I'm Mike Trello. I discovered MAME several years before I finally decided to build a cabinet of my own. In the fall of 2002, that casual interest turned into a project. Less than two months later, I was building my first full-size MAME cabinet.
At the time, my woodworking experience was fairly limited. I spent much more time researching the project than actually building it, and I was fortunate to have a friend with more woodworking experience to bounce ideas off of — and, just as importantly, to borrow tools from.
That experience is really what ArcadeCab has always been about: documenting how I built something well enough that someone else can build it too.
From a personal project to ArcadeCab.com
The original site was hosted at mtrello1.tripod.com and existed simply to document the construction of my first cabinet. As more people found the plans, traffic eventually outgrew what the old Tripod site could provide. ArcadeCab.com went online in February 2004.
For a short period beginning in 2004, ArcadeCab also became a small business selling arcade-related products. I closed the store about two and a half years later so I could focus on other neglected projects, but I kept the website — and the projects — online.
More than twenty years later, that's still what ArcadeCab is. The old store is now part of the site's history, while the plans, projects, construction photographs and other information remain freely available.
The cabinet plans
ArcadeCab now has two complete sets of full-size arcade cabinet plans.
The Original Cabinet Plans document the cabinet that started the site. I initially built it around an X-Arcade controller, with the thought that I could build my own controller later after I had a better idea of what I actually wanted. About six months later, I did exactly that and built a custom controller.
Cabinet Plans 2 came later and documents another full-size cabinet in considerably more detail, incorporating things learned from the original build.
Neither set of plans is intended to be the only way to build an arcade cabinet. You can follow the dimensions closely, modify them for your own needs, or simply use the hundreds of construction photographs and explanations for ideas.
More than cabinet plans
Over the years, ArcadeCab grew to include a number of other projects: control panels, trackball projects, the BarCade tabletop cabinet, a single-player design, software configurations and other arcade-related experiments.
Some of those projects are now historical. Hardware disappears, websites vanish, and software that was commonplace twenty years ago may no longer run on a modern PC. I've chosen to preserve much of that material rather than remove it simply because it's old.
At the same time, I'm gradually updating the site to make the material easier to find and use on modern computers, tablets and phones. The goal isn't to erase ArcadeCab's history; it's to make that history easier to use.
Visitor's Cabs
One of my favorite parts of the site has always been seeing what other people build.
The Visitor's Cabs gallery contains cabinets created by people who used these plans, modified them, or simply found inspiration here. Some closely resemble my original cabinets; others went in completely different directions.
If ArcadeCab helped you build yours, I'd still enjoy seeing it. Send me a few pictures and some information about your cabinet at visitorcabs@arcadecab.com.
About me
I've spent my career working in information technology, but ArcadeCab grew out of my interest in computers, classic arcade games, woodworking and figuring out how things work.
I wasn't an experienced cabinetmaker when I started this. That's an important part of why the plans became as detailed as they did. I wanted to document the process from the perspective of someone learning along the way rather than assume the reader already knew how to build furniture.
That first cabinet turned into a website, the website briefly turned into a business, and the site eventually became an archive covering more than twenty years of arcade-building projects.
I'm glad people are still finding it useful.
— Mike