When we originally started on this arcade road trip I had an idea in my head if what makes the perfect arcade near me. But I have to admit, after the road trip was over I had to change some of my pre-conceived notions. I learned that my tastes and what I found fun were not 100% aligned with my notions! That’s not to say that I had a radical conversion or anything like changing religions. It’s just that I slightly re-aligned my arcade-o-meter!

Planning our Arcade Road Trip to Find the Best Arcades

In order to find the best arcades in Dallas/Fort Worth we first had to make sure we used our time wisely. This of course meant making sure that we didn’t tread over our own footsteps wasting time in the car driving. So we laid out a path that would take us to as many arcades as possible, with as little drive time as possible.

We also wanted to visit the best variety of arcades. The best arcades in DFW near me are all different, each with its own flair and style. These styles are not good or bad, just different! So you have to find what best suites your style and taste in a local arcade.

The Time Rift Arcade – Bedford, TX

Since writing the first iteration of this article way back in 2021 a lot has changed! We already had a thriving business selling arcade parts and plans. After touring all of these amazing arcades, we couldn’t help but go on a journey to start our own! After planning and collecting arcades for almost two years, we opened the Time Rift Arcade in Bedford, TX in October of 2023.

We’ve been asked many times in the comments why it’s missing from our list (most people don’t know we have ownership in it). We don’t think it’s right to rank our own arcade, so we’re leaving it off the list, but we wanted you to know why.

List of the Best Arcades in Dallas/Forth Worth, TX

So without further ado, here’s my definitive list of the best arcades in DFW.

The Electric Starship Arcade – Haltom City TX

The Electric Starship Arcade in Haltom City is my favorite arcade in all of DFW. Hands down. The owner and staff are over the top friendly and helpful. They go out of their way to make sure you’re a happy customer. The attention to detail in the arcade is amazing.

This cool arcade is themed towards the retro genre. With a ton of amazing retro games. They’ve got all of your classics. They also have some more modern games too though, such as Dance Dance. You’ll find Pac-Man, and few rows away you’ll find a Star Wars Battlepod. In addition they have some kick-ass pinball games such as Pulp Fiction, Stranger Things, and Jaws!

You’ll find their adult beverage selection to be quite good, with a nice lineup of beers, ciders, and seltzers. One of my favorite beers Dallas Blonde was on tap!

The Electric Starship Arcade is located just north of 820, on highway 377.

Things we LOVED: The atmosphere and staff were over the top. The owner has definitely spent a lot of time getting the vibe just right. Lots and lots of cool artwork, filled with retro themes. The food and drink items are priced incredibly low for such a venue, and they don’t make that up on the entry fee. The fee is just $10 to get in the door, and you still get low priced food and beer.

We absolutely loved their dedication to making their machines awesome. All of the games have been restored, look amazing, and worked flawlessly. And Mike the owner, even goes out of his way to make sure each arcade is running genuine hardware and if they came with a CRT, they still have one where so many arcades today have switched to emulation and replaced the CRTs with flat panel LCDs.

Things we think could be better: Honestly, not much. Maybe a bigger selection of food would be about it.

If you’re looking for the best arcades near me, this is the one to check out. Hands down.

Cidercade – Fort Worth, TX

Our next favorite arcade in DFW is Cidercade Fort Worth.

Bishop Cider Co. has been making cider for many years. They eventually expanded their bar area to include arcades and the concept took off.

Today’s Cidercade is a mix of retro, modern, ski-ball, pinball, and cider! And speaking of cider, I tried the Lemon Meringue Pie and it was simply to die for. If we weren’t driving all over the metroplex I definitely would have had a second!

Cidercade has a large section of pinball. Many more that we excepted to find, though we noticed they were mostly unplayed, rather the large format car games like Cruise’n Blast seemed to be the big hits.

If you love cider and you love arcade games, this is definitely the place for you!

Things we LOVED: We loved the selection of cider. Delicious! We loved the big mix of retro and modern games, along with some ski-ball and other cool large games. We loved that they had four of the big racing games all networked together for some awesome team fun.

Things we think could be better: The parking. They need a lot more parking.

Round One – Arlington, TX

Next up on our list of the best arcades near me is Round One. And it is is just ridiculous. Seriously. It’s just plain ridiculous. The place is so big it is a maze. They have so much room it’s almost like they just started making things up to do with the space!

Round One is your typical modern scene arcade, and if you like that style of arcade it is definitely one of the best arcades in Dallas/Fort Worth. Round one has almost no retro-games though. So if you’re looking for Pac-Man you’re only going to find the modern re-makes on big flat panel screens. But hey those games are ridiculously fun too, just different.

Round One also has a huge (and I do mean huge) selection of crane and prize machines. Of course, these all work on the ticket redemption model. You have to buy credits at a kiosk and then swipe each game to play. Definitely not my preferred arcade style, but we had to put Round One at 3rd on this list just due to its shear volume of games, massive footprint, etc. Kids will love this place.

Things we LOVED: The size. Holy smokes its so big (queue Michael Scott jokes)! They have numerous party rooms, several Karaoke rooms, a Japanese game sections, crane sections, coin pushers, and more. There’s something for almost everyone at this place. I don’t think you could an arcade road trip without visiting this place!

Things we think could be better: Let’s be honest, their pricing model is designed to stick a vacuum in your wallet and empty it clean. If you go here, you best take out a loan or line of credit. There are no free play options available here. We also hope they’ll add some more retro games to their lineup.

Free Play – Richardson/Arlington/Fort Worth, TX

Next up our arcade road trip took us to Free Play. There is so much to love (and hate) about Free Play! Free Play’s name sums up the concept. You pay $12 to get in and you can play every game in the house “for free” after that. Wouldn’t the more correct name for the place be “Fee Play”? Sorry, I just couldn’t help myself! All in jest!

Free Play to us felt like a bar. A bar that happens to have video games. But a bar first and foremost. We visited both the Fort Worth and the Arlington locations (though we’ve been to Richardson in the past). You enter the venue into the bar area, and then you sort of make your way over to the arcade. I don’t like that disconnected feeling. And the arcade area of Fort Worth just feels like a dungeon. It’s just a big dark box with rows of arcades with a floor so out of level that you feel like you might fall just walking around in there. The feel of the Arlington location is much better. In fact, Arlington is almost too bright and airy for an arcade.

The Fort Worth location almost makes up for the arcade section with a bad ass roof top and tiki hut. You can go up top and see for miles while drinking your favorite cocktail. But again, its just a bar up there. There’s no arcade games on the roof, and not really any arcade décor either.

Free Play has a great selection of arcades and games. All mostly retro-style.

Things we LOVED: The “Free Play” concept of all games being free after the entry fee. Good selection of food and drinks.

Things we think could be better: We with they didn’t break up the bar and arcade area and rather had seating mixed in with the arcade games.

The Best Arcades in Dallas/Fort Worth – Honorable Mentions

On our quest to visit all of the best arcades in DFW, our arcade road trip took us to a few that just don’t make our list but we wanted to share them with you anyway. Just some quick blurbs to tell you what it’s like.,

Main Event

This place bills itself as the being in the best DFW arcades and has basically tried to be the Six Flags of arcade machines. Every game in this place is so big I image it being shipped in on a train and assemble by a team of rocket engineers. And the sad part is, they games aren’t even that fun! The prices are ridiculously expensive, and everything is designed as a “ticket munching” redemption model. So many better options!

