20th Century Gamer

Bartops combine the monitor, speakers, and controls into a unit designed for tabletop use. Like cocktail designs, bartops were often found in service-oriented locations. Card, board, gambling, puzzle, sports, or trivia games appealed to the widest range of users and cognitive abilities. A barfly can enjoy video poker, whereas the traditional arcade action becomes difficult when coordination skills are lost after multiple drinks.

Looking beyond the traditional venue, a bartop MAME is a great solution for those without space or a significant other willing to put up with a full-sized machine. A few years ago we created several DIY plans adapted from classic bartop arcade machines. Three of the designs can accommodate 15″ and some 17″ CRTs, while six designs are for LCD displays up to 19″. All are straightforward enough that they can be easily customized for different control panels and larger displays. With a few modifications, the plans can also be used to build a full-sized upright.

If you’re interested in building a MAME cabinet, be sure to stop by Bartop Arcade to see if there is anything useful for your project. Best of all, our designs are provided free of charge. If you use one of the designs as the basis of your MAME project, please contact us as we’d love to see your work!

Commercial arcade cabinets were over-built to withstand public abuse. Their hollow, mostly empty interiors facilitated passive cooling and accommodated cabinet reuse with conversions. Most MAME cabinet designs duplicate commercial machines, with all components in a large heavy-duty wooden enclosure. It seems obvious to copy commercial cabinets when recreating the arcade experience, but is it necessary?

Part of the arcade experience was the screen and heavy-duty controls positioned at the proper height for play while standing, but the large cabinet isn’t necessary to duplicate arcade ergonomics. I’ve often toyed with the idea of creating a modern MAME machine that takes a completely new approach to cabinet design. Larry Gilbert beat me to it with his Omnicade.

In so many ways, Omnicade makes sense. Omnicade’s form is dictated by its function. The core working components for any MAME project are the computer running the emulation, the arcade controls, a monitor, speakers, and often a keyboard for occasional computer access. When used at home, there isn’t any functional reason that everything must be locked away and hidden. The large heavy cabinet, coin slots, and marquee aren’t necessary so they aren’t included. Because Omnicade doesn’t look like a traditional arcade machine, it also seems more fitting that it emulates home consoles than when the Atari 2600, NES, or Sega Genesis are emulated in a traditional arcade-style MAME cabinet. Last but not least, Omnicade requires much less space than most upright MAME cabinets yet provides the same gaming experience.

Omnicade obviously isn’t for everyone, since many prefer that a MAME cabinet include coin slots, a backlit marquee, and a traditional cabinet enclosure. Personally, I like at least a 21″ display when playing arcade games. I’m also unsure if Omnicade would satisfy my nostalgia quotient, since it’s aesthetic deviates so much from the classic arcade form. Regardless, Omnicade has inspired me to “think outside of the box” when designing my next MAME cabinet.

Without question, Centipede is one of the most iconic arcade machines. The game was an important part of the evolution of top-down shooters, the Atari cabinet design was functional and attractive, and the cabinet artwork among the best of any arcade machine. Copying the Centipede machine for a MAME cabinet is a excellent idea, and that’s exactly what John Burton Brown did.

John’s blog describes why he picked Centipede as the inspiration for his MAME cabinet, and an accompanying photo gallery shows the project in different stages of construction. The attention to detail is impressive, and I suspect that this machine looks better than most Centipede machines did when they came off the assembly line.

I’ve been involved in several discussions where people question why someone would build a copy of an arcade machine instead of finding a real one that’s broken, gutting it, and installing the MAME components. Using a real cabinet is an option, but I have yet to find a non-working machine that isn’t a restoration nightmare. The time and expense to restore beat-up cabinets is often more than building one from scratch. Being new, John’s Centipede replica is in better shape than any of the real machines I’ve seen for sale.

For anyone interested in the creating their own replica cabinet, Jakobud has plans with dimensions for Centipede and three dozen other arcade machines.