I spent a lot of time (and quarters) in arcades as a kid. It was the place to hang out, and the games were great. I can’t remember the name of the one near my house, but it was a huge, castle-shaped arcade in the middle of miniature golf courses. It’s Actually still there, but I can’t remember the name (someone PLEASE post in comments!). If you want to find it, look NE of the intersection of the 605 and 101 freeways in the San Fernando Valley:
Well, 30 years later, I’ve found a way to play those games again. It’s called the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator (MAME), and it’s free software that, as it implies, emulates the hardware of many types of arcade machine. All you need are the games and, luckily, I found a way to get about 4000 of them!
So now I can play all of these games on my computer (with the keyboard), which is nice, but just not the same. Then I found ArcadeControls.com. People were taking their computers running MAME, and putting them into actual arcade cabinets! Well, now I have to build one.
And here is where the story starts…
