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.
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