OK, so after some great advice from
javeryh I now have a better sense of the steps I need to take to MAME this cabinet as elegantly as possible.
I wish I had an Arcade Monitor with a VGA cable and standard power cable, but unfortunately I'm stuck with my Sanyo 20EZ and will have to do some mods to that.
Here is my plan right now. Please let me know if I am missing anything/being stupid/could do it better
1. Use an IPAC to connect the control panel to the computer.
2. Either rewire the existing original speaker to a pc audio cable or just install a 2.1 pc speaker setup inside the cab.
3. Connect a VGA BReakout cable to the monitor chassis.
4. Install an ArcadeVGA card in PC. Attach to VGA Breakout Cable.
5. Install a new Marquee light with standard power cable.
6. Install a SmartStrip to power on all devices using the PC as the 'Master'
7. Wire a 'Power On' switch for the PC on the back of the cabinet.
I am a little stumped right now regarding the power for the monitor. Can I just plug in the Cabinet power cable (that plugs into the wall outlet right now) into the SmartStrip? Thus powering on the Arcade Monitor along with the other devices. I was trying to think how I would have to rewire the power cable on the monitor chassis but was I just overthinking it and can I leave the nintendo power supply and monitor power hooked up to that and power through the SmartStrip?
Please let me know if I am going in the right direction (and if you have an ArcadeVGA card for sale!)
Thanks again for your time!