MAME Cabinet in 4 key steps

Step 5 Conclusion / Links

I have now reviewed each of the four key points for converting an Arcade Cabinets into a MAME cabinet.

Since it wasn't the primary objective of this Instructable, I deliberately overlooked the aesthetic aspect of it (you can find many different side arts, marquee art , control panel art or even plastic T-molding at online stores such as MAMEMarquees or ArcadeOverlays) or how to built your own enclosure cabinet.

I also completely overlooked the sound hardware part, but there's not much to say about it: it's just basically a sound card and just the matter of integrating a speaker inside the cabinet.

I have put together a set of picture of my MAME Cabinet on Flickr and you can take a look at it here to get some inspiration (or not) since you can see some details I overlooked here like the mouting of the motherboard inside the cabinet, the support bracket I custom made for the extension cards (PCI Sound Card and AGP Video Card), harddrive mouting brackets etc.

To end, let' me briefly review some links of interest:

• Like on any topics, the online collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia has some good articles of interest: about Arcade Games in general, about Arcade Cabinets and about MAME.
• The official MAME website where you can download the latest version and read some related documentation.
• The website MAMEWorld claims to be the "Largest MAME resource on the Internet" and I frankly believe this claim to be true ; a ton of information about various software, tips projects and so on.
• Dos MAME support is I believe the most complete website documenting a DOS Arcade Cabinet running MAME. Great stuff there.
• MAWS is THE database where you can find information about any games available for MAME ; a reference website !
• KLOV for "Killer List of Videogames" is a full database of the different arcade cabinets produced throughout the years: 4000+ machines listed !
• The BYOAC Wiki contains some really exhaustive information for whoever wants to build their own MAME Cabinet.
• You got a problem, have questions or would like to show off your newly built MAME cabinet ? The BYOAC Forum is probably the most active forum of interest where you can some very resourceful and knowledgeable people.
• The official Freedos website where you can download the latest installation CD or floppy disk as well as the related page, on Wikipedia of course.
• The official website of Game Launcher, unfortunately the development has stopped in 2003, but Game Launcher is still a great a functional piece of software.

Some online stores I personally tried and was very happy with:

• Ultimarc where you can find, among many other thing the ArcadeVGA Video Card, the I-Pac or even sticks and pushbuttons. Shipping from the UK with no problems at all. Really a great website.
• MAMEMarquees or ArcadeOverlays are websites where you can order any type of graphics for your cabinet. Has many reproduction or can even do custom work, as you wish. I tried them both, excellent quality and service. Great stuff.
• Finally, a book "Project Arcade: Build Your Own Arcade Machine" by John St. Clair Wiley Publisher that may be considered as THE Bible within the MAME community because of the thorough information it contains.

This concludes this Instructable. I hope you had enjoyed it !
Of course, feel free to ad any comments, remarks or questions below. Thanks !

You can view two shorts videos I made that summarize this Instructable: