Customer Reviews

Project Arcade: Build Your Own Arcade Machine.

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Many years ago I spent hours upon hours dreaming of building my own MAME cabinet. I bought a keyboard encoder, joysticks, buttons, two light guns. Unfortunately there they've sat - in a box - for years in my basement. I couldn't get past finding cabinet plans, figuring out how to put it all together, if I had the right stuff, and so on.

All the information is out there to complete my dream - it's all free, too. The problem? Hours upon hours of reading, digesting, and comparing endless message boards, discussion forums, and vendor websites.

The answer - this book. The author is the owner of one of those websites and he does an excellent job in this book of distilling all the choices of every aspect into an easy to read, neutral, and helpful manual of how to make that dream a reality. He chronicles the various parts and design options for your cabinet, lists the major pros and cons of each choice, gives vendors and buying tips, and then leaves the final decision to you. I loved this neutral writing style - he doesn't ever say "option x is the best" or "these are the best widget", leaving it open for you to decide what is right for you. Since virtually every home-built arcade is different, this is the most appropriate message.

While the cabinet building instructions are centered around 1 design, it's still packed with tips to avoid common mistakes no matter what type of cabinet you choose. I was also surprised at the range of topics including everything from standard buttons and joysticks down to DDR dance pads and Star Wars yolks.

Whether you build or buy, want a bartop, cocktail or upright cabinet - he's got it in this book. Not only that, but you'll probably save the cost of this book by all the extras included on the cd - cabinet plans, high-res images, and sample games.

If you're on the fence about this book because you can find all the info free on the internet, I'd say that you'll more than save the cost by saving yourself time and aggravation in finding all this info on the internet. Read this book, then go to the internet just for the small portions where you need to know more. Additionally, the CD includes a number of plans for cabinets, spinners, ddr pads, and more. Tracking all of these down separately would be a chore - again having them in one place is worth the cost.

I do wish the book had color pictures. I think it would really add to many of the photos to be shown in full color. While they are included on the cd, it's just not as convenient. Additionally, the cd uses flash player by default to navigate to the chapter you want more information on. Unfortunately, it then opens a new browser window for each chapter you select. Therefore, to search through multiple chapters you end up going back and forth between the flash window and all the different browser windows it spawns. You can browse the cd via Windows Explorer, but again, it's not ideal. I feel it would have been better to skip the flash wrapper and simply have an html index of all the chapters. Overall, though I'm not deducting any stars because these don't affect the content, just the style of delivery.

Since there's no "look inside" feature yet, here's a chapter listing:

1 Picking you Path to Game-Playing Nirvana

2 Building Your Arcade Cabinet

3 Pushing Your Buttons and the Joy of Joysticks

4 Taking Your Game Out for a Spin - Spinners and Trackballs

5 Arcade Controls for Power Gamers [Steering wheels & pedals, Flight Yokes, Arcade Guns, and Dance Pads]

6 Building the Control Panel

7 How It Works - Turning a Computer into the Brains of an Arcade Machine

8 Using the Keyboard Connector for Arcade Controls

9 Arcade Controls Using the Mouse Connector

10 Miscellaneous Biths of Arcade Trickery [Gameport, Using the USB Port, Dual Strike V2 Interface, Ultimark Rotary Joystick Interface, Game Console Controllers and Adapters]

11 Audio - Silence Isn't Golden [Speakers, Arcade Jukeboxes]

12 A Picture is Worth a Thousand...Tokens? [Monitor choices and mounting]

13 Installing the Computer

14 Choosing and Loading Software [Emulators (including Emulator legality), Commercial Arcade Software, Shareware]

15 Buttoning Up the Odds and Ends [Decorating, Lighting Effects, Protecting the Cabinet, Coin Door, Power]

16 Stuck? Frustrated? Out of Quarters? [Troubleshooting Tips, Getting Help, Giving Back]

17 Buying Your Way to Gaming Nirvana [Kits, Arcade Controllers And Cabinets, Game Console Controller Adapters]

18 Online Places to Go

Appendix A: Where to Find Arcade Parts for Your Project

Appendix B: The Great Debate - Preserving Versus MAMEing the Past

Appendix C: What's on the CD?

This book covers everything you need to know before you build an arcade. I have thought about purchasing an arcade for my gameroom, however I could never justify the expense to me or the wife. Now I got this book to see if I can build my own, this book is complete. It will guide you through the benefits and expenses related to building one or buying one. I would have to say, if you are adventurous and have time and money to put one together, this would be the book to have.

There's a definite difference between playing arcade games standing at a machine with real controls rather than sitting at a keyboard. With some games, like fighters, it's almost impossible to play properly.

As someone who plays Q*Bert more than a sane man ought, there's a huge appeal to the idea of building your own personal arcade cabinet, despite the intimidating workload. Luckily, Project Arcade compiles the needed info into one handy reference.

