Here you will find how to build an arcade games machine in a retro style upright cabinet from scratch. Although our example looks and feels like a coin-op arcade video game from the late 70's or early 80's it is actually a self build m.d.f. cabinet housing a PC and a 21" television. 

 

Now that computers are much more affordable than they once were it is feasible to buy one just to run a games emulator, the software needed to run the original arcade games. The most renowned emulator is MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) which aims to run just about every arcade game manufactured on a personal computer in software. 

 

If you want the games to play like the originals you need arcade controls, now widely available, and a way to wire these to the PC, via a keyboard encoder. The games will look much more vibrant too if they can be displayed at the original games resolution which is usually much lower than that of a computer monitor. The original games used low resolution arcade monitors that display a dot of bright light for every pixel of the game. However a TV can be used instead if it has an RGB input or a SCART input which is then wired to a low res VGA video card such as the ArcadeVGA by Ultimarc.  

 

Once the basics are sorted out then a marquee with back light, decent powered speakers and artwork can be added together with a single external power switch to turn on all the electrical equipment inside. 

 

Unlike some of the fantastically well crafted arcade cabinets seen on the internet ours was made with basic tools, the only power tools used being a drill and sander. We limited the size of the control panel and number of buttons and joysticks to keep the classic cabinet look and feel. What this cabinet lacks in craftsmanship, finish and having a panel with every known controller it hopefully makes up for in ease of construction, reasonable cost, retro feel and usability. 

 

 

 

A few years back I came across a program called MAME™ that could run arcade games on a PC, which looked to me identical to those classics I played on the coin-operated machines in my youth. After accidentally hitting the windows key during a really tricky level in Space Harrier, my son suggested we make our own arcade machine with buttons and joysticks with the computer housed inside a box. A brief search of the internet revealed we were not the only ones who had thought of building such a cabinet and we found a wealth of useful information to set us on the road of creating our retro-dream. 

 

The project proved to be much more complex than we originally thought and we made a few mistakes on the way. However sometimes the journey is as rewarding as reaching the destination and building the machine proved to be as much fun as playing the games. 

 

The aim of this site is to document our design aims, show how we constructed the cabinet, what it was made with, how the software is configured and acknowledge those who influence our design. 

 

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