2026 Retrocomputing Challenge: Dollhouse Arcade Cabinet Runs Remote DOS Games

Classic DOS games never ran from within stand-up arcade cabinets in dollhouses, but [Juha Lilja] imagines a world in which they did. His Micro DOS arcade cabinet is described as …. 2026 Retrocomputing Challenge: Dollhouse Arcade Cabinet Runs Remote DOS Games.

His Micro DOS arcade cabinet is described as a device that “runs nothing” because the tiny unit is actually streaming the games over Wi-Fi from a nearby PC. That doesn’t mean it’s just a glorified movie player, though — the cabinet is playable, if a bit awkward to do so. An economical development board and a 3D-printed enclosure is all it takes to put classic DOS games into dollhouse-sized arcade cabinet.

The core of the micro arcade cabinet is a M5Stack AtomS3R running as an embedded remote terminal. One tilts the whole cabinet as if it were a virtual joystick to send up, down, left, and right. Button presses are done by pushing on the physical screen; it supports single, double, and long-clicks.

While in theory one could install a micro joystick and buttons instead, [Juha] aimed to keep everything self-contained and use only what was already built into the AtomS3R.