Finding balance in a chaotic world

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The Arcade Cabinet

Growing up in the 70s and 80s, my fertile young brain became exposed to one of the greatest inventions of all time: the video game. From playing Space Invaders at the local arcade to playing Space Invaders on my Atari 2600, I loved playing video games. To be honest, I loved them too much and played far more often than I should. I remember playing Asteroids on my 2600 one Saturday and wanting to roll my score over, meaning that after I scored 99,999 points, the score would roll over to 0. I did it after I don’t know how many hours and actually had a blister on my palm as a reward. Growing up, I thought the coolest thing in the world would be to have an arcade cabinet in the house. Think of it, you could play all you want and it wouldn’t take any quarters. A few years back, I decided to live my dream, only I wouldn’t buy an arcade cabinet… I’d build one.

 

You can run emulation software on a standard PC that turns it into an arcade machine. The actual code used in the chips on the arcade game is translated and the PC displays the result on the screen. You can then use the keyboard to move around and various keys as the buttons and since you are running the actual code, it is just like playing the original game. From there you can purchase a circuit board that interfaces between a standard joystick and buttons and the computer. The end result is the ability to play thousands of arcade games using actual arcade equipment.

 

It is not real difficult to do so I then set out to design an arcade cabinet to house everything. It was a pretty ambitious plan. The woodworking would not be too difficult but there were wiring concerns and various minor details I had to work through. I even got special tokens made and wired the change door up so you could throw your money into the machine to get credits.

 

I eventually finished the cabinet and wheeled it into the house. I discovered a few minor issues with my design, but overall it worked exactly liked I hoped it would. Soon the whole family is enjoying the cabinet, including the kids, and I’m reliving my glory days by pounding the buttons on Track and Field or finally getting to the end of every game that had a continue feature. There was only one last step to do and that was to get some Plexiglas and mount it on the front of the cabinet to hide the sides of the monitor and speakers, basically make it more attractive. That’s pretty much it; get some Plexiglas, paint part of it, and laying it in the cabinet.

 

But it has never been done. Part of the reason is that I have not decided the way I want to install it and still have access to volume control on the speakers. Another reason is that I have not actually bought the Plexiglas yet. The real reason it hasn’t gotten done is that the cabinet works great as it is and this is more an aesthetic choice. With no driving pressure to add the glass, it just hasn’t happened and that is an issue.

 

So, I just need to finish the task. It is about two hours of work and my cabinet will be finished, but instead for a few years it has sat mostly done. This isn’t the only project that I’m 99% done with, either. Part of being a “person of action” is to finish these tasks and not let this situation reoccur.

 

So, what projects of yours are almost finished? Now is the time to finish them. Take the time, finish the project and move on. Get that weight off your shoulders, no matter how minor it is.