By Alexey Feldgendler.
Friday, 22. February 2008, 20:00:00
paint, George, Arjan, Anders
...

Almost the entire team gathered together on Friday to add the final strokes to the arcade machine.
George,
Anders,
Adam,
Arjan and
Alexander all worked together to finish the surface of the cabinet with the second layer of paint.
Some parts, like the keyboard door, were painted separately and reattached to the cabinet the next day, when the paint dried off. The machine stands in the Desktop Team office now, it's finished, and it helps us have these nice litte breaks while
our code is compiling. We also want to make it look even cooler by adding some artwork, but more about that later.
Note: All hyperlinks in this post take you to more pictures. You can also view all the pictures from this event.
By Alexey Feldgendler.
Wednesday, 20. February 2008, 20:00:00
Per Arne, paint, Arjan, Alexander
...

Before painting, the cabined needed to be primed. The layer of primer prevents the paint from absorbing into the pores of wood and drying too fast, and also doesn't let the natural color of the wood shine through the paint.
This February, a new member joined our desktop team, so far as an intern but we hope he'll stay with us after he graduates. Not only has
Alexander taken a head start in work, but he also has joined our teambuilding activity! Together with
Arjan,
Adam and
Per Arne, he helped sand the surfaces of the cabinet so that they became smooth. After that, the team covered the cabinet with a layer of primer.
Note: All hyperlinks in this post take you to more pictures. You can also view all the pictures from this event.
By Alexey Feldgendler.
Tuesday, 1. January 2008, 12:00:00
Espen, organization, Julien, Huib
...
Hi, this is
Desktop Team in Opera Software! Every day we work to make the
web browser that (we hope) you're using faster, safer, and handier for use. But that is, of course, not the only thing we do. We have fun, too! Other departments have Wii game consoles and whatnot in their sections of the office, but hey, you can buy a Wii in a shop near you, so we decided to make something unique: the Opera Widget Arcade!
The idea is essentially to build an old-style video game machine that you might remember from the eighties: tall fancy-painted cabinet, a computer screen deep inside, joystick controls, and games with low-res graphics but thrilling gameplay. Of course, we wouldn't have one of those authentic game boards inside, but hey, in Opera we have our own platform that's quite good for games:
Opera Widgets! So be it Opera Widget Arcade, an entertainment machine with
180-in-1 games and counting. Maybe we'll also run some of the video game oldies in an emulator.

For the cabinet, we decided to go for the design of the famous
Galaga series and replicate the original Midway's design as closely as possible (however, the artwork will be our own). Luckily, we've found a collection of original
cabinet plans of many popular video games to choose from.

Inside the cabinet, we'll have a modern computer running Opera with tons of widgets, and a special shell allowing selection of games without a keyboard. The controls will also be fancier than the ones used in the original arcade, so that we can run a wider range of games. We have some cool ideas, but you'll read about it in the oncoming posts. When the machine is ready, we'll put it in the Desktop Team lounge and have other departments buy us beer in exchange for playing! :-)
For our team, this is a teambuilding activity, so everyone is involved on some part of the project. Here we go:
- Main cabinet construction, controller mounting: Adam, George, Petter, Arjan, Patricia, Per Arne.
- Controller board with joysticks, buttons and wiring: Huib, Adam.
- Hardware: Espen, Anders.
- Software: Julien, Karianne, Alexander.
- Artwork: Petter.
- Photo blog: Alexey.
- Organization and planning: Adam, Arjan.
I'll be telling you about everything we do on this project, and many
pictures will follow. Stay with us!