Thoroughness is the name of the game with this book. Every aspect, from planning and budgeting to applying the stickers, is well explained in this 500+ page book. The book is laid out so you can likely build along as you read if you like.

The author tries to accommodate for the full spectrum of commitment; from simply buying a pre-built cabinet or unassembled kit all the way to linking to resources on building your own steering wheels and flight yokes from scratch. He also tries to be as accessible as possible to the first-time builder, but if you know absolutely nothing about woodworking or soldering, you may feel a tad overwhelmed.

A large chunk of the book is simply a breakdown of your many options for the numerous pieces and parts you need to buy; buttons, joysticks, trackballs, keyboard controllers, monitors, etc... It tries to cover as many bases as possible to fit your needs and budget, including hacking keyboards and other easy to find hardware.

The CD contains a variety of information; from full-color versions of the photos from the book and relevant sections of the previous edition to full cabinet plans and control panel templates to copies of several useful utility programs and most importantly, clickable version of the massive amount of links found throughout the book. There's even some free games included!

If you've got the drive to pursue a real arcade experience, even if it's not a full tricked-out cabinet, you'll want to read Project Arcade.

Project arcade is the perfect manual for any handy geek. I've often daydreamed of building my own arcade machine. With the libraries of roms and emulators out there and my experience in PC building I always think of how easy it should be. That is until I start thinking about the mechanics of the cabinet itself. How to mount joysticks and buttons, where to get the best hardware for my money and how to integrate it all together.

Project arcade takes all this guesswork and trial and error out of the equation. This is an exhaustive guide on the different types of cabinet styles and an assortment of ways to build YOUR cabinet to fit YOUR needs. This guide has tons of pictures and diagrams that are straight forward, well labeled and easy to follow. I expected complex blueprints and diagrams that would take nothing short of an electrical engineer to figure out. I was absolutely wrong. The only things I can think of that would hinder anyone from being able to make a solid cabinet using this guide would be; cost, tools and workspace.

This is a must have guide for any nerd with an empty rec room. I could even see this being a great spring board for anyone wanting to start a business selling custom cabinets.

This well written and exquisitely researched guide to building your own 1980's style video arcade machine contains everything one needs to undertake this

AMBITIOUS DIY project: 1. Budget and Parts List 2. Carpentry Instructions 3. Electrical & Electronic Parts and Assembly Instructions 4. Software Description and Sources. This is an ambitious DIY'er project likely to require several hundreds of dollars and a similar number of hours (at least for a complete novice

such as myself). I would like to note however as an electronics and software hobbyist, and participant in the Philadelphia Hackerspace Hive 76, the extensive documentation provided could serve several purposes--for example, the electronic parts and controls are adaptable to projects in physical computing/microcontrollers and can also be interfaced easily to many PC's; the software descriptions including the MAME emulator and related libraries are applicable to many PC-based projects and easy gameplay; the carpentry instructions including mounting of TV and Computer Monitors are applicable to many PC and home entertainment projects.

So, whether or not you have the motivation and budget for a major DIY project constructing a full-scale Arcade Machine, or are just an experimenter involved in related disciplines this is an invaluable book on a number of technologies relevant to the hobbyist.

--Ira Laefsky

Summing this book up: Want an arcade cabinet in your house, but don't want to be tied down to a particular game? This book is for you.

Written by one of the more prominent members of the arcade-building community, this book covers everything you could possibly need to know about building upright and cocktail-style arcade cabinets (not the bigger cockpit-type ones though). There's extensive discussions of almost all aspects, from cabinet plans to controls (the author's particular specialty) to wiring to coin slots. There are quite a few gotchas that the book covers, both legal (especially the sticky abandonware-related issues surrounding arcade ROM dumps) and practical (the increasing lack of availability of CRT monitors, for example), and there's lots of little tips for things like signage and lighting.

I do have a few issues with the book though. For one thing, the author's preference for Windows; while it is true that Windows is the major PC game platform, the book does touch a lot on the MAME arcade emulator package, and if you're planning on retrogaming to any great extent, the operating system is largely irrelevant since although it's primarily developed on Windows, MAME is available on all three major platforms. (If you're planning on a more modern game, okay. But most people building arcade cabinets aren't.) Another is the disc it comes with; there's a lot of content (especially cabinet plans) on there, but the HTML-based interface is sometimes a bit clumsy depending on your browser.

Overall, though, you'll be hard pressed to find a better book on the subject, and one can only hope that it might spur a resurgence of the arcade business someday soon.

