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X-Arcade resurrection

Quite some years ago, I bought an X-Arcade dual joystick [1]. How long ago? Well it has a PS/2 adapter; it essentially predates USB. There had been a vague plan to build a full-sized arcade cabinet that didn't quite come to fruition, although a wardrobe had been sacrificed for the wood and cut into a rough outline.

Since then I've built my own less ambitious Raspberry Pi based mini arcade systems. One was a small kit where you simply plugged everything together [2], while another was a little more ambitious and involved turning an Ikea table into a cheap cocktail cabinet [3].

While the last two were fun to build, they suffer from cheap components. Not only do they feel like they could fall apart at any moment, the controls are loose and not really very good for arcade action. The X-Arcade, however, is built like the proverbial tank.

Since I don't have any PS/2 equipped computers in the house any more - and more to the point, I wasn't going to take a step backwards patching a Raspberry Pi to have one (although it's possible) - I bought a USB upgrade kit from the manufacturer. How brilliant that they still support this hardware!

With that installed and a little testing with RetroPie I decided that the next step was surely to put the Pi inside the joystick base itself. With an abundance of both enthusiasm and incompetence I set about the task. In my head I had an elegant trap-door arrangement for accessing the Pi once it was in place. I bought a fret-saw, some small hinges and a clasp to lock it back in place. I'd already picked up a wireless keyboard for the odd controls that couldn't be handled directly from the stick. This was going to be cool.

Alas, I should have checked the inside of the joystick base again before doing that, as there was rather less free space than I remembered.

However, with a bit of a squeeze I did manage to get everything inside [4], but unfortunately I have to dismantle the base if I ever need access.

Just to check it was OK, I had an hour's gaming with my son on the TV in the sitting room. Fun times 😀

[1] X-arcade dual joystick

[2] Picade controller

[3] Ikea table

[4] Inside the "finished" joystick