The Bearded Trio

Ever since I first watched Star Wars in 1977 I’ve wanted to be part of that wonderful and mysterious galaxy far far away.  In the beginning my Kenner Star Wars figures helped me with that craving but it wasn’t until I was on a British holiday camp in the early eighties did I realise there was another form of entertainment that could overload your senses and place you right in the middle of the Death Star attack.  Of course that medium was video gaming and it all started with the Star Wars Arcade machine. I was at a Pontins or Butlins holiday park in the early eighties and in the small arcade room that they had, were the usual array of pinball machines, fruit machines and the odd video games machine.  Defender, Space Invaders and Galaxian were the standard for those days.  But something caught my eye or rather my ears.  I could hear the familiar Star Wars theme being played.  I scanned the room eagerly, trying to determine where it was coming from and t...

I remember the first time I laid eyes on the Star Wars Arcade cabinet.  It was at a holiday camp's arcade back around 1984 and it was pride of place in the middle of the floor.  I spent many 10p coins playing that game and I genuinely thought I had the Force while playing. the This gem of a video comes from the pilot episode of a 1983 show called "The Video Game Challenge" and shows off the then-brand-new Star Wars arcade game from Atari. It is safe to say the original Star Wars Arcade machine is one of the greatest arcade machines of all time.

Steven Spielberg and His Missing Force Button Steven Spielberg as you probably already know is a bit of a gamer and it was only natural when the director was doing one of his regular visits to Lucasfilm in the early 80's that he set his sites on the Star Wars arcade machine that just happened to be taking residence. Little did Spielberg know that the machine that was at Lucasfilm was being used and studied by Peter Langston (Ball Blazer and Rescue on Fractalus!) who was there for Lucasfilm Games (later to be Lucasarts.) Lucasfilm actually had little involvement in the Atari arcade machine but the machine was shipped to the company for reference and for Langston to study. After studying the manual he discovered a switch that would convert the game into debug mode and allow all sorts of options to be applied. One in particular was the option to freeze the game and using the fire button you could advance the scene one frame at a time and still move the cursor on screen a...

Steven Spielberg and his trip to Lucasfilm, The Star Wars Arcade Machine and the missing "Force" button If you're a fan of Steven Spielberg then you probably already know the movie director is a bit of a gamer and it was only natural when the director was doing one of his regular visits to Lucasfilm in the early 80's that he set his sites on the Star Wars arcade machine that just happened to be taking residence. Little did Spielberg know that the machine that was at Lucasfilm was being used and studied by Peter Langston (Ball Blazer and Rescue on Fractalus!) who was there for Lucasfilm Games (later to be Lucasarts.) Lucasfilm actually had little involvement in the Atari arcade machine but the machine was shipped to Lucasfilm for reference and for Langston to study.   After studying the manual he discovered a switch that would convert the game into debug mode and allow all sorts of options to be applied. One in particular was the option to freeze the gam...

This is Star Wars for the ZX Spectrum, released in 1987 by Domark Ltd and developed by Vektor Grafix. It was also releas ed on the Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC. It involves tie fighters, space battles and massive fireballs. Nice. The Bearded Trio - The Site For Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, John Williams and a whole lot more. THE BEARDED TRIO ON FACEBOOK THE BEARDED TRIO ON TWITTER THE BEARDED TRIO ON GOOGLE+ THE BEARDED TRIO ON PINTEREST CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON STEVEN SPIELBERG CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON GEORGE LUCAS CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON JOHN WILLIAMS

Ever since I first watched Star Wars in 1977 I’ve wanted to be part of that wonderful and mysterious galaxy far far away.  In the beginning my Kenner Star Wars figures helped me with that craving but it wasn’t until I was on a British holiday camp in the early eighties did I realise there was another form of entertainment that could overload your senses and place you right in the middle of the Death Star attack.  Of course that medium was video gaming and it all started with the Star Wars Arcade machine. I was at a Pontins or Butlins holiday park in the early eighties and in the small arcade room that they had, were the usual array of pinball machines, fruit machines and the odd video games machine.  Defender, Space Invaders and Galaxian were the standard for those days.  But something caught my eye or rather my ears.  I could hear the familiar Star Wars theme being played.  I scanned the room eagerly, trying to determine where it was coming from and th...

I just has to share one of my latest additions to my Star Wars collection.  It's a sit down Star Wars Arcade machine.  Or at least a miniature version of one.  Probably the closest I will get to owning the real one. The original Star Wars Arcade machine was released in 1983 by Atari and remains my favourite and most memorable arcade machine. I purchased this model off Ebay from a seller who makes them to order.  Other arcade machines and pinball tables are also available. It cost me £14.89 plus postage.  The quality is outstanding and so is the attention to detail.  The model is incredibly light being made out of balsa wood.   Check out their website here too for more retro model arcade wonders. hugely recommended and this is going at the front of my collection to bring back those memories of wasting 10 pence after 10 pence in the arcade. Take a tour of the real thing. Rob Wainfur @thebeardedtrio The Bearded Trio - The Site ...

Here's a gem of a photo.  This is the creator Star Wars playing Star Wars.  George Lucas playing one of the best Arcade machines of all time, the sit down version of Atari's Star Wars. Rob THE BEARDED TRIO ON FACEBOOK THE BEARDED TRIO ON TWITTER THE BEARDED TRIO ON GOOGLE+ THE BEARDED TRIO ON PINTEREST CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON STEVEN SPIELBERG CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON GEORGE LUCAS CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON JOHN WILLIAMS

Sit back, relax and enjoy a 30 minute video showing the run through of the classic Star Wars Trilogy arcade game.  Thanks to Xyphoe on Youtube who uploaded this "guaranteed to make you smile" video. Longplay of "Star Wars Trilogy" the popular and brilliant Sega arcade game / coin-op from 1998! Played via emulation on PC. PLEASE READ - * This isn't actually MAME I'm playing this on, but in fact the new "Supermodel" emulator ("A Sega Model 3 Arcade Emulator") which more accurately emulates the arcade game than MAME currently does. You can get it here -  http://www.supermodel3.com/ * The game still has *graphical glitches*, most apparent on the Endor stage, the final death star run and sadly the lightsabre duels. However as you can see it's still very playable! Sound quality isn't brilliant, and not a recording/compression issue - it is as it sounds when you play. * I'm no expert on this game, I spent a lot of time in th...

Here's an interesting video showing the difference between the conversion of the arcadeStar Wars game on different systems.  The video shows the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, C64, Colecovision. Spectrum and Sega 32x. The video shows that actually for me the Spectrum version was one of the best conversions but sadly the video doesn't show us the sound which accompanied the Sinclair version.  Check out the video below with screenshots of the different versions below. Rob Atari 5200 C64 Colecovision Atari 2600 Sega 32x Spectrum THE BEARDED TRIO ON FACEBOOK THE BEARDED TRIO ON TWITTER THE BEARDED TRIO ON GOOGLE+

I want! A 12" Version of the classic Star Wars arcade game. 1:6 scale representation of the 1983 Atari Star Wars Arcade Machine. Built on a GPX Caanoo with custom cabinet, yoke, mechanics, and coin door. Check out the build thread at the BYOAC at this address: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=117874.0