PC Cab (Vertical M.A.M.E./Jukebox)

Cabinet Manufactured By Atari (c) 1982

The one cocktail cabinet I own started life in 1982 as an Atari Dig Dug.  My the time I picked it up,  it had already been converted more than once and had just prior been a Rally-X I think it was.  When I got it,  it had no PCB in it and the monitor chassis was missing.  Basically I got a cabinet, tube,  and sticks/buttons.  The harness was a hacked up mess and the glass was very scratched up.  I picked it up from a local for a pretty good price and it's current state was actually of benefit being that I had plans for this cabinet … and those plans didn't involve putting another Atari PCB back in the cabinet.  This was going to become a vertical M.A.M.E. cabinet & a jukebox (and eventually it also became my NAOMI "server").

This cabinet was my 3rd M.A.M.E. cabinet.  At the time I built it,  I only owned one original arcade machine,  my first,  Joust.  I also had already built a horizontal M.A.M.E. vertical M.A.M.E. uprights,  both running original arcade monitors.  For this project,  I knew that I wanted to use this cabinet not only as a M.A.M.E. cabinet but also a jukebox.  As such,  I knew I needed more flexibility with graphic resolutions than a standard arcade monitor could provide.  I also knew I couldn't fit a 19" arcade monitor in to this cabinet being it was designed to run 13" monitors.  Basically,  before I even begun i'd already decided to use a 15" standard PC C.R.T. (decased).  The biggest issue with doing so was actually de-casing the monitor and figuring out how to mount the chassis to the tube and the tube/chassis to the cabinet.  The solution was to leave the bottom "tray" of the monitor casing.  It took a little work,  but I managed to get it done.  Because I don't need to run the machine at "arcade" CGA resolutions,  an ArcadeVGA video card wasn't necessary,  but I did use a JPAC encoder to hook up the sticks/buttons.

The first iteration of PC cab included blue control panel overlays.  I have no idea why I chose blue other than the fact that I had the spray paint handy.  They didn't remain blue for long however.  It was only a few months later that I decided to do something that M.A.M.E. builders laugh at.  I decided to use SHELVING PAPER to cover my control panel.  The funny thing is… IT WORKED… and it worked WELL!  Here we are a good 7+ years later and I have not had to replace the shelving paper once.  One side (the 1st player side) is,  admittedly,  starting to wear so that the wood-grain print is starting to wear off,  but there has been no ripping/tearing what so ever.  I am,  frankly,  amazed.  Even if there was,  I have so much of this stuff (that I got so cheap) that replacement would be a matter of cents,  not dollars. As you can see to the left,  the wood-grain almost matches up to the wood grain of the cabinet perfectly! I also replace the glass.  I had a piece of glass cut from a local glass shop.  I also replaced the tinted plexy in the middle that covers the monitor with stuff I bought from Arcade Shop (which didn't fit quite perfectly,  but managed to get the job done enough that I didn't complain (all too loudly).  I recently picked up end caps for the feet as well.

I run MAMEWah front end software after initially configuring the maching using MALA but becoming frustrated at MALA's show scroll speed.  For the jukebox aspect of the cabinet,  I used a cool program called Wincab.  I probably have somewhere in the realm of 500-600 albums currently loaded up in the cab.   I have everything from Death Metal to Rap to Bob Marley to Classic Rock to Country.  I try to have a little something for everyone.  The Wincab software is nice in that it offers up the album cover during the selection process as well as the track list, etc.  You can choose to play the whole album or select a few songs.  There is even a nice random option that chooses songs from all albums randomly.  I have the cabinet hooked up to a small amplifier pushing two Yamaha 8" 3-way speakers I have hanging from the ceiling.  I originally had a Yamaha receiver under the cabinet but it didn't really look right so I picked up a small Chinese amp off ebay and to be honest  I am surprised at how well it sounds.  While I can't "rock the house" with it,  it certainly does a good enough job for the garagecade.

Probably 6 months or so ago I built a NAOMI netboot system.  Rather than use a laptop to upload games to the NAOMI system I decided to incorporate the process in to the cocktail cabs front end.  It works quite nice frankly.  Just like M.A.M.E.,  I set up each game to display the titlescreen then play a video of the game in action.  Recently I've been adding Atomiswave games as Darksoft converts them for NAOMI use.  If you're interested in how it works,  take a look at the video below. Thanks for reading!

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