Tornado Terry’s – Keller, TX

Tornado Terry’s is different. It’s in an old metal building in the north part of Keller. They have a small selection on their menu that only includes snacks (think bagged chips and candy bars), a canned sodas. They don’t serve any real food, and no bar of any kind. They found a model that worked for them and don’t seem to have changed it much.

They are the most expensive arcade on our list of “free play” style arcades, charging $15 for free play, however, about 1/3rd of their games (such as pinball) require additional payment. It’s not a bad place overall. Just need to keep the cost difference in mind!

What do you think is the Best DFW Arcade?

We’d love to hear what your pics are for the best arcades in Dallas/Forth! Leave us a comment below!

We plan to keep updating this list. If you have an arcade you’d like us to visit let us know! Note: We only rank arcades we’ve actually been to. So we won’t add it until we’ve been there. We’ll visit it on our next arcade road trip!

The post The Best Arcades in (DFW) Dallas/Fort Worth 2025 appeared first on The Geek Pub.

The solution is to replace your arcade hard drive with an upgraded solid-state drive. Depending on which arcade game you have, this could be a CF-Card plugged into a CF to IDE adapter, or it could be an SSD drive if your game uses a SATA style mechanical drive.

Upgrading/replacing your mechanical drive will add years of life to your arcade machine, or repair it if it has already failed.

There are two main ways to go about this replacement:

• Buy an already imaged arcade hard disk replacement from a reputable vendor.
• If your hard disk is still working and your a bit on the technical side, you can image it yourself and buy the parts on Amazon.

Buying a Replacement Arcade Hard Drive

If you’re not technical, and/or your hard disk has already failed, the best approach is to simply buy a replacement solid-state drive from a reputable vendor. We offer both arcade CF-Card kits and SSD kits.

We take all of the work out of it. We image the replacement arcade hard drives for you at no charge, ready to plug into your vintage arcade machine and bring it back to life. All of our kits are pre-tested before shipping to make sure you’ll have a hassle free installation experience.

We offer imaging for many of your favorite arcades, including San Francisco Rush, CarnEvil, Cart Fury Racing, Hydro Thunder and many more. Just select the game you need and we’ll get the kit to you promptly.

Imaging Your own Arcade Hard Drive

If you’re on the technical side and your existing arcade hard drive has not failed, you can probably image it yourself using some hardware and software tools:

• An imaging software such as Balena Etcher
• IDE
  • An IDE to USB adapter to plug your existing hard disk into your PC/Mac
  • A CF-card to IDE adapter for installing into the arcade cabinet
  • A CF-card to USB adapter to image the CF card
• SATA
  • A SATA to USB adapter to plug your existing hard disk into your PC/Mac

You’ll need to remove the game’s arcade hard drive from its cabinet and plug it into your PC directly or through an adapter.

Open Balena Etcher and choose to make an image of the hard disk and save it to a file on your PC or Mac. Once the image is created, open Etcher again select the file you just created as your source, and the destination as your CF-card and write the image out.

Once the image is written you can plug the CF-card into the CF-card to IDE adapter and plug that kit into your arcade game board or PC. Be sure to plug the 5V power connect to the power connector that the original arcade hard drive was plugged into.

The game should boot up normally! If it doesn’t boot the most common reason is plugging the adapter in backwards (warning, this may damage your adapter and/or your game board!). The second most common reason is failure to plug in the 5V power cable.

The post Arcade Hard Drives appeared first on The Geek Pub.

Space Invaders Arcade Repair Video

Watch the Space Invaders arcade repair video for more info!

Space Invaders Arcade Repair: I bought a broken one!

As you can see the cabinet is a little dusty, but otherwise in almost perfect shape!

However, the electronics and wiring (as you can see) are a giant mess! Someone has added all of these jumper wires bypassing the card edge connector completely. So bizarre!

The other problem is that it’s simply showing these bars on the screen rather than loading the game. I initially thought this was the wiring, but as you’ll see shortly there’ more to this issue.

Tools I Used to Repair this Arcade

For all those who wonder which tools I use and where to get them, here’s a handy list to go along with this video and article:

• Wire Cutters
• Fluke 117 Digital Meter
• Weller Soldering Station
• Hakko De-Soldering Gun
• Quad Hands Helping Hands
• 22 AWG Bodge Wire
• EPROM Programmer
• IC Puller

Space Invaders Arcade Repair

So it’s time to get this thing disassembled and figure out what is wrong with it. Since I don’t know what’s wrong or even why these wires are here, I decided to label them so I would have a back out plan (should I need one). Anytime I am working on something new I always try to make it as easy as possible to backup a step.

After labelling all of the jumper wires, I cut them in half. This allowed me to finally remove the board from the arcade and put it on my electronics workbench.

RELATED: Building an Electronics Workbench

Diagnosing the Space Invaders Board

With the board on my test bench, I can now begin the Space Invaders arcade repair by diagnosing the board and trying to figure out why all of these jumper wires were put in place.

I started by using my multimeter and testing all of the card edges. Although they are very worn, they seemed to all have continuity to the main board and daughterboard (or so I thought, read on).

I couldn’t figure out why all of these jumpers were on there in the first place. This Space Invaders arcade repair was a little confusing! Why had they done this?

Well, I decided to take a closer look at the card edge connector on the cabinet’s wiring harness. I almost immediately realized what was going on. It seems that whoever replaced the original card edge connector didn’t realize that space invaders need a bridged connector. Meaning that both sides of the card edge need to be bonded! So they added these jumpers because there was no signal getting to the board! Insanity!

You can see on this diagram and on our Space Invaders pinout post how the wiring is supposed to work on a the cabinet’s card edge. As you can see pin A on the solder side and pin 1 on the parts side are supposed to both be +5V. If you just apply +5V on one side of the card edge, then parts of the board may never get the +5V signal it needs to work.

Removing the Jumper Wires

So with that discovery I felt pretty comfortable removing the jumper wires from the board and wiring harness. We can just add the missing bridges.

Using my soldering iron and Hakko de-soldering gun I removed all the jumper wires from the board. I then used a swab and some alcohol to remove the flux residue.

On the wiring harness, I removed all of the jumpers, soldered the wires back together and applied heat shrink tubing.

Finally, I bridged the connector pins to transfer the signal to both sides of the board.

Repairing the -5V Line (Broken Trace)

Of course, I didn’t expect this part of the Space Invaders arcade repair to fix the game, and I didn’t. Nothing changed with the operation, but at least we can get the board in and out now!

The next thing I did was start checking that we have the proper ground, +5V, -5V, and +12V everywhere on the board we expect it to be. Missing power is a common occurrence on these old boards, and indeed I found that the -5V line seemed to be missing at the processor!

After a little poking around with the multimeter I figured out that the card edge had a broken trace that I had missed!

In order to fix this broken trace I added a bodge wire to the board.

This fixed that problem and returned -5V to the processor. However, the board still behaved exactly the same.

Space Invaders Arcade Repair – Removing the RAM Chips

The next thing I started looking at was the RAM chips. Three of the chips seemed to be misbehaving when testing with my logic probe. The I/O lines seemed to either be stuck or have static on them.

I’ve been told that due to the poor design of these boards that eventually all of the RAM chips will go bad. With that in mind I decided to simply de-solder every RAM chip and put in sockets.

