Stern is an interesting company. Although it is actually one of the relatively newer companies in the world of arcade and pinball, Stern has a rich and very colorful history dating back over nine decades before it became Stern. Other companies, such as Atari, Bally Midway, Nintendo, Sega, and even Williams have much longer histories and at least two of them were also involved in the pinball market. Stern came upon the scene, rising like a Phoenix, when Chicago Coin went defunct and was acquired by Sam Stern and his son Gary Stern.
With this acquisition, Stern would start to concentrate on both pinball and arcade machines. Their best-selling arcade game would beBerzerk (see my article in Old School Gamer Magazine dated March 2019) that was designed in-house. Most of their other arcade games would be a partnership between Stern and Konami and would include games such as Astro Invader, Super Cobra, and Scramble.
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Since he played on the first Magnanvox Odyssey in 1973, Kevin was bitten by the video game bug. It didn't matter what the games looked like, they were just fun. When Space Invaders was released in the United States in the late 1970's, he spent a ton of quarters in his local Aladdins Castle trying (unsuccessfully) to master the game. He continued to play on various console and arcade games (even learning to program the Apple II+) until he joined the navy in 1983. Joined the navy in 1983 and became a Hospital Corpsman in 1984. While in the navy, Kevin was able continue his hobby of programming PC's and playing videogames. In the early to mid 1990's, Kevin learned to program the Atari ST and worked for Majicsoft for a couple of years. Before retiring from the navy in 2004, Kevin started to write FAQ's for GameFAQ's. His forte was arcade FAQ's since that was his real passion still. His FAQ's have appeared in many places that seek to preserve the arcade game history. This is especially true for the MAME project where his guides are a part of the documentation. After retiring from the navy, Kevin has been more involved in computer repair, networking, and computer security but he still is involved in the arcade history arena. He currently lives in Neosho MO with his wife and one son who is also a video game hobbyist.
