Since I was a kid (however I still am), but anyway I've always wanted my own Arcade Machine in my own home. Playing and seeing these machines in the 80's & 90's was always a thrill. The graphics was beyond the current C64 and Amiga at the date, at least I thought so. I don't know why, but the pixels and how they were put together to form a image and animation always amazed me. Also the sprite scaling done with a blistering rate was really something I loved. Guess the LEGO had it's impact regarding blockiness :)

Well, then a bunch of years passed and I forgot about those cool Arcade Machines, and was all well happy with my Commodore 64, Amiga 500 & 1200, and then the later years suddenly the PC.

Moving over to PC and finally got internet up and running, I came over a site and a emulator software which apperantly emulated those cool games on my local computer WITHOUT paying for it. "Insert Coin" was now a expensive memory of the past, and the emulation even on a very low PC at the time (1997, 100mhz) just made the games really playable. The emulator was called MAME(tm) and is today a full blown emulator fully emulating thousands of the good old Arcade games with an amazing success.

Some years passed more, and suddenly during the christmas break of 2003, the idea of making my own Arcade Machine came over me. Was it possible? Could I do this?

I started seaching for building own cabinets, and realized that there were others like me out there doing exactly the same. There was a enourmous group of people which had this as a hobby. But, wait. Why can't I just buy the good old machines instead?

Well, they are rare to come by, and also quite expensive for used old hardware and only with 1 game on the board. Something had to be done....I had to make my own and use a bunch of emulator software to get this possible. And not to mention, a very unique own programmed software for showing games in a 3D Matrix style menu with lots of functions to navigate, search and bookmark those memorable games. This all had to be sciene fiction.....and so it became!

A lot of planning was done the first 6 months, including a full blown 3D model of my vision of perfection: SOMAC. But this was not going to be "just another" homebuilt machine, this would be goaled and labelled as "THE" machine of them all. I would have to have multitude of controls available, insert coin slot had to be there, and the rotating TV-screen letting vertical games also come to life in it's full glory and remeberence!

But as always, I can't stop thinking of cool gadgets and techniques to make it a true unique and one-of-a-kind machine.

A lot of tricky electronics and features was thought out in my head and written down. Today, after it got finished, the hit rate for all these insane ideas came out with a 95% success. There were a huge amount of stand alone parts which all had to come together as one. And still I have no education in any of this, I not a woodworker or a electronic genious, but one can really push the limits when faced with a problem. Sleepless nights and thoughts for the SOMAC was all I breathed and fought for during the initial 6 months. But, it didn't stop there. After 2 years of constructing I came to really see the madness and my god what have I created??!

It was a constant fight against problems, design and construction. A lot of workarounds and delays were introduced. Persistant as I am....there is no loosing...only winning and reaching the goal.

Then, almost 2 years after the ridiculous idea came to life, the most unique homebuilt Arcade Machine was finally finished. Stone Oakvalley's Multi Arcade Console 2000.

Why do I added "2000" to it?. Well, as in the true spirit of nostalgia all things in the 80's and 90's (which were supposed to be cool) always had the extension "2000" added to them. It was the human vision of technology wonders for the future up to year 2000. Some even added the extension "3000" to them....

The only thing I regret is that the abbrivation for this machine is "SOMAC" cause it resembles with the crappy apple company and their "cool" feminime gadgets, which I hate. Why do I hate them? Because of their superficial approach to users and in terms of commercial aspects, to blacken Microsoft and Windows family of Operating Systems and 3rd party software. They give us the impression they are better and more cooler with their feminime equipment which is clearly only targeted towards women and feminine men and that only. Not to mention quicktime which also really irritates me in all aspects! Now back to the SOMAC!

Why is SOMAC a multi machine?. Easy, since I have emulator software installed on the SOMAC for those other classic & nostalgic hardware's. These are:

Classic Arcade Machines, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, SEGA Genesis, SEGA Master System, SEGA Game Gear, Gameboy Advance, NEC TurboGrafx 16, Atari 5200/7800/Lynx & SONY Playstation

And oh...30% of the machine was made out of plain junk or partly working electronics brought together in a new way.

Making my own software 3D menu was also a huge and difficult project as I'm not a active programmer and hadn't programmed something since 1998 on the Amiga. Thanks to the PureBasic software and it's somewhat buggy 3D engine, I managed to squeeze out the software to a fully working final in November 2005. It has to be seen to understand it's coolness...all in the spirit of Stone Oakvalley Studios.

The 3D Matrix Core Center is connected and transfers data and receive inputs from a 2nd PC via RS-232 which have a easy touchscreen based software. On this one might select hardware to emulate and what genre to play in. The software also have the ability to store bookmarks of favourite games for easier access for the player.

But you can't have a cool menu without some kind of structured database. So, a huge boring project was initiated in search for information & screenshots for the full range of games available for 15 different classic hardwares.
You see, the SOMAC is fully equipped with emulators which had to be separately configured to match my hardware setup and mechanical workings.

The database (named SGIL) was closed down after about 3 months with the supposed goal reached successfully. Hold on, this will hurt your eyes. The SGIL database has approx 26000 screenshots and fully categorized into 9 different genres complete with the titlename and filenames ready for playing. You read it right, 26000 games are supported by my database, SOMAC and the 3D Matrix Core Menu.

A compilation of this kind is NOT available ANYWHERE in the world. I know, cause I've checked all the biggest and medium bragging database sites. They all lack something, screenshots and/or information about the genre and none of them have the complete package for the sum of all these classic hardware machines & consoles:

Classic Arcade Machines, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, SEGA Genesis, SEGA Master System, SEGA Game Gear, Gameboy Advance, NEC TurboGrafx 16, Atari 5200/7800/Lynx & SONY Playstation

If you want to select a game in a human and intelligent manner, you only need the screenshot, titlename and what genre it is. No more is needed to ease our mind. This is the concept behind my SGIL database.

And the best thing of them all, the SGIL database is free for download for NO CHARGE and NO BULLSHIT here within my site. (Death to banners & shareware. Free Our Mind!)

All screenshots, the separate databases for the different hardware are in plain human readable text, so that you can write your own tools for it!