Another yellow Computer Space has been found! Unfortunately this one is non-functional. However there is a very interesting story of how it was discovered and how these photos were taken. It is interesting to note there seems to be some confusion which serial number it has. The picture implies it is perhaps 1006 but practically all Computer Space machines up to now have five digit serial numbers. It is likely there is another number after the 6 but it is unreadable. The person who took the photos mentions in this forum thread that later he was more certain it was 1004 and not 1006.

Click the thumbnails below for a very large version.


Here's the backstory of how I came across this:

I found the machine around late 2011/early 2012 during my sophomore year of high school. I was a member of the school's tech committee and I was working taking photos during the Schools "Freshman Retreat". After taking pictures of the seniors with their freshmen doing service work, I went to one of the "fun" locations they took the freshmen, the "Family Fun Center" arcade in Omaha, NE at the old location around 72nd and Dodge.
After finishing taking photos for the day, I decided to partake in some fun at the arcade.
Upon passing the kids area I could see through the inflatable bounce house that they were hiding some games behind it. I then got inside the bounce house to get a better look. Among the machines there in various states of disrepair were Ms. Pacman, Battlezone, a dedicated Mr. Do., and others. After surveying the area for a minute or two I could see out of the corner of my eye a familiar yellow color and curvy cabinet. My heart skipped a beat as I instantly knew what it was: A YELLOW COMPUTER SPACE.

I then sneaked behind the bounce house, dodging the view of the employees to get a closer look. You can imagine how dumbfounded I was being only 15 or so and seeing such a rare game outside of a museum or a private collection. Upon examining the game I noted some details:

-The machine's serial number was #10004
-I couldn't tell if the machine had a monitor in it as I the lighting was at a bad angle.
-The machine's control panel was unlocked and was missing all of it's buttons.
-The original oil can coin bucket was in there and MAY have contained the missing buttons as I could tell there was something loose in them that were not coins, but I didn't try to remove the bucket because I didn't want to make too much noise.
-It had pretty bad cigarette burns in the valley behind the control panel.
-The machine's back door was locked so I couldn't tell if the boards were inside the game.
-Given that the machine was partially disassembled, it's pretty safe to assume that it wasn't 100% working, but I had no way of knowing this for sure as I could not plug it in and there was no "Out of Order" esq. sign that I could see on it.

Once I got back to the school to continue work, I went to computerspacefan.com to see if this machine was registered in their database of surviving computer space's. Indeed, it was not registered, and is still not registered today (as of the time of this posting).

Now you may be wondering, why didn't I send anything to him or make any public post about this discovery? Well, I think it's pretty obvious. I wanted to try and buy the thing and I didn't want to jeopardize my chances by letting the world know. I knew that Family Fun Center was going to be closing down and moving to a newer location in Omaha, so I figured there may be a chance that they'd want to sell it.

I then spent the next few months trying to talk to employees as well as the owner of FFC about the prospect of buying it. I tried my best to not sound TOO excited over it by also mentioning other games that I saw behind the bounce house in my e-mails. It took quite a while as I imagine they didn't take my interest very seriously (and seeing as I was 15/16 years old at the time, I don't really blame them) EVENTUALLY the owner was kind enough to let me into the upstairs area where they held all of the games that were not out in the main area. Eventually I came across the Computer Space and started asking about it. He told me that apparently the machine actually DID NOT belong to them. Rather, they were renting/borrowing it from some company. I cannot recall what the company name was or even what kind of company it was, I just remember the name sounding really generic and nondescript.

The reason they had it was because they were intending to use it as a prop for their "History of Video Games Mini-Golf Course". Yes, you read that right. They were planning to use this as part of a mini golf course. They'd already sacrificed a Donkey Kong, Pac Man, Q-Bert, and a Tron to this golf course too. THANKFULLY, they decided against that proposition and just had the machine in back until they could send it back to whatever that company was.

I did try to contact this company a couple times to see if there was any chance that this machine could be purchased and wasn't able to get anywhere with it. It was one of those companies where getting a real person on the phone was practically impossible. Eventually I gave up and moved on. I'd intended to post information of it online after realizing that trying to purchase it was out of the question, but school stuff took priority and I ended up forgetting about it.

Fast forward to today, I came across the photos seen below while transferring files out my old laptop to my new one. Please excuse the quality of the photos, as I was using my low quality non-smartphone to take the pics. I recently got back into working with arcades again after a two year hiatus of sorts (College, what can I say?) and decided it was time to let the world know about this Yellow Computer Space. I have no idea about the whereabouts of this game today but, I am curious to know. Who knows, maybe I could try buying it again if the planets all align. I intend to soon send a message to the owner of computerspacefan.com about this machine so it can get a proper spot in the database.

So, does anybody know about the whereabouts of machine #10004?

I've told pretty much all about this machine that I can think of, but feel free to ask questions anyway!