If You Can't Have it, Build it!

Many years ago I stumbled on a fantastic gaming concept called emulation.  Being able to play old consoles and arcades on my PC with just a simple piece of software was mind boggling at the time.  That's how I became obsessed with collecting as many game roms that I could.  I started my journey with a 14.4kbps dial-up connection.  That'll give you an idea of how long I've been doing this, and also give you a sense of how old I am.  To put this into perspective, it took approximately 20-30 minutes to download The Legend of Zelda NES rom which is a 129KB file.  Quick math: Your current smartphone takes pictures that are about 2-4MB in size.  One smartphone picture is 15-30 times larger than The Legend of Zelda rom.  So, back in my younger days of internet, this one picture would have taken me 6 to 10 hours to download.  I was ecstatic to have a 14.4kbps dial-up internet, so take this into consideration when you want to blast your internet provider when you can't stream Netflix on all 10 of your devices with your 60mbps connection. (4,200 times faster than my dial-up)  Spoiled brats!  Anyway, I felt that my collection of roms were missing something.  Specifically, my arcade roms were missing an actual arcade machine.  I figured it would be awesome if I could actually play an arcade rom the way it was originally created with an arcade machine.  I found a lot of great resources regarding cabinet design and hardware to get my project started.  Since my professional background centered around computer hardware and software, I didn't waste a lot of time figuring out the complexities of PC hardware requirements and emulator configuration.  My shortcoming came from the ability to follow a design, cut wood, and paint.  Regardless of my inability to drill a straight hole, I think my first attempt turned out very well.

My very first arcade build.

The design elements are pretty straight forward.  The button layout is a combination of the american Street Fighter design with the addition of the 7th button for the SNK design.  Both players have a coin button and a start button.  I finished off the design by adding a trackball in the center with its respective left and right mouse buttons.  The last element was the quit button for returning to the main menu.  In hindsight, I realized that the placement of the quit button was not ideal for eccentric Golden Tee players.  The location immediately above the trackball led some players to overshoot their swing and ultimately end their game.  This oversight forced me to remap the quit button just for Golden Tee which was much easier than telling players not to swing so stinking hard.  The final design elements include an acrylic front to protect the screen, a hinged control box that has a compartment for tools and spare parts, and finally the cup holders that can hold both standard beverages and coffee cups.  What better way to start off your morning than by finishing off a few opponents in Mortal Kombat while also finishing off your cup of coffee.  This is not my only arcade machine.  With my second arcade machine I decided to try my hand at revamping an existing arcade machine that no longer worked.  Learning from my mistakes, I designed a more streamlined control box and added games that were not specifically designed as arcades.  My next post will showcase this next arcade machine.  Stay tuned.