Abstract
Swelling inventories of obsolete arcade equipment prompted businesses to offload items into Japan’s secondhand electronics market during the 1980s and 1990s. As a result, surplus arcade game PCBs (printed circuit boards) found their way into the hands of home tinkerers, who built compact devices to play these games on televisions and computer monitors. This development marked the emergence of what is now recognized as the supergun hobby. Magazines fostered the early success of the hobby by facilitating the exchange of information and nurturing a sense of community among enthusiasts. The supergun hobby garnered considerable media attention during the height of its popularity; nevertheless, it has remained overlooked in academic discourse. Examining the supergun phenomenon from its do-it-yourself (DIY) origins offers a fresh perspective on Japan’s video game culture. Employing a heterodox approach, this article establishes a chronology of the supergun hobby by examining period print materials and, for the sake of comparison, the internal components of commercial hardware. Additionally, to recreate the DIY hobbyist experience, multiple supergun devices were built using only published build guides for instruction. The combination of textual and hands-on research illuminates a neglected yet noteworthy episode in the annals of electronic entertainment.
Space Invaders (Taito, 1978) marked the first mainstream commercial success for Japan’s video game industry and quickly became a cultural sensation. “A wave of one-game arcades opened across Japan,” popularly called inbēdā hausu (invaders’ houses) and inbēdā kissa (invaders’ cafés) by the enthralled public.1 Estimates suggest that more than 250,000 arcade machines—including both licensed and unlicensed clones—entered the Japanese market.2 The country had a population of 117 million at the time, meaning that for roughly every 468 citizens there was a Space Invaders machine available to play. Cash-strapped youths found it particularly challenging to satisfy their new-found avocation. During the height of the Space Invaders boom, on May 18, 1979, delinquents in Aichi prefecture got caught in the act of trying to steal an entire arcade machine. The tale of their failed heist wound up in the pages of Game Machine, a trade publication for the Japanese coin-operated amusement industry.3 The following month, Yomiuri Newspaper reported on junior high school students in Kyoto who managed to install and play a stolen Space Invaders machine in one of their homes before being apprehended by the authorities.4 Japanese media covered similar incidents of theft across the country. These early attempts to bring the arcade experience home, quite literally, caused proprietors to buy alarm systems and chain their video-game cocktail tables together.5 One could argue, only half in jest, that reprobates stealing expensive Space Invaders machines were pioneers of Japan’s arcade-at-home movement.
By 1980, the Space Invaders boom had already reached its peak and was in decline. Consumers became less willing to part with their ¥100 coins as the novelty wore off, forcing proprietors to retire equipment from service. Exporters purchased used arcade machines on the cheap, hoping to turn a profit overseas. Son Masayoshi, who would go on to found the multinational investment holding company Softbank Group, became the most successful entrepreneur among them by making a small fortune installing arcade machines in establishments around the UC Berkeley campus.6 Nevertheless, Japan faced a glut of arcade machines left over from the démodé _Space Invader_s craze. Businesses began disposing of their unprofitable units or converting them into other games such as Galaxy Wars (Universal, 1979) and Head On (Sega, 1979).7 As early as February 1980, an advertisement appeared in I/O magazine offering Space Invaders and conversion games for sale.8 Attempts to sell surplus arcade machines to the general public met with limited success, as most Japanese live in relatively cramped dwellings. Game PCBs (printed circuit boards) pulled from arcade cabinets being repurposed were sold inexpensively to electronics hobbyists and amateur experimenters. People with technical proclivities correctly wired these PCBs to television sets and controllers, while less experienced tinkerers battled frustration instead of Taito’s pixelated invaders.
The Space Invaders boom-and-bust cycle recurred with other arcade titles, albeit to a lesser degree, as all video games inevitably lose their mainstream appeal. The compressed life cycle of video games in Japan resulted in swelling inventories of superannuated arcade equipment. Hobbyists began building compact devices to play the growing library of secondhand arcade titles. It was in this context of cheap arcade PCBs and an energetic cohort of arcade-game enthusiasts that the supergun hobby emerged. Magazines occupied a central role in the fledgling hobby, helping the community coalesce and grow through the sharing of technical, commercial, and cultural information.
Mondai Ishiki (Awareness of the Issues) and Research Aims
Simply defined, a supergun is a compact device that enables people to play arcade game PCBs on a home television set or computer monitor.9 This type of arcade-at-home device in Japan goes by the name kontorōru bokkusu (control box) or shībokkusu (c·box) for short. While playing arcade games at home never developed into a mainstream pastime per se, the phenomenon attracted considerable attention from Japan’s video game press throughout the 1980s and 1990s. During this period, more than a dozen companies manufactured superguns to meet demand among people who sought finished goods. PCB shops became a familiar sight in Japan’s electronics districts and well-known parts suppliers catered to the hobby’s needs.10 A vibrant industry surrounded the supergun hobby at the height of its popularity. Largely forgotten today, though, are the do-it-yourself (DIY) tinkerers who built their own superguns and the magazines that supported their hobby by serving as a clearinghouse for information. Mainstream trade-publication writers rarely acknowledge them now, focusing instead nostalgically on commercially manufactured superguns from the era, if they mention the topic at all. Furthermore, the DIY segment of Japan’s supergun hobby in the 1980s and 1990s receives scant attention from historians, game studies scholars, communication researchers, media archaeologists, and other academics. Addressing this omission would contribute to our understanding of Japan’s video game landscape.
