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Build Your Own Arcade Kit

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the its-good-old-fashioned-fun dept.

Shawn Walters writes "Xgaming, Inc., has announced availability of the new X-Arcade BYO Arcade KIT, a $60 solution designed to allow users to create an authentic arcade machine in their home powered by any PC, Mac or game console, no advanced technical skills required." Heck of a lot easier than building your own.

2 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Slashdot: Advertising by Speare · · Score: 1, Troll

    The OSDN folks have loudly and widely announced that some of their stories are "slashvertisements." I think it was originally stated that they'd put about one such story up per day. I don't know if that's still accurate but it's part of the business model that keeps them alive. Get over it.

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  2. Who needs it? by elfurbe · · Score: 0, Troll
    I don't know where we found the plans back in the day, but a friend and I built our own controller deck for our emulator cabinet using Microsoft Sidewinder Pro gamepads with gameport connections. These were the ones you could daisy chain together, up to four on one gameport. So we used two, cracked them open and soldered all the controls we ordered from happcontrols.com to the proper contacts on the board. We just used some particle board and laid out button and controller positions exactly how we wanted them. This worked out quite well because the sidewinder pads had boatloads of buttons and since they were gameport, they just worked. No USB woes. We also got a custom software interface up and running, a little buggy, but it allowed us to leave the machine unattended in our dorm lounge and people played whatever they liked without having access to the Windows explorer. Yes, we used Windows. It was easier that way.

    Plans for the future that never got done included:
    • Adding an external gameport onto the daisy chain that poked out the side of the cabinet to allow for connection of another controller deck for four player action
    • Building external interfaces for connecting our favorite classic controllers to the system. Things like NES slots, SNES slots, Genesis slots, etc.
    • Lighted marquee. Never got to that.
    • Painting the cabinet! Yeah. The construction was the fun part.