Arcade Control Panel @ Blondihacks.

I’ve been listening to a really great podcast lately called No Quarter. It’s all about remembering and reliving classic arcade games, of the sort us folks-of-a-certain-age grew up with. If you’ve never played Dig Dug or Space Invaders in a smoke-filled, dimly-lit room with purple carpet, blacklights, and a creepy dude shifting pot in the corner, then you don’t know what I’m talking about. Also, get off my lawn.

The boys at No Quarter have rekindled my love of those games, but to play them properly you need the right equipment. Rather like a samurai making her own sword, this is something of a right of passage for people who want to play these old games The Right Way™. Namely, building a control panel. I wanted something clean, fairly compact, but beefy enough to play most games from 1970 up through about 1993. Here’s what I came up with.