Of course, everyones doing it. Everyone either has built or wants to build a Mame machine. First I built a stand alone control panel in 1996, to play mame with "authentic" arcade joysticks and buttons. Then in 1997, I decided to go for the full monty and build an arcade cabinet around the control panel I built. Mame had a lot less games back then. There were no mame utilities and hardware available. It was all hardcore back then. I had to hack a keyboard and wire it into the joysticks. Those were simple days, and I thought I was unique in my accomplishment. Not anymore. Now you can buy these things pre-built, or at least most of the hardware pre-built.

I found a decent Taito cabinet that I put all the parts in. Also, I opted to purchase a 19 inch computer monitor instead of using a low resolution arcade monitor. The reason is because I wanted to run other emulators on it such as the N64, Sega Genesis, and Super Nintendo. I have updated the computer several times through the years, as Mame would run more sophisticated games requiring more CPU resources. I eventually added a wireless network card for fast updates. I built this for myself to relive my "Glory Days", but my son Joshua took over this machine at the young age of 3. Because of Mame he is now a video game wizard and he still plays it to this day.