I picked up a Super Pac-Man caberet real cheap from a local operator. The cab had come apart at the joints, and was bowing a bit in the center from warpage. I had to glue the whole thing back together before I started. The only things left were the marquee glass (all but stripped of paint), the bezel glass (again, hardly any paint), the power supply, coin door, coin box, and marquee lighting panel.

Front shot. I called it "Video Invasion" because it's a nice cheesy '80s name for a cabinet. I've seen bootleg cabs with "Astro Battles" marquees and really dug the cheesy name! As you can see, it's pretty ugly; same marble contac paper that everyone else uses, wood spots showing below the control panel, but what the hell. I built it for function, not form! I did take the time to measure the monitor for the monitor surround, and paint the glass flat black around it, so that looks cool!

Here's a shot of the monitor chassis I built. It's an actual PC monitor that I removed from the plastic case and cut a new chassis to retrofit it into the cab. Let me tell you that this (along with the control panel) was a HUGE pain in the ass. For one thing, I am not much of a woodworker. Another thing is that the cabinet itself is warped, so when i bolted the chassis in, the cab pulled apart at the seams and i had to glue it back together AGAIN!

Discharging the monitor for removal (NOTE: I DO NOT RECOMMEND ANYONE DOING THIS UNLESS YOU HAVE SOME EXPERIENCE WORKING WITH HIGH VOLTAGE COMPONENTS! THE MONITOR HOLDS A LARGE AMOUNT (10 kv) OF CURRENT AND COULD *KILL* YOU! I WILL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYONE ATTEMPTING TO DO THIS ON THEIR OWN AND HURTING THEMSELVES!!!!)

With that said, to discharge the monitor, I took a long, plastic-handled screwdriver and soldered a long lead of lamp wire to it. On the other end, I took an alligator clip (that's roach clip to you stoners) and soldered it on. I attached the clip to one of the monitor band bolt clips and, putting one hand in my pocket, slipped the end of the screwdriver under the anode cap (suction cup-looking thing) on the back of the tube. A lot of PC monitors generally discharge themselves, but this was an older one, so I heard the typical SNAP from the current exiting the monitor. I waited five minutes, and did it again. A smaller snap. Another five minutes, one more discharge. no snap. I removed the anode cap and unbolted the monitor from the case.

Inside of the cabinet. I would hate having to pull a case out of the cab every time I had to upgrade MAME, so I cannibalized a case for a few parts and bolted everything on the inside of the cabinet. I had to pick up a switch from Radio Shack to wire to the soft switch jumper. Works great! The hard drive is bolted to the floor next to the power supply. There is no cdrom or floppy drive installed. All of the lights work (coin door and marquee), and the coin door is wired up! The lights are wired to the power supply via the 12v output. The slam switch on the coin door is also wired up to my control panel interface (next pic). The motherboard is an AOPEN AX6BC slot 1 with a Celeron 400 and 32 megs of RAM. I plan on upgrading this to it's fullest potential with the advent of the polygonal Atari Games. The video card is an ATI Rage Pro II/2 megs and the sound card is an old Sound Blaster 16. Sound is run though the original speaker outlet by a pair of Creative PC speakers (forget the model number), and it all plugs into a monster of a surge protector!!!

Control panel. Ugh. I had a REAL hard time getting the dimensions right with this, but it was due to the cab being warped. I did finally find a happy medium after four different cuts, and here's the result. Two 8-way sticks, six player buttons, two start buttons, all wired to Andy Warne's incredible I-PAC controller interface (the little PCB board at the top right)!!! The interface I'm using is a prototype of Andy's original design, and it works GREAT! (Sorry it took me so long to get around to using it, Andy!) No ghosting, and it's MUCH cheaper than buying a keyboard interface, and much less hassle than hacking an old keyboard. For more info about the I-PAC (which has a lot more inputs now), go to Andy's Arcade Site, which will show you a much-advanced version of the six-input I-PAC prototype I'm using. My game selection is controlled by ArcadeOS by Brian Lewis (site here).

Unfortunately, my other pictures didn't turn out (I-PAC prototype, coin door wiring, marquee lighting panel). If you are interested in building your own MAME cabinet, visit Saint's Build Your Own Arcade Controls site. All the resources you'll need can be found there. Good luck!