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Arcade Classics
CONSOLES:
Atari 2600 -
Atari 5200 -
Atari 7800 -
ColecoVision -
Emerson Arcadia 2001 -
Mattel Intellivision -
Odyssey -
Odyssey2 -
Nintendo Entertainment System -
Nintendo Game Boy
COMPUTERS:
Apple II -
Atari 8-Bit Computers -
Commodore VIC-20 -
Commodore 64 -
Mattel Aquarius -
TI 99/4A
OTHER: Classic Gaming Expo 2003 Recap -
My Game Room -
About The Author
After a year or so of having my workroom crammed haphazardly into a 12x12
spare bedroom (which still has the spare bed in it), I decided to remodel
my room to make it more functional, more showy, and to keep myself sane.
Despite having only 12x12 feet to work with, an L-shaped computer desk whose
sides measure 5 feet across, a freakin' huge new piece of furniture (a steel
industrial roll-around shelf) to incorporate, and being stuck with having to
jam a twin bed, a dresser and the litterbox into this room with my goodies
(as my cats sleep in this room and, paradoxically enough, when I'm in the
doghouse, so do I)...I embarked on a redesign of my room.
My criteria were:
- Mood lighting: There's only one overhead light in the room, and
I made a few provisions to backlight marquees, but there's really not much
else. I don't like direct light - I like to hide the light source and bounce
the light off of the walls and ceilings, and I like dim light, nothing too
overpowering. In such a small space, this isn't terribly feasible, so I
settled for my other favorite lighting element: color.
- A/V equipment: The real reason behind the new shelf unit, the A/V
gear is something that actually makes me money, and the new shelf is open on
all sides (and the shelves themselves are grated), allowing for ventilation,
which is a severe problem in here.
- Show off the collection: Well, as much as I possibly can with a
room the size of the space shuttle's flight deck. It's not all for show,
either - it's nice if the games are accessible, and important that I can punch
up what I'd refer to as my "major consoles" pretty quickly. Stuff
like standalone dedicated consoles weren't really prime contenders for this
limited real estate.
- Get the PC out of the corner: That's where I spend most of my time.
One of my main goals was to get the computer out of the corner, so I could
face some space instead of a wall when I'm there. And the closer I could move
it to the one window in the room, the better, so I can get some real live
sunlight in there and see storms coming in (actually kinda important in this
part of the country).
- Come up with something that isn't so wild that I'll wind up being
divorced and having to move it all again in a few months anyway:
Self-explanatory.
I knew it would still be cramped. It already was to begin with. With the
new shelf, though, it's would get even more cramped - zero G would be
a big help, because then I could put the bed on the ceiling and get it the
hell outta my way. As it is, the space shuttle analogy wouldn't be entirely
out of place.
I came up with a new layout that would alleviate some of these problems,
and maybe - God willing - put my computer desk right in front of the window.
I brought in the steel shelf unit, and loaded all of the A/V gear
into it. Blue rope lighting installed up underneath the rim of each shelf so
I have mood light and the minimal work light I need to operate gear which,
for the most part, provides plenty of its own light - this is LED grand
central station. Seen here with and without room lighting.
 
I jostled the dresser, bed, computer desk and the drawer unit I
use to store cartridges into their new positions. Everything worked as
planned, and I'm sitting next to an open window right now. Just what the
doctor ordered. My back is actually to the only-occasionally-accessed
closet, and putting the desk in this corner has not only opened up a ton of
walking space, but makes the room seem so much bigger from where I'm sitting.
The bed is now just behind the desk - so whether the cats are in the window
or snoozing on the bed, I can see them from my desk. Sounds silly, I know,
but it works wonders for my peace of mind and general happiness.
Some of my less frequently played consoles wound up in the bottom of the
entertainment center, as well as computers which need additional dust
protection due to keyboards, vents, etc. This means the Apple IIc, the
Atari 7800, the Atari 400, and the NES live behind closed doors (all are
still wired for power and connected to RF adapters full-time).
I had to find a stable brace to prop up the IIc at an unusual angle so it
would fit inside the compartment with its power supply and joystick
connected, even with the doors closed.
You can also see that special sections have been reserved for frequent flyers
like the Atari 2600, the Odyssey2, and the Atari 5200. The compartment
immediately below the 2600 usually has a drawer, but the space below that
drawer houses a power strip which drives all of the marquee lights, and
still has one slot open at all times for whichever console is currently in
action. All of the AC adapters and power cords for all of the consoles and
classic computers live on the same shelf, labeled and ready to go.
 
The light behind the Dig Dug and Kickman marquees also underlit my toy
shelves, though those goodies had to be relocated after these pictures were
taken to make way for more functional storage. A three-head tree light sits
by my computer desk, with a different colored bulb in each head. This means
that the only white light in the room that isn't behind a marquee is the
overhead light. And that's just how I like it.
This brings us back to the A/V rack, where I propped up a few sturdy marquees
(later relocated to elsewhere in the room, again to open up some storage
space). I really had no way to backlight these anyway - I was literally out
of power outlets, and out of fluorescent lights to plug into them.
All in all, it's pretty much turned out how I hoped it would. Colorful, dark
and bright all at the same time, bursting at the seams with some of my
favorite stuff from my childhood and from now, and actually pretty functional
and ready to rock when all is said and done. In the A/V rack itself is a
pair of PSone consoles dwarfed by a huge King Kross double arcade joystick.
The machine on the left is an unmodded U.S. PS1, the right-hand machine is a
Japanese PS1. I just swap the power, video and controller cables back and
forth as needed. While this may seem like an odd setup, the
broadcast-resolution color monitor at eye level gives the whole thing that
upright-arcade-cabinet finesse. And though the photos don't do it justice,
the blue rope lights give the buttons on the joystick console a very cool
arcade touch (think of the blacklight effects from a Tron cabinet).
In the end, the new room is almost as much fun to sit back and admire as
it is to play games in.
Earl's Cool Stuff
See my collection
Drop me a
line
Add a Phosphor Dot Fossils link to your web site
I'm also active on the Digital
Press Retrogaming Roundtable message board as
Phosphor Dot Fossils.
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