After building the ROMBUS3000, a Raspberry Pi-based mini arcade machine made out of a small Grandstand Scramble 80s-era desktop arcade game, Matt “Circuitbeard” Brailsford decided to take things one step further. For his second iteration, instead of starting out with an existing single-joystick design and modifying it to fit modern electronics, Brailsford designed the two-player ROMBUS-CT (short for “cocktail table”) around the components he wanted to use.
At the heart of the design is a Raspberry Pi 3. An 8″ TFT screen, 24mm buttons, and two joysticks provide user interface. Brailsford designed the build on Inkscape in order to fit his A3-sized (297mm×420mm) laser cutter, and after prototyping with plywood, cut it out of MDF. He then painted it with a roller for a smooth finish, and applied a beautiful wood-patterned vinyl from d-c-fix.
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