Rather than requiring an entire cabinet for a single game, modern gamers and arcade enthusiasts can rely on a simple cabinet setup for hundreds of games by running MAME – the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, and a variety of other systems. What would this require? Not much, as it turns out. A relatively modern computer, a cabinet (either purchased or home-built), a low response time LCD or even CRT screen, and a couple of arcade sticks would be enough to get most users started.

With a setup like this, a single system could easily run an enormous quantity of games right from a single cabinet, reducing what would otherwise require hundreds of square feet into a simple and space-efficient system. Of course, in order to do this legally, you would require a copy of the base game boards. While significantly cheaper than an entire cabinet, this can still prove problematic but take hope, not all is lost.

One of the best things about arcade games is that they have never gone out of style. Sure, they may not be the main focus of modern AAA developers anymore, but that in no way means we are wanting for options. Modern online storefronts like Steam, for example, offer an enormous range of games which play perfectly within an arcade-style setup. Want to play Pac-Man? Then purchase a copy of Pac-Man Championship Edition on Steam for $10 and have it.

More of a Tetris sort of person? Tetris Effect has you covered if you hook in your PS4, again an easy task considering the interchangeability of components. Adapters here mean that not only could consoles also play a part in your system, but you could also use a wider range of controller input than these more limited systems would usually imply.

You don’t even have to settle for traditional arcade gaming either, as the flexibility of these systems opens the possibilities as wide as creating your own little slots casino from your own home. Being able to load up the hundreds of online offerings like Copy Cats and Warlords to play from a realistic setup is a dream for many players, and the reality is surprisingly simple. Those savvy enough might even be able to create their own lever-based input systems to start spinning, for even more tactile feedback.

The possibilities for these types of systems are something which many of us dreamt of as kids and now, as adults, that dream can finally become a reality. Whether to play alone and shoot for a high score or to invite friends over and rip their spines out in Mortal Kombat, there is enough versatility here to satisfy every type of arcade gamer, from classic to modern.

Also – if you do decide to go this route then attach cup holders to the side. Trust us on this.

The post What Would you Include in Your Personal Digital Arcade? appeared first on Armchair Arcade.

“It’s been a little over 4 years since the Internet Archive started providing emulation in the browser from our software collection; millions of plays of games, utilities, and everything else that shows up on a screen have happened since then. While we continue to refine the technology (including adding Webassembly as an option for running the emulations), we also have tried to expand out to various platforms, computers, and anything else that we can, based on the work of the emulation community, especially the MAME Development Team.

For a number of years, the MAME team has been moving towards emulating a class of hardware and software that, for some, stretches the bounds of what emulation can do, and we have now put up a collection of some of their efforts here at archive.org.“

These are a definite blast, with mostly simple, straightforward gameplay and often based on some pretty far out subjects. Even if you weren’t lucky enough to be around during the heyday of these systems in the late 1970s through early 1990s, I still recommend checking this out to see some of what was going on in this area at the time.

The post Play historic LCD, VFD, and LED-based handheld games emulated right in your browser! appeared first on Armchair Arcade.

As we left off, I was going to hook up the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B and get RetroPie on a microSD card and go from there. For those following along, I’ll be mostly trying the directions here, here, and especially here.

Hooking it all up.

I plugged the Raspberry Pi into the Picade’s USB, audio, and HDMI outputs. I then plugged the power into both the Picade and Rasberry Pi. I also plugged the Phantom Lapboard‘s dongle into another USB port on the Raspberry Pi in order to use its mouse and keyboard for setup.

Now, it’s time to power it all on and see how I did.

And… it didn’t detect the Pi. I troubleshot the issue by bringing out another monitor with a different HDMI cable. I got a signal on that. So I used that other HDMI cable to connect to the Picade, which did work. I then put the included short HDMI cable back in, making sure it was pushed in better on both ends.

By some miracle, all of my wiring worked.

Now I just had to follow the RetroPie prompts to set up my control panel.

The display is quite nice.

I went into the RetroPie setup and configured the audio to go through the headphone jack. Both speakers work fine, but there is a low level hiss, which is apparently common with sound through the Pi’s headphone jack. When there’s sound, it’s not that noticeable, but it is something I’ll have to figure out how to adjust at some point.

There’s not much pre-installed other than the emulators on RetroPie (this is of course using the EmulationStation front end), but it does have a small selection of “ports” and other games that aren’t particularly interesting to me in this type of arcade-style setup.

