Arcade Cabinet
As you may know by now I have an obsession for computer games, not a big thing really, in fact it’s a nuance, just like the Pope and christianity. Well, for many years now, I have wanted a full-size arcade machine in my house / work place. More to the fact that an arcade cabinet costs a huge amount of money (1500 - 5000$) I also wanted my machine to be as I think a cabinet should look and feel like, have the graphics, colors and general design as I see right, and of course the joy of building one is always a plus 
. And so I started searching for the original joysticks and keys of an arcade machine on the web. I was surprised to find out that the price of a joystick along with a full set of keys costs very little, we are talking about the original keys and stick and from what I can understand the online shop I found sells these parts to owners of arcade shops for maintenance. I ordered few sets at a cost of 30 something dollars for a set. After a long and dark wait, the box finally arrived and with trembling hands I opened it and with tears (of joy) in my eyes I found the perfect set - just the same as my favorite machine from 1982 same colors, same everything. Building a full size machine is not an easy task and takes some time, cutting wood, painting it and attaching the part, but I couldn’t wait a microsecond more once I had all the basic ingredients. I needed a rapid super fast prototype just testing (and to have bundle of kicks out of the process) and since I am not that good with cutting wood without the risk of losing some arms and legs I picked a material that I can cut fast and with ease.
I stormed into the school’s workshop and found a 30X20cm piece of Styrofoam, cut out 2 layers, drilled few holes, connected some wires and pushed the joystick and keys into the poor weak Styrofoam.
Since the arcade joysticks I have ordered has no “brain” and can not be connected directly to the computer, I hacked a very cheap and crappy joystick that I found in “Bennett” to be used as the “brain”. I connected it to my computer using a regular USB cable (originally the Bennett joystick cable).
BING BING said my computer as it automatically detected the joystick and installed it on my computer without any driver, software and other operation system bullshit.
I launched MAME on my machine. AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!! It works! It works!!!! The next 7 hours I was in a total vertigo, as I took the rule of a Shinobi ninja trying to kill Ms Pacman with the help of Qbert jumping around and watching the blue marbles fall and die into a dark void.
It’s was sweet, it was good. The problem was that I was so excited and into the thing, that I was jerking the joystick and keys so bad that the poor white Styrofoam could not hold it any longer and it started breaking (we are talking about 2 days of heavy playing)
Following that I built a table version of the arcade console, this time out of wood.
The new table version was a total kick ass, it’s red, it’s big and it’s super strong. After many hours of playing on it, it’s still solid strong and working in a perfect order.
Then people started liking it way to much, Tal was totally into playing and we had few competitions (one playing on the console and the 2nd on the keyboard). That was nice but something was missing.
Ah Much better….nothing like good old player VS player on the same console.
Now we miss only one tiny little detail.. the arcade cabinet it self.
Now its perfect, located in the “rest and relaxing” room in IDII ground level.
Students can meet each other, talk about the meaning of life, why we are here, and beat the living hell out of each other while playing street fight alpha zero 
