Pac man cabinet

[pcdoctor]

Has anyone seen this pac man cabinet?

[maraxle]

I have now.  

It looks sharp...

[Brax]

Is this like "Has someone seen my dog?"

Did it run away on you?

[Magnet_Eye]

that's pretty sweet!  

[Mr. Dude]

Awesome!  Did you make this yourself?  The see through back is really cool.

[hyiu]

dammm....  

seeing cabs like this really makes me want to have a dedeciated cab.... (I'm building a computer desk / cab / entertainment unit all in one....)

really nice....

but I don't think I'll be looking at the back that much....
 

[pcdoctor]

Found the cabinet on Yoshi's forum.
Yoshi is the guy from tech tv but one of the guys on the forum made it.
I just thought it was too pretty that I had to post.

[menace]

Looks great, but thats alot of time and effort for something that is going to be facing the wall--unless his sole intention is to have it in the middle of the room

[patrickl]

Very nice ...

I wonder how you insert a DVD or CD in a vertical mounted drive though.

[SirPeale]

Very nice ...

I wonder how you insert a DVD or CD in a vertical mounted drive though.

A lot of drives like that have little plastic 'fingers' that extend over the area where you place the disc.  So if you have your drive mounted in  a way that isn't the 'norm' it won't fall out as easily.

[patrickl]

Very nice ...

I wonder how you insert a DVD or CD in a vertical mounted drive though.

A lot of drives like that have little plastic 'fingers' that extend over the area where you place the disc.  So if you have your drive mounted in  a way that isn't the 'norm' it won't fall out as easily.

But have you ever tried putting a disk in like that? I did and it fell in ... Of course I was clumsy (didn;t put it properly in the "fingers") so it's my own fault, but the drive door closed and the disk was wrecked!

[SirPeale]

Yes, I've done it.  Works well, IF you insert the disc correctly.

[Ghoward]

That is a very cool looking Pacman cab. I like it lots......

Gary

[paigeoliver]

That would be a thing of beauty if only it had 4-Way joysticks so it could actually play Pac-Man.

Of course a monitor mounted at the correct angle, an actual overlay, and a real Pac-Man bezel would have all been nice too.

[General Zod]

That would be a thing of beauty if only it had 4-Way joysticks so it could actually play Pac-Man.

Of course a monitor mounted at the correct angle, an actual overlay, and a real Pac-Man bezel would have all been nice too.

I agree !!

Seeing the amount of time that was obviously devoted to MAMEing this cab, I would have liked seeing at least a pac CPO and bezel. Plus a 2 player-6 button layout seems kinda cramped for that style cab?

Appearance-wise ... I love it, the profile is awesome ... but the magic kinda goes away when you look at it head-on.  

[Pipercub]

I for one like it. I don't agree with mameing a good condition classic but lets face it, if something is headed to the dump and you save it via mame, so much the better.

I restored and mamed a dilapadated Ms Pac and used the original button/joy config with nothing but the pac variants.

[Daniel270]

It's a really SWEET project... and one I might try to duplicate... except for maybe the CP, which I'll probably keep like the original.

Question:

Would the Galaga plans at the below link work or are there better somewhere else?

http://www.mameworld.net/massive/How-to/Cabinet_Plans/cabinet_plans.html

[patrickl]

It's a really SWEET project... and one I might try to duplicate... except for maybe the CP, which I'll probably keep like the original.

Question:

Would the Galaga plans at the below link work or are there better somewhere else?

http://www.mameworld.net/massive/How-to/Cabinet_Plans/cabinet_plans.html

You better also check put the measurements on Jakobud's site. Those aren't really plans, but the give you some exact outside measurements

The sidepanels on mameworld don't even look that similar to a real Galaga cab (top is way wrong and the arch near the CP is completely off)  Those plans could help you fill in the inside details that Jakobud's measurements don't give.


:edit: Oh sorry I forgot, you're looking for a Pac Man cab of course. A Galaga/Ms Pacman cab is different from a Pac Man/Galaxian cab. The top and front are different. The top doesn't curve down so much (the highest point is more to the middle) and the front of the sidepanel slopes directly from below the marquee to the CP. When they based the Ms Pac Man/Galaga cab on the Pac Man/Galaxian cab they apparently decided to make it a little slimmer and sexier. I like the Ms Pac/Galaga cab better, but an "authenticity fan" will probably like the older style better  

Oddly enough I cannot find the Pac Man/Galaxian measurements on Jakobud's site. For some good Pac Man side panel plans go to Arcade Dimensions You can print those out and lay them out to get the full plan.

[patrickl]

I don't see why this cab needs to be more authentic than it is. Not everybody wants a different cab for each game. I guess most people want just one cab and play all (or most) games on it. So then you build a cab that looks like the original, you like best, and change it to suit your wishes.