The present research project began with an exploration of Japan’s supergun hobby through a close examination of period books, magazines, and trade publications to establish an accurate chronology of events. This type of analysis had not been undertaken before and became a critical first step in forming what the Japanese call mondai ishiki (awareness of the issues), from which emerged novel ideas and a research trajectory. Period sources reveal that DIY tinkerers occupied a vital position in the hobby’s origins and drove its development well into the late 1990s. Hands-on maker culture defines this hobby to a significant extent, so studying it requires more than a purely textual approach. Building multiple superguns from scratch, strictly following period instructions to authentically recreate the DIY hobbyist experience, became a central part of the study and was undertaken with the explicit aim of learning by doing.11 This was followed by a comparison of hobbyist and commercial superguns to identify hardware differences and determine whether new features originated in hobbyist projects or commercial products. This article presents the results and conclusions of the above activities. In summary, this article traces the evolution of Japan’s supergun hobby through a unique blend of historical analysis and hands-on experimentation, revealing how DIY culture not only shaped the supergun community from its very beginnings but also continued to influence its ongoing development throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
Figure 1
In the Magazines
Amusement Life magazine published an article about a sixteen-year-old high school student who, in 1983, built a device to play the arcade game Crazy Climber (Nichibutsu, 1980) on his home television. Inspired by an advertisement in I/O magazine selling surplus arcade PCBs, Nishihashi Michiharu mail-ordered a copy of Crazy Climber and bought joysticks from an electronics shop. He scavenged the rest by cannibalizing parts from old electronics.12 Gathering components took time, but assembly required just three hours. The high schooler mounted everything in a box fashioned from scrap wood. Nishihashi described the device as fun to build, exciting to play, and a source of envy among his friends. He looked forward to expanding his PCB collection and envisioned modifying his device for other games. While his friends enjoyed playing games, Nishihashi lamented, they lacked interest in following his example by constructing devices for themselves. Hoping to find like-minded people, he contacted the editors of Amusement Life.13 His arcade-at-home project impressed the magazine’s staff and, presumably, its readers. The prevalence of PCB advertisements in 1980s electronics and gaming magazines suggests that people across Japan shared Nishihashi’s passion. Spurred on by magazine editors and arcade-parts sellers, these enthusiasts laid the foundations for a community dedicated to the pursuit of bringing the arcade home.
In the summer of 1984, readers of the popular electronics magazine Radio Make learned about the arcade-at-home hobby from a two-part article by Ogura Yukine. This article promised “arcade play without the need to insert coins” and explained the technological basics of what would eventually become known as the supergun hobby.14 In 1985, Radio Make contributor Tanji Saichi expanded upon Ogura’s designs with the TV Game Controller II, a project aimed at readers with moderate to advanced electronics skills who could understand the included schematics, diagrams, charts, and photographs. Building the TV Game Controller II cost about ¥20,000 ($81) at the time, including a homemade power supply and radio frequency modulator.15 Tanji included harness (wiring loom) instructions for Pengo (Sega, 1982) and several Namco games released in 1982 and 1983. Radio Make found a receptive audience and championed the supergun hobby with well-written articles. Similar articles appeared in the years that followed, many targeting people with limited to no background in electronics.
The hobby’s growing appeal soon enticed businesses to manufacture superguns and related accessories for the consumer market. Kyōwa International led the way with its Control Box, a product advertised in the February 1987 issues of I/O and Mycom Basic magazines.16 In the years that followed, competitors manufactured their own devices that took inspiration from Kyōwa International’s example: companies such as Sigma (first product released in or around 1988), Happī Shōkai (1989), Lotus Press (1989), and Technart (1989). These companies and independent game shops advertised widely in computer, video game, and electronics magazines, spreading awareness and increasing the hobby’s popularity. Hobbyists drew inspiration from these consumer products, and consumer products reflected developments in the hobbyist community. Following the introduction of commercial superguns, the community largely grew by adding nontechnical people to its ranks. The hobbyist community, by this point, could be roughly divided into two groups: DIY types who liked tinkering and gamers who just wanted finished goods. Companies targeted both segments, selling kits to the former and fully assembled devices to the latter (see fig. 2).17 Even as the market for commercially manufactured superguns grew, a significant portion of the hobbyist community continued to embrace DIY supergun projects with the aid of magazines.
Figure 2
Kyowa International regularly advertised on the rear cover of Technique of Backup magazine. This particular example comes from the March 1989 issue. The fully assembled KIC-045DX supergun cost ¥5,000 ($39) more than the unassembled kit. According to the advertisement, “this kit includes a case with precut holes and assembly instructions. Position the parts, solder the pieces, and tighten the bolts. An optional color VHF video converter [RF modulator] is available for purchase. Assembly time requires approximately two hours. Assembly requires tools such as a soldering iron, nipper, pliers, and multimeter. This project is recommended for people who possess skills in electronics, such as those who may have previously built a transistor radio.” (Courtesy of Sansai Books)
In September 1988, the Japanese magazine Mycom Basic published an assembly guide for a commercial supergun kit replete with photographs, tables, and schematics. This comprehensive guide even included instructions on how to purchase arcade PCBs from a list of recommended vendors.18 Rival magazines soon followed suit, offering similar content that empowered hobbyists to assemble kits or build their own superguns from scratch. To reiterate the above point, detailed assembly guides for commercial superguns could adequately double as general build instructions since they covered all the essential information.
From March 1988 to March 1989, Technique of Backup published in-depth build guides for at least three different supergun projects by Tanji Saichi: the Power Unit, the Game Connector, and an unnamed device for playing mahjong PCBs.19 The Power Unit article alone spanned sixteen pages. While this project was unsuited for absolute beginners, the clear writing and accessible visuals permitted even relative novices to follow along successfully. The Game Connector and mahjong projects also demanded more patience than skills in electronics. In 1989, the publisher of Technique of Backup compiled its supergun articles in the book Game Machine: Extensive Research, a valuable resource for both veterans and newcomers.20 In the months and years that followed, Technique of Backup continued to publish articles on supergun repair, hardware modification, troubleshooting, and proper PCB handling. The magazine printed a supergun build guide in 1993, authored by Shiga Kazuto, and again the following year with some slight revisions (see fig. 3 for schematic).21 Demand, or at least readership tolerance, for articles about supergun projects remained strong throughout the late 1980s and 1990s.
Figure 3
This schematic for a simple three-button supergun appeared in the March 1993 and October 1994 issues of Technique of Backup. Despite already being dated when published, this schematic nevertheless served as a useful instructional aid for newcomers to the hobby who lacked basic knowledge of electronics. (Courtesy of Sansai Books)
In October 1995, Game Lab published “Create a Home Arcade with Authentic PCBs” featuring a low-cost, well-designed but basic supergun.22 Few people would likely want this supergun in the mid-1990s owing to its lack of features (such as limited number of action buttons and monaural audio). Publications in the 1990s offered a range of updated how-to instructions and build guides, varying from thoroughly informative to frustratingly vague for beginners. An example of the latter appears in issue seven of Arcade Game Magazine, under the title “The Ultimate Home Arcade: Self-Made Supergun and PCBs.”23 This 1996 build guide lacks essential information, which left novices needing to consult additional print resources.
In 1996, Gamest magazine released the 112-page-long The Ultimate Gamer: Arcader. This publication nearly became the bible of the supergun hobby, but in that same year Game Play II magazine released their 192-page book Turn Your Room into an Arcade!! Way of the PCB Masters.24 Both magazine companies compiled their previously published supergun content into a single volume for bookstore shelves; these books included sections covering DIY projects, supergun repair, hardware modification, general troubleshooting, proper PCB handling, hobbyist profiles, and store profiles. They updated out-of-date information and provided some new content. Both also forwarded detailed information on commercial superguns. The Ultimate Gamer introduced a simple, inexpensive, easy-to-build supergun (see fig. 1) along with instructions for more advanced DIY supergun projects. Turn Your Room into an Arcade!! provided step-by-step instructions using photographs of a technician assembling a supergun kit by YMD, a product also sold through the renowned video game shop Messe San’ō in 1995.25 This particular set of assembly instructions could also be applied to competing kits or loose parts sourced from electronics vendors. Both publications supplied readers with the information necessary to build superguns, albeit presented less well than the aforementioned Game Machine: Extensive Research, itself a compilation of magazine articles originally printed in Technique of Backup.
Japanese publications provided ample information on supergun projects, while the community at large offered various forms of assistance to newcomers, such as free soldering lessons.26 Even so, not every project went according to plan. There are cases of dream projects going up in flames, literally. In 1996, Kaneko Tomoaki shared a cautionary tale with the supergun community. After being drawn into the hobby through magazine articles containing supergun projects and advertisements by PCB sellers, he decided to build his own supergun both to save money and explore his growing interest in electronics. Unfortunately, a misplaced power wire caused sparks to erupt from his copy of Libble Rabble (Namco, 1983). Feeding the wrong input voltage into the game PCB led to rapid overheating, which melted the plastic casing of an integrated circuit and left a burnt crater in the chip. The damage put an end to his cost-saving ambitions, but the experience taught him caution. Despite this rocky start, Kaneko went on to become a supergun authority and notable PCB collector who amassed 1,200 arcade PCBs by the late 1990s.27 His entry into the hobby through magazines and his early experiences at damaging equipment are by no means unique, as other such stories circulated within the community.
Figure 4
The photograph above features six superguns built according to the information provided by Japanese publications: five console-type units and an all-in-one unit (back left). Console-type refers to superguns whose game controllers are separate from the base hardware, a design choice that remained dominant for DIY projects throughout the 1980s and 1990s. (Courtesy of author)
Recipes for Fun
Studying supergun build guides without constructing a supergun is akin to reading a cookbook for its literary effect without making any of its recipes. The old English proverb “the proof of the pudding is in the eating” reminds us that true value is often revealed through direct experience, rather than by judging based solely on appearance, promise, or theory. This principle extends far beyond the kitchen. Historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, and other researchers sometimes employ hands-on methods to uncover new insights. For example, in his 2004 Imago Mundi article on early modern mapmaking, George S. Carhart aptly demonstrated that textual study is incomplete without consideration of “craft practices.” In his case, he engraved his own maps to better understand the process of mapmaking and to gain valuable technical, historical, and cultural insights.28 With his hands-on approach to research, Carhart also dispelled a few long-held misconceptions. Applying this philosophy to the study of superguns yields similar results. Put another way, constructing multiple superguns using only period-appropriate tools and materials creates a better understanding of period build guides, their authors, and the community of hobbyists who relied on them.
In addition to the self-made supergun featured in figure 1, six more functional superguns were built: five console-type and an all-in-one, all based on designs published in period sources (see fig. 4). The hands-on building process validated many claims made by tech writers and confirmed that they provided reliable information while setting realistic expectations. They gave accurate build costs, correctly estimated build times, and properly gauged the skill level required of hobbyists. Of note, most game harnesses could be soldered within an hour or two when adhering to period instructions, and the superguns themselves would typically take between three to eight hours, depending on build complexity and the experience of individual hobbyists. Published schematics and how-to directions from the period are not free of error and sometimes have multiple typos and some confusing phrasing. Even so, most published materials are relatively easy to follow because writers of this genre tend to repeat themselves to reinforce the instructions. All the self-made superguns shown in figure 4 offer basic functionality. Only one contains rapid-fire circuits, RGB video adjust, audio attenuation, mahjong panel input, and a video direction converter. Incorporating these enhancements complicates a supergun build. Each additional feature increases build time significantly. While these add-ons can enhance the game-playing experience, many gamers of the period likely managed to do just fine without them.
Electronic projects inevitably present challenges, especially for novices who lack essential tools like a quality wire stripper, multimeter, and soldering station.29 Beginners often struggle with soldering small 9- and 15-pin D-sub connectors for the controller inputs; inadvertently bridging these pins is easy, so a single button press could result in one, two, or three unwanted actions. Properly wiring a mahjong panel poses an even greater challenge as it uses a more complicated key matrix input method allowing twenty-seven buttons to function across only eleven wires. Novices have been known to mistakenly solder all the pins in reverse order. Such mistakes can only be resolved with additional time and effort. Ground loops and other issues that cause audio or video interference present more persistent problems for novices. These difficulties and more occurred while superguns were assembled for this article. Although people today can turn to internet forums for information, hobbyists of the period made pilgrimages to Akihabara or other electronic districts seeking advice.
For many people, the most daunting aspect of constructing a non-kit supergun was not sourcing parts, stripping wires, soldering joints, or deciphering schematics, but rather fabricating a sturdy enclosure with precisely aligned button holes and mounts. The challenge grew exponentially when a build incorporated arcade joysticks and buttons (as opposed to using off-the-shelf controllers). To address this, businesses offered a variety of metal enclosures already cut, bent, and polished into shape by sheet-metal workers. The shops Run Run, Aikei Tsūhan, and Tamaya advertised their enclosures in video game magazines.30 How-to writers recommended purchasing such enclosures to avoid the hassle of building one from scratch.31 Since manufacturers no longer produce these, a gutted commercial supergun shell from the early 1990s (KIC’s Pana Custom) was repurposed for this study. The oft-repeated advice proved true. The all-in-one supergun built with the repurposed shell took the least amount of time to construct and presented the fewest challenges. The availability of ready-made enclosures lowered the barrier to entry for novices and helped grow the supergun-building community. It also allowed period writers to streamline their instructions, as enclosure construction became optional. For those unable or unwilling to acquire an enclosure, the alternative was to tolerate a tangle of exposed wires on one’s desk. While unacceptable for most, a few hobbyists did just that. A Mycom Basic writer suggested to cash-strapped beginners that they consider making unenclosed superguns reasoning that having a naked supergun trumped not owning one at all.32
Hardware Compatibility
No single supergun can play the complete library of arcade games. Arcade manufacturers over the years employed noninteroperable power supplies, incompatible display technologies, vastly divergent wiring configurations, and a wide array of controller schemes. Hobbyists overcame such limitations by purchasing or fabricating add-on hardware, which often required significant modification to their superguns. For example, “in the realm of input controls … hobbyists have wired additional buttons, bespoke joysticks, arcade trackballs, spinners, steering wheels, flight yokes, and mahjong panels to their superguns.”33 The vast majority of Japanese arcade titles uses the joystick and button input scheme, so most build guides focus primarily on this area.
Many early DIY superguns, by design, accepted two-button MSX controllers via the standard female 9-pin D-sub connector. This compatibility with the popular MSX home computer meant supergun owners could choose from a variety of readily available, commercially made controllers. Some of these controllers even included built-in rapid-fire circuits, ideal for users who wanted this functionality but lacked the inclination to solder such circuits themselves. The XE-1 Pro joystick by Micomsoft is one such example. Using off-the-shelf input controllers saved money and could shave hours off supergun build times. Additionally, Japanese computer and video game magazines from years prior had already published useful MSX controller hacks and modifications that could now integrate seamlessly into a supergun project. As the number of three-button arcade games increased, hobbyists modified their two-button MSX controllers into three-button versions or built custom three-button controllers from scratch using arcade parts. When games in the early 1990s began employing even more buttons—six per player, as in Capcom’s 1991 Street Fighter II—the old 9-pin connectors became obsolete due to their limited number of pinouts. In response, DIY projects switched to using standard 15-pin D-sub connectors that were already in use with the Neo Geo AES (Advanced Entertainment System) home console. Pragmatic builders copied the wiring of Neo Geo’s four-button controllers and then added two additional buttons of their own. This design choice enabled Neo Geo controller compatibility with arcade games that utilized four buttons or fewer.34
Figure 5
At a University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa event in April 2024, the Communication Program sponsored a room-sized exhibit featuring eight self-made and commercial superguns so students, faculty, staff, and community members could experience original arcade games outside of their introductory context (i.e., arcades of yesteryear) while also exposing attendees to maker culture and aspects of digital preservation. The photograph shows three students pouring their attention into Puzzle Bobble (Taito, 1994) running on a self-made supergun. (Courtesy of author)
Hardware Comparisons and Changes
A total of seven superguns were made for this study, each constructed following a specific build guide published in the 1980s or 1990s (see fig. 5). These self-made superguns, along with all ten build guides listed in table 1, were compared to the internal designs of twenty commercial superguns manufactured between 1987 and 1998 by ten companies: Access, Board∙A, Happī Shōkai, KIC, Kyōwa International, Lotus Press, Sigma Electronics, Technart, Tokyo Box, and Wintechno. Generous and trusting hobbyists loaned their commercial superguns for this study and, where possible, provided service histories. A review of product documentation, arcade-parts catalogs, periodicals, and books helped identify nonoriginal equipment, whether it was used for enhancement or repairs. The hardware comparisons revealed that many features and design choices were introduced by hobbyists and/or magazine writers before being incorporated into commercially manufactured superguns; this includes the use of authentic arcade parts, video signal converters, noise filters, rapid-fire circuits, line-level stereo outputs, and certain build materials (i.e., chosen connectors, switches, etc.).35 Most of these features are self-explanatory, though the last category could benefit from a concrete example.
Table 1
| Name | Year | Author | Built | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TV Game Controller | 1984 | Ogura Yukine | Radio Make (June & July issues); Ogura Yukine, “Bideogēmu kontorōra no seisaku part 1,” Rajio no seisaku (June 1984): 85-90; Ogura Yukine, “Bideogēmu kontorōra no seisaku part 2,” Rajio no seisaku (July 1984): 85-89, 101-102. | |
| TV Game Controller II | 1985 | Tanji Saichi | Yes | Radio Make (May & June issues); Tanji Saichi, “Bideogēmu kontorōra II no seisaku part 1,” Rajio no seisaku (May 1985): 75-80, 91-92; Tanji Saichi, “Bideogēmu kontorōra II no seisaku part 2,” Rajio no seisaku (June 1985): 80-84. |
| Power Unit | 1988 | Tanji Saichi | Yes | Technique of Backup (March); Tanji Saichi, “Gēsenki ga kimi no te ni!! Pawā yunitto no seisaku,” Bakkuappu katsuyō tekunikku , no. 10 (March 1988): 51-66. |
| Game Connector | 1988 | Tanji Saichi | Yes | Technique of Backup (December); Tanji Saichi, “Gēmu konekuta G-cone o tsukurō,” Bakkuappu katsuyō tekunikku, no. 13 (December 1988): 48-51 |
| 1993 | Shiga Kazuto | Yes | Technique of Backup (March); Shiga Kazuto, “Gēmu kiban kyōryoku kontorōru bokkusu no seisaku,” Bakkuappu katsuyō tekunikku, no. 30 (March 1993): 32-33, 57-60. | |
| 1995 | Kashiya | Game Lab (October); Kashiya, “Ākēdo kiban no nyūshu de kimi no heya o gēsen ni suru,” Gēmu rabo (October 1995): 14-15, 124-125. | ||
| Control Panel | 1996 | Kishida Honeo | Yes | Arcade Game Magazine (May); Kishida Honeo, “Shoshinsha no tame no kiban kōnyū gaido: Jitaku kiban yūgi no kiwami, konpane o jisaku suru,” Ākedogēmu magajin no. 7 (May 1996): 121-123. |
| 1996 | Yes | Heya o gēsen ni suru!! (1996); Heya o gēsen ni suru!!: Kiban tatsujin e no michi (Tokyo: Riidosha, 1996), 119-125. | ||
| 1996 | POW chama | Yes | The Ultimate Gamer: Arcader (1996); POW chama, “Kontorōru bokkusu o tsukurō,” In Ishii Zenji, ed., Gēmā saishū keitai: Ākēdā (Tokyo: Shinseisha, 1996), 94-96. | |
| Abject Poverty | 2000 | Hakamada Naoki | Arcadia (August); Hakamada Naoki, “Ākēdā neo: Geki! Sekihin ākēdā taisakushitsu,” Arcadia, no. 3 (August 2000) 134-135. |
This study examined all ten build guides from the above list, and seven of them were used to make fully functional superguns.
The vast majority of Japanese manufacturers used pass-through fingerboards (such as the Sanwa CB-36) to connect their superguns to game PCBs, leaving bare wires exposed to the elements and inexperienced owners.36 While unusual for a consumer product, this design choice reflects a legacy decision that dates back to Tanji Saichi’s 1985 build guide for the TV Game Controller II project. In other words, the continued use of fingerboards relied on inertia instead of a deliberate design choice kept because it passed periodic reassessment. North American and European superguns from the same era show that the use of fingerboards was optional rather than required.37 One particularly interesting aside deserves mention. Released in Japan sometime between 2000 and 2002, in the waning years of the hobby’s popularity, Sutōku’s Twin Rudder employed push-in connectors, giving the supergun a more polished appearance while concealing wires more effectively than a fingerboard.38
Commercial superguns took inspiration from hobbyist projects. Perhaps the most obvious example is the LAM-1 by Lotus Press, a device regularly advertised in magazines between 1989 and 1994.39 The LAM-1 closely resembled a hobbyist device both inside and out. Nevertheless, Lotus Press made a solid and reliable product that appealed to consumers. The LAM-1 shares much with Technique of Backup’s 1988 Power Unit project, which itself differs only slightly from Radio Make’s 1985 TV Game Controller II. The minor differences between LAM-1 and the Power Unit can be attributed to subtle but beneficial improvements made by Lotus Press. A single example should suffice to illustrate this point. Both superguns maintained compatibility with two-button MSX controllers but allowed for an optional third button in anticipation that the recently adopted JAMMA standard would result in an increasing number of three-button games.40 Lotus Press released their own three-button controller (backward compatible with MSX). The wiring choice differentiates the two. The Power Unit’s three-button configuration eliminated the five-volt wire going to the controller, rendering existing rapid-fire circuits inoperable. Knowledgeable hobbyists could address this issue themselves. The LAM-1, by contrast, added the third button without sacrificing the five-volt wire needed for enhancements such as rapid-fire circuits. This and other minor improvements meant that Lotus Press essentially sold an enhanced version of the Power Unit at a competitive price. Rival companies also borrowed from hobbyist projects and then added their own refinements.
Rather than overwhelm readers with further technical minutiae, the following sections focus on broader trends. Supergun manufacturers made positive contributions, particularly Kyōwa International, Sigma, Happī Shōkai, and KIC. Their efforts to produce affordable, user-friendly, attractive, ergonomic, and durable devices expanded the hobby’s reach. Companies streamlined supergun designs, incrementally improving functionality and ease of repair. Their high-quality products even persuaded hobbyist diehards to retire their self-made superguns in favor of commercial models.41 Consequently, the DIY segment of the supergun hobby receded from prominence.
