After multiple 360 casemods and a quick fling with my old NES, I' ve come to the conclusion that there' s only so much you can do with the console case itself. I' ve been getting rather bored with the whole hardware scene lately, and with the rather recent announcements to the XBLA retro list, I find myself dwelling more now on the old arcades I frequented when I was younger.

I' ve always dreamed of building a retro multi-system arcade console. I' ve subconciously planned out how I' ve wanted it to look & feel & what it would feature for years now, I' ve just never had the time or the money.

Good news? I' ve just come into ample time and a moderate amount of money. A buddy of mine brought it up the other day, & mentioned the fact that if I wanted to, it' d only be a matter of some serious followthrough, and some significant brushing-up on my soldering skills.

I' m not talking building my own NAND machine here, but if I could have it the way I wanted, I' d have:

-A full wooden cabinet, handpainted by yours truly.
-A 21-26" TV with ample inputs.
-Decent speakers ran through RCA in the little " speaker alcove" on the top end of the cabinet.
-A NES
-A SNES
-A PS1
-A Genesis
-A Dreamcast
-A Saturn
-AN N64 (Time, money, energy and effort permitting)

I' ve been thinking about it for the past week or so, and while it' d be relatively complicated, I think I' ve come up with a decent enough solution. Instead of having one controller board on the unit, I' d have multiple different replaceable boards that could simply be plugged in via the normal controller ports.

Here comes the exciting part for me. I' ve got all this weekend off, and a Radio-Shack very close to my house. So I think I' ll be starting the project this weekend. I' ll be heading up to Rat-Sack tomorrow to pick up the neccessary buttons, and I' ll see if I can bum some fiberboard off of the local construction guys. (they' ve always got scrap from the housing jobs around here)

And here' s the exciting part for you. Whether I have the most revolutionary arcade machine ever built, or whether it crashes & burns in a blaze of broken dreams, I' m going to be capturing it all on camera for ' yall to gawk at. If time permits, I' ll be posting regularly showing my updates.

My first step in the project is to wire a Playstation 1 controller for use with an arcade style control setup. I' ve got an old 3rd party one disassembled in front of me, & the further and further I get into this, the more excited (and incredibly nervous) I get.

Now, it' s approximately 12:30 in the morning, and I haven' t slept in a day. Wish me luck. More info following a detailed study of the insides of my eyelids.

Good luck man. You have a tenacity for fiddling with consoles that I have never and most likely will never be able to gain. I enjoy working on my cars, but I tend to quickly get frustrated and swear a lot when thing go wrong

I look forward to seeing your progress throughout it all. I also think a N64 wouldn' t be such a bad thing to put in there, but the other 5 definitely have better arcade gaming options.

And remember, if this thing becomes a huge deal and you get rich, all I ask is you hook me up with one. Painted and autographed by yourself of course.

edit - I wrote " sweat" instead of " swear"

Yeaaaah buddy. 2 of THESE BABIES. This just saved me almost 2 days of soldering.

I wish you luck!

Just got back from Radio-Shack, and I have to say I' m a little disappointed. They had multiple different types of buttons there, but none that really replicated an old arcade machine.

So, I' m now considering purchasing 1st party joysticks and mounting them to a board via some bolts. I really wish I could go for a full arcade scheme, but if there' s no economical way for me to find the buttons, then I' ll have to stick with the joypads for a while.

Oh yeah, and I' ve got no f****** clue where I' m going to put the thing!

Only people with my intelluct can finish a thing like that.

Actually, it' s only people who can spell intellect.

I actually did it with purpose this time.

Pwned again.

For the arcade buttons, seems like people would be parting those out on otherwise nonfunctioning coin-op machines. But I don' t know if they' d have the prices jacked up unreasonably. What about on those plug-and-play, self-contained retro machines that have things like Namco classics?

I considered those, but they' re quite expensive for what you get. You' re looking at $30 for 15 or so decent games. The amount of games is near endless if I pick up the console proper. Not to mention half of this project is for nostalgia. Having the consoles is half the fun.

