This is just a quick page dedicated to my M.A.M.E. arcade game cabinet. In a nutshell, it's a PC in a really cool looking cabinet for playing arcade and computer games. It's an evolving work in progress, and has been a great project!

Drawing it out. The design of the cabinet is based on the classic early 80's video game "Defender".

Have jigsaw, will build arcade cabinets.

Putting it together. My bass player Sam, was a big help building my cabinet. After learning from the master, Sam went and built his own!

Coming together.

After getting started on this crazy project, we decided we wanted something more unique and original than an existing video game. We kept the shape of the Defender cabinet, but changed the working title to "Disco Inferno", which is also the Poprocks comic book title.

But now it sounded like I was naming it after our comic book.

Finally I came up with "Retro Hell". It fit with the caricature that had been drawn of me dancing in flames, wearing a disco leisure suit. And it's sorta a poke at video games, lava lamps, disco and everything else retro that we can't seem to let go of! :)

Closeup of the monitor and bezel. It's just a 19" PC monitor that I spray painted satin black. Satin black paint is the arcade cabinet builder's friend.

The bezel is from a Defender cabinet. Even though won't it isn't Defender themed cabinet as originally planned, I think it still looks cool!

The coin door is installed! I got this off ebay from an old Williams pinball machine. I lit the reject buttons with 12v l.e.d.s that run off the computer's power supply. Note: The coin door is just a facade to increase the coolness factor, it doesn't take quarters to play games with M.A.M.E.!

This is the keywiz encoder made by www.groovygamegear.com. All the buttons and joysticks connect to this, which in turn connects to the PC's ps2 keyboard input. Also a regular keyboard plugs into the encoder, so you can toggle between the arcade controls and keyboard if neccesary.

Underneath the control panel. Possibly the sloppiest wiring job ev-er.

My (not)UL listed dual switch outlet. If the house ever burns down, look here first. Actually, it's solid. I got the wiring diagram from a home wiring book, and triple checked everything! This will let the marquee light and coin reject lights stay lit if desired, even when the pc is turned off. Update: Now that the coin door is installed, I'm going to move it and the encoder to the door opening, for easy access from the front of the cab.

Here it s more or less finished. The graphics were a group effort of Poprocks comic book artist Harsho, Sam and me. Harsho did the caricature of me dancing in flames, Sam and I did the rest in Photoshop. I obsessed way too long over the fine-tuning of the graphics! (me, obsessed??!)

This is the art for the lighted marquee. The fluorescent light for the marquee and the coin door reject button lights are on their own circuit, so they can be lit up when the computer and monitor are shut down.

Since taking this pic, I added some shielded speakers and grills that mount facing down under the marquee, and a subwoofer from a pc speaker/amp set that I took apart. The little amp also powers the shielded speakers. Access to the volume knob is through the coin door. I'll get some pics up soon.

The marquee and sideart was printed by www.mamemarquees.com.

If you want to learn more about building your own arcade cabinet, go to www.arcadecontrols.com. They have an excellent forum full of info.