Here is the inside of my cocktail arcade table, in all its nerdy glory. I tried to be neat in installing these components, and I agonized over their placement before cutting holes with my jigsaw, drilling, and screwing things into place.

Motherboard

Ever walk back from the coffee shop one morning and notice a complete computer system waiting at the curb for the trash men? No? Well, that happened to me. I found an HP Pavilion tower PC (1.3GHz Pentium 4 / 60Gb disk / 128Mb RAM / nVidia TNT2 Pro / nice audio / IEEE1394 / USB / etc.) just ready for the trash heap and took it home. It had a broken Windows ME installation on it, so in mere moments I wiped it and installed Mandrakelinux 10.1 on it. Nothing beats a free computer, huh?

Since the case was superfluous, I dissected the system and extracted its parts. Here is the motherboard:

Monitor

I did lots of research on which monitor to use in the arcade cabinet. The cocktail table kits from Arcade Depot are designed to accept real 19-inch arcade monitors, but I initially thought I could figure out how to mount my old ViewSonic E790 inside the cabinet. After removing its plastic housing and taking some measurements, I decided that the likelihood of problems was too high, and the screen's curvature and aspect ratio were going to lead to a rough fit.

So I abandoned that effort and purchased a Vision Pro 19" SVGA horizontal mount monitor from Happ Controls. The monitor looks like a real arcade monitor (probably because it is) and it was relatively easy to mount.

Disk Drives

I mounted the hard disk and a DVD reader on the bottom of the cabinet, close enough to the PSU and motherboard for the cables to reach. The DVD reader is actually mounted under the coin box, but the throw of the drawer will clear any obstacles so I can insert and remove DVDs or CDs by reaching through the coin door. I don't expect to do this often, but it's nice to know that I can.

Power

I initially tried to use a new 400W power supply instead of the 250W power supply from the HP, but it would appear that the HP's power supply is different in some basic way from a generic ATX12V PSU. So I aborted the attempt, returning the non-working 400W PSU to MicroCenter, and just went with the one that was in the trashpicked computer. Oh well.

One issue with the computer/video/monitor setup I've used is that, when you power down the computer, the monitor continues to receive power, and the monitor shows a flashing message telling you that it's not getting a signal. The only solution would seem to be to unplug the arcade machine entirely, in order to power down the monitor.

I've installed a special power strip called a Smart Strip that resolves this problem by using the amount of current drawn from one outlet to control whether other outlets should also receive power. So, plug the computer's power supply into the "control" outlet, and other AC-powered peripherals into the "slave" outlets, and when the computer powers down, so does everything else. With this power strip, I am able to control everthing from the single pushbutton.

Audio

I purchased a Creative Inspire T3000 2.1 audio system to use in the cabinet, because the subwoofer box contained a decent stereo amplifier with a 100Hz crossover. I removed the sub and amp and cut down the subwoofer box so it could hold the amp's PCB and mounting plate. I then glued the remaining box in the corner of the cabinet, with all of the connectors facing into the cabinet.

Another nice feature of this system is that power, volume, bass level and a headphone jack are present on a wired remote, which I have mounted under the player-one control box on the outside of the cabinet. So I can control volume and bass and listen to headphones without any trouble.

I purchased a set of Aura Bass Shakers, one of which replaces the subwoofer speaker that came with the computer speaker set. The bass shaker translates the lower frequencies, originally intended for the subwoofer, into rumbles eminating from the cabinet, enhancing the effect of many games' soundtracks. I mounted the bass shaker low on the player-one panel, far enough away from the monitor that its magnet doesn't affect the CRT. The ratings of the subwoofer and bass shaker (wattage and impedence) are very similar, so I'm not worried about frying anything, ''except'' I'm worried that the heavy vibrations will cause premature hard disk failure. Heck, disks are cheap and backups are easy, right?

Power Button and LEDs

How do you turn on the arcade machine and know it's on? You mount a power button and LEDs by drilling holes. I used the power/LED leads from the motherboard and replaced the power button with a mini-button available at Radio Shack or Arcade Depot.

USB/FireWire/Serial Bracket

On the front of the HP computer was a bracket that supplied two USB ports, a FireWire (IEEE 1394) port, and a 9-pin serial port. Using scrap wood that resulted from cutting a hole for the coin door, I fashioned a bracket with my jigsaw to mount this bracket inside the cabinet. I don't presently have a purpose for the FireWire or serial ports, but they may come in handy in the future.

My initial plan was to mount this bracket so it appeared on the outside of the cabinet, but my jigsaw skills are just not good enough to accomplish this, plus I needed the USB ports on the inside anyway.

IPAC²

The controls (joysticks, buttons) really act as alternate ways of pressing normal keyboard keys. This is made possible through the wonder of little device called an I-PAC² from Ultimarc

The I-PAC² is a small PCB that goes between the computer and a normal computer keyboard. Connected to the I-PAC² are simple buttons that close and open a circuit.

Coin Door

I debated for a long time whether to include an authentic coin door, so I could harvest quarters from my friends and effectively limit how long they linger in my living room playing video games. In fact, I think it just looks cool. I finally decided that I would really like to have this feature, so I got the real thing.

The coin door from Happ Controls has two 14V bulbs that I am powering from the computer's power supply. I added a molex connector and connected the yellow (+12V) wire and black (GND) wires to both bulbs. The voltage is sufficient. I crimped .110 female quick-disconnects onto 22AWG wire for these connections.

The coin mechanisms are connected to the I-PAC² interface, so that when a U.S. quarter is dropped in, it will toggle a switch that closes a circuit that acts like pressing the '5' and '6' keys. The game software interprets these keys to mean the first and second coin slots.

Wireless Keyboard/Mouse

In order to avoid wires (besides the power cord) from stringing away from the cabinet, the cabinet encloses a Logitech wireless keyboard/mouse transceiver. One lead is connected to the I-PAC² (which is then connected to the keyboard connector on the motherboard), and another lead is connected to a USB bus for the mouse.

Wireless Internet

The cocktail table will connect to the Internet using a Netgear MA111 USB wifi adapter, if it is in proximity to a wireless 802.11b access point. This is useful if you want the table to also act like an Internet radio, web browser, email checker, headline reader, or other purposes that require Internet access.

Wireless Remote Control

For good measure, the cocktail table has a wireless remote control. Unlike IR (infrared) remotes, RF (radio frequency) remotes do not need a line-of-sight to the receiver. The remote I'm using came with an ATI All-in-Wonder video card. In Linux, there is a kernel module called ati_remote that translates key presses on the remote into simulated mouse and keyboard actions. So, if your DVD player software allows key remapping (like mplayer), then you can use the remote control while watching DVDs on your cocktail table monitor.

This also works well for MP3 players, so while no one is playing games, the table can act like an MP3 jukebox.

Cooling Fans

What a tragedy it would be to finish building the table, turn it on, and have it fry itself due to lack of adequate air flow. So I cut three holes, 8cm in diameter, along the bottom hinge panel, and mounted three Antec PC cooling fans (red, green and blue) to exhaust warm air out the back. There are two 8cm holes on the front panel of the cabinet to allow air into the cabinet, so air is constantly flowing across the motherboard and power supply.