After entering Pop-In on Moi Avenue, Nairobi (Kenya), and asking the owner for kind permission to take pictures (“I like this place, the machines are sooo unique”….”ok, basi…”), I instantly realized why you, dear Steve, started doing “something with computers”. Thanks for that great tip to pay them a visit!
I consider this and other “amusement arcades” the incubator for our never-ending interest in anything IT….? :-)
Pop-In is one of those institutions that actually requires huge funding to buy, repair and preserve all these old machines that introduced us to the world of 1010010100101 & Co from their death somewhere in dusty downtown Nairobi…
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the corner with “spare parts”.
Please excuse the blurry picture quality – I shot these pics without a flash and was so excited that I forgot about everything else! I’ll try to upload them on flickr in a higher resolution when I’m back on my (own!) computer…
OMG@!!!!! Okay sorry but 0h god the memories of Pop- in = priceless,. Waoh this reminds me so much of 1992 – 93 idling teenage girl after a computer class in that vicinity. This was hang out joint with my then boyfi..LOL double LOL ..Ngai kumbe this place is still going on strong.I’m so thrilled just to see the pop -in sign . Waoh that is such a place I almost forgot about!!! Do they still have the ka jewelery area plus sijui they have some hippy t-shirts too. Now this one has made me so home sick! Thanks J for the reminder !!!!
Oh and there was this footwear shop right next to pop-In that had the latest “Payless” shoes Lol .Gosh so many memories too! You lucky Dawg! you ! You get to be there again! I’m jealous!
Wow wowie….damn i remember the exhiliaration of walki down them stairs..its like going into another world…a forbidden wold of unbridled pleasure
remember Nbi sports house as well?
JKE
I got so excited when I saw these photos that I rushed to blog about this then remembered that I had’nt been here to leave a comment yet.
THANK YOU for the photos!!
Pop In was the place for me all through the last couple of years of primary school and then all through high school. Just looking at those machines brings back a ton of memories. All those machines, from “Dragons and Dungeons” that I never learnt how to play to Pin Ball which I never bothered with. There was also some car game that I cannot see here that I was a genius at.
I remember that there were these two guys in the late 80s, they would come in and play more than an hour of Dungeons and Dragons for just a bob – they were such experts at it that it was a pleasure to watch them pley.
Thank you for taking the photos. You need to go back and take some more photos though, we are documenting this for posterity.
Maybe go in with a tripod/support and do a 360 view that you can photoshop into a panaroma?
Thanks once again.
Steve
Haaaaa…POP IN…Love it! I remember it called ‘Playland’ back in the early 80’s !! In the Late 80’s Annabels disco was updatirs on the 11th Floor. The games are tooo old but unique.I remember playing Asteroids, Donkey Kong and Pac Man there as a young lad.
Nice Pics.
Die bilder sind klassisch…