Back in 1983 I watched a movie called War Games starring Matthew Broderick. It’s still a favorite movie of mine to this date and I own it on DVD.

Well in the movie War Games, David Lightman (played by Broderick) liked ditching school and playing Galaga at the local arcade.

Like David Lightman, I too liked playing Galaga and said to myself “one day I’ll own my own Galaga machine”. Years later, now I do.

Shall we play a game?

Sometime back in early 1993 I tracked down a beat up Galaga at a local auction. The machine didn’t work and it needed a lot of love. I paid around $300.00 USD for it at the time from what I recall.

It took me a solid 4-6 months of sleepless nights and close to $1,000.00 USD to get it fully restored and looking how you see it above.

Probably the most expensive part of the restoration was getting a factory control panel overlay (not reproduction) and the Galaga PCB repaired.

Back in 1993 I didn’t think about taking pictures of the restoration process, but at least you can see how it turned out.