Posted by Doug Burton on February 27, 2002 at 22:22:56:
Okay guys, you all get this 1000 times a day, I'm sure, so feel free to slap me upside the head instead of answering. I've been tinkering with building a Mame cabinet for a while now and my head is swimming so badly I need to get grounded by asking some serious questions. The setup I was going to use originally has been poo-pooed by more than one individual so I went back to the drawing board. So, on with the questions:
Cabinet
I was going to design and cut my own cabinet. I'm going to laminate it (black probably) and use commercial side art and the Mame marquee that I found elsewhere on the net). No problem there as I'm basing it off of an arcade cabinet in dimensions (which one I have yet to figure out). I would think this is pretty straightforward, so I don't think I need input on the design of the cabinet. HOWEVER, if anyone has anything they think I may not know or need to know, please let me know now so I don't build it and find that, oh, I needed to add this or add that. I would like to add a coin door on the front, just for that "authentic" feel to it.
Monitor
I've been going back and forth between using the fixes that I've seen elsewhere where a standard computer monitor is used and a bezel is placed in front to give it the "feel" of an arcade machine. I recently found a 25" Wells Gardner Monitor that seems like it might be just the thing I'm looking for (and the price isn't really any more than a standard computer monitor for the same size...actually far less.
Controls
I'm planning on using standard arcade controls (happ, etc) wired into a JPac interface from Ultimarc (I think I understand this properly...ie wiring the controls into the Jpac interface to plug directly into the computer?
Now my questions are these
1. Am I going about this right? ie, do I have all the "parts" that I'll need, like the cabinet, the harness, the controls, the monitor (the computer of course). Am I missing something on the list?
2. Will I need a seperate power supply for the monitor (its a replacement monitor so it DOES NOT come with a power supply. Is the power supply I need a part of a Jamma harness or is it seperate?
3. Will I need a Jamma harness or is this not really needed as the JPac interface takes the place of the harness?
Like I said, maybe I'm not even approaching this properly and I'm not terming things as I should and maybe I'm missing key elements of a cabinet. Correct me if I'm wrong, but my thought on making an arcade cabinet was comprised of four key parts, 1. The controls/Joysticks, 2.The CPU, 3. The Monitor and 4. The cabinet.
Any thoughts, helps, criticisms or suggestions is very much appreciated. If you could post here as well as forward it to my email at daburton@fuse.net it would really be greatly appreciated by myself. Who knows, if things go well, maybe I can add a site with photos of my project....if I ever get it finished that is. Thanks.
Doug