So a bit of a status update. Went out to Radio-Shack again today & bought some solder, some medium gauge wire, and some buttons. I might post some photos of the buttons later, but regardless, I' m not very happy with them. It requires so much effort to push them down that there' s no way I' ll be able to do it with some of my weaker fingers. I can barely depress it all the way with my index.

I did however start soldering an old SNES controller for one of the controller boards.


Nintendo puts this really weird gunk over their connectors on the SNES controllers, so I had to scrape down all the connectors by hand.[:' (] Everything that' s shiny on that motherboard was made so by me.

Then came the " fun" part. I absolutely detest working with liquid metal. It beads, absolutely doesn' t spread, and doesn' t stick to anything if it' s not in the mood. I have no clue if the connections work yet (I will be using the cheap RS buttons for testing). 1 hour' s work yeilded:

I considered those, but they' re quite expensive for what you get. You' re looking at $30 for 15 or so decent games. The amount of games is near endless if I pick up the console proper.

I meant just getting the buttons / joysticks out of them, not using them for the games.

Interesting idea Eddie, does sound like more than a weeks work to me if you want to finsh it though .

How is this going to work anyway?

I smell party at Eddie' s..

Interesting idea Eddie, does sound like more than a weeks work to me if you want to finsh it though .

How is this going to work anyway?

Oh most certainly more than a week. I' m giving myself a week to put together the SNES board itself. (I' ll have it done & put away, I' ll just be waiting for a box of classic arcade buttons I found on eBay)

How is this going to work? The board itself?

SNES > Controller motherboard > Controller button contacts rigged to arcade buttons > You

If you mean building the cabinet itself, it' s pretty simple handiwork. The toughest part is going to be installing the shelves. I' d like them to roll out.

You can still buy arcade buttons new depending on the brand, as well as authentic cherry switches. I' ve built two mame cabs in the past with all the emulators on - not quite what you are doing here, but I' m about to end up doing a fobt conversion shortly too for the games lab at work. The advantage with mame etc is that the unit wont over heat, you can run it as a media centre too and you can run an unlimited variety of consoles through one interface with usb as a backup for anything you cant get soldered in there! Again tho - if you suceed with the list of true hardware with that level of integration fair play that man!

You can still buy arcade buttons new depending on the brand,

Brand doesn' t bother me, I' ll be painting over anything I get anyway. I' ve found a lead on what appears to be a pretty good deal. I' m looking at about 15 bucks total for 20 buttons.

as well as authentic cherry switches. I' ve built two mame cabs in the past with all the emulators on

Seriously? Dude! Awesome! Expect multiple emails from me in the future looking for a nudge in the right direction.

I just got back from putting the finishing touches on the soldered SNES controller. Spent about a half an hour going from wire-to-wire on the controller testing to make sure everything works. (Super Mario World has never been so painful) I got almost everything right but the X-button on the first try. Or maybe it works & there' s just no x-button function in Super Mario World, it' s been ages since I' ve played it.

I' ll post some photos after I kick back for a while. Spent a little over 3 hours in a dark room soldering. I' m gonna go get some sunlight.

Next step, bid on some buttons!

Next step, bid on some buttons!

Erm... the next step blows.

The idiot in Hong-Kong shafted me on the buttons methinks. I' ll be sending him some very very angry emails this week in hopes of a refund, or more buttons than what I paid for.

I finished the entire controller wire-up for the SNES board, and I' ve been testing the buttons like a madman. I' ve been playing Super Mario Bro' s by connecting wires for the past week or so now.

Photo updates tomorrow I hope.

Photo updates tomorrow I hope.

You' re a dead man if not.

The idiot in Hong-Kong shafted me on the buttons methinks. I' ll be sending him some very very angry emails this week in hopes of a refund, or more buttons than what I paid for.

Yeah, I never bid on stuff from Hong Kong. A few years ago I bought Sonic Adventure 2 for DC and it took nearly 2 months to get here

You want photo updates now? Cause if you really want I' ll update. It' d just be of the controller with wires soldered to it. My camera is a bit of a hassle, but hey, I' m bored.