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Making arcade cabinet (MAME running)

e14 Contributor

I had this idea, about making cabinet, like old arcade games, and install monitor and pc inside it. I will make buttons and joystick like in original arcade machines.

 

Well, my idea was to put full PC on windows running my custom MAME interface optimised for my contol scheme, and then i saw Ben Hecks show and this completely blow my head xD My question is, can i use some cheaper ARM boards like Raspberry Pi or something similar (it can also be on x86 platform). I think that those ARM CPUs aren't that fast to run MAME like x86 CPUs. If you have any idea, please share it, thanks!

  • I would recommend looking a yard and garage sales whenever you spot one. I often pick up lower powered PCs for sometimes as little as $5! Another thing to look into is state surplus sales. My family has scored powerful laptops for extremely cheap at a state surplus sale a few years back.

  • I don't recommend getting a computer from garage sales, but then again, I'm not from the states, perhaps yours are better image.

    However, even the Rev A of the Raspberry Pi has enough power to run MAME. Remember, these old games did run on in todays standards, the less power than what a TI calculator packs (well, more or less).

     

    Here's an example:

     

    http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/tag/mame

     

    The Pi makes a perfect MAME partner. I would however, recommend garage sales and such for controllers! Those bastards are durable, and even a broken one is usually a easy fix! But then again, get what you can where you can!

     

    If your rig will however do more than MAME-stuff, NES/SNES/N64/PS2 etc, I would recommend a mini-itx/nano-itx (I think VIA's pico-itx isn't really on sale anymore..).

     

    Edit: Wow, I totally forgot that Ben made a portablePi a few episodes back.. So, build a bigger-better-more awesome cabinet and you're done! image