Ms Pac-Man MAME cabinet

Ms Pac-Man MAME cabinet

Ever since discovering MAME games , I thought it would be cool to make a replica of an old arcade machine. In case you don't know, MAME stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, and works by emulating old video games on a PC. That fact that it is an emulation of the original programs that ran on these machines, means that it is an almost exact replica, unlike some of the versions available for games consoles.

I originally bought some joysticks and buttons back in 2001, plus an original Ms Pac-Man marquee on eBay. What with buying a house, the MAME cabinet got put on the back burner. However, in 2009, I found myself with some extra time on my hands, and got to work...

Click on the pictures to enlarge...


Since I already had the controls, I figured I'd start there. The first prototype control panel I made from a piece of our computer desk that didn't get used. I wasn't really happy with the looks of this first attempt, the buttons looked too far apart. The rear view shows how these joysticks work, they each have four microswitches, but notice how the centre joystick has a round actuator (4-way), and the two outer ones are square (8-way). The 8-way sticks can cause problems with older games, so I planned on wiring the left and middle joysticks together, and using whatever one suited the game being played. The second version of the control panel looked much better, with the buttons all nice and tight to each other. I also found room to squeeze in a trackball at the end for games like Centipede. The red and blue buttons are game controls, the white ones are ancilliary controls for the MAME emulator like game reset, coin in, player start etc., and the yellow buttons are left and right mouse buttons.

I was able to cut away most of the trackball case, leaving just the base and circuit board. As luck would have it, the trackball ball was the same size as an 8 ball I had lying around, how cool is that? The trackball was in a box of old computer parts, never been used.	I got the shape of the side pieces by taking a big sheet of cardboard to a local arcade that had a Ms Pac-Man machine, and tracing the outline. I also took some measurements off the cabinet, like the height of the control panel and the monitor. I was able to find some plans on-line taken from another original cabinet, and was able to use a combinaton of all these things to work out where the shelf supports needed to go.

Here is a trial build of the cabinet, put together in time for my surprise 40th birthday party, where everybody thought it was great. Sharp eyed observers will notice a groove cut around the edge of the cabinet, this is for the T-moulding. Notice also that I made the final version of the control panel from MDF, and installed the shelf for the HEAVY 21" monitor and trial fitted this. I wanted to run a CRT monitor to keep the feel of an original video game, although this Viewsonic monitor has a very flat screen, something the original monitors never had. I bought this monitor for $60 from an ad on CraigsList.

Here is a rear view of the monitor sitting on the shelf.	I planned on mounting the speakers facing fowards, rather than the original cabinet design where they point down towards the monitor. As luck would have it, I bought a pair of small bookshelf speakers from Radio Shack for $20, and when I took the drivers out, I found the woofers were magnetically shielded. The tweeters came from Parts Express for $10 each, these too are shielded.

The rear view shows the bucking magnets on the back of the drivers, eliminating stay magnetic fields that would distort the picture on the monitor.	The monitor surround (bezel) was made from a sheet of Perspex or plexiglass. I carefully masked off where the different colours were, and used some spray paint bought from Home Depot. The control panel was painted the same way. I searched for ages to find a plate to hold the trackball 8 ball in place, finally I found a door lock plate in my local hardware store. I also moved the mouse buttons over to the other side.

One of the interesting things about the original Ms Pac-Man cabinets was that the side art was painted on, probably by hand. I found the side art in a PDF file on-line, and thought about printing it out on paper, making stencils, and painting it on myself. I made several enquiries at places that produce vehicle graphics, they wanted between $300-400! I mentioned it to a friend at a further education class I was attending, he said he dealt with a sign company that printed stuff on vinyl, and got me a quote which was far less than anyone else. The results are really impressive, thanks for your help Stu! The cabinets were sanded down, primed, and painted with the same blue Rust-Oleum Painters Touch spray paint bought from Home Depot. I let them dry for about a week before applying the graphics. These are applied much the same was as vehicle graphics, or even the window tinting film that you can put on car windows. As you peel off the backing paper, squirt it with a very weak mixture of water and washing up liquid. This lets you move the graphics around on the panel without too much resistance. Once the decals are in the correct place, you squeeze the water out with a window squeegee. Because I was using a multi-colour printing process instead of decals cut from coloured vinyl, I was able to add more colour to the original artwork. I gave Ms Pac-Man some blue eye shadow and blue shoes, and the big ghost chasing her on the side panels I changed to red, because he is the baddest one in the game. The three ghosts along the bottom of the cabinet were also changed to their correct colours of pink, orange, and cyan. Both the ghosts and Ms Pac-Man had yellow eyes, so I changed this to white. I lost track of the amount of changes I made, I have included a picture of the original artwork above so you can see the before and after version.

