As promised I have included a links site to direct readers to any information resources which I have either drawn heavily on myself or failed to elaborate in depth on. I hope everyone realizes that virtually no idea is ever original anymore. Most are all merely adaptations of other people's good work. I covet my research links as much as my own designs, because they are functionally extensions of my own project inspirations and worthy acknowledgments in hard work.
I'm certain I've missed something in this list, so check back periodically to see updates, or contact me with questions.
Information Sites
Arcade Controls - This is probably the largest repository of knowledge on cabinet building on the internet at the moment. It has a lexicon of terminology, a catalog of examples, separate pages for various components, technique pages for assembly and modification, and even a vendor list. This is the best starting point for persons interested in starting their own project or just seeing what's been done already. My suggestion for those interested is to start at the wiki page: BYOACWiki.
Arcade Depot - A walk through cabinet site committed to helping readers determining what kind of cabinet design is appropriate for each builder. Lot of good resource links here as well.
Slagcoin - One of the best sites for referencing critical measurements, construction techniques, finishing, and wiring. This site should be thoroughly digested before investing any time, effort, and moeny into construction.
Instructional Sites
Sketch-Up Tutorials - Google has done a fairly decent job making Sketch-Up accessible to the average user. The video tutorials provide both basic and advance instruction in the use of its native tools as well as some practical exercises to make the training easy to understand and retain.
Illuminated Pushbutton Tutorial - There are several of these instructionals floating around the net, but this one appeared to provide the greatest detail. Hack and Mod is a pretty good site for finding other cabinet related how-to projects.
Illuminated Leaf-Switch Tutorial - Knieval uses a double LED illumination method which I may have to utilize for several of the non-pre-fabricated buttons on the 2P Special Input panel, This is a link to his forum thread that describes how he did it.
Illuminated Joystick Tutorial - This instructional provides the technical details for hacking a Sanwa JLF joystick. Finding these parts prefabricated is extremely difficult now, so its important to have this information on hand.
Sanwa JLF/JLW/Ultimarc U360 top mounting guide - Pretty complete guide on cutting and routing patterns for these difficult joystick patterns. Really, anything with pictures impresses me...
Cabinet Examples
The Neon Mame - One of my primary sources of inspiration for designing the look of my cabinet's exterior. Lots of glowy flashy good stuff on this example.
The Modern Cocktale - Not my favorite as far as design goes, but great choices made for exterior design again.
Artifact Game Museum - This is the cabinet which game me the idea to use Sketch-Up as a design tool. In alot of way their design is much cleaner then mine.
1Up's Pac-MAMEA - The rotating paneled design I used for my cabinet was based on this example. This coincidentally is a very famous home cabinet and is widely accepted as the quintessential home cabinet design for any enthusiast to model. The designer sold his domain a while ago, so you'll find alot of broken links on other sites. Mine will take you directly to his new site.
Supercade - Another superb design that features tiered control platforms. Alot of my original space management toil was attributed to this design.
Rototron - A cabinet example that took the rotating panel idea to some serious lengths. Features a two paneled, seven-sided (yes 7...) rotating control surface, with twelve possible control combinations. I found that the design didn't mesh well with my ideas regarding exterior finish; but a brilliant design nonetheless.
Talking Octopuss
Acrylic MAME - not an actual site link; just a image link off of Arcade Depot's blogsite. It's f*ing sexy looking though...
The Temple of the Rat - Once again, I don't especially like this guy's style, but his trash reel is a good place to get familiar with design and construction mistakes. Take a look at the site once and then dump it...
Frontend Sites
Zophar's Domain - A site built to compare various emulators and frontends. A great resource for deciding what engines you want under the hood.
Mala - The main site for my Frontend of choice.
Gamebase - The main site for my runner up
Emulator Sites - just my personal recommendations not an all encompassing list.
Arcade
MAME - Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator main site. This emu handles all the classic coin-op games I used to break my lunch money on.
General Console
Zophar's Domain - Again Zophar does the heavy lifting for our brains and compares console emulators for us. This is a great resource if you'd rather not use any of my biased emu recommendations.
