Opera Widget Arcade

We've made a great progress on Monday, but the holes for buttons and the trackball were too deep for them to sit nicely. We needed to make grooves in the wooden panel where the buttons and trackball would be mounted. To carve out the grooves, we used a wood router. It was easy with the button holes, but the large figured slot for the trackball took a lot of time and effort: George, Arjan, Adam and Per Arne took turns at cutting the wood. Finally, we had a nice controller panel where all the buttons and the trackball would fit perfectly.

The controller hardware we chose is X-Arcade, known for their indestructible buttons and joysticks. They offer a full range of products up to a complete arcade machine, but we're building our own, right? That's why we went for the Build Your Own Arcade Kit (two joysticks, a bunch of buttons, and a controller PCB that emulates a PS/2 or USB keyboard) and a 3" Arcade Trackball Mouse Assembly (a trackball unit and a few buttons). At last two links you'll find pictures, descriptions and PDF manuals for those who are interested in building their own arcade machine. Note: All hyperlinks in this post take you to more pictures. You can also view all the pictures from this event.