Adding Sockets for the RAM

I really think any good Space Invaders arcade repair should include socketing the RAM. This is just going to make all future maintenance and repairs easier.

After soldering in new sockets, I tested all of the old RAM and found two of the chips were indeed bad. So I added two replacements that I got from an eBay auction.

Replacing the Bad 75153 Shifter

After replacing the RAM, our issue was unchanged. Or so I thought. The game would still show the bars, with the game ROMs installed. But I found when I installed the Space Invaders Test ROM it now worked!

In fact, not only did it work, it immediately identified that one of the 75153 mux’s on the daughterboard was not functioning correctly.

So I grabbed another 75153 from my parts bin and replaced both of the first two on the daughterboard (since I was not sure which one had failed).

After running the Test ROM again, I get the message shifters OK and all other tests had passed! Could this be it? Will my board work now?

Unfortunately…. No.

Replacing Failed Space Invaders ROM

I noticed on the Test ROM’s main screen that it was showing a CRC of 3F55D17E for ROMs E, F, and G. This is bizarre, since that’s the CRC of a blank ROM and as you can see in the picture, they are clearly installed and I know they are not blank!

This let me to get out the logic probe again and start testing all of the pins on the ROM chips. I noticed pretty quickly that the chip enable (CE) line on ROM E seemed to be stuck. This means it was hanging the CE line for the other chips.

I grabbed my EPROM programmer and burned a new copy of ROM E and placed it in the slot.

Working Space Invaders

And it would seem my Space Invaders arcade repair journey has come to an end in success! SPACE INVADERS WORKS!

So to recap we had to fix or replace the following items to get Space Invaders working again:

• Repair the jumper wires and properly wire the harness
• Repair the broken -5V line trace on the motherboard
• Replace the failed 75153 mux IC
• Replace the failed ROM E with a stuck CE line

I’m a huge fan of making future repairs easier. So in addition to socketing every chip I replaced, I also try to label things so future troubleshooting is easier. In this case I labeled the ROMs with their position and correct CRC.

Space Invaders Arcade Repair: Playing Space Invaders!

Of course, we can’t leave it there! We have to put this board back in the cabinet and play some Space Invaders. No Space Invaders arcade repair would ever be complete without playing a few games to test it out!

And damn is she a beauty! Look at those little Space Invaders moving around the screen shooting their little weapons at me! But they’re no match for me! Just kidding, they kicked my butt good.

Well thanks for following along with this Space Invaders arcade repair. It was a blast! Nothing gives me goosebumps like taking something so cool that obviously neglected and sad and turning it back into a diamond. What an amazing game and wonderful piece of history all back and working!

The post Space Invaders Arcade Repair appeared first on The Geek Pub.

The Space Invaders pinout can vary between brands of boards (Midway, Taito) and version (Standard, Deluxe). However, most follow the same pinout.

Space Invaders Card-Edge Pinout

Let’s start with the most important Space Invaders pinout: the 36-pin card-edge connector. This connector is responsible for two main things. Supplying power to the board set, and video output to the CRT.

The card-edge connector is on the motherboard/main board. This is the board that houses the CPU, memory (DRAM), and ROM chips.

One important thing to note about this connector is that the pins on the front and back of the card-edge are bridged. That means the card edge needs to proved +5v on both pin A and 01. If you use a replacement space invaders card-edge connector you’ll need to make sure bridge the the pins on the connector with your wire. The Space Invaders pinout is a bridge connector! Many people fail to realize this and their board set will not function as a result.

Space Invaders Daughterboard Pinout

On the Midway Space Invaders L-Board there are two boards. The mainboard (or CPU board) above, and the daughterboard. The daughterboard (some call this the soundboard) has two additional connectors on.

• 11/14 pin: Connects to coin mech, power-on-reset, and speakers.
• 8/ pin: Connects to the buttons

It should be noted that this pinout confuses a lot of people because the connector is split. For example if your board has a 14 pin connection, it may have two separate connectors with a space between them. For example a 6 pin, and a 7 pin connector. This is actually a 14 pin connector. The space is supposed to be the key to insure you insert it in the correct orientation.

Space Invaders Pinout Additional Notes

Adding a few notes here to help you along with your Space Invaders endeavors!

1. Space Invaders can be VERY picky about voltages. If you’re power supply is only putting out 4.8 volts you may have issues with your Space Invaders acting funny. Check your power supply with a meter and make sure you have the correct, +5, -5, and +12 volts coming from your power supply unit.
2. If you are bench testing your Space Invaders and you don’t have the daughterboard wiring harness connected, you will run into issues of a garbage screen. To correct this, make sure pin 6 on the 11/14 pin connector is tied to ground.
3. If your game is misbehaving, and you’re sure you’ve followed the Space Invaders pinout correctly, then we highly recommend you download and burn the Space Invaders Test ROM. This ROM goes in ROM position H and will help identify what is wrong with your board (bad RAM, etc).
4. Be careful about using pinouts diagrams without observing them on the board. Many of the websites out there are flat out wrong and following them could cause damage. Also, its possible you may have them upside down! Look at your board. Note the KEY position. Make sure you have the orientation correct. On Space Invaders, if you reverse the card edge you’ll be shorting your power directly to ground!

The post Space Invaders Pinout appeared first on The Geek Pub.

PETSCII is the name of the character set used on the Commodore PET computers of the late 1970s. This is a play on the term ASCII which is used on most modern computer. PETSCII Robots was originally designed for and released on the Commodore PET. Of course PETSCII is used as a play on the word “pesky”. Meaning Attack of the Pesky Robots, using PETSCII characters!

Attack of the PETSCII Robots may shortly become (if it hasn’t already) the game with the most ports to the most number of platforms! It’s available on Commodore, Atari, Apple, Nintendo, Sega, and many other platforms, including numerous architectures within those brands!

The 8-Bit Guy’s “Part One” PETSCII Video

A couple of months ago, David approached me about making a PETSCII Robots arcade. Of course I immediately knew this was something we had to do! You should watch David’s video on the build before finishing this article and video. It’s a Mega Update video, but he spends some time talking about the arcade version at the beginning of it.

The Geek Pub’s “Part Two” PETSCII Video

And here’s our video on the completion of the arcade and getting it up and running at The Electric Starship Arcade.

Designing the PETSCII Robots Arcade Cabinet

I got to work immediately and designed the cabinet in SketchUp! David gave me a list of cabinets that he liked and the one he liked the most was the one used by the the game 1943: The Battle of Midway. 1943’s cabinet however, is just a standard Dynamo HS-1 cabinet.

But! We wanted to change a few things. Mainly we chopped of the top so it would be about 5 inches (13 cm) lower. This allows it to roll under any standard doorway. The second thing we needed to change was the control panel. The Dynamo has a pretty cool looking control panel with a bunch of neat angles, but unfortunately that style turned out not to be compatible with the control layout we needed for PETSCII Robots.

We went through a few iterations, changing up and softening some of the angles and dimensions. We finally landed on this design (although we significantly changed the artwork and color scheme during production).

This design looks really awesome and I think we were all pretty happy with the final version.

Building the PETSCII Robots Arcade Cabinet

Building any arcade cabinet is a weeks long project. At least for the first time I’ve built this specific design. I can usually spit out repeats pretty quickly. But let’s go through my process for a first time build.

