We awoke a bit later for our final full day of vacation, about 9a. Got breakfast at 9:30a then signed up with Southwest for our boarding position. About 11a we headed to nearby Poppasito’s Cantina for some Mexican. We had chips and queso for appetizer. Michelle had shrimp salad; Genetta a beef taco and chicken quesadilla; Addision steak fajitas; myself two cheese enchiladas. It was decent enough, I suppose, but way too expensive. Luckily restaurants were the 5% cash-back bonus for Discover this month.
About 12:30p we headed north through the Dallas suburban sprawl towards Frisco, taking a little longer due to the chore of avoiding the copious toll roads. Grrrr! We did see many corporate headquarters like Ford, Toyota, KFC/Pizza Hut, and Oracle. Finally got to the Frisco Sci-Tech Discovery Center at 1:30p. There were some train cars and an engine outside but as it was hotter than Hell we ducked quickly into the museum, home to the National Videogame Museum. Also, it turned out, a miniature train exhibit that was sadly not to open until July 17 — a mere nine days later. NOOOOOO! Anyhow, the Videogame Museum had a neat metal sculpture with loads of TVs and monitors showing game footage, vintage commercials, and interviews.
Sculpture with TVs showing gaming stuff at entrance to the museum
While not huge (basically a large room split into different sections with a small room for an arcade as well as an attached gift shop) the museum was quite a treat. First came a section with early consoles and computers, including some super rare versions of Pong that were marketed to specific venues like “Puppy Pong” meant for vet waiting rooms. A really interesting display showed the same game (Frogger) on different devices to show the compromises made across the very rich early 80s ecosystem to bring early arcade games to the home. A display of t-shirts had a sweet one that used art from an old favorite of mine, Quest for the Rings on the Odyssey 2. There was also a niche with portable games including the old electronic football game, Merlin, Simon, etc. as well as a wall of controllers and other input devices.
The earliest days of videogaming, including a Puppy Pong!
Addision schooling Genetta on giant-sized Pong
Love the graphic design of the old Odyssey2 cartridges like Quest for the Rings
Display comparing different ports of Frogger
Nifty niche with many different controllers
There were nice displays for both Infocom and Electronic Arts album box games. A long table had many of the early 8-bit microcomputers and computers including early IBM PCs, TRS-80, Commodore 64, etc. with old-school company logos (including Origin!) painted on the wall behind. There was an area related to the videogame crash of 1983 that was in the form of a store counter and bargain bin with loads of carts. The bathroom lobby area was a visual treat — in addition to a Dragon’s Lair arcade machine the walls were painted like the final scene of that game, with Daphne on the women’s room door and Dirk on the men’s. Very neat. The next section had two rooms decorated in the style of the 70s (old console TV, retro decor, etc.) and the 80s (music posters, toys strewn about).
Display of early Electronics Arts “album box” games
Display of Infocom “feelies”, the cool trinkets every game came with
A recreated videogame store from 1983, the year of the videogame crash in North America
The earliest computers, shown here, survived the crash quite well…
Even the bathrooms were videogame themed, in this case the classic Dragon’s Lair
A display of some of the many patches Activision would send players that got high scores
A recreated 70s living room
A recreated 80s bedroom
A few more sections rounded out the large room — a case containing many rarities as well as exploring the presence of videogame characters in other medium like board games, toileteries, books, etc. I’m old enough to remember when Pac-Man was ubiquitous. Beyond a small room was a purple neon drenched room with 30 or so arcade game cabinets, many of which were classics. They even had a high-score wall. Very cool! Michelle played some Q*bert, her favorite game. I played a few as well. We finished up in the gift shop which actually was a bit disappointing. They didn’t even have great magnets! A decent selection of t-shirts, however, and the people were friendly.
A Dragon’s Lair lunchbox, a great example of videogames influencing other mediums
Addison playing Spy Hunter and Michelle her beloved Q*bert
One half of the arcade, illuminated in glorious purple neon
One thing that impressed me about the museum was that it was so interactive. Lots of games and systems available to handle and play. Also despite the small square footage it managed to cover a broad portion of the landscape with a fair amount of depth. There was a lack of focus on micro-computer and computer gaming which was a tad disappointing. Though Id (from Dallas) was well represented Origin (from Austin) wasn’t represented much at all — a glaring oversight.
We emerged from the museum back into the brutal Texas heat about 3:30p. On the way back to the hotel we visited a store that I had always read had great retro videogame and role-playing game finds — Half Price Books. It wasn’t bad, certainly better than the ones back home, but not many finds, an Intellivision game or two, and the standard White Wolf RPG books. We stopped at a Barnes & Nobel that was attached to a Gamestop — both sadly infested with toys as most are nowadays. Got a frappe at Starbucks which helped with the heat. Finished up the shopping with another Half Price Books location (one of 10 or so in the area!), but still no great find.
Frisco Sci-Tech center focuses on two of my loves — trains and videogames
One of Dallas’ many, many Half Price Books — wish home had one!
We drove through a super rich neighborhood (Zillow later confirming that nearly every house was $2 – 3M, ouch!) and decided to stop at Dunston’s Steak House at about 6p. It was OK, not great, and a bit pricey. We had an appetizer of fried mushrooms, fried zucchini, and cheese sticks. Michelle had the New York strip, okra, pinto beans, and cheesecake; Genetta the New York strip, baked potato, and salad; Addison the 8oz rib-eye, tater tots, fruit cocktail, fries, and banana pudding; and myself the 9oz filet mignon with bacon, baked potato, and salad. It was pretty neat to see how they cooked the steak, however, on some cool wagon wheel ratchet-gear thing.
Steaks cooking at the steak house
Back to the hotel just before 8p. Michelle packed while I cleaned out the car with a storm looming on the horizon. We went to bed by 11p after cleaning off the cameras.
Route for Sunday, July 8th, 2018