Square or widescreen LCD in a vertical-styled cab?

[TheBrokentoken]

I'm considering using a LCD for my next cabinet build (a Donkey Kong-styled MAME) and I've got a couple of questions I'm hoping someone can shed some light on for me based on the fact that I'll be playing both horizontal and vertical games in the cabinet.  I know that a DK cabinet is approximately 22.5-23" wide and my monitor choices will be a bit limited.

• From what I have gathered here on the site, the Sanyo monitor that originally came in the DK cabinet was a 19" monitor in vertical orientation.   What are the dimensions of that screen?
• Does Mario Bros. simply rotate the same monitor to a horizontal layout?  I'm assuming that is the case; the reason I'm asking is I'd like to know how much 'gap' Nintendo left in the non-widebody/conversion cabinets on each side of the monitor....
  
• About the biggest (i.e. affordable for me...) non-widescreen LCD I've seen is 20.x - 21".  Would that play a vertical game like Donkey Kong in close to original size?
• It seems that the horizontal games will fare OK on such a square LCD monitor but the vertical games would be scaled down somewhat... how would I figure out this ratio for a vertical game?

Thanks for any help here - I'm just trying to get my head around how much I'll be giving up on the vertical games with a square screen.   I just want to be able to play both horizontal and vertical games well without having to give up one kind to play the other perfectly, and it seems that if I went to a widescreen LCD in horizontal orientation, my vertical games would be very small. 

Thanks.

I just wish someone made a 27" square LCD!

[ark_ader]

I just use my regular 17" and rotate it via pivot.

My guess is widescreen would look the business.

Depends on the room you have to mount it.

My old cab had a rotating bracket for the LCD.

After a while I decided it was a waste of time and kept it horizontal.

But I do see your point.

Whats the life expectance of a display rotated than a display intended for horizontal viewing?

[torez]

With 19" crt monitors, the viewable area is usually about 18.1".  With 19" lcd, you have 19" vievable area.  20" lcd would fit great, but not sure if you would have enough space to rotate it 90 degrees inside of the cab.  You have some space for mounting and bezel, so it might work.  Of course, widescreen would be even tougher to rotate inside of the cab.  Measure the diagonal size of the monitor (from edge to edge) and see how much room you have from wall to wall in your cab.  Maybe you will be better off going with a bigger 4:3 screen (so it's taller for the same size) and keep the monitor fixed either horizontal or vertical position?  Think I would go with a bigger screen and keep it fixed and put a bezel over it to make it look presentable.  I don't want to see back of the wall every time I play.

[TheBrokentoken]

After a while I decided it was a waste of time and kept it horizontal.

But I do see your point.

Whats the life expectance of a display rotated than a display intended for horizontal viewing?

That's the same thing that I'm planning on doing (keeping it horizontal) and playing vertical games in that manner.

Think I would go with a bigger screen and keep it fixed and put a bezel over it to make it look presentable.

Yeah, that's the only workable option I see in order to play both types of games reasonably well.  Otherwise I'd be sticking a horizontal game on a vertical monitor and I bet that would look far worse than vertical games on a reasonably large horizontal monitor.   I don't want to rotate the monitor, so having it fixed is optimal.