EmulationStation is the front end.

Included Ports, short and sweet.

Duke Nukem 3D is cool, but not something I really want to play on this type of setup.

That was good enough for testing, but I really want this mostly for arcade games.

I had to first create a retropie directory on a USB stick and then put it in the Pi. Once it finished blinking, I had to take it to my desktop computer and put the appropriate ROM files in the newly created directories for what looked like a really nice range of emulators. I started out with personal favorites, Pooyan and Satan’s Hollow, I threw the Super NES version of Donkey Kong Country on there for good measure.

I pressed F4 on my keyboard and let it reboot itself. Sure enough, I got a Super Nintendo emulator to appear, as I did the three different versions of MAME that it supports (I copied the two ROM files to each MAME directory, not being sure which version was going to perform best).

There are three MAME options.

Selecting what to play.

Of course I’m going to test with Pooyan.

So obviously that works fine, although I do want to remove image stretching on MAME. I’d much rather have a smaller visible screen and the games the correct aspect ratio. Unfortunately, that’s one of the tricky things about this Picade setup. There is no dedicated Escape or other, similar, key, so I’m kind of flying blind without also using a USB keyboard (luckily I have one hooked up; I guess I’ll dedicate the Phantom Lapboard to this system since it has a dongle that seems to work for both its keyboard and mouse). Even with the USB keyboard, I wasn’t able to figure out how to exit out of MAME.

Upon rebooting, I selected the third MAME version, and sure enough, that one displays the screen the way that I want it. The right pinball button on my cabinet even allowed me to exit back to the master RetroPie menu!

Pooyan the way it’s supposed to look.

The first MAME option works well too, although like the third MAME is a bit heavy on the graphics filtering.

Satan’s Hollow puts the sound on this system through its paces.

In any case, the controls are pretty responsive and I have no major complaints with the emulation, as you’d expect from the latest, most powerful Raspberry Pi available at the moment. As is usual with these things, the setup is going to be a long process. With that said, I’m happy that it works and I’ll be of course be setting up a few key titles to be sure to play.

Unfortunately, there’s no dedicated on/off switch for the Pi, as the on/off switch on the side of the arcade cabinet only turns the monitor on or off. I can however do that from the software controls, so it’s not too bad, but I’d still like a dedicated switch.

Since everything was working, I decided one last time to try and figure out the issue with the marquee. I took it off, and sure enough, there was still a plastic protector on each piece of the plexiglass. I don’t know how I missed that. The good news is, now it really does look the way it’s supposed to.

The marquee is fixed!

So now the only thing left is to properly mount the Raspberry Pi on the back of the door. Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure a satisfactory way of doing that with the included holes and screws, so if I can find ones that fit, I’m just going to order PCB Mounting Adhesive Standoffs and place it roughly where I have it now.

It really should be mounted on the door, but it’s easier this way.

Actually, after I wrote that, I did find one adhesive standoff in the leftover Picade parts, so I used that to secure the Raspberry Pi to the bottom of the cabinet. It seems to work well and just having the one allows me to manipulate the PCB when necessary.

It would have been nice if both the Raspberry Pi and Picade could be powered together, rather than separately. That will have to be something to look into for the future.

So, to sum up, if you have sufficient patience, this is a relatively easy build. There were several areas where I struggled mightily, but it was obviously never anything insurmountable. While I would have preferred a fully pre-configured SD card dedicated to MAME, the available RetroPie image gets most of the job done. With the marquee issue resolved, my only real beef is with the sound output. When there’s something playing, it sounds fine and you can set it in software to be quite loud. However, the audible hiss when nothing is happening is not that nice. I’m not sure if I’m ever going to bother fixing that, however.

Interestingly, just like before, after I wrote that, I decided to investigate a possible fix for the audio hiss. The answer was found here. Editing the config.txt file (just like the days of MS-DOS for me), I added the line disable_audio_dither=1 to the end of the file. It fixed the issue. There might still be some minor hissing when certain sounds are actually playing, but not when it isn’t playing, which is what really matters.

I also don’t like the idea that I have to set the volume level via software. I’d much rather have a dedicated dial or buttons. The side buttons on the monitor (that pass through the case side nicely) control the volume, but I’m not using the monitor for sound. If possible, I may try to figure a way to use the case speakers like I do now, but have it be controlled via those buttons. Who knows, though?

