In Montreal, journalist Louis-Philippe Messier travels mostly on the run, his desk in his backpack, on the lookout for fascinating subjects and people. He speaks to everyone and is interested in all walks of life in this urban chronicle.
Mortal Kombat, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Double Dragonetc: an arcade machine repair shop in Montreal turns on all its machines twice a week and recreates the joyful sonic chaos typical of arcades at the turn of the year 1990.
Add a heavy metal frame or hard rock and here you are in the atmosphere of an arcade on rue Sainte-Catherine around the time of the stadium riot caused by the rudeness of Axl Rose.
“Many fathers come with their children to share a part of their youth,” rejoices Mike Loftus, 49 years old.
He founded the Pinball Medic workshop in Ottawa before opening an address in Montreal.
The ground floor is full of boules machines: Doctor Who, Baywatch (with Pamela Anderson and David Hasselhoff), Crypt from the Tales, Dracula, Last Action Hero (avec Arnold Schwarzenegger), Metallica, Playboy, Kiss, Rolling Stones, etc.
The ground floor is filled with ball machines.
Louis-Philippe Messier
“Our oldest machine is the Night Rider from 1977 which is entirely electromechanical,” Mr. Loftus tells me.
“I have pimpé the Kiss machine so that it can play dozens of songs from the group,” enthuses Rob Illuiri, Mr. Loftus’ business partner who has been running the workshop in Montreal for 4 years.
Techno Relics
Behind the counter, repairmen work on broken or worn tables raised on coffin racks.
Mike Loftus repairs a table that he raised using a coffin rack.
Louis-Philippe Messier
I see technological relics that evoke distant memories:
“These are the joysticks originals from Pac-Man,” Rob Illuiri confirms to me.
Des joysticks d’arcade Pac-Man.
Louis-Philippe Messier
Above a counter there are tables where flashing lights indicate whether the machines’ motherboards are working:
“These home-designed devices save me from having to place the card on a machine to check if it works,” Mr. Illuiri explains to me.
Above a counter are tables where flashing lights indicate whether the machines’ motherboards are working.
Louis-Philippe Messier
A key under a table allows you to lift its upper part and reveal its internal circuits which I could describe as a spaghetti of electrical wires.
“To completely rewire one of these toys can take about 80 hours,” Mr. Loftus told me.
A tangle of wires connects the elements of the machine to the motherboard.
Louis-Philippe Messier
A type of mechanical piston, triggered when a ball hits a rubber ribbon, folds down and propels the ball.
A type of mechanical piston, triggered when a ball hits a rubber ribbon, folds down and propels the ball.
Louis-Philippe Messier
“Each table has its rules and, when you respect them, it multiplies the points,” Mr. Loftus explains to me.
“Some good players play games that last 30 or 45 minutes,” he adds.
Each game has its own rules… to follow for those who want to maximize their points.
Louis-Philippe Messier
An electronic basement
In the basement of the workshop, we find electronic games, including Double Dragon et Mortal Kombat…as well as the classics Pac-Man et Donkey Kong.
I play it and… misery! It’s difficult!
Donkey Kong and Pac-Man are challenging games!
Louis-Philippe Messier
“It was meant to swallow your 25 cents as quickly as possible! Some arcades reimbursed their machines in a month because it was so profitable,” comments Mr. Illuiri.
(Writing this column, I can still hear the damn music of Double Dragon which no longer gets out of my head.)
A museum
As the friends lack space for their devices, they will launch at the end of January a “Pinball Museum of Ottawa and Montreal” in Alfred, a small Franco-Ontarian town, in an old restaurant which has kept its decoration from the 1970s and 1980s… that’s good!
All machines are for sale (if you have a few thousand dollars to spend).
Friday evening from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., you can play the machines as much as you want for $20.
