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I thought of an idea. A self-contained MAME control panel
WaverBoy:
Arcade In A Box has been discontinued, so none can be bought at the website, unfortunately. I think it's a fantastic idea, by the way...all it needs is a spinner, a button-topped joystick, and a four-way joystick, and then we're talking.
AlanS17:
As cheap as mini-itx boards may be by comparison, I would say put the board in a set-top box rather than inside the control panel. Then load the sucker up with every emulated game ever made (arcade, nes, snes, atari, genesis, etc).
Then if you want a control panel build one seperate. Most mini-itx cases have usb ports on the front so setup is a snap. Plus this way you could also use traditional control pads, keyboards, mice, or ANY other input device depending on what you're doing.
I've really researched those mini-itx boards. They would be great for recording TV and video/music playback. Why limit yourself to just playing MAME?
That actually exactly what I want to do with my next project! ;D
Smittydc:
Just this weekend I was playing mame outdoors on a projection screen using a portable homebuilt mini-itx computer. Works great!
www.mini-itx.com is a good place to start if you're interested in building one.
Brad Lee:
gtjoe:
I am in the process of building one. I plan on using this to play mame on my TV as well be a DivX movie server and MP3 jukebox.
I have an existing control panel only design that is 27"x11"x6" with 2 joysticks with 7 buttons each, a spinner in the center, ipac , and a 4 port USB in the back.
I was working on new cp to add a Imperial 3" track ball and a 4 way balltop joystick. The cp is now 30"x16"x6".
Since the cp grew so much, there was room to put full ATX mb, 300 watt power, hard drive and cd drive inside and a VGA card with TV out. These will all be mounted to a piece of plywood used as the base of the CP. I also plan to put some computer speakers inside and mount the speaker grills on the outside. Also bought a Logitech Cordless Elite Duo setup for wireless control.
Now I just need to assemble it all...