Printing an Arcade Cabinet Template

I have an HP Latex 115 large format printer and cutter combo unit for our business. This is the printer we use to print our very popular Arcade Button Labels, our Arcade Templates, and our Arcade Skins. It prints on paper, vinyl, plastic and banner materials, while the cutter is able to do die cutting (“perf cuts”) and cut through operations.

Having this printer has made it possible to really up our arcade game. Pun intended! It allows us to make better arcades and plans, and allows us to make better products for our customers.

With the template printed, I can then place it on a sheet of MDF. I like to use 3M Super 77 spray adhesive.

Cutting out the Side Panels

My tool of choice when cutting side panels for arcade cabinets is the Jigsaw. A lot people complain about not getting straight lines when using a Jigsaw. If that’s you check out our article on why your Jigsaw isn’t cutting straight! The main thing I have found besides having a good saw in the first place (with a blade guide bearing), is to resist the temptation to go faster. Keep the saw on medium speed and just go slow. This will allow you to keep the blade aligned to the material.

After a few minutes, the first panel is ready to go!

After making the first side panel, I needed to make a copy. A lot of times, I will just lay two sheets of MDF down and cut them together. Unfortunately on this PETSCII Robots build, I didn’t have a jigsaw blade that was 1.5 inches long (38mm).

I could of course, print another template, and do this all over again. Instead, I decided to use the first side panel as a template and then cut the second panel using my router and flush trim bit. This is a super fast and easy way to make a copy of something. The bearing of the flush cut bit rides on the original side panel while the blade cuts out a copy on the fresh MDF.

Adding the Top and Bottom Panels

From here, I moved on to cutting and placing the top and bottom panels onto the PETSCII Robots arcade cabinet.

To cut the panels I always default to the table saw. But let’s be clear, you don’t need one to build this or any other arcade cabinet. All you need is the same jigsaw you used to cut the side panels. In a pinch you can even clamp on a scrap piece of wood as a guide to keep your cuts straight. Never let tools stop you from making something! Remember, it was only 100 years ago that people built some of the finest furniture known to man with only a hammer, a pocket knife, and a chisel.

Another tool I like to use is the brad nailer. Again, totally optional. But if you have one you can move along with your build faster. Brad nails act like little clamps and hold the sections together while the glue dries. They really don’t add much additional structural integrity to the build, if any. Without a brad nailer just wait an hour or two after gluing before moving on to your next step.

Grab Handles for Moving the PETSCII Robots Cabinet

This arcade isn’t a home build and will be used in commercial environments. Due to this I put some extra features on the cabinet that I wouldn’t normally put on builds for someone’s home.

Arcades move games around regularly. This is part of keeping the arcade feeling fresh and new. Games will move onto the floor and off the floor during different seasons. Additionally, PETSCII Robots may find itself moving around the country frequently visiting new arcades and venues.

For this reason, I decided to add grab handles to the back-top of the cabinet. This will be a place that someone can grab the cabinet and tilt it backwards onto the rollers (more on those in a bit).

I used a large Forstner bit to drill four holes in the top of the grab handle panel. I then connected the holes using my jigsaw. I then sanded the holes to remove any marks from the jigsaw and rounded over the edges to make the handles easier on your fingers.

Once it was complete I added it to the back-top of the cabinet. I didn’t take pictures or video, but I did box these in later to make sure little kids (or adult jerks) wouldn’t be able to drop presents into the arcade cabinet that could mess things up.

Using Cleats in Arcade Builds

One thing I use in all of my arcade builds is something many refer to as cleats (or backer blocks). Cleats are small pieces of material that connect two other pieces of material. In my case they are 3/4 inch by 3/4 inch (19mm X 19mm). Cleats not only add structural rigidity, but they also make assembly so much easier since they align each section for you automatically.

I use a combination of glue and brad nails to hold my cleats in place, though many arcade builders will use glue and screws as a substitute.

Building the PETSCII Robots Control Panel

Next step in building the PETSCII Robots arcade cabinet is to build the base of the control panel. This is another change I made from my normal home builds. Normally I would make it so that the top of the CPO just lifts off. However, since this will be used in a commercial environment it is going to need some more industrial designs.

The PETSCII Robots arcade cabinet has a locking flip down control panel that is mounted on a piano hinge and locks with latches from the inside of the arcade.

This design allows for easy maintenance by being able to open the front of the cabinet to replace LEDs or failed buttons. It also prevents any unauthorized person from messing with it. The only way to open the latches is to use the key to remove the back cover of the cabinet and open the from the inside.

Making the Arcade’s Bezel

We decided the only way to go in PETSCII Robots was a CRT. An LCD just wouldn’t have the look and feel we wanted for a game that was designed in every way to be retro!

Mike Woods at Electric Starship Arcade found an old 19″ television set and removed the bezel from it. I was able to cut the bezel’s plastic down on the table saw and then make a frame from MDF to mount it in. It worked absolutely perfectly!

I just needed to route a small slot onto the MDF for the bezel to sink into.

And installed into the arcade it looks gorgeous. You may notice some roughness on the plastic due to the machine work, but don’t worry. The entire top of the bezel gets covered by a bezel overlay graphic. You will never actually see those parts!

Making the Arcade’s CRT Mount

CRTs are big and heavy. Especially arcade CRTs since they are usually mounted in a large metal frame and beefier built to withstand the abuse they will receive over their lifetime.

To compensate for this I made sure the mount in the PETSCII Robots arcade was just as big and beefy! I used some 2×4 material and cut the round-overs off of it. Scraps from my Electronics Workbench build. I first drilled them and added insert nuts for the monitor to bolt to.

To make sure they were extra strong, I not only glued them, but also used 3 inch screws from the outside of the arcade. I countersunk the screws on the outside of the cabinet and then used “plastic wood” wood filler to cover over them. I sanded it down and you can’t even tell there was ever holes there!

Arcade CRTs have 8 slotted screw holes on them. Four on each side, and then two front and two bottom. The insert nuts in our mount will align with the slots on the CRT (more on this later).

Feet and Casters for the PETSCII Robots Arcade

PETSCII Robots is going to need to be moved. A lot! And so to make this easier, I added casters to the back of the cabinet and feet to the front.

The casters will work in combination with the grab handles we made earlier. You can tilt the cabinet back and roll it around on the floor on two wheels. The front feet will keep it stable when sitting and being played!

The casters bolt to the back of the cabinet using four 1/4-20 bolts, washers, and nylon lock nuts. The feet use insert nuts and just screw in. However, the feet were a little short, so I added a 1 1/2 inch (38mm) spacer block to give them more adjustability for really slanted floors.

Routing for T-Molding

While I had the cabinet laying on the side, I took the opportunity to route the cabinet for T-Molding. T-Molding really makes an arcade cabinet pop. I never build one without it! We also offer high quality, but affordable T-Molding slot cutters in our store. A slot cutter makes easy work of installing T-Molding on your cabinet.

Building the Back Door for PETSCII Robots

Another commercial grade arcade cabinet feature I wanted to make for PETSCII Robots was the back door. The door needs to be removeable, lockable, and have vents for air flow (there will be a fan in the bottom of the cabinet).

I used a circle jig I got from Rockler, along with a my router and a top bearing flush trim bit to make rounded rectangle slots in the back door. I also put a tiny round-over on them just for aesthetics reasons.

