arcade

148 Articles

Multitouch MAME Cabinet

December 24, 2008 by 19 Comments

mame

[rdagger] sent us this really well done multitouch MAME cabinet build. He ha penned to find a used, and fairly worn cocktail cabinet. The monitor was damaged, keys lost, and internals had been home to mice for some time. He promptly tore out the old guts, replaced the smelly mouse damaged base and began building the projection system. For touch sensing, he’s using a web cam with the IR filter removed to detect disturbances in some IR laser beams. We’re not completely clear on how he mounted the lasers, he skips over that part.  There’s nothing groundbreaking in the technology here, we’ve done multitouch many times before. This project stands out in its execution. [rdagger] has done a fantastic job, the construction looks fantastic.  Check out a video of it working after the break.

Continue reading “Multitouch MAME Cabinet” →

Fatality And A Frosty Mug: Arcade Bar

September 23, 2008 by 10 Comments

We’ve seen our fair share of home made arcade machines, some complex and some simple. This one stands head and shoulders above the rest with its ability to combine two of our deepest loves: beer and video games. There’s not a lot of information, just a few pictures. We’d love to see some build shots or action shots.  We’d love to test it out actually.

Here’s an update: [Burke LaShell] is the maker of this fine project. You can see more pictures of it in this thread. Thanks, [Shawn].

[via Gizmodo]

Arcade Cabinet That Plays Every Game In The Universe

September 16, 2008 by 9 Comments


Ok, maybe we’re exaggerating a little bit. It may not play every game in the universe, but the CMACC gets pretty close. CMACC stands for “Complete – Multi Arcade Console Computer System” and is comprised of a giant pile of gaming goodness. [Mayhem] packed a PC, Xbox, Xbox360, Dreamcast, Wii, PSP, and a DS into the cabinet. He seems to have overlooked the Virtual Boy though.

He’s using GamEx as a front end for a multitude of emulators, including MESS which emulates tons of old desktops like Commodores and Apples. The cabinet, while not as elegant as the Retro Space, wins major geek points for the cup holder.

[via Engadget]

LED Coffee Table

September 13, 2008 by 7 Comments

Spark Fun’s centerpiece at Maker Faire back in May was this LED coffee table. They just recently posted about how it was constructed. The surface is made from 64 8×8 RGB LED matrix boards totaling 4096 LEDs. The eight rows are connected to a custom router board so that one SPI line can control the entire display. The main microcontroller is an Olimex LPC2106 dev board. It runs a four player cooperative pong game where multiple balls are added over time. Each player gets a classic Atari paddle for control. You can see a video of the table running a screensaver after the break. Continue reading “LED Coffee Table” →

Hackit: Modern Arcade Cabinets?

August 20, 2008 by 39 Comments

We’ve been contemplating getting into MAME arcade cabinet building. It was sparked by someone dropping off a Street Fighter II machine at our office. Many people have been seeking to build the perfect arcade cabinet clone, but looking over this old dusty cabinet we realized that retro isn’t really what we want. We want an arcade cabinet with a modern aesthetic.

Retro Thing recently posted [Martijn Koch]’s Retro Space. The cabinet takes design cues from old cabinets, but uses modern technology like a 24″ LCD. It does feature classic controls though. Wandering through arcades today, most of the machines appear to be DDR style or vehicle sims. No one is building modern gaming machines.

We’re still in the planning stages of this build. We’d definitely use classic controls and combine it with an LCD 24″ or larger. The brain would probably be a Playstation 3. We could run any emulator we want on the Linux side and also play modern PS3 games. How it will look is still up in the air. We’re leaning towards building a standup 4 player brawler machine for playing games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men, and The Simpsons.

Have any of you built a MAME machine before? How would you build an arcade machine with a modern aesthetic?

Wireless Arcade Stick

June 25, 2008 by 2 Comments


[astralpancakes] wireless arcade stick project looks like a great place to start if you want a simple project. Well constructed arcade sticks can cost $100+, but with all the MAME cabinet builders, the parts have become easy to acquire. The stick has a rigid wooden case with a metal faceplate. All of the component connections are soldered to the pads of a Logitech wireless controller. [astralpancakes] built this specifically to play Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike.