Opera Widget Arcade

This Friday we have added a few more strokes to the arcade cabinet.

Video games are not supposed to have keyboards, but occasionally we would need one for system administration. We've decided to have a keyboard on a shelf with a door opening in front. The door was ready some time ago, but it happened to be so wide that we had to sand it down a bit from the sides so that can open and close without too much effort. Now the door was ready for installation, so Adam and George attached the hinges to the chassis with screws.

We also needed something to hold the door in the closed position, so Adam and Espen installed pairs of spring latches on the left and right.

Another thing we did on Friday was installing a piece of plexiglas into the top part of the cabinet. It will be painted with some fancy artwork later, so as to be translucent but not transparent, and we'll have a light behind it.

I'll keep you informed on our further progress!

Note: All hyperlinks in this post take you to more pictures. You can also view all the pictures from this event.

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!