/vr/ - Retro Games

Whew lad that's a pretty old PC to be turning into a MAME cab but it's pretty ideal to turn into a Windows 98 gaming PC. If you're dead set on building a cheap ass mame cab out of it, I'd suggest starting with some kind of narrow shelving unit from Goodwill to hold its monitor which I hope is a VGA CRT up at about five feet high or so. Get a couple sheets of particle board or wafer board and cut them into arcade-cab-shaped sides. This'll be the most important step to making it look nice. Screw 'em into the sides of the shelves, get some plexiglass to make the marquee and monitor bezel then scrounge up some scrap wood to make the front and control panel. Use some cheap Playstation arcade sticks with a blue v shaped USB adapter. If you're going to use an LCD monitor and you want the materials to be even cheaper (just one sheet of wood) you can build a Vigolix. They look pretty good, see pic related. Much more detailed instructions available online, too.