Besides,  I don't see why you should repeat a design flaw just to be authentic. I'm desiginging a Galaga cab and from what I remember playing Galaga a lot years ago, is that the way the monitor is mounted on the original Galaga was killing my back. If I had played a couple of hours on Galaga, my back and neck felt like they were completely broken (due to the poor ergonomics of the cab). So that's sure something that I will fix. I'm not building something to please historians, it's meant to play games on and still bring back my childhood memories.  

[Sprucemoose]

I'm not building something to please historians, it's meant to play games on and still bring back my childhood memories.  

At least someone else is on the same page as me.  

[NY_in_TX]

I'm not building something to please historians, it's meant to play games on and still bring back my childhood memories.  

At least someone else is on the same page as me.  

you guys are lucky...those darn historians won't ever leave me alone.  

I can dig the pac man cab done up fighter style, but it's not my thing.  A cab like PiperCub's AND a street fighter style cab would of course be perfect, but we all have to make choices.  

One thing I do like is the attention to detail on the inside, heck if the inside of my cab was that pretty, I'd light it up and put a clear back on it too.

ny

[Daniel270]

Thanks guys for the responses!

Well.. the overall outer design is what I'm shooting for... the monitor setup and CP would definitely have to be more ergonomic than the classic was (I'm in my early 30s, like most of you, and don't think I could stand all day with an achy back and carpal tunnel.. lol).

Also... where would I go to find authentic paint codes for the Pac cab?

Daniel

[General Zod]

I guess it's just a matter of preference when restoring/mameing a cabinet.

I remember the hecklers/historians giving me grief about MAMEing a TRON cabinet. I only wanted the game to live on and I was ready to restore 100% of the damage the cab had already seen. I spent some serious coin getting parts for it also.

Then it hit me ... why mame a TRON cab? I later sold it to a guy who pretty much had all the furniture, but no house. Today that TRON sits in a VW dealership, fully restored.

More or less , I guess I'm just trying to get an idea across. Nobody has to buy into it. I restore VW's as a hobby, and when doing so, the authenticity has to be present on almost everything. I figured, on something you love, and a pasttime such as this ... the same amount of attention should be applied. No harm intended with anything that might have been offensive.

I gotta tell you guys ... these projects/childhood pasttimes have been like a drug to me. I can't get enough, ever .... what started as one cab ... turned into 2 ... and now I have 7. I don't know when to stop.

I mean, 1 vert. & 1 horiz. MAMEcab ... then I went out and decided on a NeoGeo cab ... now a fighting cab. Plus 3 other projects I'm working on for whatever ... and this doesn't even include my wife's games. Albeit, her's are dedicated, and I'm not allowed to mame them.  

Attention to detail on every cab, and people call me crazy ... I mean .. in my own house , I had to have the tamper resistant screws , just becuase the real machine had them!

Whoa !!! After reading what I just wrote  ... I've lost it, litterally. I think the cab looks great, and clean !! A big plus all the way.

I just want to play games ... the ones I couldn't beat as a kid, and finally claim victory.  

Sorry for the testimony y'all!

[patrickl]

Ah, I see. Maybe the issue is restoration vs home built. I was under the assumption someone built this cab from scratch. So then I was impressed with it's looks. I agree that if you restore a classic then it's best to keep it authentic. I'd not be too impressed if this actually is a butchered classic.

I looked up the original thread and it wasn't very clear, but since the guy is basically a PC modder I doubt he built this himself. Funny enough he seems to think his cab is the most impressive case mod ever  

There are a LOT of things about my project that to my knowledge havent ever been done before though. It's not about reinventing the wheel, just making a better one

He is right though, I have never seen a "light hose" in a cab. Or for that matter a window in a cab that would enable people to see the light hose  

[Pipercub]

What if people bitched out everyone who built a kit car or dune bug out of a worn down VW bug? There is a big difference between buying a wrecked or one foot in the grave car and doing a conversion and getting a low mileage cherry original and taking the sawzall to it for a kit car.

Same thing with cabs. I have a MINT Space Invaders dedicated. No way in hell would I ever consider gutting it for a MAME project. However the gutted and dead Space Dual I found at auction for $45 with good side art and marquee was brought back with a MAME interior. The fault with saying a classic should never be MAME ever, is that not very distressed classic gets restored. Most get burned or heaved into the landfill. I fail to see how that is preferable to living on for decades in a new configuration.

[bishmasterb]

What if people bitched out everyone who built a kit car or dune bug out of a worn down VW bug? There is a big difference between buying a wrecked or one foot in the grave car and doing a conversion and getting a low mileage cherry original and taking the sawzall to it for a kit car.

Your car analogy is dead-on. There's nothing wrong with bringing a classic back to life with MAME.

"Butchering" is killing something that is alive. "Resurrecting" is bringing back something from the dead.