I’m starting off by going through all of the saved files in my DropBox and this was the first one I saw. I had a folder of arcade cabinet plans and some notes about building and selling them.

I love the big stand up arcade games. Maybe kids don’t bother with arcades today because of how great the home consoles are these days, but I would still love to have one in my home.

This idea was kind of combining two interests of mine. Ever since I worked summers for a couple of carpenters before I was old enough to get a real job, I’ve enjoyed building things on my own. While my friends were cobbling together wood they stole from the firing range down the road to build a fort, I was constructing a properly framed mini 8 x 8 home that would pass a code inspection.

I also dabble in computers a bit and have owned and tinkered with a couple of RaspberryPi 1 machines. I thought it might be cool to run Mame on the RaspberryPi inside one of these full size arcade cabinets. Even after the wood, the RaspberryPi, the LCD, the art, and game controls, the perceived value of a full stand up arcade cabinet is much higher than the actual cost, so I figured there could be enough profit per unit to make it worth my while.

I probably talked myself out of this one because I started to doubt how many people would pay a grand or more for an old school arcade cabinet, even with hundreds of games instead of just one. I’d likely have to sell them locally off Craigslist too, so that was a deal breaker right there.

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