[edit] Beginnings

Sandb acquired some kiosk stands discarded by his employer. They look ideally suited to make Arcade Machine.

[edit] Brains

In order of preference

Xbox (1st gen) is a great platform, it's cheap and fast enough for MAME and other emus, it has USB-compatible ports (with a different form factor) for joysticks
- a secondhand xbox needs to be acquired, should be available for 25 euros
- video out to VGA converter needs to be built (xbox-linux wiki page is down though, google cache ok)
Small Linux box with MAME can easily fit into the bottom cabinet with room to spare.
'real' hardware
- I(Koen)'m planning to donate a Sega Mega Drive if we're going to use it.
- Maybe an Amiga can also be build into this retro gaming system if Impy likes to participate.
Gameduino could be nice.

Update: Tom2 acquired a secondhand xbox + 2 controllers.

An Arcade machine should be CRT based, but LCD seems only feasible option.

We need some brainstorming on what kind of controls we want on the panel.

Controller options:

Buy one
Tom2 can provide happ arcade controls consisting of 2 joysticks, 14 buttons, player1/2-button. See pictures for a preview.

A USB Joystick is also available for this project. This joystick can be tested using these commands:

sudo apt-get install joystick
jscal /dev/input/js0
jstest /dev/input/js0

Options to hook up buttons:

Low-quality speakers for playing 8-bit music are needed. We should hide them somewhere (bottom of the controls panel?).

Existing backlighted panels (especially on top) can be used for some tacky artwork/whitespace logo. Vinylcutter at timelab can be used for this.

electronics to build xbox vga output (LM1881 ic + spare xbox video cable)
electronics to build 2 USB joystick interfaces + 2 spare xbox controller connections (cheap xbox extension cables?)
speakers (some cheap speakers with built-in amp)
TFT (Tom2 may be able to provide 17" 1280*1024 screen)
28mm drill bit (hole saw)