Coctail Cabinet Options

[pommie]

Hi, I'm researching to build my first mame cabinet and have decided on the old style coktails (with the metal legs).

From what I understand, these models are primarily for playing virtical games.

I was kind of hoping that it may be possible to mount the monitor in horizontally and play both vertical and horizontal games. My questions:-

1. What is the largest size monitor or TV that could be installed in the cabinet.
2. Is it possible to configure mame to permemently run vertical games in a horizontal format?
3. Would the vertical games have black bands either side of them or would the graphics look stretched?

I also like the though of a dual player removable control panel that somebody is working on see link http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~simons3/Project.htm

Just wondered if anyone else out there has explored this before?

Cheers

[pommie]

Looks like Im still a LLama and nobdy has any advice for me?

[Nailz]

1.  Most common size montior for a cocktail is 19", but you do sometimes see smaller depending on the setup.

2.   Yes, you can, but why would you want to?  The great thing about a cocktail cabinet is you can sit on any side you lioke, there fore, creating cointrols for both a vertical and horizontal side....

3.  The vertical games would have black bands on each side, and truly just wouldn't look right.

[paigeoliver]

1.  Most common size montior for a cocktail is 19", but you do sometimes see smaller depending on the setup.

That is incorrect. The most common size of MIDWAY cocktails is 19", most cocktails are actually 13". Go to the auction and look at the cocktail row sometime, pretty much everything other than the Midway ones will be 13". Also, cocktails with metal legs are generally referred to as "school desk" cocktails, and they are 13" ones, they aren't even deep enough for a 19" monitor.

2.   Yes, you can, but why would you want to?  The great thing about a cocktail cabinet is you can sit on any side you lioke, there fore, creating cointrols for both a vertical and horizontal side....

Most school desk type cocktails can actually take their 13" monitor in either direction, with the exception being the Atari ones that actually had the monitor offset to one side to make room for the larger boardsets.

Many people might not want 4 control panels, because a cocktail with 4 control panels takes up almost an entire room with the 4 chairs, either that, or you are moving it all the time.

3.  The vertical games would have black bands on each side, and truly just wouldn't look right.

This is true, it isn't too bad on a 19" monitor, but a vertical game on a 13" horizontal monitor is tiny. I suggest picking a monitor orientation and control type, and sticking with it.

If you are going the cocktail route, then vertical is really the prefered way to go, there are simply not a lot of horizontal games that have cocktail mode, but most vertical games do.

[pommie]

1. A 19" monitor is huge, I was under the impression that these cabs came with 14" monitors. Wasnt there a williams cab that had 19" only?

2. What I was refering to was if I had a monitor installed horizontally, everytime I ran a horizontal game it woudl run fine and everytime it ran a vertical game is automatically rotated by 90 degs and ran in Horizontal mode.

3. Would it really look shite with the black bands?

[paigeoliver]

1. A 19" monitor is huge, I was under the impression that these cabs came with 14" monitors. Wasnt there a williams cab that had 19" only?

2. What I was refering to was if I had a monitor installed horizontally, everytime I ran a horizontal game it woudl run fine and everytime it ran a vertical game is automatically rotated by 90 degs and ran in Horizontal mode.

3. Would it really look shite with the black bands?

Just run some games on your home computer that are vertical, and see for yourself what you think about the black bands.

13" is the common cocktail monitor size, which is actually the same size tube as a 14" pc monitor (the PC monitor manufacturers lie about tube sizes).

[pommie]

Thanks for your replies.

Yes I will be going for the School desk type cocktail. From what youve said I think I will have to stick with simply vertical games.

One last question. Do you know if these table can accomodate a 14" monitor or 14" TV easy enough or will I have to ship around for a 13"

To the originator of this web page http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~simons3/Index.htm

I would be interested to hear how you are getting on with you cab.

Cheers

[Wade]

I am in the process of Maming the same type of cocktail cabinet (taito school-desk style).

It had a 13" monitor in it vertically.  I pulled it and installed a 14" vga monitor after carefully removing it from the plastic case.  The 14" was just a hair bigger than the 13".  I just moved the metal brackets that hold it, outward one "hole" and it fit fine.  Be prepared to do a little tinkering to make it all work though!  I had to lengthen some wires on the monitor so the monitor boards could fit properly.  The neck board is only about 1/2" from touching the bottom of the cabinet.

You might get a 15" in there but I think it'd be extremely difficult.  I wouldn't even consider mounting the monitor horizontally as most of the games you'd be playing would be vertical and would be even tinier when shrunk to fit on the horizontal screen.  The screen is small enough as it is, using a horizontal 27" monitor to play both vert/horz works great, but not on a 14" monitor!


I agree with paige, stick with vertical and pick a simple control panel layout that will cover some of your favorite games.  I picked a 4-way joystick and one button per player, as this covers most of the classic vertical games.

I wouldn't consider putting control panels on the ends to play horizontally either.  That style of cabinet isn't good for sitting on the end (the cabinet is too long so the viewing angle would be really poor, also there is really no room for your feet or legs if you sit on the short ends).

Wade

[ButeLegz]

Pommie, that website's mine... sorry I took so long to reply, I made the mistake of updating my forum profile & it took half a week to get my new password in the mail. I went through the same process as you when I was deciding what screen to dump in my cab. I wrote a bit about in the 'Project' > 'Screen' section on my site. I basically wanted to be able to play Galaga type games and horizontal fighters, which would have been kinda hard on the vertically mounted screen. My solution was to horizontally mount a dirty great big TV in the cab (51cm/20") and make detachable controls. By doing this, I can play vertical games close to the original size (as the larger TV measures roughly 30cm/12" from top to bottom) & if I'm in the mood to kick Dhalsim's boney ass or double team some Foot Soldiers with a mate I can just take player two's panel off, hook it on the same side as player one, switch my joysticks from 4 way to 8 way & I'm on my way!

To get a screen that big in there I had to take the TV out of the case, (it was so close to fitting with the case on it's not funny) & extend the black base of the cab by around 10cm/4", no big deal.

As far as black bands go, they don't worry me... a small compromise. I've also tried to keep the cab looking as authentic as possible but the second you start maming a cab it's just that, a mamed cab. Once I stopped feeling guilty about altering a piece of history I starting thinking more about practicality & functionality. Eventually, I hope to get an original up & going to compliment my current cab.

I am just starting to fit the pc in the cab over the next couple of weeks. Keep checking the site, I'm getting a digital camera this week so there'll be heaps of updated pics to look at. Keep me posted on your progress. BL.

[paigeoliver]

One last question. Do you know if these table can accomodate a 14" monitor or 14" TV easy enough or will I have to ship around for a 13"


Cheers

The last 14" PC monitor I decased fit into an old 13" arcade frame without issue.

A long time ago I actually DID get a 15" monitor in a school desk cocktail. It was a Carnival (there are two styles, I had the style with the smaller control panel). I had to run it totally frameless though, and just sort of hang the tube inside the cab, and it BARELY fit. Best to go for a 14" just to be safe.

The real problem may of course end up being in the depth of the monitor, some (even when decased) are simply deeper than others, that can be the killer. Of course used 14" monitors are so cheap that you can probably just buy several and use whichever one fits.