I should be recording this.

Okay, so, for the longest time I’ve been interested in the idea of owning an arcade cabinet for MAME, fighting games and general gaming tomfoolery. For the longest time this hasn’t been even concievable – living in an apartment pretty much makes it impossible. Buying one outright is ridiculously expensive, even at the lower end of the scale. So, how about making one? Well, in order to build one you need several power tools that are inhibitively expensive if you don’t already own them, then you need a lot of time. Oh, also, you need a lot of room to work in. You also need to meticulously plan almost every phase of its construction. For me, this taxes every area of skill I consider myself to be proficient in, and some of those I am not. My experience in design, IT, illustration and research need to somehow work in harmony with my almost complete inablilty to do complicated mathematics, woodworking, technical drawing and electronics over a prolonged period of time to somehow come out with what I am after. It is easily the most complicated and challenging task I have assigned myself. I am also incredibly excited about it, and have managed to keep myself dedicated to it thus far. 

But.

Even if you have all of that, you more importantly need to have an awesome wife who will be perfectly okay with having an angular black monolith with knobs sticking out of it in the middle of her living room. Fortunately, that box has a neat tick in it. And a few underlines. And a little sparkly star sticker.

Things are progressing decently well. So far I’ve done about two months of planning and two days of construction, leaving me with two of these:

Cabinet Side

Cabinet Side

Which, if we are honest. Doesn’t look like much. Working within the limitation I have I am pretty pleased with how it has gone so far, though. It is good progress, however, given that (I think) making these two sides will be the most complicated part of the whole construction – although likely not the most work intensive. 

I am working with some restrictions. The main thing is trying (and generally failing) to keep this as inexpensive as possible. I am hoping to do all of the construction for the cabinet with only a jigsaw and a drill, which I have been told a few times is totally ridiculous and impossible. This is the kind of challenge I am up for. But, aside from that, for those who are interested, here are some (in some cases speculatory) statistics about the cabinet plan:

Dimensions:
Height: 6′
Width: 2’6
Depth: 2’6 
Main construction materials: 1″ Hardwood Ply, 1″ Solid Poplar, 1.5″x1.5″ Solid Poplar blocks, 1/16″ acrylic sheeting for bezel and control panel cover

Audio/Video:
Display: 24″ ASUS 16:9 LCD
Sound: Logitech X-240 2.1 PC Speakers

Control:
Sanwa JLF joysticks
HAPP Long Competition Style buttons
UltimARC i-PAC keyboard emulator
Some random keyboard and mouse
Some random computer cobbled from parts around the house etc. 

“Features”:
Interchangable control panel
Hinged control panel
All controls are “quick disconnect”-able
Cabinet door access on front and possibly on the back
Area to put your drink (possibly cup holders, later on.. :D)
Rollout keyboard tray
Doesn’t take up much room, for a cabinet!