The Rockler circle template works best if you use double sided tape, carpet tape, or fabric tape to hold it to the workpiece. Clamps work, but then they get in the way of the router.

I bought some expanded wire mesh from a big box store and cut it into squares using some snips. I then use my staple gun and stapled them to the inside of the door. This makes for a super clean look, allows air flow with the bottom fan, and keeps little kids or a-hole adults from dropping things like candy or beer bottes into the arcade. It’s amazing what you have to plan for in commercial spaces.

The top of the back door also has a key and lock that keeps anyone from opening the cabinet without authorization.

Finishing the PETSCII Robots Control Panel

Again using my HP Latex large format printer, I printed a template for the PETSCII robots control panel. I quickly punched all of the holes to make it easier to align the drill bit properly.

I then drilled all of the holes using Forstner bits on my drill press. Again, for this without a lot of tools, a handheld drill will work fine.

Because the artwork is going to roll over the front of the cabinet, I made a round-over on the front face of the control panel to make it look better.

I then glued and brad nailed the control panel top to the rest of the control panel assembly.

The Midway Completion Point of the PETSCII Robots Arcade

And we made it to the midway point! At this point the cabinet is mostly complete from a build standpoint. We just need to paint the cabinet and start the assembly process! And damn does it look good!

Drilling for Speakers

The one last thing we need to do before moving on to painting and final assembly is to drill for the speakers. We decided to go with these 6 inch (15 cm) Kenwood speakers in the arcade. They need a 5 inch (13 cm) hole to be drilled. To do this I used my drill and 5 inch “dozer” hole saw.

Caulking the Cabinet

Caulking all of the seams in your arcade is probably the most important item that get skipped by new builders. Caulking fills all of the gaps and cracks and covers imperfections in your cuts. This is especially true if you used most hand tools in your arcade cabinet build.

I caulked all of the seams on the PETSCII Robots cabinet and the wiped them off with a wet rag to remove any excess caulking.

Painting the Arcade

Unfortunately I built this arcade right in the middle of an oil-based paint shortage. I was almost unable to find any paint at all, and there was no chance I would be able to get any compatible primer.

Because of this it became clear I would have to do this build without primer and that my first coat of paint would have to be the primer.

This is fine, it’s just going to mean a little more labor in the painting process. The paint will soak deep into the MDF and will leave it with a rough texture. Similar to what happens with dimensional lumber when people talk about “raising the grain. It just means I will need to sand between coats, and especially good after the first coat.

I went with a satin black on anywhere paint would be showing. This is mostly on the bottom of the marquee, the top, and back door.

Since we’re going with really light colors on our vinyl, I painted the side panels and kick panel white. I was afraid if I painted them black there was a possibility that the black might “bleed through” and darken then vinyl artwork. In hindsight I don’t think it made any difference, Your results may vary. I did do a final sanding anywhere vinyl would be applied for better adhesion.

A lot of people always comment on my videos and articles claiming paint is a waste of time since I am applying artwork. That is a ridiculous claim. First, look a the instructions for any self-adhesive vinyl. Every single last one of them says not to apply to bare wood. Second, I’ve tried it. Six months later I was peeling the vinyl off and painting. It won’t last. The vinyl gets bubbles and starts peeling everywhere.

Mounting the Amiga 500 Motherboard

Since this PETSCII Robots Arcade is going to be powered by the Amiga 500, we need to put an Amiga 500 into the cabinet!

I drilled holes that matched the mounting locations on the Amiga 500 and placed insert nuts into the cabinet’s electronics shelf. The Amiga is attached with 3mm nylon stand-offs & washers, and hex-head cap screws.

Rather than use the aging (and destined to burn up the Amiga) factory power supply, we opted for a Nu-Brick power supply. I drilled holes into the top of the case and mounted it to the wall of the cabinet. I also opted for these short 1 foot (30 cm) power cables to keep everything nice and tidy inside.

Speakers and Amplifier

I mounted the amplifier at the top of the cabinet, and then wired it to the Amiga 500 using RCA cables.

I always like to make custom wiring harnesses anytime I do a build. I used ferrell connectors on the amplifier side, and spade connectors on the speaker side. I always label everything to make troubleshooting easier. I won’t remember what wire goes where a year from now.

I then mounted the speakers into the top panel of the cabinet where we drilled the holes.

Making the Lighted Marquee

One thing our PETSCII Robots arcade cabinet needs is a bad ass marquee. And backlit! So I went to work on the table saw making it!

I used a special blade specifically designed to cut plastics and acrylics. This blade has a flat top and makes super smooth cuts in this material. It also won’t burn it which is a big plus for materials that like to melt! One note is I do have to disable the SawStop protection electronics when cutting acrylic as the static electricity could possible set it off. The chances are low, but its a simple key turn to save yourself a possible headache.

Next up I printed out the marquee on the HP Latex 115 and and applied it to the back sheet of acrylic. There are two sheets at play here. A backer and an overlay.

And dude. It looks amazing!

The two sheets of acrylic with the marquee sandwiched between mount into the marquee slots at the top of the cabinet using some plastic marquee trim molding. It just screws in from the top and bottom.

Wrapping up the Control Panel

Now it is time to wrap up the control panel! Pun definitely intended! Many refer to this wrap as the “control panel overlay” or “CPO”.

Installing adhesive backed vinyl really isn’t that hard. Especially when you use air-egress vinyl that makes removing the bubbles super easy. We won’t print on anything else.

I wrapped the vinyl over the sides of the control panel. This makes for a super clean look. The folder over portions are hidden when the control panel is locked in place.

With the wrap done, I added all of the buttons to it.

PCBWay and TexElec Keyboard Adapter

We needed a way to connect the joystick and buttons on the control panel to the Amiga 500. Kevin Williams over at TexElec was nice enough to design us an Amiga 500 Keyboard Matrix adapter, and the sponsor of this article and video PCBWay produced and shipped it to us. Thank you PCBWay!

This adapter maps certain keys on the keyboard matrix to the input pins on the header, allowing us to connect our control panel.

Wiring the PETSCII Robots Control Panel

The next thing we had to do is wire up the PETSCII Robots control panel to the keyboard adapter.

I made custom wiring harnesses for each section of the control panel out of CAT6 cable. I again added ferrell connectors on the screw terminal side and spade connectors on the joystick and button side. I labeled each harness to make future troubleshooting easier.

Skinning and T-Molding

Again using my large format printer, we created side panels for the arcade using air-release vinyl. We worked in sections (only removing portions of the backer at a time) and slowly installed the artwork.

On the bottom and sides of the cabinet we cut the vinyl even with the cabinet. On the top and front we left the overhang and wrapped it over.

Again, with Air-Release vinyl, removing the air bubbles is as easy rolling over them with a hard rubber roller.

The arcade T-Molding then holds the folded over portions in place and makes it really pop.

RELATED: T-Molding Tips and Tricks

Installing the Monitor, Bezel Artwork, and Acrylic Protective Glass

It was at this point that I decided to get my workout for the day and install the very heavy CRT into the cabinet. I waited till the very end to do this to make moving the cabinet easier (since it was lighter), especially knowing we’d need to tip it on its sides numerous times during the build.

The monitor just bolts in using those same four screws and insert nuts we added at the very beginning of this build

After the monitor was in place, I added the bezel artwork. This literally just lays in place. It also covers the ugly sections of the trash can 19″ TV bezel we used to make this arcade. You can’t even tell. It’s awesome!

