A brief history...

Welcome to my Classic Arcade Game Collection.  I got into this hobby a few years ago when my Brother-In-Law gave me an old, beat up Asteroids machine.  Even though the cabinet was destroyed, the control panel was painted and it would leave rust stains on your hands after playing it, I thought that it was the coolest thing ever!  I never have been very good at Asteroids but it still made me feel great to have the machine anyway.  People always flocked over to it at parties, and it was a fun conversation piece. 

It's now years later and I have 16 machines in my collection.  I don't spend as much time as I used to on the arcade thing, I'm a little pre-occupied with the endless episode of "This Old House" that has become my life.   I pretty much have all the games that I loved in my youth and consider the collection pretty much complete.  I still love to go down to the arcade from time to time and bang out a game or two.
 

Unlike collecting stamps or coins, it has always been a bit of a problem finding a place to properly display my collection.  One of the things that I really liked about this house when we first saw it, was the basement.  I knew exactly where I wanted to put my future arcade.  Here is the space that I chose.

Preparing the Basement for a finished room - This area had a few problems that needed to be fixed before being able to build a finished room here.  Most of which had to do with water seepage.  During the Spring rains, water had made it's way into this area leaving rather large puddles and quite a bit of silt all over the floors.  Most of the water problems were resolved by cleaning the house's gutters and redirecting water drainage away from the foundation.  I was able to accomplish this in a few short weekends. The next step was to dig out all of the badly clogged French drains in the basement to allow a free flow to the sump system.  This was a back breaking, dirty job, but ever since this was done, the basement has remained dry as a bone, even during the heaviest downpours.  The other problem was the windows.  As you can see in the picture, the windows were covered with plastic bags.  The reason for this was because of the fact that they were unable to close.  The windows had to be removed from their frames, insulated and closed over with plywood.  The plywood was then sealed in with caulking to stop any potential drafts.

Feel the Power!

(4) 20 amp lines wired into junction boxes where each of the lines is then split making (8) lines.  The lines pass through holes in the wall that line up with holes drilled into the backs of (8) junction boxes inside the control room.

Each circuit, now in two separate junction boxes is then divided again.  The first box has two outputs, the second has three for a total of five. Four circuits with five power lines each now makes 20 individually powered lines.  Each of the lines is then routed to a dedicated switch in the panel.  A separate line then carries the power through the harness to it's own socket.

Add some walls, a ceiling, a ventilation system, carpet, effect lighting, a sound system and a whole bunch of fully restored classic arcade machines and it looks like this...

The high hat lighting is mainly used when restoring or repairing machines.  The blue accent lighting is the only light actually used when the arcade is active.  This lighting gives off a nice glow, but is not distractive to the game play.  Unfortunately, I haven't quite been able to capture this lighting on film, but trust me, it's pretty cool.

Considering the type of restoration work that is being performed on the house, I wanted the arcade to be completely different.  I wanted the person walking in here to feel as if they just walked out of the 19th century into the 21st. (or at least the early 1980's)

Click on the logos below to view the page dedicated to that particular machine.  Some of the logos will work, others won't.  What can I tell you? I'm working on it...  (Sorry, but none of these machines are for sale)