Three-button controllers remained a sound design choice until the success of Capcom’s Street Fighter II in 1991, which ushered in a wave of six-button fighting games. This trend diminished the popularity of two- and three-button superguns, whether self-built or commercial. Hobbyists either shelved or modified their older superguns to support additional buttons. Magazines published guides for such updates.42 However, applying such modifications came with complications and compromises. These might include living with an unattractive case after cutting additional holes in it, rewiring the internals (perhaps including replacing 9-pin connectors with 15-pin connectors), settling for poor button placement, swapping the current power supply for a smaller one, and so on. At that point, hobbyists might have needed or wanted to upgrade older components (such as rapid-fire circuits) with new feature-rich ones. In many cases, making a new supergun from scratch or buying a commercial supergun instead of performing extensive modifications on an old unit might become more attractive.
In the six-button era, the supergun hobby reached new heights of popularity. However, the growing community and increased media attention did not yield a surge of new build guides. Put simply, the supergun device was just not complicated enough to sustain a long period of continual development. Little else could be done to increase core functionality, unless the arcade games themselves started to employ new hardware and/or embrace a different control set (input) standard. Happī Shōkai manufactured eight-button superguns, namely the Super Vega 21 and Vega Jr., in anticipation of changes ahead, but the other components remained functionally the same as earlier models. Hobbyist joystick enclosures with eight action buttons also appeared in the mid-1990s, influenced more by developments in the home console market than in arcades.43
Hobbyists continued to build their own superguns throughout the 1990s, though they formed a less visible segment of the community when compared to the previous decade. The mainstream shifted to commercial products, but two groups still built their own superguns: (1) those with limited funds and (2) those seeking bragging rights. Gamest magazine in 1994 featured a supergun that a cash-strapped student built using cheap components and a cardboard box.44 Six years later, Arcadia magazine published a build guide for a supergun called Abject Poverty (cost ¥9,240 [$86]).45 This build guide actually exceeded the expectations its name conjures. Magazines praised DIY supergun-making as “the pinnacle of gamer culture” and “the highest expression of the arcade-at-home hobby.”46 Magazines like Game Play II continued to feature profiles of hobbyists who built their own superguns.47 Making your own arcade-at-home device had long ceased to be necessary to play PCBs at home by the mid-1990s, and it now merely served as a rite of passage in some circles.
Figure 6
A supergun in the process of being built. This particular arcade-at-home device accepts four-button Neo Geo controllers. (Courtesy of author)
Final Thoughts
An earlier incarnation of the current study attempted to incorporate hobbyist interviews but this methodological approach failed to generate substantive or meaningful findings. Why this happened merits a brief explanation. People experienced the hobby from their respective points of entry (i.e., the period of their initial participation and the contextual factors that facilitated their entry), resulting in general knowledge that is less comprehensive than the depth of their participatory engagement. Today, these people also tend to perceive the past through a contemporary lens that reinforces widespread but inaccurate views. As such, the prevailing opinion among the interviewees contends that the supergun hobby began with the arrival of commercial products and that manufacturers largely propelled the hobby forward through the introduction of new features.48 The influential role of the DIY segment has been largely forgotten or never properly understood, even by hobbyists who made their own devices. To be fair, this study also labored under these misconceptions prior to creating an accurate chronology of events using period books, magazines, and trade publications. Ultimately, the study abandoned the interview approach. It shifted instead to a reliance on period print for personal anecdotes and general evidence, which was made possible by the abundance of extant period materials.49 Although the interviews fell short of expectations and thus resulted in their exclusion from this article, individual hobbyists nevertheless made significant contributions by pointing to obscure print materials and granting unfettered access to rare supergun hardware.
Print sources reveal that home tinkerers pioneered the supergun hobby and suggest that their influence on its development continued well into the 1990s. The latter could not be fully substantiated through textual analysis alone, so a hands-on investigative approach became a necessary complement. The hands-on approach provided a definitive answer in this case and offered valuable insights elsewhere. As John Ellis argues in his 2020 essay “Why Hands On History Matters,” such an approach “renders visible and perceptible aspects of human experience that have been neglected by exclusively written, word-based analyses.”50 This study drew direct inspiration from the learning-by-doing scholarship of Anita Sinner and Amélie Lemieux, as well as the example set by George S. Carhart in his efforts to understand “craft practices.”51 This study adopted a hands-on approach to the activities of DIY supergun hobbyists that involved the construction of the devices using published build guides and historically appropriate tools. Simply put, building superguns from scratch in this manner afforded a deeper understanding of the DIY hobbyist experience, while also producing material artifacts that enabled side-by-side comparisons of DIY designs to commercially produced superguns. Additionally, the process of building superguns provided a unique opportunity to test the reliability of historical print sources and to identify any gaps or ambiguities in the instructions that, among other benefits, shed light on the practical skills and problem-solving strategies required of era hobbyists.
In summary, the supergun hobby began with home tinkerers who obtained surplus arcade equipment, often sourced through mail-order advertisements in popular magazines. This article drew on the 1983 story of a high school student who constructed his own device to play Crazy Climber as an illustrative entry point into the supergun topic. He was not the first to attempt such a project. In fact, evidence suggests that a significant number of individuals had, as early as the 1970s, already purchased PCBs for their own supergun projects.52 In 1984, Radio Make magazine published the first known supergun build guide. Soon thereafter, more build guides appeared in print. A couple of years later, in 1986, the commercial supergun industry finally emerged with the release of Kyōwa International’s Control Box.53 A community of dedicated hobbyists—and the magazines that facilitated the exchange of information between them—introduced many features first, so the supergun hobby remained, in many respects, a bottom-up phenomenon rather than a top-down one. This point goes largely unrecognized, as the prevalence of finished goods often elides the complex and interwoven roles of independent tinkerers. Importantly, the lack of comprehensive scholarship on the supergun hobby is not attributable to an East-West divide but rather reflects a broader pattern of academic neglect toward grassroots phenomena within Japanese scholarship, as well as the delayed recognition of game studies by the academic mainstream. This article highlights how the supergun hobby contributed to Japan’s rich video game culture and invites further hands-on research to recover grassroots history.
