Last weekend, I finished the arcade cabinet I discussed here:
I’m really happy with how it came out.
I put an old monitor and a raspberry pi (running retropie) in it. I can now play lots of old nostalgic games. I introduced my kids to several games I used to play as a kid. They’re comment was “your games were different than ours, but they are still fun”.
I designed it so that all the parts for it would fit on a GF bed. Although I cut it at the local maker space.
There is a panel that goes on the back, but it is not in place right now.
There’s also a panel under the joysticks (so I can slide the keyboard out). There’s also a small panel on the left side, so I can access the USB ports of the Raspberry Pi.
Jumpman was one of my favorites as a kid. I’ve been playing it on the arcade cabinet, and it brings back so many memories.
Every new level I get to, I go “oh ya! I remember that level”. Some of them make me say things like:
-Oh no, not “Roost”.
-Oh god, not “Freeze”
-“Grand Puzzle 2”, I don’t remember how to do that?
That’s a great project. I thought about looking at the Pi a few years back to make a arcade cabinet, but drifted away before diving in. I have a technical background; is this a very hard project to get the “guts” working?
My kids once spent an hour playing Ms. Pacman with each other. And every “classic” game I’ve shown them, they’ve enjoyed. As it should be, “fun” transcends “resolution.”
No, it is not hard at all. It took me about 1/2 hour to wire all the buttons and joysticks. It was all just plugs, no soldering. Installing the retropie was also very straight forward (about an hour to install and configure).