I cut out a thick piece of acrylic sheet to cover the CRT and artwork and protect them from damage.

When you close the control panel, it locks everything in place. To change the artwork or clean the CRT glass all you have to do is unlock the control panel and open it.

Of course, the cabinet wouldn’t really be complete it we didn’t install the back door!

Moving PETSCII Robots to the Electric Starship Arcade

Mike and Brendan from The Electric Starship Arcade in Haltom City arrived just in time to pick the completed PETSCII Robots arcade and transport it Mike’s awesome arcade.

Luckily Mike has a big ass box truck with a lift gate on the back of it. That took a lot of work out of moving the cabinet to his place.

First PETSCII Robots Arcade Players

With the PETSCII Robots arcade all setup at The Electric Starship Arcade, it was time for people to start playing the game. One of the first people to play it w as the super awesome Brinley! She figured things out pretty quickly and was able to kill off a few robots before she accidently crushed herself in the trash compactor! Oops!

Next up Brendan had to give it a go. You’d think he’d be tired after the moving exercise but he had to see what this was all about!

And of course, David was on-site to welcome some of the first players and give them some pointers.

If you’d like to play the PETSCII Robots Arcade game, you can visit his page that tells the current location. As of this writing it’s still at The Electric Starship Arcade, but it may find its way to various arcades all over the country! If you’d like your local arcade to host PETSCII Robots, have their owner reach out to us to schedule its availability!

PETSCII Robots Arcade Plans Coming Soon!

There will be a set of PETSCII Robots arcade plans coming in the next month or two if you want to build your own, or you want to build a RetroPie/MAME cabinet using this design. Check back for that! Coming Soon!

The post PETSCII Robots Arcade Cabinet Build appeared first on The Geek Pub.

Fraction to Decimal Conversion Chart

We’ve created this awesome and super handy fraction to decimal conversion chart that you can view here online, download and print the PDF, or buy in our store (or Amazon) in a high quality vinyl sticker version! You’ll want to keep this chart close by anytime your working in your shop, doing math problems, and need to convert from fractions to decimals or vice-versa!

If you buy our vinyl sticker version you can easily apply it to any clean surface such as your workbench or toolbox. I keep one stuck on the door of my workshop!

How to Use the Conversion Chart

Converting fractions into their decimal equivalents in either inches or millimeters is super simple. The chart is divided into three columns (split in two to make the chart less lengthy). These columns are as follows:

• Fractions show in black and yellow bubbles. The represent your most used fractional elements in 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, and 1/32 forms.
• The second column represents the decimal inches equivalent.
• The third column represents the decimal metric millimeters equivalent.

Simply pick any bubble on the fraction to decimal conversion chart and follow the line to the right to match it up to its conversion. For example, if you slide down to 3/16″ on the chart you will see it converts to 0.1875 inches, or 4.7625 millimeters!

Vice-versa you can slide your finger down to any decimal number in either inches or millimeters and then slide left to find the closet fractional equivalent!

It’s easy to get confused doing these types of conversions in your head. We know! That’s we created this chart!

Downloading the PDF of the Fraction to Decimal Conversion Chart

You can download the PDF in super high-quality vector format directly from our website by clicking here. This PDF is completely free and can be printed on any standard inkjet or laser printer.

Ordering a Printed Vinyl Sticker

If you’d like a vinyl sticker, you can order your very own high quality fraction to decimal conversion chart by clicking on the image to the right.

These charts are printed in 8.5×11 premium quality “air release” vinyl. That means they can be applied to any smooth and clean surface bubble free!

Printed with the highest quality eco-friendly inks that will last for decades and won’t fade, while also being biodegradable.

You can also order on Amazon.

Fraction-Decimal Conversion Chart Vinyl Decal 8.5in X 11in (216mm X 280mm)

$14.99

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What is the deal with Fractions anyway?

So what are these fractions and why do we even use them? If you’re outside of the North America, you probably find the use of fractions to be somewhat strange and archaic!

Fractions represent a portion of an object or set of objects. Breaking them down into smaller bite-size pieces that you can work with. Long before decimal numbers were popular the Egyptians were working with fractions. In fact, they may have even invented them!

In the USA, and other places in North America fractions become popular when working with imperial units of measurements. The imperial system is not base-10. An inch breaks down into a half, then half of the half to a quarter, then to an eighth and so forth. This means we wind up with “1/32nd of inch”. or as we can see in our fraction to decimal conversion chart 0.03125 inches!

In science there are all kinds of fractions, the common or simple ones we use here, or the much more complex dyadic fraction that contains denominator in the fraction!

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MAME originally stood for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, but lately they’ve just been calling the system MAME as a brand rather than an acronym. MAME is a software that runs on a PC, Raspberry Pi or other hardware and emulates old arcade machine hardware in a software platform.

MAME Cabinet Basics

A “MAME cabinet” is sort of a generic term given to any arcade cabinet that has MAME internals instead of original hardware. It can fit into any of these three classes:

• Custom Built MAME Cabinets – These are cabinets built at home, generally using arcade cabinet plans. They may be completely custom designs or they may be remakes of older cabinets (e.g. the Defender cabinet).
• Retrofit MAME Cabinets – These are cabinets which started out life as a specific arcade cabinet. For example, a Pac-Man or Donkey Kong cabinet that was converted to a MAME cabinet when the original hardware failed.
• Store Bought MAME Cabinets – These are cabinets built by manufacturers as a MAME cabinet from the very beginning. See our cautions on this option below.

So the question is which path should you take to get your MAME cabinet? There’s a lot to consider and so many different options and choices available even within each of these three broad categories! Let’s break it down!

Custom Building a MAME Cabinet

Custom building a MAME cabinet can be both enjoyable and very rewarding. If you are even the slightest bit handy, own a screwdriver and can afford a $25 jigsaw you can most likely build your very own MAME arcade machine.

Back in 2015, I wanted my very own arcade machine and could not afford to spend thousands on one from eBay. Eventually I decided to build my very own from scratch. Back then there were no plans or guides on the internet. So after building my arcade I created a set of plans for it to share with others. I love it so much, that I’ve built many different arcade since and have made plans for each one!

Our plans aren’t just some PDF template that a guy made in his basement. These are high quality plans. We also offer high-quality full-size arcade templates printed on card stock we can mail to your door.

If you’re interested in our plans and designs, click any of the pictures below:

If you do decide to build your own you’re going to need to decide which guts to put in it. There are several options such as PC build, a RetroPie setup, or a even JAMMA (although JAMMA isn’t technically MAME).

In addition to a PC or Raspberry Pi, you’ll need a set of arcade joysticks and buttons, with a USB encoder. The USB encoder is the brains that connect the joysticks and buttons to your PC or Pi. If you decide to go with JAMMA, you won’t need an encoder, instead you’ll need a JAMMA harness.

Lastly, you’ll need some arcade artwork for your cabinet.

Retrofitting a MAME Cabinet

If you feel like building your own is maybe out of your league the second option might be a winner. Buy an existing cabinet and retrofit it with MAME components!

Retrofitting can actually be a bonus depending on how you go about it. A friend of mine bought an old Ms. Pac-Man machine that didn’t work. He pulled all of the guts out of it and sold each one of them (working or dead) on eBay. He made enough money on the sale of the parts to pay for the cabinet and a new LCD retrofit monitor! That’s a score!

