The machine was fixed, but Ethan wasn't in a hurry to erase the game stored in its EPROM.
After all, this was the genuine first generation masterpiece, Pac-Man.
Playing Pac-Man on a machine that could practically be considered an antique from Ethan's perspective was a truly novel experience.
In the future, the only way to play something like this would be on those pirated multicade machines that crammed thousands of games into one.
The half-open, half-closed yellow chomping circle moved through the maze, avoiding ghosts while collecting as many pellets as possible.
Such a simple game had sold over a million copies in this era.
Even Atari, that unlucky company, had managed to sell an astonishing seven million copies on the Atari 2600, despite the console itself having sold only ten million units.
Ethan played a few rounds casually before handing it over to Sam for a final farewell.
Looking at the iconic image painted on the cabinet, various thoughts flowed through Ethan's mind.
Pac-Man's developer was none other than the famous Namco.
Even at this point in time, before its merger with another giant, Bandai, Namco wasn't an opponent that the current Ethan could deal with easily.
Pac-Man, Tekken, Taiko no Tatsujin...
Countless classic gaming IPs combined with anime-related franchise IPs made it unquestionably one of the dominant giants of this era.
Reluctantly, Sam unplugged the arcade machine and looked at Ethan beside him.
"Are you going to start the porting work now?"
The brief sadness of parting was immediately forgotten.
He could still play the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man, but Tetris existed nowhere else!
Over the past few days, Ethan had been busy with development work and hadn't let Sam touch his computer at all, let alone play that endlessly addictive Tetris again.
But that didn't matter.
Once Ethan successfully installed Tetris onto this arcade cabinet, he could play it whenever he wanted.
God damn, just thinking about it felt amazing!
Ethan nodded, but as he looked at the machine before him, the hardware knowledge he had recently acquired began surfacing in his mind.
Suddenly, he thought of a brilliant idea.
An idea that could more than double this machine's coin-drop rate.
"Sam, I need some parts. Can you make a trip to RadioShack?"
RadioShack was a electronics retail chain that, in this era, was known as a paradise for makers and hobbyists.
Rumor had it that before founding Apple, Steve Jobs had spent plenty of time hanging around RadioShack tinkering with inventions.
"Parts?" Sam scratched his head as he watched Ethan fill an entire note with a long list of items.
...
That week, both Ethan and Sam were busy as hell.
Aside from attending classes every day, they devoted nearly all of their remaining free time to the arcade machine sitting in the living room.
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On Saturday night, Ethan pulled an all-nighter and finally completed the Tetris port before dawn.
The world's first Tetris arcade machine had been born.
Sam was sprawled across the short sofa in the living room in a completely undignified sleeping position.
The claw hammer in his hand slipped loose and fell to the floor with a clang, jolting him awake.
Rubbing his eyes, he looked toward the arcade machine.
The drool at the corner of his mouth hadn't even dried yet.
After a week of extensive modifications, the machine no longer resembled its original form at all.
No one would ever guess that it had once been a second-hand Pac-Man cabinet.
Then he heard a burst of 8-bit sound effects coming from the machine.
It was familiar.
The Tetris he had missed day and night!
"It's finished? It's finally finished?!"
Sam instantly forgot about being sleepy.
He sprang from the sofa and rushed to the arcade machine.
"It's beautiful... I've never seen such a beautiful, elegant lady."
He practically pressed his entire body against the cabinet, completely abandoning all dignity.
"Seriously, stop grossing me out, man."
Ethan's mouth twitched.
With obvious disgust, he yanked Sam off the machine.
"Help me carry this thing to the front door. It's Sunday today. Maybe we can attract a few players."
"What?!"
Sam let out a miserable scream and wrapped his arms around the Tetris cabinet.
His eyes resembled those of a dog protecting its food.
Such an incredible game...
If it got moved outside...
If other people discovered it...
Sam couldn't even imagine how many people would fall in love with it.
Just thinking about other people enjoying his beloved machine to their hearts' content made his chest ache.
How had things ended up like this...
For the first time, he had found his favorite game.
And he had also seen a glimmer of hope for the revival of video games.
Two joys had overlapped.
And that double joy had brought even more joy.
He should have already obtained a dreamlike period of happiness.
Yet why...
Why had things become like this...
"Hurry up. I'm exhausted."
Ethan kicked Sam off the machine and, without giving him any room to argue, lifted one side of the cabinet.
"It's not like you won't be able to play it afterward. Besides, who knows whether anyone will even show up today."
The damage caused by the Atari Crash to the gaming industry was far worse than it appeared on the surface.
So severe that even Atari's consecutive releases of several reasonably polished new games failed to stop its collapsing reputation.
"Video games are dead" wasn't merely a slogan to players of this era.
It was a belief.
If they wanted people to accept video games again, they would have to take things one step at a time.
...
Vivian loved morning jogging.
Even in the scorching heat of California, that remained true.
But today's run encountered a small complication.
"Huff... huff..."
Vivian breathed heavily.
Her body was already coated in sweat, giving her skin a smooth, glistening sheen.
Once she finished running through the apartment complex ahead, today's workout would be complete.
Her gaze casually swept across both sides of the street.
Admiring the scenery was one of the great pleasures of outdoor exercise.
Then she saw something strange.
Something she couldn't understand and yet found deeply shocking.
Two men were carrying an enormous arcade machine onto a front porch.
One of them, a young man, was punching and kicking the other guy, creating what looked like an absolute tragedy.
The other guy being beaten didn't even fight back.
Instead, he cried and wailed while clinging desperately to the arcade machine, refusing to let go no matter what.
Out of a sense of justice.
Out of empathy.
Out of sheer curiosity.
Vivian decided to pause her morning run and go stop this horrifying act of violence.
"What are you two doing?! Stop bullying him!"
With a powerful shout, Vivian quickly ran across the street.
But even if she thought about it for a year, she could have never imagined what would happen next.
The guy she was trying to rescue looked utterly terrified the moment he saw her approaching and immediately shouted.
"Don't come over here! There isn't a super fun new arcade game here!"
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