So after maybe two years of lurking on these message boards, months of deliberation and finally a couple of weeks of building, it's finally at a point where I can show it to the world:
My Cab!!
My Story:I really was never much of a arcade hall kid (You see, I'm
Dutch and there are hardly any arcade venues in the Netherlands). Somehow I got really intrigued by the controls and the retro-look of the cabs on this forum. After lurking here for a couple of months, I was completely hooked. It took some time to convince myself and then the gf and then I started planning
Since the cab had to be placed in our living room (yes, the girlfriend totally rocks!) I really wanted a nice, clean and relatively small cab. I mainly like fighter and platform games so I just wanted a 2 joystick, 6 button-per-player setup. I doubted for a long time about the cab design before going with the Pacman/Galaga shapes. Now that it's finished, I'm REALLY glad I went with this cab design: I love the shapes of my cab!
The second consideration was cost: I wanted to do this on a small budget and I guess it worked out as well: I friend donated a second hand computer and I found a free monitor on the Web. Buttons, joystick and the Ultimarc I-PAC I had shipped over from oklahoma
for about 80 Euros. Wood and paint cost me about 100 Euros and with some miscellaneous costs the total was something like 200 Euros (310 dollars).
Some specifications:- The cab was built with 18mm multiplex, which makes it pretty heavy but nice and sturdy
- It's 1m70cm tall, 61cm wide and 80cm deep
- Inside is a 2.4 Ghz 512MB PC, hooked up with to the buttons through an Ultimarc I-Pac
- 22'' PC monitor
- The temporary Bubble Bobble Marquee is lit by a simple lightbulb
- The control panel opens to reveal the wires, the keyboard and mouse and the power button.
- I don't have t-molding (pretty expensive to ship and install and I don't really miss it). The edges are rounded though and I think it looks really nice
TodoIt's basically 90% finished. Some things that still need to be done:
- A new printed marquee (now its two prints glued together, looks okay but can be better). I'll have to think about a marquee design first.
- Restore and install a very cool coin door I bought off the Internet
- Think about cp- bezel- and side-art. I'm not to sure I want this, I kinda like the 'sophisticated' look of the cab as it stands now, what do you guys think?
Very Special Thanks:- My buddy Jurriaan, for donating his old PC to me.
- All
you guys and gals on this forum! You are the ones that made me drool all over your nice cabs and made me crazy about retro-gaming and building this monster
- My lovely girlfriend, for being crazy enough to allow the beast in her living room
- And last but not least, her father. He is the whole reason this project actually worked out. He had the technical know-how, the tools, and most importantly, the patience with me that made the whole plan a reality. So: Thanks Rob!
Please, have a look at the pics and let me know what you think of the cab and if you have any questions,
don't hesitate to ask!
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Topic: My lovely cab is FINISHED!!! Thanks everyone!! (Read 4673 times)
