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the mame cabinet

Bought the used arcade cabinet from a local amusement shop. It was originally Vigilante. The condition was great. just a few scuffs on the outside, the t-molding is a bit shot, and there was a hole in the front to add the super lock for the coin door. Now they removed the original marquee, the monitor, all the innards (except for the coin door), and the controls. When I got it home it was essentially bare. I only paid 50 BUCKS!

The first step was doing the control panel. It was covered in a lame, after market vinyl that was peeling up and full of extra holes from years of modifications from one game to the next. So, I got out the Dremel and worked on cutting out an opening to remove the area where all the old button and joystick holes were located. (side note...if you going to do this yourself, expect to go through many many cutting disks of you go the route I did with the dremel). Once the opening was cut, I acquired a nice piece of metal to use as my new control panel that would be bolted over the opening i had previously cut out. THIS PART WAS THE HARDEST OF ALL. This metal was thick and evil. It was not cut to my specs, so I basically hand-machined it for 3 days getting it just the right length and width. Then the fun part...getting a bi-metal cutting bit (1 - 1/8 inch) that would be perfect for the button holes and the joystick holes. USE A HIGH SPEED DRILL for this, I used a rechargeable drill that just didn't have the speed or power to cut through metal, I got through 3 holes and the bastard broke (thanks Craftsman for your return policies ;). Needless to say, I got all the holes cut for the buttons and joysticks.

The layout is a 1 player start, a 2 player start, 2 joysticks, and 6 buttons for each player. This is the traditional street fighter layout that works great for most games. The great thing is that the metal plate can be removed from the original control panel, so if I ever decide to change the layout, it can be done relatively easily.

For the control interface, buttons, and joysticks I used a great company called ULTIMARC. Just so you know, I ordered the parts on Sunday and got them on friday...The company is in the U.K. That is quick service...And that is not the best part...The interface board is. They have a lot to choose from, I decided to go with thier I-Pac. It has inputs for 16 buttons, 2 joysticks, coin inputs and a 1 player and 2 player start. This is a great piece of hardware. I would recommend it to anyone building an arcade machine. Please support them, go to there site and check them out, http://www.ultimarc.com. For the I-Pac, 2 J-Sticks, 12 buttons, and 2 start buttons (screen printed), and shipping, it was a bit less that 130.00!

Still in limbo as far as what I am going to do with he control panel...keep it metal, cover it in vinyl...not sure. Just have a piece of plexy over top for protection.

Now to me, the most important step in this project was what to do for a screen?

I believe that the original cabinet came with a 21-ish " monitor. I wanted to get the largest one i could fit in there. Issue was with the angle that the monitor tilts in the cabinet and the depth that the back end of the tube...I was dealing with limited depth, and found a Viewsonic monitor that was specifically designed with a much shorter depth than most. For a 21" monitor (20" viewable) it was about 17" deep. I compared this to another monitor I had that was a 17" monitor and that one was 18" deep. So you see why I got it. Plus I wanted to avoid a flat screen like a Trinitron monitor because most arcade monitors are rounded both the horizontal and vertical. Finally got the monitor...and had a very confident friend who is a Apple certified technician rip apart the monitor (even with the housing would have been too deep for the cabinet to get the back door on). First he discharged the monitor's stored up power into the pipes in my basement...then he proceeded to completely disassemble the logic boards, remove the tube, ect. To do this right we needed something to mount the monitor on to install it into the cabinet. Luckily the cabinet came with the piece of wood that the original monitor was mounted to. We lined up the tube, made some ghetto mounts out of the old control panel piece i cut out and mounted the tube. Then we mounted the electronics below the monitor, ran all the grounds, placed the degauss wires in the front and back and reconnected all the wire harnesses and grounds and placed in the monitor mount into the cabinet. A work of art...still impresses me every time I stand in front of this marvel of science and technology ;)

EMULATORS USED

MAME: (multiple arcade machine emulator)

Personally, I prefer Mame32 Plus. It has both DOS and Windows GUI versions of the application, but it has much more for organization, supports more games and has a great interface. You can see different categories of games (ie, Sports, Fighting, Shooter, Card Games, and Oooo Ahhh, the adult games (most of them are mahjong, which I have no idea how to play).

Another great aspect of Mame32 Plus is that it's just a port with extras, the authors keep that puppy updated all the time. When standard versions of MAME are released, Mame32 Plus is right behind them.

You can find MAME32 Plus HERE!

DAPHNE: (Arcade Laser Disc Emulator)

This Program is great...You can get the roms without trying, but you also need the original laserdiscs OR mpeg versions that can be found on the net, or you can buy the DVD versions and rip them yourself.

The remaining tasks are:

Refinish the outside of the cabinet with new vinyl.
Refinish the coin doors and possibly make them functional.
Play Games until I pass out from exhaustion.