Several years ago I stumbled upon a software online called MAME and a number of video games I remembered from my youth. I grew up (late 70s to mid 80s) with the Atari at home and quarter Arcade games at the mall - and those Arcades sure ate a lot of my quarters earned from mowing lawns. But seeing those old games again was a lot of fun, and my kids actually enjoyed playing video games where you had a limited number of "lives" as opposed to the Playstation and Wii games of today (which I simply don't understand). And I've thought it might be fun to install those games on a computer that could be hooked up to the television with some joysticks or paddles instead of using the keyboard, but finding a simple joystick that doesn't resemble something from an F-22 fighter jet (and cost almost as much) hasn't been so easy.

That's where I thought Project Arcade might be useful, but the focus is geared toward making your own Arcade machine for your home. And that's an idea that sounds really cool - it could be loaded with and configured for all the old favorites from your youth - and no quarters! Of course, that's assuming the wife doesn't mind, right? In that case John St. Clair has ideas and plans for "desktop" Arcades, which are smaller but still not the simple setup I had envisioned. And unfortunately this book doesn't really consider such a basic idea, but it's still loaded with tons of great information for those with willing spouses. It goes into quite a bit of detail on construction and the various options out there for joysticks, trackballs, spinners, and buttons. It also includes a CD with art to customize the finished cabinet. I thought the legal discussion on the software and ROM files (the actual games) was good to know as well. So, if you're looking to spend some time and money to build your dream Home Arcade, this is the book you want. But if you just want to plug an old computer into the TV you probably don't need it.

I picked up Project Arcade: Build Your Own Arcade Machine. in the hope of luring my little potato away from his machine, get him working with his hands (other than a keyboard ;) So far I have not had much luck in that regard, and this book may or may not help me.

Project arcade is well written, and does the things which I have found missing in a good many how-to books I have reviewed. It provides plans, both in the book and on the accompanying disk. It includes pointers to web sites where you can get more help, updates, even software. the reason I say it may or may not help is that it is written for a targeted group: those nostalgic for '70s & '80s arcade games. I, myself fall on the periphery there (i'd rather a pinball machine if I were to make room for a large arcade game) my kids are totally outside that range. Nostalgic for them is their xbox (the original, not the 360) and while they like "retro" games like pac man, tetris, they are just as happy to play them on a DS.

All that said, I believe this book has pretty narrow appeal. A lot of space is devoted to cabinetry. I guess he is assuming that geekish types have less experience with woodwork. That may or may not be so, but I do commend him for providing the benefit of his experience and explaining clearly why some materials are better suited to this purpose than others.

The book is also very good in terms of exploring equipment hacks; cannibalizing old machines for parts to build controls (analog and digital). Sometimes his use of language assumes more enthusiasm of his reader than may be warranted (again, pointing to the specific group this is targeted towards) but I believe most people could pick up a few tricks from this, even if their goals are different. I got a pretty good sense from reading this that you will likely spend more building your own arcade than you would if you were to buy one on the second hand market, but he discusses this as well. There are always trade offs to be made, and one can always opt to go high or low end.

I think this book provides all the information one would need to build an arcade machine of whatever scope one chooses, from a small desktop controller through a full on enclosed cabinet. I am just not sure my kids will work up the enthusiasm to head out to the garage and start building. (note: I do not fault the author for this ;)

I would say that if you fall in the target group; those who are nostalgic for 1980s arcades, this would be a 5 star book. It gives you all the tools you need between the book, disk, web sites to build yourself the arcade machine of your dreams. I liked it a bit less because I am not really in that group, nor are my kids. when I saw the arcade title, I thought back to a different era. Pac man and tetris were around when I was a kid, but I still much preferred the older arcade games which were also still around, and am myself, am not sufficiently enthusiastic about pac man... to devote time or floor space to it or its ilk, nor are my children. If you are, or want to hack your desktop to use a joystick, this is the book for you.

This is a well written, completely readable guide to building, outfitting, and enjoying a home-built video arcade cabinet. I especially liked the author's positive attitude and enthusiasm throughout this step-by step guide through the design, build, and testing process. The author assumes zero previous experience, and presents a practical, step-by-step approach that reduces this otherwise complex and difficult project to a series of smaller, more achievable periods of fun in your garage.

I got this item as part of the Amazon Vine program but I'll review it as though I had paid full price.

I am very impressed with the level of detail of this book. The author starts by an explanation of why one would want to pursue building an arcade machine (which is likely mostly preaching to the converted for anyone who has bought the book, but does serve as inspiration!) What follows is a very detailed discussion of the processes of building a cabinet and assembling the controls and the computer to put inside it to emulate the desired games. The writing style is light and causal, very similar to the style of the "Idiots Guide" type books. Although I don't know if I'll have the time to commit to actually building one of these, I now have a great resource to look to for advice on how to do it. If you have always wanted to build a functional arcade cabinet, this is the book you have been looking for!