The Secret Arcade

Secret Features

The Secret Arcade is designed to be the ultimate gaming cabinet. To meet this goal, many features must work together.

Lower Cabinet

The Lower Cabinet is where all of the game components go--the PC and the consoles. It also has most of the wiring routed through it, and has two power strips attached to the back wall. All components are on pull-out shelves for easy configuration.
The size of the O'Sullivan wardrobe limited the size of the cabinet, so the Secret Arcade required a PC with a relatively small case. The PC also needs USB for the various control panels. This was made by ASUS, it has a 1.7 Ghz Celeron processor in it.
Nintendo's GameCube fits on one of our shelves with lots of room for memory cards and controllers. I like the wavebird controller personally.
Microsoft's XBox is larger, but still fits on the shelf with room for accessories. It could be connected to our wireless internet connection (described below), but I don't use XBox Live
No PlayStation/2 or other console at the moment. I'll be watching for sales when Christmas draws near.

Control Panels on arms

The PC can be used for arcade gaming (using the MAME arcade emulator software), regular gaming, or more mundane tasks. To support these different uses, the Secret Arcade has a set of three control panels that can be rotated through. To give proper distance from the screen, they are on arms that are folded up when the cabinet is stored

There is a USB hub inside the box with the panels, its cable runs down one of the arms to the PC.
This is the keyboard and trackball panel, used for normal computer use. They are attached to the surface so that they do not fall when this panel is not on top. To use a mouse would have been a bit more complicated.
This is the arcade panel. A device inside the box converts the button and joystick actions into keypresses on a virtual keyboard, which is attached to the internal USB hug. Details on this are covered in the Construction Notes.
This is the blank panel, for use when playing with one of the consoles.

Audio and Video

The secret arcade must be able to route both PC video and console video onto a thin display.

I chose a 20" Samsung Syncmaster LCD to use for my video, I've had good luck with Samsung LCDs.

The monitor is attached to a ViewSonic video processor. It can switch inputs between a VGA input (PC), RCA input (consoles), or even a coax console to its built-in TV tuner. This could be used to watch TV. However, explaining what a coax cable is doing attached to your O'Sullivan cabinet can spoil the secret. The ViewSonic will also route audio connections.

The consoles are all attached to a Pelican RF/AV System Switcher, which passes the selected device's signal to the ViewSonic. I chose it because it was good looking, took 5 inputs, and had interhcangeable labels for the front panel.

The ViewSonic represents perhaps the biggest design goof I made. The shelf is six inches deep, designed to hold the ViewSonic and the Pelican. Unfortunately, I measured the boxes without having cables attached. While the Pelican still fits nicely, the ViewSonic sticks out badly.

Wireless Internet

Any computer should be connected to the internet. Also, the game consoles now all have online gaming. But, how do we avoid a suspicious cable going into the cabinet?

Linksys has a small device that provides wireless access for a single component, just connect an ethernet cord from the Linksys to the component. In the current secret arcade, I have it connected to the PC. I should be able to connect it to an Ethernet hub to connect to the game consoles as well.

Attract Bar

This obviously is not a necessary part of the secret arcade. But, most arcades have flashing signs over the entrance, and so should the secret arcade. The sign can be programmed with fairly complex routines, I just have it displaying "Welcome to the Secret Arcade"
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