A MAME cabinet is a replica arcade cabinet (Pac Man machine type thing) or an actual arcade cabinet that runs the MAME software on a computer inside the cabinet instead of the original game hardware. MAME stands for multiple arcade machine emulator, and it is a software that can emulate old arcade game hardware using a computer. MAME cannot play games by itself though, it needs “roms”. Roms are basically just backups of the original game’s software/hardware that can be read by MAME. The catch is that possessing roms is illegal unless you own the original machine, have a license to use the roms or the roms have been released to the public as free. So be extra careful with that. MAME by itself is just command line based and I’m not really a fan of command lines (ino ino… major loss of geek points) so personally I use MAMEUI. MAMEUI is pretty self explanatory; it’s just MAME with a decent barebones UI. It can be downloaded here. If you want to learn more about MAME I suggest checking out the official MAME website as well as mameworld.net.

If you don’t want to make a whole arcade cabinet for your MAME machine you can always just use your keyboard and play some arcade games on your desktop/laptop or whatever, but if you do want to make the cabinet, with those sexy and sleek arcade style controls you’re going to have to interface the buttons and joysticks to your computer somehow. After doing a lot of research I decided to go with the I-Pac. The I-Pac is a microcontroller with inputs that correspond to each of your machine’s buttons and joystick movements. It takes these inputs and maps them out as a keyboard. Aka, you press the red button, and your computer receives a “G”, or you push the joystick up and your computer receives the “up” command on the keyboard. Using the MAME software you can bind different key strokes to different functions in the game, and shabam you have a fully functioning arcade control panel. For the buttons and joysticks I just had to go with the real deal. I bought everything from Happ Controls. Happ distributes and manufactures pretty much any and every arcade part you will ever need, and they are all designed for real world arcade use so you know they are of the best quality and are pretty much going to last forever. Best of all they’re not even really that expensive. For more info on arcade controls check out arcadecontrols.com or just google it, there is plenty of good info out there.

In my particular setup I’m running a Dell crap ass computer with a Celeron 800mhz processor, with 384MB of ram, 20gig hard drive, sound blaster live, and a Radeon 7000 64MB. The display is a 19 inch HP CRT monitor that I bought used for around 75 bucks (It weighs… a lot…). The OS is windows ME, super stripped down and speedy (sry… no linux…yet..). It runs all the old games easy peasy lemon squeesy, but struggles on some of the newer ones. If I end up getting a new gaming pc I’ll plop my current one in there and use my crap Dell to prop my dorm room door open.

P.S. If you don’t want to build an entire MAME arcade but you still want that uber sexy control panel you could just build a box out of MDF, mount the buttons and joysticks on it, wire it up to the I-Pac and give it a pimpin’ custom paint job. You almost get the same feel as the big version, but with the added bonus of portability.

P.P.S. If you’re just freakin’ lazy and rich and not hardcore at all, you can go out and buy the X-Arcade. But I will probably make fun of you forever.

The I-Pac 2 player and 4 player edition.