ABOUT
AN EARLY START
Like many of you, my appreciation for arcade video games began as a kid. My earliest memory of coin operated arcade games was playing Drag Racing and Stunt Cycle at the small miniature golf course in Clear Lake, CA when I was visiting my grand parents. It must have been 1978-1979. When the arcade crazy of the very early 1980's hit, I was hooked. By that time I was eight going on nine years old and I would play games just about everywhere. Doughnut shops… liquor stores… grocery stores… heck, even the local gas stations had not one, but oftentimes multiple arcade games to play. I grew up on Star Castle down at the local Mobile Gas station. They also had Pac Man and Asteroids. Asteroids Deluxe could be played at the local Alpha Beta grocery store. Ace Hardware had multiple videogames as well as pinball machines. Gorf and Phoenix were staples there. I got my Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr fixes at Stu's Liquor and Charlies Liquor. Yum Yum Donuts had a Ms. Pac Man cocktail and the local mexican fast food joint had a Frogger and Crazy Kong. I'm sure I am missing quite a few as they were EVERYWHERE back then.
A NEW BEGINNING
In March of 2006 we moved from a small condo in Southern California to a house in South-West Idaho. Having been born and raised in Southern California the realities of a colder climate came crashing in around October of that year and I figured needed something to keep me busy in the winter. I decided to build a M.A.M.E. cabinet. For those who aren't familiar with M.A.M.E., it's an emulator that allows thousands of actual arcade ROM's to be playe
d on a PC. If wasn't but a few months after acquiring my first arcade cabinet (a gutted Data East "curved marquee" cabinet) for the M.A.M.E. project that I came across a non-working Joust somewhat locally. To keep the story short, one cabinet turned to two. Two turned to four. Four of course ended up being eight. I did say to myself at one point… around eight cabinets in… that I needed to STOP, but yeah, eventually eight turned to sixteen and I am 100% certain that if I had the space, those sixteen cabinets would have turned to thirty two. However, with the space limitations that I have with a 3-car garage, the most I can really fit and still have them be usable is 26-27… but even then there isn't much space. I've found a happy number to be about 24 games at once. We're not talking about just uprights either. Oh no… that would be too easy. I currently have four sit down drivers (plus a Race Drivin' compact model which is technically a "sit-down" driver), a pinball machine (just one right now), a multi-gun showcase cabinet and a Police 911 cabinet (which, if you have any idea about the game, is a MASSIVE BEAST of a game).
GARAGECADE
The garagecade itself comes in at approximately 600 square feet… give or take a few feet. There is a wall that separates the 1-car side from the 2-car side. The 1-car side comes in at approximately 10' x 20' for a total of approximately 200' square feet. The 2-car side comes in at approximately 20' x 20' for a total of approximately 400' square feet. Of course the furnace and water heater take up a corner and I have a sink that takes up a little space as well. As for heating and cooling, you have to understand that I started off with my hobby occupying only the small 1-car section of the garage. While the wall was already there when I bought the house, I did add the door. I then had cellulose insulation blown in to the walls and 3 feet of insulation blown across the ceiling. Because I was only occupying the 1 car section… I only had the 1 car sections ceiling and that outside wall done. I also had the inside wall insulated as well. For the garage door I used 5/8" insulation sheets purchased at 
Home Depot. It worked well. While I was in the 1-car side only, it would drop down in to the 40's in the larger side garage but maintain a decent 60ish degrees in the 1 car side with just a single electric oil heater set on low to maintain a "warm" temp… but of course I ended up expanding my hobby… which took over more and more space until the whole garage (both the whole 2-car side and 1-car side) is now used for the game room. I ended up insulating the other exterior wall as well as the ceiling over the 2-car side and added foam insulation to the garage door and I now have a fully insulated 3-car garage with an insulated wall going down the middle. As for power… I have the original 15 amp circuit that covered the whole garage when the house was built. I also have the 15 amp shared circuit that is on the ceiling used for the garage door openers. It is shared with my "bonus rooms" ceiling fan/lamp plus a couple walls of sockets. Over time I have also added three 20 amp circuits. They were added over a 5 year span or so I'd estimate and two are dedicated while one is shared with my attic fan which I have hooked to a switch. I have no problem running everything MINUS HEATING/COOLING at the same time. The problem comes in when I need to heat or cool the place. Heating not so much… running all the games does enough heating. Cooling, on the other hand, can be a challenge. I run two portable AC's that I have venting to the attic. They draw about 900 watts each … requiring me to turn a few games off. While I CAN run it all and not pop a breaker (short-term at least)… I've done the math and I'm pushing some of the circuits. I'm currently looking in to potentially adding a thru-wall AC with a dedicated circuit.
MORE PHOTOS
I have taken quite a number of garagecade photos throughout the years. You can find many of them in the GARAGECADE PIX section of this website which is also accessible from the menu above. If you have and suggestions or comments feel free to use the CONTACT form also accessible from the menu.
