the physical museum. Not for the public, yet, but as kind of a test run to get a layout going for when I eventually open the museum to the public again.

I picked up Beam Gun Duck Hunt, which is interesting because it's a toy version of the arcade Simulation System, uses the same lightgun as its arcade big sister, and uses a projector, like the arcade, instead of a physical target like Nintendo's other Beam Gun toys.

I'm planning on using the Beam Gun Duck Hunt and this flyer, which gives the precise dimensions of the cabinet, to make a replica of Nintendo's Simulation System for my museum.

Laser Clay Shooting System (aka Mini Laser Clay) and Shooting Gallery use the same system as Beam Gun Duck Hunt, which has solid white objects projected onto a scenic backdrop.

The other Simulation System games are more sophisticated, of course, with full motion video through 16-mm films. But this gives a nice little insight into how the projection system was utilized for games.

Excellent! Just shoot me an email when you can :)

I assume you need the films to go along with the Laser Clay Shooting System, Wild Gunman, Shooting Trainer, Sky Hawk, Battle Shark, New Shooting Trainer, and Test Driver

I went in a vintage video game store in Dallas last year, and the back half of their store is a console museum, quarter arcade, and then I believe they hold demos and contests for vintage games. The store is apparently packed on a regular basis from what I've heard.

That sort of business model potentially would do well. :wink2:

I actually have the original boxes for 99% of my vintage games, consoles and accessories. When we had the same stuff, mine was in better condition. I've also always kept everything wrapped or boxes when not used, so no yellowing issues. This is all stuff I had when younger. It was expensive, so I took care of it all. After college, I quit buying and playing games.

That's really cool. I have a few vintage games as well, including the Color TV Game 15s, one of Nintendo's very first home video game console. It features different varieties of Pong

I took another look at the website, and made some additions/changes to the Beam Gun section to make it a bit more accurate and comprehensive.

We're working with a collector in California who owns some slides of the Simulation System game Wild Gunman. We need scans of the slides, and the collector is having a hard time finding places to get good quality scans. Perhaps if he were to look at this site, members could help him out??

What's needed is
- a good scanner (and one costs at least $500, if not $1k or more)
- somebody that knows proper cleaning, and will clean the slide if needed
- quality scanning software like Silverfast or Vuescan.

I can do all that.

What sort of slides? Are we talking 35mm, or something else?
How many?

sorry to bump an old topic, but after more research, the information I gave above is very incorrect and I felt I needed to correct it.

EVR Race did appear to have two EVR film tapes: horse racing and automobile racing. However, after more research, it appears as if there are indeed only two cabinet variations. EVR Race has six coin slots so that a maximum of six people can bet on the race while EVR Race-5 has only five coin slots for a maximum of five bets.

EVR Baseball appears to only have come in one variation, but not a lot of information about it is described online. Apparently, a flyer of EVR Baseball appears in the book "The History of Nintendo" by Florent Gorges, but I don't yet own that book to verify the information contained within.

As for my project to recreate the Simulation System, the project I aim to recreate, at least at first, is Mini Laser Clay. Mini Laser Clay is the adaptation of the Laser Clay Shooting System, which was shortened from its original length of a bowling alley lane to the length inside a Simulation System arcade cabinet. Laser Clay Shooting System and Mini Laser Clay appeared to have used a lighted cylinder that would project white clay pigeons onto a screen painted to resemble a sky, clouds, and grass. This system is similar to the original 1976 Duck Hunt, which I do own. I plan to use Duck Hunt along with the dimensions listed in the Simulation System flyer to recreate Mini Laser Clay.

As for Wild Gunman, which is almost certainly the most wanted game to be recreated in the Simulation System line, the only known 16-mm footage known to exist for that game is in Craig Baldwin's experimental film ''Wild Gunman''. I hope to be able to track down that film so that I can determine if that footage can be used to recreate the original Wild Gunman arcade game.

The Video Game History Foundation might be of some help.
https://gamehistory.org/
I also know there are youtubers that are very knowledgeable. I don't know specific names but every once in a while I stumble across a video where they discuss some recently discovered piece of video game history that no one ever knew existed.