Updated: Thursday, December 2, 2004 @ 2:00pm EST

     Sometime in late 2002 I ran across a small website someone made explaining how they built their very own arcade machine from scratch.  Like so many others, I was immediately infected with the Cabbage virus.  The Cabbage virus detriments hand/eye coordination, causes interruptions during the defragmentation cycle of REM sleep, and may cause your spleen to turn blue.  It is advised that you avoid any contact with the Cabbage virus at all costs, as the only known cure is very expensive, and may very well destroy what little sex life you have left.

     Fearing the social embarrassment of having to go around with a blue spleen for the rest of my life, I sought and acquired the only cure for the virus.  CHRO-MAME was born (stands for Chromed Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator), an elaborate 4-player MAME cabinet I designed and built from scratch.  It boasts:

• 27" Wells Gardner D9200 Arcade Monitor
• 4-Player Control Panel
  • Four eight-way joysticks
  • Eight action buttons per player
  • Two backlite 3" high-rise trackballs
  • Two Oscar Pro Spinner controllers (rotary controller)
• 4-Player U.S. Quarter Coin Door
• The Ability to be Disassembled and Reassembled for Easy Transportation
• Stereo Sound with Subwoofer
• TV Tuner

     Total cost was approximately $2,800.00.  Spending broke down to:

• $880 - Home Depot (wood, paint, glue, ect...)
• $580 - HappControls.com (joysticks, buttons, coin door, trackballs (the coin door and trackballs make up half of this cost))
• $460 - AmericanGamingInc.com (Wells Gardner D9200 27" Arcade Monitor)
• $350 - Misc parts
• $250 - Various computer parts (CPU, motherboard, RAM, case, power supply)
• $180 - OscarControls (spinner/rotary controllers)
• $125 - UltimArc (opti-pac and i-pac controller interface cards)

     If you're looking to build a simpler cabinet, then you can obviously see some area's where you can cut costs.  Going with a smaller monitor, used monitor, or television as a monitor will save you considerable money.

     It took me twelve months to go from idea to completing it in December of 2003 (college coursework delayed "finishing touches" by about three month, so it really took nine months to complete).  This took two to three times longer than it would have if I didn't use the L-Brace system I created to make it modular (the entire unit can be taken apart and put back together again an unlimited number of times for easy transportation - I haven't seen any other MAME cabinets out there that can do this yet).  Most work was done on the weekends and whenever I had some free time.  About 90% of it was done by me, with my father and grandfather filling in the rest.  I still want to add some graphics to the sides of the cabinet eventually, but I haven't found anything I really like yet.

     This website was created mainly to show off my creation (see: My ePenis is Bigger Than Your ePenis).  Actually, many of the ideas that eventually made their way into CHRO-MAME were either taken from, or influenced by, other websites like this one on the internet.  This is my way of giving back to the MAME community.

     You won't find a detailed full how-to-build arcade cabinet guide here.  I could literally write an entire book about the subject (there are one or two out there already).  I had no firm set of instructions or guidelines to build CHRO-MAME.  Rather, I took bits of information from many different websites and pieced them together.  There were many gaps that were left empty I had to fill in myself, but that's how it goes.  What you will find here is just that; bits and pieces of information that should help you cure your case of Cabbage.  Learn from my successes and mistakes.

     The site is broken down into the following sections:

• Start
  • You're here right now (well, not actually "here" here, but here "here")
• Porn
  • The best free cabbage porn the internet has to offer.
• Ware
  • Hard and Soft "ware."  Pretty clever title for a section, eh?
• Data
  • Download templates and artwork I made/modified.
• Lynx
  • Not to be confused with the Atari Lynx.  These are sites I found helpful with this project.