MAMEWorld Forums - Hardware - Re: newbie needs a guru sidekick.

I would throw out the PC monitors if they are anything less than 19 inches, or else you will have a huge, gaping hole inside your arcade machine. If you are playing horizontal games, TV-out might be a better choice (a 51cm/20" CRT TV looks great with games like Street Fighter II). As a rule, forget the TV if you are playing vertical games like Pac-Man or shoot-em-ups, as they are designed for the monitor to be 'on its side' and will not look correct on a standard TV sitting upright. As another rule, make sure you cover up all of the monitor so only the screen's glass is visible (e.g. no monitor/TV surrounds or buttons should be visible; if you use a remote, you could get away with a small hole where the sensor is though; put some dark/black 'artwork' around it with a see-through panel so the sensor can detect the remote).

A list of 'do nots' and some laughs can be found here.

About mounting the PC board etc., why not just fit the entire PC inside the cabinet? Leave some room for airflow (add some holes for ventilation is the machine doesn't have any), and add some fans or things will get very warm inside. If space is a concern (like bartop units), it shouldn't be too hard to simply copy the locations of the mounting screws from inside a PC's case. Just put the brass screw holders into the floor of the cabinet and mount the board thereon. Hard drive enclosures are very useful for this type of design as well, with the right ones, you can screw them into just about anywhere, whether it be the floor, the sides or even upside down inside the cabinet.

Additionally, you could probably make do with a USB stick if the mainboard supports booting from one, they are much more reliable than a 10 year old hard drive which could possibly end up damaged by heavy-handed or rough players, and since the games end up in RAM when loaded by MAME, you won't be sitting there for ages loading when you get to a new level/stage/round.