Grog's Cabinet

Well, I finally finished (almost) my MAME cabinet. I still want to paint on side-art, but for now, this will do. She plays just like the real thing and my kids love it (when I let them get to it!)
I got the design from the Ultimate Arcade website. It's THE place for the beginner to learn to make your own arcade cabinet, and the webmaster there is friendly and very helpful. His designs were perfect, even though I screwed up quite a few things. I didn't install the keyboard drawer (which I sincerely regret) and I shortened the marquee (by mis-measuring) and had to repair that with extension pieces. I had intended on re-rounding the marquee with a sabersaw, but I got too excited when I was almost done and I had to start playing!

I used Happ Controls Ultimate Joysticks and Happ micro-switch buttons. Currently, I have a 17 inch monitor installed, but someday I hope to upgrade to a nice big 27 inch TV.

I got the marquee art from the Massive Mame Homepage. Special thanks to my friend, Don, for printing out the marquee for me. Thanks for the use of the digital camera too!

I used an I-pac from utilmarc to interface the controls to the PC. That was SO easy! Andy is the best for coming up with this awesome interface!

The PC is an old 150 mhz Dell P.O.S. It has a bit of trouble with some of the more sophisticated games (metal slug, mortal combat) but it runs the classics just fine. Someday, I'm going to upgrade that too. I got a great sub-woofer speaker system from SAM's club. It cost $20 and it sounds fabulous! The sub-woofer sits in the bottom of the cab. I have no hole cut for it, but it makes the box boom and rumble. Just awesome!

You can click on any of the images for a much larger picture.

This is my first attempt at building a mame cabinet
The control panel
Semi profile
That's it, work it baby! The camera loves you! (That's a STERN Meteor Pinball machine next to the cab! Thanks for throwing it out Charlie!)
Full frontal mame-ity
You can see the keyboard to the left in this photo. Once in a while, it's just easier to navigate using the keyboard. * sigh *.

LINKS:

The plans that I used at Ultimate Arcade:
Ultimarc - Aracade Controls for your PC.
Massive Mame - A massive collection of MAME resources
Mameworld - for those of you who don't even know what I'm talking about
Build your own arcade controls!
PacMame - helpful stuff and another nice guy!
Safferling Pipes - for the discerning pipe smoker