Building a Gaming Empire In 1984

The two of them worked together to move the massive machine into the already cramped living room, then used rags to wipe it down inside and out.

It was a horizontal cabinet arcade machine.

The screen embedded in the wooden cabinet was tilted upward at a slight angle, a very common design that allowed players to sit while playing.

"My god..." Ethan circled around it once, muttering under his breath.

"Are you sure this thing still works?"

Just cleaning it had required them to change the water twice.

Twice!

"Uh..." Sam plugged it into a power source, but nothing happened. His face immediately scrunched up.

"That shouldn't be right. The old guy charged me 800 dollars for this thing! It should still work."

The certainty in Sam's voice quickly turned into hesitation, and most of his earlier excitement vanished.

That was 800 dollars.

He had emptied his wallet because he was convinced that Ethan's legendary game would definitely help him earn the money back.

If this thing didn't work, then he'd really been made into a complete sucker.

Thinking of this, Sam slapped the monitor in frustration, attempting to revive the machine through this traditional yet highly effective method.

But no matter how brutally he punched the arcade cabinet, it remained completely lifeless.

This thing really was junk!

"It's over, Ethan." Sam pulled a long face. "I think that old man scammed me."

Ethan was speechless.

Was this fool seriously unaware that he should test the machine before handing over the money?

An 800 dollar purchase, and he carried it home without even blinking.

"Don't you know how to repair electronics? You were the one who fixed my Atari 2600."

Ethan suddenly remembered that there was always a soldering iron sitting on Sam's desk, mixed together with all sorts of random electronic devices, making him constantly worry that one day it would become the source of a disastrous fire.

"SHIT, I completely forgot! I can do that, can't I?"

Sam's eyes widened as though he had only just remembered that he possessed such a skill.

He immediately rushed into his room and returned with an armful of assorted odds and ends that clattered noisily as he carried them.

Ethan sat beside him in amazement as he removed the screws from the back panel one by one.

He couldn't help but marvel at the creativity of people from this era.

After all, this was 1984.

Even his Commodore 64, which was marketed as a home computer, didn't have anything resembling a modern graphical operating system.

The moment it powered on, he was greeted by a BASIC command line, just like the screens hackers faced in science fiction movies.

In this era, becoming a computer user without having some real skills of your own was difficult.

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Sam was exactly that kind of person, a standard geek who knew a little bit about everything but mastered none of it.

Half of his body disappeared into the cabinet, leaving only his butt sticking out.

After a lengthy struggle, he finally crawled back out, covered in dust and grime, with some of his confidence restored.

"It's a false alarm. Just a few connections were loose. I should be able to fix it pretty quickly."

He set down his multimeter, picked up the now heated soldering iron, and crawled back inside.

Curious, Ethan crouched nearby and peeked into the cabinet.

Almost the instant Sam touched solder to a component lead, an electronic synthesized voice suddenly sounded beside Ethan's ear.

[Ding!]

[Hardware EXP +1 for observing hardware repairs]

[Hardware EXP +1 for observing hardware repairs]

...

"Holy shit?"

Ethan froze for a moment before blurting out loud.

You could gain skills like this too?

He had assumed he would have to wait until Tetris was completely finished before receiving another reward from the system.

He hadn't expected the system, which had remained silent for days, to suddenly appear again at this moment.

Ethan's sudden shout startled Sam.

His entire body jerked inside the narrow cabinet, and his head slammed directly into the monitor above him.

"F**k... Why are you suddenly screaming like a maniac?"

Holding his head, he crawled back out, carefully putting away the soldering iron that had nearly burned him, then glared at Ethan in annoyance.

"Hey, don't stop! Keep going!"

The experience notifications in Ethan's ear had abruptly stopped.

How could he possibly accept that?

He immediately became anxious.

The experience bar labeled [New Skill Acquisition (Hardware Knowledge)] was almost full, yet Sam had stopped right at that moment.

"What the hell is wrong with you..."

Sam was utterly confused, but instead of continuing, he tried reconnecting the power and flipping the switch.

During that short period earlier, he had already resoldered the loose components.

But perhaps because of the collision with the monitor just now, although the speaker and power supply emitted buzzing electrical noises, the display remained completely blank.

"See? Now there's even more stuff to repair!"

He was still complaining about Ethan's inexplicable outburst when he noticed that Ethan looked oddly excited.

"That's great news. Hurry up and fix it. I'm counting on you."

Sam angrily waved the multimeter in his hand before reluctantly crawling back inside.

This time, Ethan finally got what he wanted.

[Ding!]

[Skill Acquired]:

[Hardware Class 101]: [Gain basic hardware knowledge. Hardware learning ability ↑]

A flood of new knowledge poured into Ethan's mind.

A few minutes later, Sam crawled back out of the cabinet with a defeated expression and scratched his head.

"No good. The monitor doesn't seem to have any problems. Why isn't there any picture?"

Everything he knew had already been exhausted.

"How about... I take a look?"

Ethan licked his lips and pulled Sam aside before climbing into the cabinet himself.

Instead of focusing entirely on the blank monitor, he directed his attention toward the motherboard.

"Let's see... the problem should be here."

He repeatedly pressed down on several socketed chips, rubbing away the oxidation on their gold contacts that had caused poor connections.

Afterward, he didn't bother checking anything else and simply climbed back out.

"Try powering it on."

Sam looked at him suspiciously.

Since when did Ethan know anything about hardware?

Wasn't he a software specialist?

But when he plugged the arcade cabinet back in and turned it on, the expression on his face froze.

An image composed of blue lines and yellow dots appeared on the screen.

Although the aging CRT made it somewhat dim, the machine had undeniably powered on successfully.

He stared blankly at Ethan beside him.

He had spent so long trying to solve the problem and gotten nowhere.

How had this guy fixed it in less than a minute after crawling inside?

"Y-You know hardware too?"

"Just a little…" Ethan grinned.

"I picked up a few tricks while watching you repair it just now. I figured it might work, but I didn't expect it to actually work."

"..."

Sam came to understand one truth.

Never take Ethan seriously when it comes to this sort of thing.

There's simply no logic to him.

Damn it.

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