Going Back to the Golden Age of Arcade Games

Remember Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Dig-Dug, Frogger, Gauntlet, 1942, 720 Degrees, Street Fighter II, Galaga, Bubble Bobble...I could go on and on. I miss those old "retro" video games. Memories of the Pac-Man machine in Pizza Hut, the Ninja Turles machine at Chuck E Cheese... And then there are all the games I never had a chance to play.

So, my project is this - I am building an arcade cabinet. I have wanted to build one for many years, but I finally got around to actually doing it. Over the last few weeks I have been doing my research and I am finally at a "starting point". I didn't want to blog before this because I have a tendancy to get excited about something and talk about it for a few days and then forget about it. This project is different though. I have wanted to do it for years.

Well, the first of many boxes of parts arrived in the mail today. My trackball and pushbuttons from Happ Controls greeted me when I got home.

This cabinet will run MAME, a multi-arcade emulator - so it will play all the old classics - all in one box!

My most recent inspiration came from this guy that went all out on making a really cool cabinet.



The trackball is USB and will act as a mouse also:
Mikayla was most excited about the free hat that came with my order.
I cleaned off the work bench for the first time since we've lived here. I began construction of my "mock-up" control panel. I want to lay out all the controls to make sure they feel right before using the final wood/vinyl.
Measure twice, cut once...

Yeah...well...I think I measured once and cut three times.
Got to have a 4-player cabinet!