If you retrofit a cabinet with MAME you’re likely going to need a few things:

• If you don’t replace the monitor and keep the existing CGA CRT monitor, you’re going to need a GBS-8200 CGA video convertor. This will allow you to hook your PC to the existing monitor using a VGA port.
• You’ll also need a way to connect your joysticks. Which means an encoder board or two. The encoder connects to your PC or Pi and tells it when the buttons are pressed.

Another simpler way (not technically MAME) is to leave everything in the cabinet original except for the motherboard. You can replace the motherboard with a 750 in 1 Multicade board. This board comes with 750 old school games already loaded and connects to the standard JAMMA harness already in the arcade. It’s a simple unplug and replace.

Multicade boards also have a VGA port and some even have HDMI making it easy to upgrade to an LCD monitor now or later. However it should be noted that there are those in the MAME cabinet community who believe that anything other than a CRT is arcade blasphemy!

Buying a MAME Cabinet

The last option that many people (typically those with some extra cash and no time) choose, is to simply buy a MAME cabinet from several sources.

This isn’t a bad approach and we understand not everyone is able to build or retrofit a MAME cabinet. However, we’d like to pass some caution with this approach. If you’re just shopping eBay or some other marketplace it is very likely the machine is junk: That is filled with crappy parts that will quickly fail, LCD screens with terrible viewing angles, and full of pirated games and possible malware.

You’ll need to take some time and make sure you are buying from a reputable brand. And even those come with some drawbacks. For example, Arcade1Up makes a very nice machine. However, it’s only 2/3rd scale and needs to be mounted on a riser base so normal adults can use it.

Our Recommendations

If you want a MAME cabinet in your game room and you are even the slightest bit handy, our recommendation is to build your own! The rewards are definitely worth and the journey is one you will remember the entire rest of your life. It’s an experience and a journey!

The second option we highly recommend is retrofitting an existing arcade. This is a great way to reduce the level of effort but still take a fantastic journey. You’ll also learn a lot about arcade machines in the process and be well prepared to fix it should something go wrong in the future.

The post MAME Cabinet – Buy or Build One! appeared first on The Geek Pub.

Die-Cut Arcade Button Labels (Black)

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Making Your Own Arcade Button Labels

Let’s start with talking about the various ways to make your own arcade button labels. It’s not as hard as you think, but the results can be hit or miss depending on the level of time you are willing to invest (and of course the amount of money you are willing to spend).

Cutting Labels on a Vinyl Cutter

We started first by making our own arcade button labels on a home hobbyist Cricut Vinyl Cutter. This is actually not a bad way to go. You can get vinyl super cheap from Amazon or Micheal’s. You can design the buttons in their software and then cut them out.

Some things to consider here:

• Products like Cricut use a cloud system and most things cost money. If you’re not a good designer you are going to wind up spending a lot of money buying assets from their store.
• There’s a limit to the designs you can make. When things get too small or too intricate the cutter is just going to screw the material up and shred your backing board. Designs made like this need to be rather large and plain to come out right.
• You’ll need to use transfer tape to get the vinyl off the backing paper and onto your buttons.

In our Wall Mount Arcade Cabinet we used the vinyl cutter for not just the arcade button labels, but our entire design and it turned out super cool. We did a Mario theme and even used it to make the graphics for the lighted marquee.

If you’re a little creative and have some patience, this is definitely a viable option.

Printing Your Own Labels

Another option we’ve tired with some success in printing our own labels. You can buy lamination sheets from Amazon and print your own button labels.

In our Cocktail Table Arcade Build, we also tried a similar approach using a label printer. This was suggested by a viewer and it actually turned out to look pretty good.

The biggest annoyance with printing your own is that you’re going to have to cut each and every one of them out by hand with scissors or a razor knife. This will be highly time consuming and highly annoying. We know. We did it. Twice.

Buying Arcade Button Labels on Etsy and Ebay

One of our subscribers recommended we just buy them pre-made on Etsy. What a great idea we thought. But after ordering several arcade button label packs from different listings on Etsy and eBay only to be delivered stickers printed on plastic sheets from a laser printer that had to be cut out individually with scissors, we were fed up! This was a complete waste of our time. Not only did we pay a fortune for them, they were no better than what we could have printed outselves.

Creating our Own Arcade Button Labels Sets

With that it was time to make a difference. And the timing was perfect. We recently purchased a huge large format printer from HP. It’s a printer from their Latex lineup that takes large 54″ rolls of paper, vinyl, or other materials. Along with that we bought a massive robotic cutter that could die-cut just about anything we could think of. We affectionately call these two machines “Big Bertha” and “Mamba Jamba”. Because… well… they are big!

We originally bought this printer for printing premium-quality arcade artwork for our customers. One day we were standing around talking and someone said to Mike “Why don’t you finally solve the arcade button label problem? You have the tools and technology to do it now!” And that was it. Printing our own premium die-cut arcade button labels was born!

We print these arcade button labels on premium transparent gloss vinyl (the paper backer is white) using high-quality eco-friendly latex inks. We then run them through the cutter and “kiss cut” each and every button. This means that no scissors or razor knife is required. Just peel the labels off individually and press them onto the button caps of your favorite arcade buttons.

And man do they look nice! We’re currently offering them in our own style and font, but the goal over time is to add more variations of fonts and designs to the store.

The sets include several sheets with many different icons ands styles to choose from for both 24mm and 30 mm buttons.

Grab them in the store at the link below:

The post Arcade Button Labels appeared first on The Geek Pub.

Arcade Stool Basics

A good arcade stool should have several features and you shouldn’t’ buy one without first understanding these features, and then making sure you know what you’re getting when you buy!

If you go on to Amazon, Wal-Mart, or some of the other marketplaces and search for arcade stools, you’ll be shown a ton of stools. Most of them having nothing to do with arcades or gaming in general. Simply some product manager added the tag arcade to the keywords of the listing. Look at the top three results on Wal-Mart. Shame on them!

Arcade Stools Should be Arcade Themed

First things first. An arcade stool isn’t an arcade stool if it doesn’t have some graphics or general arcade theming to it! It should look the part! This means being decorated with gaming logos, arcade game characters, or other graphics to make it look the part. It shouldn’t look like it goes in grandpa’s woodshed!

We prefer artwork that uses logos and characters and bring you back to the nostalgic era of classic retro arcade games! But if you’re not into that, you should still look to get a stool that has “the look”.

“The Look”

Arcade stools should have the look of a classic arcade. This means a nice round padded top. It should have the classic chrome legs and chrome foot rest that remind you of the era that arcade games came to us from. It shouldn’t have the look that it goes in your doctor’s office or local IT department’s repair depot!

Creature Comforts

The next thing to look for in your ultimate arcade stool: creature comforts! That’s right! You’re going to be sitting on this thing for hours on end playing your awesome retro games! You don’t want to have to stop playing after just 10 minutes because your rump is tired do you?

We recommend you look for a stool padded with memory foam, or some other high quality padding. Something that will last for a long time and return to form after continuous use.

Although not purely necessary, if you are very short or big and tall, you may want to look for a stool that has a screw top so that you can raise or lower it.

The Best Arcade Stools Ranked

Let’s rank our top arcade stools!

#1 – The Arcade1Up Stools

Arcade 1Up makes some decent products for the arcade gaming enthusiasts and they make a fantastic arcade stool!

