DIY Retro Gaming Fun with Your Own Arcade Rig
Classic arcade games is a staple memory of anyone who remembers the good old days. Today, we have online versions and offline clones playable on PSPs and PCs but the coin operated feel of playing a round of Pacman is gone. If can’t keep nostalgia at bay then this DIY from MaximumPC is the one for you.
Nope, you don’t have to hijack one from the local museum. You can start from scratch with a MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator). MAME is a software application which replicates the gaming look and feel of a vintage arcade game. Here’s what the official MAME site says –
When used in conjunction with images of the original arcade game’s ROM and disk data, MAME attempts to reproduce that game as faithfully as possible on a more modern general-purpose computer. MAME can currently emulate several thousand different classic arcade video games from the late 1970s through the modern era.
MAME is the heart but an arcade game wouldn’t be one without the other elements like the cabinet, monitor, buttons ‘n joysticks and the control panel. The DIY tutorial looks at the host of options you can use – from the style of cabinets to the choice between LCD and CRT for the monitors. Controllers can come as joysticks, buttons or trackballs and spinners. The control panel is where you have to put it together.
The look is important but it’s the hardware specs that will do the game playing. A second hand computer with the proper specs will do fine. The MAME arcade console though requires an ArcadeVGA card and a specialized keyboard encoder.
Mounting the components is where you will need a pair of skilled hands and some finesse.
It’s back to geekdom with the task of software integration. Hardware, motherboard and video drivers are given a run through. MAME and its front end, MaLa (which displays the Arcade ROMs) requires installation and configuration.
It’s going to take time and painstaking work. But when you through the first switch, you would have just brought back the good ol’ days.
If nostalgia still bites, then check out our list of DIY arcade style projects -