Footnotes
1. ^ Steven L. Kent, The Ultimate History of Video Games, vol. 2 (Crown, 2021), 167.
2. ^ Uemura Masayuki, Hosoi Kōichi, and Nakamura Akinori, Famikon to sono jidai (NTT Shuppan, 2013), 198–99; and “Inbēdā gorizei miokuri e,” Gēmu mashin, no. 129 (October 15, 1979): 2.
3. ^ “Zenkoku kakuchi de mondaika,” Gēmu mashin, no. 120 (June 1, 1979): 1.
4. ^ “Inbēdā geigeki ni ōwarawa,” Yomiuri shinbun, June 8, 1979, 22.
5. ^ Antitheft devices were even installed inside arcade machines; see Shin Nihon Kikaku advertisement, Gēmu mashin, no. 126 (September 1, 1979): 6.
6. ^ Atsuo Inoue, Aiming High: Masayoshi Son, SoftBank Group, and Disrupting Silicon Valley (Hodder & Stoughton, 2021), 71–75.
7. ^ Jakku Gurūpu advertisement, Gēmu mashin, no. 128 (October 1, 1979): 23.
8. ^ Fenikkusu Sangyō advertisement, I/O 5, no. 2 (February 1980): 68.
9. ^ Today, supergun is a general term used to describe an entire class of devices. Originally, it was the name of a trademarked product in Taiwan.
10. ^ For a list of PCB shops and parts suppliers from the mid-1990s, see Heya o gēsen ni suru!! Kiban tatsujin e no michi (Riidosha, 1996), 170–79.
11. ^ Learning by doing is a pedagogical approach that champions hands-on learning and which, in some contexts, can be marshaled to aid original research. Maker culture is a social movement that celebrates this approach. For related information, see Anita Sinner and Amélie Lemieux, “Maker Research: A Proposition of Thinking-With Maker Culture as Slow Scholarship,” in Connection-Contact-Community: Permanent On-Line in the Education of Art, ed. H. Stehlíková Babyrádová (Masaryk University Press, 2020), 27–49.
12. ^ Nishihashi neglected to list the scavenged components, although from the context one can infer this might include wires, switches, a power cable, and a few miscellaneous electronics components.
13. ^ “Tezukuri kyōtai ga jiman,” Amūzumento raifu, no. 13 (January 1984): 76.
14. ^ Ogura Yukine, “Bideogēmu kontorōra no seisaku part 1,” Rajio no seisaku, June 1984, 85–90; and Ogura Yukine, “Bideogēmu kontorōra no seisaku part 2,” Rajio no seisaku, July 1984, 85–89, 101–2.
15. ^ Tanji Saichi, “Bideogēmu kontorōra II no seisaku part 1,” Rajio no seisaku, May 1985, 75–80, 91–92; and Tanji Saichi, “Bideogēmu kontorōra II no seisaku part 2,” Rajio no seisaku, June 1985, 80–84.
16. ^ Kōbe Mise, “Suzuki Yasushi-shi intabyū,” Gēmu bunka hozon kenkyūsho, July 5, 2019, article no. 1116; July 10, 2019, article no. 1123; Kyōwa International advertisement, I/O 12, no. 2 (February 1987): 512; and Maikon Basic, February 1987, 334.
17. ^ Kyōwa International advertisement, Hakkā, no. 30 (February 1989): 16.
18. ^ Tanji Saichi, “Honmono gēmu ga anka de tanoshimeru!,” Maikon Basic, September 1988, 43–48.
19. ^ Tanji Saichi, “Gēsenki ga kimi no te ni!! Pawā yunitto no seisaku,” Bakkuappu katsuyō tekunikku, no. 10 (March 1988): 51–66; Tanji Saichi, “Gēmu konekuta G-cone o tsukurō,” Bakkuappu katsuyō tekunikku, no. 13 (December 1988): 48–51; and Tanji Saichi, “Mājan fan ni okuru honmono mājan gēmu no tsukurikata!,” Bakkuappu katsuyō tekunikku, no. 14 (March 1989): 124–30.
20. ^ Gēmu mashin daikenkyū (Sansai Bukkusu, 1989).
21. ^ Shiga Kazuto, “Gēmu kiban kyōryoku kontorōru bokkusu no seisaku,” Bakkuappu katsuyō tekunikku, no. 30 (March 1993): 32–33, 57–60.
22. ^ Kashiya, “Ākēdo kiban no nyūshu de kimi no heya o gēsen ni suru,” Gēmu rabo, October 1995, 14–15, 124–25.
23. ^ Kishida Honeo, “Shoshinsha no tame no kiban kōnyū gaido: Jitaku kiban yūgi no kiwami, konpane o jisaku suru,” Ākēdogēmu magajin, no. 7 (May 1996): 121–23.
24. ^ Ishii Zenji, ed., Gēmā saishū keitai: Ākēdā (Shinseisha, 1996). Mook, a portmanteau of magazine and book, is a format frequently found in the Japanese publishing market. The work cited here, through self-description, is a mook.
25. ^ Heya o gēsen ni suru, 119–25; and Messe San’ō advertisement, Gamest, no. 141 (April 30, 1995): 70.
26. ^ For one such example, see Monitā risāchi advertisement, Gamest, no. 209 (December 30, 1997): 137.
27. ^ Ishii, Gēmā saishūkeitai, 74–75.
28. ^ George S. Carhart, “How Long Did It Take to Engrave an Early Modern Map? A Consideration of Craft Practices,” Imago Mundi 56, no. 2 (2004): 194–97.
29. ^ Video game magazines published tool tutorials for their readers who lacked build experience. For an example, see Maunto Nita, “Kore ga shōri no kagi da,” Gamest, no. 198 (July 1997): 141–43.
30. ^ Run Run advertisement, Gamest, no. 131 (November 1994): 133; and “Kyūkyoku kibandō,” Gēmu Yū II, no. 16 (August 1994): 34.
31. ^ For an example, see Ishii, Gēmā saishūkeitai, 94; and “Shoshinsha no tame no kiban kōnyū gaido,” 121–23.
32. ^ Yanma, “Kimi mo kyōkara chūko kiban korekutā da,” Maikon Basic, November 1991, 70.
33. ^ Hanae Kramer, Scott Kramer, and Wayne Buente, “Recycled Amusements: An Introduction to the Supergun,” ROMchip 4, no. 2 (December 2022), under “What Is a Supergun?,” https://romchip.org/index.php/romchip-journal/article/view/119.
34. ^ Today, it is common for supergun hobbyists to own Neo Geo compatible joysticks and gamepads. For further information on this subject, see “Direct Controller Input Mod,” RetroRGB, April 27, 2020, video, 6 min., 59 sec., https://www.retrorgb.com/direct-controller-input-mod.html.
35. ^ Starting around 1985, hobbyists could repurpose console and computer controllers that contained rapid-fire circuits or, if they preferred, make rapid-fire circuits with the information provided in magazines such as Technique of Backup. The earliest reference to “line-level stereo outputs” for a supergun appeared in a vague company advertisement for a seemingly unreleased product. Aizakkusu Corporation advertisement, Bakkuappu katsuyō tekunikku, no. 13 (December 1988): 9.
36. ^ A fingerboard is a small, flat, rectangular PCB that in the arcade industry is used to create an adapter between a game PCB and a cabinet’s wiring.
37. ^ For basic information on North American and European superguns, see Kramer, Kramer, and Buente, “Recycled Amusements.”
38. ^ Hakamada Naoki, “Ākēdā neo,” Arcadia, no.16 (September 2001): 124–25.
39. ^ Lotus Press advertisement, Gamest, December 1989, 66; and Lotus Press advertisement, Gamest, no. 111 (April 1994): 76.
40. ^ Tanji, “Gēsenki ga kimi no te ni!!,” 59.
41. ^ Self-proclaimed arcade cabinet purists publicly but playfully ribbed supergun owners in magazines, but they too eventually caved in and bought commercial superguns themselves. Some of these individuals are profiled in Game Play II’s recurring column Cabinet Men Band Together.
42. ^ Shiga Kazuto, “Gēmu kiban resukyū,” Bakkuappu katsuyō tekunikku, no. 37 (June 1994): 119–21.
43. ^ Joystick enclosures were not manufactured solely for the supergun hobby. People used them for computer and game console projects as well. Both released in 1994, the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn had eight action inputs per player.
44. ^ Maunto Mita, “Gēmā saishū keitai Ākēdā,” Gamest, no. 134 (December 1994): 139.
45. ^ Hakamada Naoki, “Ākēdā neo: Geki! Sekihin ākēdā taisakushitsu,” Arcadia, no. 3 (August 2000): 134–35.
46. ^ Maunto Nita, “Gēmā saishū keitai Ākēdā Z,” Gamest, no. 196 (June 1997): 157; and Kishida, “Shoshinsha no tame no kiban kōnyū gaido,” 121.
47. ^ “Jitaku gēsenka keikaku part 2,” Gēmu Yū II, no. 30 (October 1995): 39.
48. ^ Published interviews of former company heads have contributed to this perception. For an example, see Kōbe, “Suzuki Yasushi-shi intabyū,” article nos. 1116 and 1123.
49. ^ The informal conversation method promoted by Jon Swain and Brendan King in their 2022 article was used to engage a dozen hobbyists. This method recognizes that unstructured exchanges between investigator and respondent, in certain situations, yields more insightful and reliable data than a formal or structured approach. Jon Swain and Brendan King, “Using Informal Conversations in Qualitative Research,” International Journal of Qualitative Methods 21 (2022): 1–2. Pagtatanong-tanong (casual questioning) is a Filipino research method that, with its emphasis on cultural sensitivity and rapport-building, suits the Japanese context well and thus informed the implementation of the Swain and King approach. Rogelia Pe-Pua, “Pagtatanong-tanong: A Cross-Cultural Research Method,” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 13, no. 2 (1989): 147–63.
50. ^ John Ellis, “Why Hands On History Matters,” in Hands On Media History: A New Methodology in the Humanities and Social Sciences, ed. Nick Hall and John Ellis (Routledge, 2020), 13.
51. ^ Sinner and Lemieux, “Maker Research,” 27–49; and Carhart, “How Long Did It Take to Engrave an Early Modern Map?,” 194–97.
52. ^ The supergun hobby followed in the footsteps of the video game construction projects of the early to mid-1970s. Electronics magazines published designs for hardware clones of the Magnavox Odyssey, a home console system released in 1972, and Atari’s well-known 1972 arcade game Pong. Several projects published by I/O magazine were compiled into a book titled Exploration into TV Games. I/O Henshūbu ed., TV gēmu tettei kenkyū (Kōgakusha, 1978).
53. ^ The Control Box was a redesign of a 1985 compact arcade machine sold to businesses.
The Ultimate Gamer: Arcader (1996) introduced a stripped-down, inexpensive, easy-to-build supergun. The minimal design follows a guts-on-the-table approach, leaving wires and components exposed. The author made the device shown above using the publication’s featured joystick enclosure, which the electronics parts store Yamachō Tsūshō sold in the mid-1990s. Builders could substitute a less expensive home-computer or console-game controller for the metal enclosure with its authentic arcade joystick. (Courtesy of author)