I. Background and Inspiration
Shortly
after downloading MAME and happily playing my ROMS off a keyboard, I attended
the Classic Gaming Expo in Las Vegas and saw
a demonstration of a product that would be the perfect accessory for the
program, the Hanaho HotRod Joystick. The Hanaho was a box-shaped game
controller with authentic arcade controls. The real beauty of the thing was
that it used the keyboard interrupts instead of requiring custom drivers. One
could just plug it in and be off and running with a more authentic game feel. I
spoke to one of the designers of the thing who assured me that the Hanaho
HotRod was actually built with programs like MAME in mind. My friend Charles
purchased one but I held back due its somewhat prohibitive cost.
Still,
the HotRod proved to be the catalyst for my ne’er do well imagination. Having
arcade-like controls was great, I thought, but why not take it a step further?
What if somebody took a real arcade cabinet, gutted it, replaced the
insides with a computer and mounted a HotRod in place of the original controls?
What
if that somebody were me?
The
idea rattled around in my head for over two years. Unfortunately I had silly
concepts like “the mortgage”, “food” and “supporting my family” getting in the
way of fulfilling this vision, so cost was always the line between a green
light and more waiting.
During
this time I made occasional steps forward in trying to obtain what seemed to
be, at the time, the most important thing – a cabinet. Tips on cabinet hunting
can be had here. In my case, luck happened to smile generously on me one day in
June of 2001…