So far we’ve tracked down a few of these things and recently started putting them together.

Cabinet

Jamie painting the cabinet

With the criteria above in mind, Jamie went on the hunt for a cabinet and found a great candidate. Not only was it inexpensive ($2.00!) but it’s a recycled end-table which means one less piece of furniture that was likely to become trash.

amazing what a difference some paint (in the right hands) makes

Display

sizing things up for the first cut

DONOR-1 used a display from my parts bin but since that was my last VGA monitor I needed to go shopping to find a screen for DONOR-2. Based on the measurements of the cabinet Jamie found I thought we could use a 19″ monitor this time (DONOR-1’s display is 17″). I figured this might be the most expensive component of the build but after a trip to UW SWAP I had a very nice 19″ LCD monitor for a mere $20.00.

not perfect, but sooo much better than last time

Brains

DONOR-1 was originally designed for an 80’s-themed fund-raiser and as such the 60 super retro games were a perfect fit. However this didn’t include Jamie’s favorite arcade game so this time around she made sure we wouldn’t make the same mistake with DONOR-2. The result is that DONOR-2 will be able to play 645 different games, (including X-Men).

The rest

There’s still a few things undecided about DONOR-2. A common complaint about DONOR-1 is that it only accepts quarters, so we’re looking into options to allow DONOR-2 to accept other forms of currency. Another issue with the design of DONOR-1 is that serviceability is a bit of a hassle and requires tools, so this is another area we’re looking to improve with DONOR-2.

One major design task that remains is the housing for game controls. The current plan is to build boxes containing the controls which will then be attached to the sides of the cabinet but the exact nature of the design, construction and materials for these boxes is still undecided. This will become more clear when the control hardware arrives and we can begin to experiment with layout, etc.