My long-term goal is to perfect a MAME setup on this. I casually installed a few more MAME game ROMS, and some worked, while others didn’t (and I also have to figure out how to install sound samples, since I assume that’s not an automated process; at least there’s no specific folder, so it may require some copying somehow using the File Manager). I’m going to experiment with the other version of MAME (the other one that defaults to the correct aspect ratio) and see if that improves things, as well as look for a full ROM set (although I’m not really sure I want to wade through a whole lot of cruft, so I may just install on demand). I also would like to figure out how to disable display of some of the other emulators on there, at least until I decide to make use of them. Again, time will tell. Anyway, for now, I’m pretty happy with how this went and will certainly consider similar time consuming, but gratifying projects in the future.

Read the rest of the series:

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

The post Building the Picade Mini Arcade Cabinet: Part 04 appeared first on Armchair Arcade.

As we left off, I was getting ready to work on the wiring loom…

I’m now tasked with wiring all of the buttons on the cabinet, as well as everything on the control panel. It’s relatively easy once you sort through all the wiring looms. You just have to have one ground for every active plug, and each section has two pins.

This is the PCB. I need to loosen all of the screws in order to insert the wires. It actually came with a small screwdriver, but I didn’t see it, so I used my own.

I struggled mightily getting the wires into the holes and locking the wires down. I ended up having to strip some to reveal additional wire for the ones that I damaged. I eventually figured out that if I slightly looped the end of the wire, I could get it to stay better. Hopefully this technique allows everything to work the way that it should.

In terms of difficulty and frustration on this project, I’d put this wiring at the top. As you can see, however, I did get it done finally.

It was difficult connecting the wiring from the control panel buttons to the PCB (I didn’t state it before, but everything goes to a specific place on the PCB), but I eventually got that as well. I also attached the speakers, referring to the manual to remember which was the left speaker and which was the right speaker. As stated earlier, the further I get in the manual, the less detail they seem to go into.

I used the included sticky tape and plastic bolts to secure the PCB. You can also screw it in, but that was too difficult.

Next, I secured the control panel. That involved screws and bolts and access from the rear panel.

Now I had to secure the LCD panel’s controls.

The LCD panel’s control panel lines up with the holes on the outside of the cabinet.

I then applied the sticky exterior buttons. It works really well.

I attached all of the remaining wires before connecting the CPU (in this case, a Raspberry Pi 2).

The next steps are going to be the big finish. I need to configure RetroPie on a microSD card, then insert that into my recently received Raspberry Pi 2 Model B. Then I hook everything up and see what works and what doesn’t (hopefully my wiring is OK). Of course, there’s going to be a lot of additional configuration with RetroPie and the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B in general. This part is definitely not going to be plug and play, and will likely rank highly on the frustration scale. Until next time…

Read the rest of the series:

Part One
Part Two
Part Four

The post Building the Picade Mini Arcade Cabinet: Part 03 appeared first on Armchair Arcade.

As we left off, I was getting ready to work on the control panel. As you’ll read, I took a brief detour first…

Although my plan was to start in on the next step in the process, the control panel, the rear access panel was bothering me. Although it worked, I was able to get only two of the four screws and bolts in and I had the swivel joints reversed, so they showed on the outside of the panel (it should have just been the screws that showed). As you can see from the photo, I was able to get it on the right way. I still could only fit two of the four screws and bolts, but I took out my drill and its smallest bit and drilled out a little extra room. Now all four screws and bolts fit and it’s secure. I had to adjust the locking clip a bit, but now it’s perfect. I wish I could do a similar fix for the cloudy marquee mystery, but this to me was more important.

It closes nicely.

The next step was to sandwich the control panel art (I chose the same style as the marquee) between the control panel plexiglass and wood backing. I was worried about this step after the marquee issue, but after peeling both sides of the plexiglass, it was nice and clear.

The finished product.

The next step was attaching the joystick. I just removed the ball top and plastic disc, then inserted it through the hole. I secured it with two of the longer screws.

The next was to attach the buttons. These popped in fairly easily.

The bottom of the completed control panel, prior to the wiring.

The remaining buttons in the kit went directly on the cabinet.

Next step, which will be covered in the the third entry, is the control panel and PCB wiring. That’s going to be quite the process, perhaps only second in frustration to attaching the rear door. We’ll see.

On a side note, even though I already have a Raspberry Pi Model B (it originally had another purpose), I decided to order a Model B+, which is faster and has more RAM. I also ordered a 32GB Class 10 MicroSD card to go in it (the older Model B board uses a full-sized SD card). While this added $50 to my build cost, I think it will be worth it in the end, providing all of the performance as a transportable emulation machine this should ever need. Hopefully it arrives by this Wednesday.

Read the rest of the series:

Part One
Part Three
Part Four

The post Building the Picade Mini Arcade Cabinet: Part 02 appeared first on Armchair Arcade.

This is part one of what will likely be a three or four part series, but ultimately, who knows at this point? In this (hopefully) short series, I’m going to visually document the build process and provide light commentary that’s mostly related to any issues I’ve run into.

The Picade is a mostly complete kit in your choice of two sizes of joystick-based mini-arcade cabinet. The only thing that’s missing is the brains to actually play the games. Typically, this is some version of the Raspberry Pi, which I plan on using (right now I have an original Raspberry Pi on hand, but if I get that working I’ll swap it out for the latest model), but the kit is also designed to accommodate any of a number of other inexpensive small form factor computing devices.

While there are video tutorials online, I’m mostly following the paper manual that’s included with the Picade because I have no way of knowing at this point what version of the kit someone else may have. In any case, in general, the included manual is well written and easy to follow, although there are some parts that could really benefit from more visuals or a better description (more on that later). So, without further ado, here I go:

These are all of the components from inside the shipping box.

I’m getting the components ready for the first part of the build, which is the base.

Attaching clips.

Attaching the rubber feet. This part you kind of wing with general guidelines from the manual.

Attaching one of the side panels. You always know what part faces the inside because it has text on it.

The other side panel and top panel.

Placing the monitor.

Choosing a marquee. I chose the one in the middle.

I removed the backing and sandwiched the marquee as indicated in the manual, but it’s hard to see. Clearly something is wrong here, but I don’t know what. It’s not something I want to bother with at this point.

Securing the speakers to the case.

This is where the manual failed me. The rear door is very difficult to know how to attach. I consulted a video that gave me a clue, but it still wasn’t quite enough to avoid re-doing this many times. Essentially, one part of the hinge goes on the outside and the other part of the hinge goes on the inside. I think on mine I have it reversed, so it probably doesn’t look as good as it’s supposed to. I can’t be sure, though. In any case, I was also only able to get two of the four screws and bolts in. It seems stable enough, so I’m leaving it. What a headache!

Attaching the clip that holds the rear access panel in place. It works well.

In the later photos, you’ll note fine black dust on the table cloth. That’s from repeated screwings of the door. The cabinet is powder coated well, but it does come off with abuse.

In part two, I’ll start in on the joystick control panel.

Read the rest of the series:

Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

The post Building the Picade Mini Arcade Cabinet: Part 01 appeared first on Armchair Arcade.

On its home at Archive.org, the Internet Arcade is described as “a web-based library of arcade (coin-operated) video games from the 1970s through to the 1990s, emulated in JSMAME, part of the JSMESS software package. Containing hundreds of games ranging through many different genres and styles, the Arcade provides research, comparison, and entertainment in the realm of the Video Game Arcade.” While other sites like Jackpot Charm have accomplished similar feats for a variety of platforms (in fact, I used to provide regular blog post lists of such sites), and even Archive.org itself provides access to many of them, the combination of functionality, accessibility, and the types of games these are make this specific implementation stand out, as found on new-casino.ca and other new online casinos. In short, this is a major milestone that makes these historically important arcade games available to just about the widest possible audience.

The inception of the Internet Arcade provided a fantastic opportunity for people to relive and revel in the classic arcade games from the 70s to the 90s. Similarly, 新しいカジノ offers the most recent innovations in online casino gaming. They are characterized by enhanced graphics, intuitive user interfaces, and a diverse range of gaming options. They are also usually accompanied by modern security features, ensuring a safe and immersive gaming experience for their users.

Getting Started

Here’s a summary of what you should have in place before you get started:

[First] A Windows-, MacOS-, or Linux-based computer that can run one of the browsers in the bullet that follows. While I’ve been successful in getting a game to show on an Android-based smartphone running Chrome, you may have trouble getting the virtual keyboard to appear to get things going and actually play.

It looks like steps might be taken to better support mobile devices, but for now, I’d say stick to a traditional computer. As for something like a Chromebook, I’ll assume that that will work unless I hear otherwise, though I doubt it will be able to have gamepad support.

[Second] Only the latest versions of Chrome and Firefox provide full functionality, so avoid browsers like Internet Explorer and Safari for now.