Nintendo
Visual Boy Advance - My emulator for GameBoy, GameBoy Color, and Gameboy Advance games
Nestopia - Generally accepted as the best Nintendo Entertainment System emulator. It has a ton of extra features besides nearly flawless game recreation.
FCEUX - The first emulator I downloaded and still a very reliable emulator. Whenever I've had compatibility issues on other emulators the FCEUX has been there for me.
ZSNES - The undisputed best Super Nintendo emu available. Looks slightly different from others because it is written in DOS.
Project 64 - This program can be a bit buggy with certain games, but still the most reliable Nintendo 64 emulator I've found.
Sega
Kega - One of two primary multi-Sega-system emulators to cover everything up to (but not including) Dreamcast
Gens - A Sega Genesis Emulator with high compatibility and great speed.
Chanka - Currently the best Dreamcast emulator in circulation, but still very buggy and difficult to operate.
Turbo Grafx 16/PC Engine
Magic Engine - According to Zophar, this is the best emulator available for this platform. Unfortunately it costs $16 to register and will likely need some program support to get it cued and loaded straight from Mala.
Playstation
ePSXe - The only Playstation emulator I have used reliably. I adore this emu, it has kept me occupied and let me revisit old memories in high stress locales and at dangerous times
Rom Sites - Listed are the sites I tend to use most. There are literally hundreds of these sites, so what sets each aside from the others is the amount of aggravation you have to endure to get what you want. Many sites are hosted by pay sites and force you to either vote for them or pass through several pop-ups. If somehow you can't find what you want where I've directed, try looking through their affiliated links.
ROMNation - Alot of console ROM sets here with a fairly direct route to the download.
Emuparadise - A good place to find game ISOs. Good affiliate links here as well
Rom Hustler - My favorite for finding specific titles on newer platforms.
Resource Sites - Listed below are locations where I try and find various media files associated with the titles. You have to use your imagination sometimes and think outside the box to find what you want. Sometimes a simple key-word search is your best bet.
MAWS - A search-able site committed to coin-op arcade games. This is what I mainly use to find media associated with MAME titles.
MAMEWorld - A giant resource site with virtually any MAME associate item buried somewhere inside. KLOV - Killer List of Video Games is a great secondary site to MAWS in getting MAME artwork and images.
Game On Grafix - A site offering professional marquee, bezel and panel art printing. Have not obviously used this yet, but they come highly recommended by the 'right' resources.
You Tube - I was surprised to find out that a league of super-nerds actually are loading gameplay footage onto You Tube. Since I'm too cheap to buy some screen capturing video software, this find has worked out well for me. Especially on games whose resources tax the engine of my PC during emulation.
GameFAQs - Great place to find text files of walkthroughs, codebooks, reviews, and passwords. Also a good place to find screenshots and box art for consoles.
MobyGames - A great place to find high quality box art and screenshots. My only complaint is that all the images have a watermarked logo attached to them. Small things...
Vendors - most of these vendors are very accommodating to personal arcade cabinet enthusiasts and quite literally have focused their efforts to supply superior products to a market with minimal demand.
Lizard Lick Amusements - A fantastic site to find a wide array of Japanese parts. I intend on buying most of my joysticks here, the off-colored buttons for the 2P Special Input Panel, and a couple other key items. The site doesn't say it, but these guys have complete access to all of Seimitsu and Sanwa product catalogs and are generous enough to special order any part you need so you won't have to pay astronomical international shipping charges on them.
Ultimarc - A quality benchmark in specialized arcade parts. I play on buying my keyboard encoder, trackball, and pushbuttons for the 4P Modern Layout Panel at this site.
Groovy Game Gear - Another site that focuses on improving upon the existing standard for arcade products. I intend on buy my spinner here but have also been deeply researched and compared their trackball, keyboard encoder, and pre-fabricated pushbutton alternatives.
Suzo-Happ - If you have ever played a game on an upright cabinet in the U.S., chances are you have used a Happ controller. This is the only vendor I could find to provide me with a viable solution to rotary stick games.
