Without too much effort I’ve managed to get the MAME cabinet into a useable state! It’s now graduated from the garage into our sun / dining room (much to the delight of my housemate who can hear all the bleeps and bloops from her bedroom).
Here’s the lowdown…
The first step was to mount a 4:3 ratio LCD monitor in it. I know I know, “dude you need to put a CRT in it, keep it old school” … I recently rid myself of the last remaining CRT in my life, and I’m not about to start picking up more. Besides, the authentic CRTs for arcade machines cost a packet and require a bunch of hardware to convert the VGA signal.
It’s supported by a piece of timber running horizontally between either side of the cabinet. Currently there’s a gap around the edges of the monitor where you can see through to the internals of the cabinet, but I plan to fix that with a black trim of some sort.
I’ve gutted all the old bits and pieces from the original machine, a 110 – 240 transformer and a few circuit boards and cabling. This has allowed room for the MB Pro to sit in the base of the cabinet. Enough words… here’s some pictures!
![mame_cab2](http://jonathan-mullins.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/mame_cab2-1024x577.jpg)
![internal internals of the cabinet](http://jonathan-mullins.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/mame_cab4-1024x577.jpg)
MB Pro running the show from the inside. The speaker, functioning coin slots and hopper from the original system remains, but not much else.
![mame_cab6](http://jonathan-mullins.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/mame_cab6-577x1024.jpg)
iPac converter. This little guy converts all the signals from the joysticks, buttons and coin slots into a keystrokes over USB.