Firefox is specifically recommended by Scott over Chrome due to its greater speed running the Internet Arcade implementation, though I’ve noticed little difference when testing on my desktop computer. Waterfox (more or less a 64-bit implementation of Firefox) is also claimed to provide similarly fast and full functionality like Firefox, but in my testing it didn’t detect my gamepad.

[Optional] Though optional, a standard gamepad of some type that you already know works well on your computer is usually a lot better than playing from the keyboard. With that said, several classic arcade games have very simple controls, so a keyboard would work just fine in those cases.

In terms of gamepads, I’ve personally tried and have gotten to work Microsoft Xbox 360, Microsoft Xbox One, and Sony PlayStation 4 controllers. I picked those for no other reason than that’s what I typically use on my PCs and the fact that they were handy.

Potential Gotchas

There are only a handful of potential gotchas when starting to play one of these games. The biggest one is that the implementation is still a bit rough in spots and you may find browser glitches here and there with a particular play session. In most cases, refreshing or closing the tab or browser will solve the problem, but in other cases you may need to completely reboot your computer to start over. In short, if you run into the occasional issue, it shouldn’t be a surprise and those are the steps you should take to rectify the situation. While frustrating, keep in mind you’re playing the equivalent of a full size arcade machine using the same software that you look at cat pictures and are reading this text with, so yeah, don’t complain too much and simply enjoy being in the “future.” The only other potential gotcha should be an obvious one and it’s that you need to have Javascript active for this Javascript-based emulation to work. In other words, if you see a blank screen where the game should be, turn Javascript on!

The Steps

I’ve been doing the testing on my Windows 7 desktop, but the steps that follow should be applicable to most other equivalent platforms. I successfully tested this on the latest versions of Chrome and Firefox, though for these specific steps I’m detailing right now I’m using Chrome:

[Step 1] Navigate to https://archive.org/details/internetarcade and pick one of the optimized games shown on the page (now would also be a good time to plug in that gamepad if you haven’t already!). If you’re feeling adventurous, search for or select any other game from the extended master list, keeping in mind it may not work the way it should, particularly if it originally featured an unusual controller setup (I selected Donkey Kong: Pauline Edition because between three daughters, one wife, one cat, and one out of two dogs, anything without a female protagonist is frowned upon in this house).

Internet Arcade

[Step 2] You should now see the game’s landing page. Click on the game’s image or on the Run link in the caption under it to begin.

Landing page for Donkey Kong: Pauline Edition.

[Step 3] If you plan on using a gamepad, make sure it’s detected. You should see a message x gamepads detected., where x  is the number of gamepads found, like in the example below.

The pre-play area should detect the number of gamepads you have connected. In this example, it’s two.

[Step 4] Press the Spacebar or click on the MAME window to start. Note that if the Mute button says Unmute, you’ll need to click on it so that it says Mute if you wish to hear sounds. The Fullscreen button fills your display, but unfortunately does not correctly scale (or letterbox), so in most cases selecting this option will result in a distorted picture. Dark Background switches between light and dark page backgrounds.

[Step 5] The game should now start once it’s finished fetching the BIOS and game data (remember, this is loading the actual arcade machine’s data!). Insert a (virtual) coin by pressing the 5 key on your keyboard, then begin a one player game by pressing the 1 key (you may also see and use clickable buttons for Insert Coin, Player 1, and Player 2 in the upper left of the screen). You should then be able to play using either your gamepad or keyboard.

Donkey Kong Arcade: Pauline Edition play screen.

Here’s a master list of default MAME keys that should mostly apply to the games on the Internet Arcade.

 Important Keyboard Keys

 5 – Insert a virtual coin

1 – Start one player game (after inserting a coin)

2 – Start a two player game (may require more than one coin)

Arrow/Cursor keys – Move

Left Ctrl – First action button

Left Alt/Option – Second action button

Spacebar – Third action button

Tab – Reconfigure most keys and other settings (these are lost after a browser refresh)

Burgertime play screen. While Burgertime, like other games on the Internet Arcade, has sound issues in the present version of the emulation, it’s still a blast to play.

So there you have it. Any questions, just ask, otherwise, have fun and be sure to support all of the Internet Archive‘s tireless and exhaustive efforts at preservation. There have already been several improvements to the Internet Arcade since launch, and I have no doubt that we’ll see even more over time.

The post Quick guide on how to play on the Internet Arcade appeared first on Armchair Arcade.