Book Description
You can go back, and here's howRemember the days—and quarters—you spent pursuing aliens, fleeing ghosts, and gobbling dots in that beloved arcade? They’re hiding in these pages, along with diagrams, directions, plans, and materials lists that will enable you to build your very own arcade game. Construct joysticks, buttons, and trackballs; build the console and cabinet; install and configure the software; crank up the speakers; and wham! Step across the time-space continuum and enjoy all those classic games, plus dozens of new ones, whenever you like.

Start Here

1. Plan for your space and budget
2. Design and build the cabinet
3. Construct the controllers
4. Build the console
5. Pick an old game’s brain
6. Install the emulator
7. Convince a PC it’s a game
8. Connect a monitor and speakers
9. Add a marquee
10. GO PLAY!

Includes diagrams, detailed instructions, essential software, and more

CD-ROM Includes Complete cabinet plans and diagrams MAME32 software Paint Shop Pro® evaluation version Links to hundreds of arcade cabinet projects


Book Info
Diagrams, directions, plans, and materials lists for building an arcade game. Softcover.


About the Author
 John St.Clair, like most children of the ‘80s, spent much of his childhood immersed in arcade games. Although he’s now a respectable network engineer, he remains an avid gamer and serves as Webmaster for www.arcadecontrols.com, the favored site of hobbyist game builders.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Did you misspend your youth in arcades, shooting aliens and wasting quarters? (Or maybe you￯﾿ﾽre doing it now?) Why not build your own arcade machine? The brains: a spare computer. The rest? For that, see Project Arcade for complete plans and step-by-step directions.

John St. Clair, host of the Build Your Own Arcade Controls FAQ, covers every step: building your cabinet; integrating spinners, trackballs, joysticks; mounting monitors and speakers; then hooking up the computer and transforming it into an arcade machine. (Including everything you need to know about ROM emulators.)

St. Clair shows how to find parts and kits, troubleshoot the thing, even create ￯﾿ﾽclassic￯﾿ﾽ arcade artwork. Whatever your guilty fantasy -- Asteroids, Pac-Man, Tempest, Centipede -- this book will make it come true. Bill Camarda

Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2003 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks for Dummies, Second Edition.

FROM THE PUBLISHER