• Arcade 1Up claims these are the perfect compliment to your game cabinet, this officially licensed arcade stool comes with title, logo and artwork from the original game!
• Adjustable sturdy chrome legs for 2 different heights:21.5″, or 29.5″
• Thick comfortable foam padding for those long gaming sessions!

These meet all of our top qualifications! They’ve got the graphics and logos! They have “the look” of a retro arcade. They have the thick foam padding that’s comfortable and long lasting. And as a bonus they are height adjustable for the shorter or taller gamers who need it! Get them on Amazon here!

#2 – The Game Room Guys Stool

The Game Room Guys make a good stool if you’d like to spend a little less money. It meets some of our qualifications, but drops the price point considerably for those looking to save some cash on your arcade stool.

• It’s sturdy. It even comes with an extra ring towards the top of the stool that really stiffens things up. You’ll never have to worry about this one being wobbly. They nailed this!
• The padding isn’t quite as good as our #1 choice. You can definitely feel the difference. But it’s still far and above some of the other junk you’ll see sellers offering.
• Unfortunately it’s not height adjustable. These are permanently 29.5″ tall.

The Game Room Guys sell this stool in several variations with different graphics and logos. You can check them out here.

We’d love to hear your comments below on which arcade stool you chose and why! We try to reply to every comment and it helps us improve our recommendations!

The post The Best Arcade Stool appeared first on The Geek Pub.

Watch the Arcade Restrictor Gate Video

Understanding Joystick Movements

Before we get into the basics of arcade restrictor gates, let’s take just a minute to understand some joystick basics.

Trust me! This is important.

The movement of the joystick has four basic positions (in addition to direction of travel). These movements (or movement behaviors) are not the same between all joysticks, even from the same manufacturer!

These movement behaviors effect how the joystick feels, how quickly it reacts, and how far it moves before coming to a stop. These movements are also affected by the tension and strength of the return spring used in the joystick.

Let’s break them down and understand what each one means.

Neutral

Neutral is the position in which a joystick rests when your hand is not touching the knob. In a perfectly constructed joystick this would be dead center and perpendicular to the control panel top surface.

Deadzone

The deadzone is any position where the joystick can be moved to without engaging/activating a microswitch. Often I see people refer to the deadzone as if it is a defective area of the joystick. This is false. You need some deadzone so that small movements by the player don’t unintentionally engage a microswitch. You should consider the deadzone on a properly designed joystick to be the safety zone.

Engage

Engage is where one or more microswitch becomes activated. This position is heavily dependent on the design of the microswitch. The microswitch will most likely engage before the switch is full depressed.

Throw

Throw is the position in the movement when travel stops. This is usually caused by making contact with a restrictor gate. However, should a gate not be installed this would be the location that the microswitch bottoms out.

Understanding Joystick Directions

Ok. Before dive into arcade restrictor gates, we need to understand one last thing: Joystick Directions!

It is important to consider the games that you will be playing when building your arcade. For example, if you only ever plan to play space invaders on your arcade then you will likely only ever use left and right on your joystick! In fact, some builders eliminate the joystick altogether and just use a left and right button!

8-Way Joystick Configuration

Most all arcade joysticks out of the box come configured as 8-way joysticks. This means you have 8 possible electrical positions that the software can read: Up, Down, Left, Right, Up/Left Diagonal, Down/Left Diagonal, Up/Right Diagonal, and Down/Right Diagonal. Up, Down, Left, and Right are all dedicated microswitches. While the diagonal positions are the combination of two microswitches.

The problem many encounter when using an 8-way configuration is when playing a game that was designed for a four-way. For example, playing Pac-Man with an 8-way configuration can be an effort in frustration. Most of the time if you press in the diagonal position, Pac-Man will do nothing and you’ll lose a life. You have to be very methodical to remember to never press the diagonal positions.

More in a minute, but 8-way is always active with round, octagonal, and most square arcade restrictor gates.

4-Way Joystick Configuration

With a four way configuration you have only four positions that are active on the joystick. This could be the horizontal and vertical directions, or the diagonals, but never both at the same time.

If you plan to play mostly games like Pac-Man, we highly recommend you go with a 4-way restrictor gate.

2-Way Joystick Configuration

The last (but very important) configuration you should consider is the 2-way. There are some games that were designed for only left/right or up/down. The best example we can give you is Space Invaders. It only recognizes left and right.

If you’re building a dedicated Space Invaders machine, a 2-way restrictor gate is a must!

How Arcade Restrictor Gates Work

And now it’s time to actually talk about how arcade restrictor gates work!

First, you should know that not all joysticks support arcade restrictor gates! If you’re planning to use them then you need to make sure the joysticks you buy support them. All Geek Pub Joystick and Button kits support Sanwa-style restrictor gates.

Restrictor gates snap on to the back/bottom of the joystick and restrict movement of the joystick to certain positions. Some restrictor gates have snap-in inserts that are adjustable, while others are permanent. Sometimes gates simply make it less prone to enter a certain position (such an octagonal), and sometimes they completely eliminate positions (such as a 2-way).

These different types of arcade restrictor gates all serve different purposes, but ultimately work to limit the positions and movement behaviors of the joystick.

These different shaped gates divide up the total area of movement to suit the game or type of gameplay experience the player prefers.

Round Restrictor Gates

Round arcade restrictor gates are simply that, round. They don’t have any area where they restrict movement or offer any detents. The joystick is free to move into any position.

Octagonal Restrictor Gates

Octagonal arcade restrictor gates are exactly how they sound. They have 8 sides. Other than providing some detent areas to help the player align the joystick to a certain position they are basically free to move into any position.

Square Restrictor Gates

Square restrictor gates are where things begin to get complex. Many assume that all square gates are exactly the same. But they actually are available in different sizes. The most common square gate divides the joystick into 9 equal zones, where the neutral and deadspace are equal in size to the engage and throw space.

Turning a square gate insert to its diagonal position can have the effect of making the joystick prefer up/down/left/right positions and semi-reject the diagonal positions. This is a nice compromise when playing games like Pac-Man, making the game much more enjoyable to play on a typical 8-way stick.

Some refer to the square gate, turned diagonal or diamond as a rhombus gate. This is mathematically incorrect.

2-Way Restrictor Gates

Two-way arcade restrictor gates limit the joystick to either left-right only movement, or up-down only movement depending on whether the gate is installed horizontally or vertically.

Additional Restrictor Gate Variations

Over the decades many different arcade machines have come up with and implemented different types of gates that are specific to their games.

An example of this is the “plus” arcade restrictor gate. This gate completely eliminates the ability to use the diagonal directions. This gate provides a comparable feeling to that of shifting a manual transmission car. You must come all the way back to center before moving to another direction. Although a logical mistake, some refer to this a a bi-directional 2-way restrictor gate.

Which Arcade Restrictor Gate to Use on Your Build

Good question! Almost all joysticks, including ours, ship with a square restrictor gate installed that is adjustable to two positions. This is because the square gate is the most common preference amongst gamers and builders alike. However, we recommend you try a few different gates and see which you prefer. You may find you prefer an octagonal gate.

If you are building a custom cabinet that will only play a single game you may want to customize the gates for that game. If you are restoring an original cabinet, you should match the gates to the ones used when the game was originally created. In our example of Space Invaders, you’d want to use a 2-way restrictor gate in the horizontal position.

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