I’ve been having a tough time deciding which joysticks to use. The “free” joysticks that came with my 48 in 1 board aren’t very good, so I’ll probably just toss them in the parts bin. You never know when you’ll need a joystick or two. I wanted to match the 80’s cocktail aesthetic as much as possible, so a ball top joystick was a must. I also wanted a joystick that can be switched between 4 and 8 way operation. Nothing sucks more than playing games like Pac-Man without a real 4 way joystick.

Ultimarc makes a joystick that switches between 4 and 8 way on the fly so I ordered a couple of those to try out. I also won an auction for a pair of cheap Seimitsu joysticks that are supposed to be great for fighters and side scrollers, but they don’t switch between 4 and 8 way easily. Both types have the same mounting plate, so once I get the cabinet I can easily switch them out and decide exactly what I want.

I’ll need a total of four joysticks (two for cocktail panels and two for the horizontal control panel), so I just need to decide if I want the same type of joystick on every panel, or if the Seimitsu sticks in the 8 way configuration will work in the horizontal panel. Most of the 4 way games I like are vertical, so the Ultimarc sticks will definitely be going in the vertical control panels.

I received my coin door in the mail last week. I was debating on whether or not to put one in, but I wanted to be as accurate as possible. It will also serve as a way to access the PC and jamma boards without taking the top of the table off. I’m planning on wiring up the coin doors as well as two “secret” buttons under the horizontal control panel. That way I can put in a coin if I’m in the mood, or I can just press the secret coin button if I don’t want to take the time to feed in a quarter.

I’m currently working on putting together a cocktail-style arcade machine. I’ve had the idea for a few years, but the arcade bug has bit me again and I managed to convince my wife that our lives won’t be complete without our very own arcade machine.

After doing a little research I decided to go with a cocktail cabinet made by arcade depot. They have an excellent kit that matches the original Galaga/Ms. Pac-man cabinet, but with a lot of options for customization. I chose a cocktail cabinet because I want to be able to play both vertical and horizontal games in their original resolutions. A cocktail cabinet with separate vertical and horizontal controls is the only thing I’ve found that can easily pull this off. Arcade Depot also had some great links to a few other people who built MAME cabinets with their kits. This guy built almost exactly what I had in mind, right down to the button layout. This guy also built a cool cabinet, but didn’t go with the horizontal control option.

Once I knew what cabinet I was using, it was time to track down some parts. My first stop was eBay, where a few minutes of searching revealed another arcade treasure, the 48 in 1 jamma board. Evidently MAME has come full circle and you can now get brand new arcade boards that emulate dozens of classic games. They connect straight into vintage arcade wiring harnesses so there is almost no work involved to turn an old arcade machine into a multi-game machine.

This board gave me an idea. I’d still build a MAME cabinet, but I would wire it using the old 1980’s jamma spec so I could drop in old arcade boards if I ever wanted to play the real deal. You can even get special jamma adapters that let you switch between two different boards…perfect for switching between a real jamma board and a MAME PC. To start things off, I ordered a 48 in 1 kit from eBay, which actually included everything necessary to wire a vintage arcade cabinet, including joysticks, buttons and a power supply. I got lucky on the auction and the whole package ended up being cheaper than buying just the board, so I basically got all the controls and wiring for free. The only thing it didn’t include was a monitor.

Most of the other cabinets I saw on the internet used a hybrid arcade monitor that would accept standard VGA signals. That’s fine if you only want to use your display with a PC, but not so great if you also need to display CGA signals from a vintage arcade board. The good news is that they still sell CGA monitors and they’re less than half the price of their hybrid cousins. I got one from Suzo Happ for $135. The bad news is that I’ll have to buy a special video card so I can use it with a PC. However, the cost of the card plus the CGA monitor is still cheaper than a hybrid monitor so I’m coming out ahead in the long run and I’ll have a lot more flexibility. The CGA monitor will also look more authentic using MAME than one of the VGA hybrids.

So that brings us to the present. I’ve got everything I need to build an arcade machine except the cabinet, which I ordered a week ago. I couldn’t let all this cool arcade hardware just sit around unused for the next few weeks, so I went ahead and wired the thing up on my work bench.

Welcome to The Basement Scientist, where I hope to chronicle my various electronics projects and other DIY endeavors. My interests are varied, so I may be working on a module for my synthesizer one day and exploring the guts of an arcade machine the next. The one unifying factor is the desire to take something apart and find out how it works.