new cab - trackball?

[lordnacho]

I'm starting to mentally design a mame cabinet but I live in a weee lil' apt in Manhattan and size will be a huge factor.   In your opinion, is a trackball worth the amount of space it uses?  I really want a two player fighting game layout.

What games do you like that uses the trackball, I was a big sucker for Marble Madness back in the day 

Thanks in advance for any input/suggestions you have for a noob

[DreamWeb]

I just recently purchased a cabinet.. and, I'm sacrificing a little bit of 'looks' in order to add a Control Panel that is big enough to handle the trackball.  It's VERY important to me.

Not only are there great games that use the trackball.. Marble Madness, Centipede, Blades of Steal..  but, it also makes moving around in windows a heck of a lot easier.

I'd do it, if I were you.  A couple of inches more won't make a difference.. unless you really do live in the smallest of all apartments.

david

[lordnacho]

Forgot about centipede, just tried playing on my pc with the arrow keys, not even close to the same.

I've got to do some measuring, it's not really the size of my apartment, but the entrance to it.  When my neighbor moved in, he actually sawed his couch in half and then put it back together inside.  I'm not doing that with my cabinet

[spystyle]

If size is a factor you could consider building a mini.

www.minimame.com

Or build a full size cab and chop it above the monitor, as in the picture below.

Another (more expensive) option would be to build a full size, 1/4 depth cabinet, using a flatscreen monitor, the cabinet could attach to the studs in your wall, like a painting.

http://www20.brinkster.com/mymame/Construction.htm

Or maybe a cabaret cabinet

http://www.ggdb.com/GGDB/DetailsZoom.asp?Cat=All.Coin-Op&VID=2674&PID=5481&NID=1&TID=Game

[Kremmit]

Swapable control panel.  Make one with a fighter layout, and a separate panel with at TB

[lordnacho]

Thanks, some really good ideas here. 
I really like the one with the flatscreen monitor and the swappable control panel is a good idea, the rotatable ones are really cool, ie the Frostillicus one: http://arcade.tomvanhorn.com/main.html