I picked up a really cool vintage arcade cabinet on the weekend from a guy moving overseas. Currently it’s just an empty shell with joysticks, buttons and an iPac adapter (converts the joystick / buttons to USB). Should make for a great addition to the garage.
I’ve started configuring my old MacBook Pro into an emulation machine to run the thing, currently it’s running Ubuntu 11 (wishing I had installed Ubuntu 10, the new interface is retched).
Here’s what I’ve installed so far:
SDLMAME – an Ubuntu port of the arcade machine emulator MAME
ZSNES – a Super Nintendo emulator
GENS – a Sega Genesis / Megadrive emulator (bring on the Sonic!)
…and for a front-end (ie. for selecting an emulator and game using the joystick), I’ve configured Wah!Cade, which has proven very easy to configure, and includes a great layout editor for customising the various screens.
Lots of work still to do, I’ll probably start by dropping a decent LCD monitor in the cabinet, although I might eventually switch to a curved CRT screen, particularly as the cabinet is of the curved, 80’s milk-bar vintage.
I’ll post updates here as work progresses!
