reviving the arcade ..

Remember when just about every shopping center had an arcade ? It seems the age of the cheaper gaming console has seen an abrupt end to the age of the arcade. The era may have ended but the memories of awesome games like After-Burner, Street-Fighter and even cheesy but ultra addictive games like Pac-Man live on. Well perhaps they don't need to be just memories, enter the Pita brothers latest project ... the game genie. Game genie ?? This is a project I started about a year ago to bring back the affordable arcade machine that would hopefully re-ignite the age of the arcade or at least spark the interest of the nostalgic gamer. The project also served as a training platform to sharpen my welding skills :)

So what exactly is the game genie ??

Well its arcade machine that was built with modularity in mind ... kinda like the way I built my house.

The arcade machine has been built to very easily be transformed to accommodate a standard control panel, steering wheel or even be transformed into a juke box :) The games are easily loaded using a control board designed by us .. sorry a bot of a secret so i won't reveal too much about this board.

The game genie also has a LCD monitor instead of the traditional crt monitor which makes the unit way lighter and easier to maintain :) The machine is also made almost completely out of 3mm steel sheeting as well as 5mm angle iron perfect for the slightly violent gamer :)

The control panel is not made of steel but pine wood which I stained black and varnished to make it a bit more durable. The buttons used are the traditional very durable arcade buttons designed to take a beating.

Wiring up the control panel is very simple and basically involves connecting a separate wire to each button the a common wire from one button to the next.