Retro gaming is very fun. Unfortunatly, the vintage consoles and games will break the bank. Emulators are a great place to start, but simply running them on a PC sort of takes away from the game. I set out to build an all-in-one machine to play every game from Asteroids to Halo.
To minimize cost, I planned on only buying two sheets of medium density fiberboard and all the pieces would then be cut out. Below is the template for a 4' x 8' sheet that includes everything needed to make a simple cabinet.
To make the pieces fit together, each will need to be cut with angled edges. Finding and cutting these angles can be very tedious, but is worth it.
I also began to work on the internals and the monitor. HAPP makes great arcade parts and can be purchased for not a lot of money. I did have to fabricate a bracket for the monitor.
A fresh coat of black paint does it justice and with the blue trim it looks even better. Due to a time crunch to enter this arcade machine in a showcase, I did not quite finish it and the computer was a Raspberry Pi running PiMAME [since renamed to PiPlay]. Casters were added to help roll it around.
Once I finished building the arcade machine initially, I began to think of many different things I could do to it to make it even better. Next I proceeded to modify what I had already made.