The Idea

I needed a project. I had always wanted a MAME arcade machine, but until recently I wasn't motivated enough to do anything about it. Well, after much research and thought (and consulting my wife), I decided I was going to have one. One possibility was buying an existing arcade machine and modifying it. I decided against this because of the price of buying a machine, the difficulty in finding one I liked, and the (not very fun) work involved in renovating the cabinet. Then there was the idea of buying a kit or even a premade cabinet designed for MAME. That was way too expensive and there wouldn't be too much to be proud of in that option. I decided I needed to build it from scratch. It could be customized to my exact specifications, I could build at my own pace, and the cost would be minimal. Plus, when it was finished, I would have the satisfaction of knowing that this was my own creation. I was excited to begin and prepared for lots of hard (but fun) work. And so, there were decisions to make...

I really had no idea where to start. A good place to get ideas, I found, was www.arcadecontrols.com. It's not the prettiest site I've ever seen, but it has a great collection of articles/links that can help get you started. So, as I started collecting ideas for my machine, I came across an auction on eBay for plans to build your own arcade cabinet. Perfect! It looked pretty complete and included plans for a ton of different cabinets; plus it was only $7. What I didn't know was that the arcade plans were freely available at www.jakobud.com. It's okay though, there is a price for information, right? So after much deliberation, I decided I was going to build a 1983 Mario Bros. cabinet complete with sideart, marquee, bezel, and control panel overlay. I really considered doing a cocktail cabinet, but that will have to wait for a future project. I knew what I needed to get started building this thing, so I made plans to start on Saturday, November 5th. More to come on how day 1 went...