My converted arcade cab

[AdamDawes]

Well after wanting one for a long long time, I finally have a MAME cabinet put together.

I found a company near me that deal in amusement machines and they had this old cab sitting out in a hayloft on a farm, looking rather sorry for itself. I brought it home, spent quite some time cleaning it up, and I think it's starting to look pretty good now. Some pictures (at various stages through its renovation) are here:

I'm still waiting for my I-PAC to arrive (any day now I'm promised) so that I can actually use the thing, though, which is quite frustrating.  But still, the feeling when I first got the monitor secured in the cabinet (which was quite a task in itself, and took me most of a day) and started up a game in attract mode was one that I'll remember for a long time to come -- it really felt like the dream of having an arcade machine of my own had finally come true.

Anyway, I also wanted to ask if anyone knows what this cabinet used to be? The marquee reads "CHALLENGER TWO / ADELPHI COIN". I originally assumed that Challenger Two was a game, but despite the existence of a game called Challenger, it doesn't appear to have a sequel. Could this be a brand of cabinet rather than the name of the game?

My thanks in advance,

Adam.
  www.adamdawes.com

[Apollo]

That's some good work there Adam, what size PC monitor did you use, it looks massive.

[AdamDawes]

Hi Apollo,

Thanks -- it's been good fun working on it actually.

It's a 21" Philips monitor that we were getting rid of at work. It's not great for working on as it suffers from ghosting on the picture and won't sync to a high refresh rate, but for low-res gaming it's just perfect.

It took me about 2 hours to get the base off so that it would fit vertically (I ended up attacking it with a hammer and a drill -- was a relief to find it still worked afterwards), and there's about 1cm clearance on each side of the monitor. It sticks out the back of the cabinet, which is a shame, but I can live with it -- no one looks at the back of the cab after all!

[Witchboard]

It's probably best anyway for cooling the monitor since you didn't remove the casing.  Lookin' good.

[RetroJames]

It does look cool,welcome to the board.  That 21" IS SWEET

[AdamDawes]

Thanks SpaceCadet, glad you like it. My I-PAC just arrived so I can't wait to get home tonight and wire it all in.

[DarkKobold]

OMG NOT A CHALLENGER TWO CAB.... ok, what is Challenger two?
j/k

It looks good. Where are you from? That cab just doesn't look American for some reason.

[elvis]

It looks good. Where are you from? That cab just doesn't look American for some reason.

It looks very much like the cabs I was used to as a kid here in Australia.  We typically have the same gear as the rest of Asia.

[AdamDawes]

It looks good. Where are you from? That cab just doesn't look American for some reason.

I'm in the UK. In what way does it differ from a cab you'd expect to find in America?

Adam.

[BobbyG66]

Looks "normal" to me.

In the US if anything looks weird we just say "Oh that must be from Europe or something..."

[DarkKobold]

It looked different mainly by the joysticks and the wood grain. I've never seen that painted wood look before in an american cab. Plus, the odd joysticks are always a foreign country thing.

Plus my psychic abilities are doing quite well.