Project 1: MAME Cabinet

We are setting up a game room in the house and just purchased a pool table/air hockey table. What goes great with pool and air hockey? Arcade Games!!! So my first project to document will be the creation of a MAME cabinet for our game room.

What is MAME, you ask? Well let me give you the quick run-down... It is a program that you run on a regular computer that lets you play just about every arcade game ever made. Just check out the main website if you want some more specifics :)

http://mamedev.org/

What I am going to do is take this regular computer that is running MAME and put it into an upright arcade game cabinet so it looks just like an authentic arcade game!

I was originally going to build a cabinet from scratch, but I liked the idea better of taking an old abandoned cabinet and breathing some new life into it. So thats where I am at right now... calling around and emailing every Amusement company in the Pittsburgh and Johnstown areas looking for an empty cabinet.

I have been looking for one for about a month, and I am actually surprised at the difficulty that I am having. I have found two places that have them, but the prices are a little steeper that I had planned... $130.00-$350.00 so far. I looked around on the net beforehand and people said that you can usually pick up an empty cabinet for under $50 and often times free... so I'm going to keep looking...

Well thats all for now... I will return when I have chased down a cabinet and I will be sure to bring some pictures!!!

come along for a ride...

I guess I should start out with an introduction... Hi I'm Chad. I am currently a full time computer geek working and attending classes at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. I am a senior, but don't ask what year senior I am... I have even lost count!

Well, anyway... I have always loved to tinker with things... take stuff apart, see how it works, and then put it back together again... sometimes doing it right so it works again too! So I have decided to set up this page to document my various attempts at being a weekend-do-it-yourselfer. Both for your amusement (all two of you who might actually look at this page) and so you all (myself included) can learn from my mistakes.

Now on to the first project...