Project goal
Even after completing his education Erwin constantly takes on new projects. At the beginning of this year he built an arcade gaming machine at home and of course tells his colleagues about it. Our CEO Michael Sporrer also gets a wind of this, too. With great interest he talks to Erwin about how he built the machine and what components he used.
And that’s how the whole new project came to life: Building an arcade gaming machine for the whole spo-comm team’s lunch breaks.
Project realization
In the first step Erwin did a technical drawing to work out the right measurements. As an inspiration for the form of the machine he researched on the internet. Now it was all about finding the right materials to use as the machine’s housing. Boards were bought, cut to the right sizes, filed and foiled.
On his Game Boy project Erwin made entirely positive experiences with the Raspberry Pi Zero that he used. Also this time he decided to go for it as the underlying single-board computer – more precisely the latest version the Raspberry Pi 3B+. The heart of this computer builds the 64-bit 1,4 Ghz Quad Core CPU that gets supported by an 1GB RAM. It also is equipped with an integrated WiFi, Bluetooth and four USB 2.0 interfaces.
Next to the 19.5” monitor Erwin also installed some speakers. These and the self-built controller board with two joysticks and some buttons, that allow two players to play against each other, really give the machine its retro look. By using the USB hub that sits in the middle of the controller board, different controller such as steering wheels can be plugged in. But also keyboards for an easier usage of the settings can be used.
Now it was all about the software to finish the project. Erwin decided to go for an adapted Linux that is called EmulationStation. This software makes it possible to configure the different keys with the particular control commands. Then the gaming machine was played with many popular retro-games and the project was accomplished!
