This might be a hall of fame dumb money pick for me. I recently went digging around in my office closet to figure out the first set of arcade parts I ever purchased. Right behind the unfinished 40k armies was a box of joysticks and buttons from November 2005. Long before my kids, career, and adult life had really kicked off I had a wild hair to play old arcade games. I’ve never let go of it either, what follows is my best recollection of the various milestones and set backs over the years.
v1.0 (2005) I purchased arcade parts (sticks + buttons), a control board (essentially a modified USB keyboard PCB), and PDF plans to build a full arcade cabinet. The brains would would be an repurposed gaming PC housed inside the cabinet. I never actually purchase the wood, as I don’t actually own any woodworking equipment. The parts and controller go back in the box they shipped in to sit and wait.
v2.0 (2007-ish) I pick up a small piece of MDF from a big box store, but I am still generally power tool-less. Crystal’s grandfather has a fully kitted woodworking garage and offers to help. Before buying all the lumber I need to get started and having to haul it an hour away, we take an afternoon trip to visit her grandparents. He and I tinker in the shop cutting the MDF down to size for the top of the stick and cut in all of the holes for the buttons. We make tentative plans to return with all the wood in a month and bid them farewell. We never return with the lumber and the short lived progress dies another death.
v3.0 (2013) I decided scrap the full cabinet concept and pivot to an arcade stick hooked up to a PC. Essentially just a big controller, but with that cool arcade feel. The 2.0 top is still kicking around. I prime it, paint it, and wet sand it for a really nice finish. I get MAME fully operational on my PC and wire up the parts to the controller. The playtest goes swimmingly, all I need to do now is build box to go with the top and I’ll be done. I never build the box, the fully wired top gets put in home office storage.
v4.0 (2015) Alright, no cabinet, how about an arcade stick that can work all on it’s own. Shuffle it around the house and hook it up to any TV you like via HDMI. I order a Raspberry Pi 1 B kit and start working on a RetroPie install. I playtest with both a wired USB controller and arcade top 3.0. Both work well enough, but the Pi lacks power to run some games smoothly. I tinker with the software side for a month and then lose steam before building the box again. Back on the shelf.
v5.0 (2022) Some how this body still has life in it. After seeing a YouTube video sometime in the Summer I decide to buy some modern arcade parts in September, finally ditching the parts from 2005. I decided to scrap the 2007 arcade top too and start with a full box build from the get go. Over the holidays I get everything wired up and go looking for a Raspberry Pi 4 B. The latest and greatest in now super powerful compact computing, for not a lot of money (starting at $35). Well turns out there is a supply shortage on not just the 4B, but seemingly every iteration that is known to play really nice with retro gaming.
v6.0? (2023) This is really a continuation of 5.0, but now I am hunting for a 3B or 4B by following rpilocator daily and sometimes hourly. I went looking for the Pi 1B I picked up in 2015 and it feels like the house ate it. My brain has 40 year old worms in it now so I can’t remember what the hell I did with it. I need to get the now complete arcade box up into the office to test it on my PC. Crossing my fingers that I can actually finish this project this year, I even put it on the project page.