Speed Up

Selected excerpts from our archive offer more context on this subject. Each reading links to the original article and its sources.

27 September 1985: a documented date for GAELCO

To view an arcade machine only as software on a screen removes much of its historical reality. A cabinet involved electronics, a board, controls, a housing, graphic design, distribution and operation in a venue. Its preservation also requires attention to those components and to the papers that make them interpretable. That is why the publication of schematics for the Speed Up board matters.

Recreativas.org says those schematics were supplied by Javier Valero of Gaelco as part of a documentary archive relating to videogames created by the Barcelona company. The same source states that both software and hardware were internally designed, and identifies the 1996 release of Speed Up as the company’s first 3D product. This is a useful, limited claim: it documents a technical milestone attributed to the company by that source. Without further comparative information, it does not establish general superiority over other manufacturers.

27 September 1985 can be marked precisely without enlarging what is known. It is the founding date attributed to GAELCO by Recreativas.org’s archive; around it survive later titles, an account of World Rally Championship, and technical documentation for Speed Up. Together, these materials trace a real, if incomplete, presence in Spanish arcade history.