I have a person who is giving me my first cabinet. Its an Area 51/Maximum Force cabinet. It looks like a standard Area 51 cabinet. He says all it needs is a new power supply. How hard would it be to change it into a MAME/DAPHNE cab using a GameEx front end. The software is easy for me, its the hardware i am not very good with. I know i would need a new control panel. Would i have to swap the monitor or could use the existing one? This is my first cabinet project and could use any and all advice..
Many Thanks
Well, I am not one for converting/hacking-up original dedicate cabinets to MAME. But, I guess I can't talk, my Ms. Pac has MAME in it.
However, it's all original. I just plugged a JAMMA adapter into it and bought a second control panel.
Anyways...
I am not sure that's the best cabinet to MAME since it's a gun game and the control panel is at an angle. I think it could turn out pretty crappy.
Personally, I'd try to find a Dynamo style cabinet.
But...
If you were to do it, you'd need to wire up the cab with a JAMMA harness then get yourself a J-PAC. That's how I'd go about it. You'll also need a PC with a video card that outputs 15K so you can use the original monitor. You can do this with the soft15 driver or use the arcadeVGA video card.
All that stuff is here:
http://www.ultimarc.com/jpac.htmlhttp://www.ultimarc.com/avgainf.htmlhttp://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Custom_display_modes_(Windows)_-_Soft-15khz