Finally, I was able to start putting the cabinet back together. Like the originals, I painted the interior surfaces of the cabinet black. I also installed the T-moulding around the edges, and this really set it off. I did think about getting a real coin door so I could feed the machine quarters in order to play a game, but decided against it. I had already enlarged the front artwork bigger than normal, which didn't leave much room for a coin door. Plus there is a 21" monitor right behind when the coin door would sit, and I wasn't sure there would be enough room inside. The view inside shows the floor panel. I did think about gluing everything together, but decided against it, as it's easy to take the machine apart in case we ever move.

A chance visit to a Goodwill store while we were on vacation in North Carolina turned up this Yamaha A-20 amplifier. Though dirty on the outside, the insides were clean after blowing out with compressed air, and it worked fine. I carefully de-soldered the volume, bass and treble controls, and mounted the amp in the top of the cabinet. I also installed the crossovers for the speakers at this time, these came from Parts Express. The front view shows the amp temporarily hooked up to my CD Walkman, it's a shame to hide those LED power meters, maybe I'll mount them on the front panels somewhere.

Here is a close-up of the amplifier controls. I had to mount them on a piece of aluminium plate, as the wood is too thick to allow them to be mounted directly. The knobs from the amplifier were re-used, and although they are hidden from view, you can easily alter the volume during the game. Once the amp was installed, I could then install the light for the marquee.

The control panel was fitted, the bright colours really contrast against the black side panels. What you can't see (should have taken a picture) is the KeyWiz40-St keyboard encoder that I got from GroovyGameGear. This little circuit board takes the place of a keyboard, you just run your joystick and button wires to it, and connect it to your keyboard port.	I put some black electrical tape around the outside of the screen, so it wouldn't show once the monitor bezel was in place. The metal strip along the front of the control panel is just a carpet stair strip, painted black. I painted the trackball plate yellow to match the stripes.	Here is the original Ms Pac-Man marquee all lit up in all her glory. Again, the metal strips holding it in place are painted carpet stair strips.

The PC I used for this machine was an old Dell Optiplex GX260 (thanks again Stu). Destined for scrap, this PC gets a new lease of life as the heart of this MAME cabinet. As well as running MAME, I also installed iTunes on it and copied of my collection of MP3s, so we can use it as a jukebox.	The rear view shows a 6" cooling fan (thanks Tee), sucking out air right behind the monitor. I added an IEC power connector at the bottom which uses a standard PC power cable, and I cut two ventilation holes. I might paint these panels blue one day.	Here it is, all up and ready to go. The MAME software takes care of the screen rotation, but I can also rotate the Windows screen by holding down two buttons and moving the joystick.

Here are some more pictures of it up and running. It's difficult taking pictures of video screens, so I tried one with and one without the flash. My wife went on it for a "quick game" and an hour had soon passed by. On my first attempt, I broke my high score on Galaga, and my legs ached from standing there so long. Maybe I should have put a coin door on it so it only runs when you put money in? It's so addictive having a full sized video game in the house, with proper controls and a big CRT screen. There isn't really anything left to do, just some tidying up. I have to make some in-fill panels to close the gaps either side of the marquee, as the cabinet is about 2" wider than the original. I might paint the rear panels blue, but that can wait until another day. I did make an elaborate cooling duct from scrap MDF so the fan sucks air right from what used to be the top of the monitor. But the monitor seems to run cool enough with the fan without the ducting. Thanks to my understanding wife for allowing me to use our dining room as a Ms Pac-Man construction site.