Background Info and Target Audience

One Confused Chicken!

Well, this is going to be a bunch of firsts for me!  My first attempt at a blog, my first attempt at building a full-scale upright retro-arcade cabinet, first real foray into Linux programming, etc.  I'm a geek at heart, and not a writer, so I'm sure there will be grammatical errors, punctuation errors, etc.  So, the comma police should go elsewhere (you know who you are!)

 First Things First
There is a ton of information across the interwebs regarding planning, building and programming a home arcade machine.  Most are published by better writers, better woodworkers and better programmers than I.  In fact, a lot of what I learned here I gleamed from them and their websites or posts on various message boards.  I'll share the ones I found most useful.

I'm primarily creating this blog just to document my own progress, lessons learned and maybe, just maybe, provide someone else headed down this path a little useful information (or maybe steer them towards a disaster... sorry if that's the case!).   To that end, here's a standard disclaimer:

I am not a professional electrician, woodworker, Linux programmer or much of professional anything else that will be used to build this eventual arcade cabinet.  Please refer to other websites or documentation when it comes to electrical safety, proper use of power tools and creation of backups on computing devices.  While I hope it never happens, I cannot be held responsible for a bricked system, fried circuit board or a lost finger!

Ok, now that the disclaimer is out of the way...

My Background
I'm not intending to tell my life story here, but a little background will let you know why in the heck I even decided to do this, and maybe provide a little info to help decide if you want to be considered as crazy and obsessed about this as I am, at least according to my wife and co-workers.

Gaming

I grew up in the late '70's and early '80's (sure starting out to sound like a life story doesn't it!).  But I remember walking into the vestibule of a now-defunct department store and seeing my first Pong machine, circa 1973.  My uncle and I spent a couple of hours pumping quarters into this machine, fascinated as all we had before this was pinball.  I then was lucky enough to score an Atari 2600 for a beloved Christmas gift (still one of my favorite most memorable Christmas gifts... thanks Mom and Dad!).  I spent my teens and early college in the height of the video arcade era.  I spent way too many quarters playing all the old classics; Space Invaders, Asteroids, Defender, Donkey Kong, etc.  So, I still have very fond memories of the sights, sounds, and yes even the smells, of the old arcades (I will not be trying to recreate the smells of the old arcades... those are best left in the past!).

I've never considered myself a "hard-core" gamer, but over the years I progressed through the early PC gaming years and various consoles from the Sega MasterSystem to the lastest Playstation 4 and PSVR.  The graphics and realism today are unbelievable, but I still have fond memories of the original arcade classics.

Programming Skills
I spent a fair number of years as an application developer.  Keep your "boos" and opinions to yourself, but almost all of this work was within the Microsoft eco-system.  My exposure to Linux was very limited.  This will be apparent soon! And as I moved into a CTO position in my career, I had less and less opportunity to program and my skills continue to atrophy!

Woodworking
I took a shop class in 7th grade.  I made a toolbox. That's about the extent of my abilities. 

Mine really wasn't this nice, or put together that well.  But you get the idea!

I, like most people of my "vintage", picked a thing or two through the years as home remodeling projects and other daily task teach you a lesson now and then. And you pick up a tool here and there, but as will also become apparent as I built my prototype, I am not one bit talented when it comes to woodworking.  

Ok, that's enough background.  

Target Audience
Well, I can't be sure on this one, other than myself!  But there has been a recent explosion in the interest in classic arcade games.  There are already at least two (maybe more) "arcade bars" in the Indianapolis area.  If you are not familiar with these, they are a lot like the old arcades, except there's a bar.  And generally, if you are buying drinks, then the games are free to play.  What a deal!  You can also see the explosion of information across the web about doing exactly what I describe in this blog... building your own retro arcade.  If I had my guess, there is a group of us that grew up in the peak of the video arcade years and we now have fond memories that we'd like to try to recapture... even if it is within our own home "man caves".  So maybe you're one of us.  Or maybe you just want to introduce your children to the games you played growing up that didn't involve chainsaws, machine guns and near photo-realistic gore (I'm not denigrating these games.  I enjoy a good first-person shooter every now and then myself).  

So, maybe you've heard about the "retro-arcade" home machines and are starting down the research path like I did.

Or maybe you're just really, really bored and discovered this by accident after you just canceled your Amazon Prime subscription and can't get a free book anymore.  

Regardless of the reason, I'm glad you're here.  I'm glad anyone is here.  I can't even get my wife to read this, so welcome friend!

If you haven't already fallen asleep or clicked away to something much more interesting, I'll move on in my next post to how the idea of building a retro arcade machine came about and what started me on the actual path to making it happen.

Next: Seeds of an idea and meeting the Raspberry Pi >>