7

FIELD TEST

to GND or VCC and triggers a change in state. This
then triggers the game to make our character jump,
or spaceship fire its weapons. There are six wires that
are directly attached to the electronics. These are for
power, an interrupting power switch, and the speaker.
Connection between the electronics and the screen
is via a custom cable, held in place but rather fragile.
The screen is a cheap LCD measuring approximately
5 cm × 3.5 cm, but there is scope to add your own
miniature screen, and space to add a slightly larger
screen, such as those from Adafruit or Pimoroni. Also
present on the board are a number of test points,
used in the factory to test the board, and we can use
them to bridge connections, fix broken wires, and tap
into the power supplied from the batteries.
But the most visible part of the electronics is a big
grey ribbon cable at the bottom of the PCB. This links
to another PCB hidden under the controls. This PCB
is tricky to get out as it is screwed in place and you
cannot get a conventional screwdriver in there, so we
used a ratcheting offset screwdriver and revealed a
simple PCB that uses the same conductive pads to
detect input. We could easily reuse this board with
an arcade-to-USB interface that can provide more
functionality and enable us to use the stock controls
with a Pi Zero! Upon closer inspection there are also
three unpopulated connections for LEDs, so we could
use those to add lights to this tiny cabinet.

CONCLUSION

As a gadget the cabinet is fun, but as a chassis

on which we can create our own miniature arcade

cabinet, it is sublime. It has the internal volume

necessary for a Pi Zero W and a USB breakout board,

and we can easily add a new screen to replace the

custom display. Being able to reuse the controls

via the USB breakout board means the outside

appearance of the unit will not change. For £20, this

is a bargain and we can have a lot of fun building our

own cabinet without the need for a laser cutter or

3D printer! All we need are some screwdrivers and a

soldering iron.

Happy hacking!

Above

The controls for the

cabinet are housed

in a separate PCB,

which we can

reuse with a USB

breakout board to

control a RetroPie

cabinet and retain

the original look of

the cabinet

Below

The PCB is reused

from a handheld

console, and we

can see the pads

that were previously

used used for the

controls

THE DIY APPROACH

Building your own arcade cabinet is not that difficult,

seriously! A quick look on eBay and we can find

bartop (i.e. to fit on a table) cabinet kits that include

all of the electronics and parts needed to build the

project. All you need to do is add a screen, Raspberry

Pi / Asus Tinkerboard etc., and connect everything

up and you have a working cabinet. Using software

such as RetroPie retropie.org.uk, we can easily

configure the cabinet to run games from the dawn of

video gaming using emulators such as MAME (Multi

Arcade Machine Emulator) up to the PlayStation

era, so around 20–30 years of gaming history. But

where do you get the games? Well, this is where

it gets a little murky. Game files for emulators are

called ROMs, as arcade cabinets originally had their

games delivered on large circuit boards filled with

ROM (read-only memory) chips.These ROM files are

still under copyright, which means distributing or

copying them is illegal, but many sites offer them for

free download. There’s a community of developers

creating ROMs that can be shared. There’s a

selection available at romhacking.net/homebrew

that you can use freely.