It seems crazy to love an interface adaptor, doesn’t it? Call them what you want – Supergun, MAK or anything else – all they do is connect your JAMMA arcade boards to controls, power, video and audio. At the time of writing, my first JAMMA board is actually in the post, so I haven’t even used my Supergun yet. The thing is, I’m already smitten.

There’s a certain allure that accompanies the things you never had access to as a kid, and truly arcade-perfect games at home weren’t things that I had access to. I’d heard of Superguns, sure – they’d be advertised for exorbitant prices in magazines and spoken of vaguely, but I’d never used one or even seen one. They were an underground thing, owned only by the most hardcore of players – surpassing even the fabled Neo Geo as an object of desire, given the unofficial nature of the devices.

Of course, the internet has demystified all of that, but it’s still true that because I’ve got a Supergun, I’ve taken my first steps towards getting arcade games running at home and taking my collection to a new level. After all, there’s a limited number consoles out there and I’ve got most of the ones worth owning. Even though there are arcade collectors all over the world now, it’s by no means a common hobby and it’s kind of cool to be a part of that.

All that’s left is for my first PCB to arrive – so if you’d just hurry up a bit, dear postie…