This was one of my favorites in the arcade and also one of the most difficult. There was a real strategy there about forcing the centipede down a "tube" of sorts, but I could never work out how to make that happen. I was young and had loads of patience but not a great deal of strategy in my playstyle.
I think that most of the ports were pretty bad because of the graphical differences, sound, and of course the absence of a track-ball. I agree with you that this is absolutely essential to getting the real experience of this game.
I miss arcades. I have been told there is a classic arcade somewhere in this town I live in, but i am yet to find it.
In the mid 1980s the local roller skating place I sometimes went to had a bunch of arcade machines and this was one of them. Part of the problem with ever developing a strategy was that you were always limited by the number of quarters you had. Plus I split my quarters among a few other machines there like Gauntlet, Crossbow and a couple others.
The Atari 2600 port of Centipede wasn't too bad considering the graphical limitations. However, Millipede had more variety and the 2600 wasn't very good at showing it. The Atari 8-bit computer port was probably pretty good for the time. Trackballs were available but not really that common. I don't think Millipede was ever released on the Commodore 64 which is the computer I had at the time (or a few years later anyway).
Admittedly i haven't looked too hard but I'm not aware of any classic arcades around me. About the closest thing would be a Chuck E Cheese but they don't have any classic games unless you count Skee-ball.
Chuck E Cheese used to be filled with classic games but then again, my memory of it is actually a part of their chain called "Showbiz" which is the same thing. They had a ton of "classic arcade games" but then again, it was the 80's and the only games that existed were "classic ones"
I was disappointed to find out that Dave and Busters in NYC had no classic games at all. I suppose we are wishing for things that likely aren't going to happen.