MATERIALS

• Pine laminate
• Miserable MDF
• LED strip light
• Lightly tinted perspex for the screen
• Clear and opal perspex sandwich for the backlight artwork
• PWM controller for backlight brightness control
• Intel i5 / 3.2GHz, overclocked to something silly
• AMD Radeon HD 8490
• Seimitsu PS-14-DN-K buttons and LS-40-01 joysticks
• Black spray paint and clear coat
• I-PAC arcade control interface
• Less blood and fewer tears than the moogCade

My barcade* uses the wonderful Galactic Barcade designs over at Instructables, except I wanted a bit more beef than a lowly Pi and I still had a thing for 70s synth wooden sides. And so it was.

The moogCade was scrapped for parts. It was far too heavy, stupidly bulky, was comprised of an embarrassing amount of filler and, containing an exposed CRT tube, was a little lethal.

The barcade uses a compromise of a regular 4:3 LCD monitor with software CRT effects for an oddly soothing pastiche of the more deadly, less practical option.

Unlike the moogCade, I took great pains to not be a muppet and rotate the controls.

There isn’t a back, as I couldn’t be bothered. Speakers are free standing, also because I couldn’t be bothered. One day.

The backlight’s brightness is controlled by a quick and dirty PWM circuit. The motherboard happened to have a spare 12v and ground pins, so I used these for powering the circuit and the backlight.

The machine is running Windows 10, Attract Mode with the Flat Blue theme, and a patched version of MAME to remove nag screens and the like.

*Hillarious and punny name pending.

GLAMOUR SHOT

SHAMEFUL GUTS

The PWM backlight brightness controller is the little ghetto circuit to the right of the motherboard.