Pi Powered Tabletop Gaming Machine

Firebox do this amazing “arcane arcade table”. It is basically a MAME (Multi-Arcade Machine Emulator) PC underneath a 26 inch TFT monitor and with a tricked out sliding joypad thing. It looks very nice. It also costs 4,000 pounds. Wah.

But a Raspberry Pi costs 30 quid and has MAME support. A monitor shouldn’t come in at much more than 100 quids (assuming I can’t find one lying around somewhere). IKEA do coffee tables at around a tenner, and so I reckon it should be possible to get something going for a lot less (how about a twentieth) than the cost of the “amazing” one.

Ever since I saw Jon Purdy’s tabletop Galaxian machine I’ve kind of fancied having a machine like this in the living room. Even number one wife kind of approves, as long as it is not too big and not in the middle of the room. The only tricky bit is making the bezel and inlaying the screen into the tabletop. That has to be done properly, but perhaps if a bunch of folks got together we could have some made.

Anyone fancy having a go?

Update on Monday, September 24, 2012 at 11:28AM by Rob

Right, that's the buttons and joysticks bought:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280937033145

I'm thinking about the Lack coffee table from Ikea:

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/20011408/

- as long as I can find a monitor that will fit into it. Might need to buy two and stack the tops to get enough depth. Or we could go nuts and buy three so that I can make a platform at each end for the joysticks.

Such fun. Much more so than work....

Comments

[Carl Pickering]

Can't you just spray paint the inside of the glass black? You should get a perfect gloss finish on the other side of the glass and if it's masked properly decent sharp edges and corners around the screen?