can anyone make me a mini arcade cabinet or arcade cocktail

[goku4eternity]

I was wondering if anyone could make a mini arcade cabinet, or a mini arcade cocktail, with just a player one
button, a joystick, and a single colored button, a little screen, and able to use a donkey kong rom board or a crazy kong galaxian or crazy kong scramble rom board, so, that I could play either donkey kong, or crazy kong, but I would rather play crazy kong galaxian or crazy kong scramble. Can anyone make this for 100-200 dollars? I would prefer under $200 this the only birthday money I have.

[tom61]

The boardset for those games are quite large, something the size of pocketlucho's Daytona USA mini arcade cabinet that's making it's way across the blogosphere right now would not be feasible with an original board. I doubt you could get the boards to fit in a cab much smaller than a cabaret style cab. Not including the boardset of a game, it's likely to be over $200 in parts. Most costly would be of a screen bigger than 5" and capable of syncing with a standard res arcade board (the PSOne screen might sync, but older games sometimes have non-standard frequencies). Then there's the cost of labor involved on top of the cost of parts.

With a lot of luck you might find a cabaret style cab on Craig's List for under two hundred in your area, though. Those types of cabs don't come up often, and usually not for that cheap, so you'd likely have to camp out on there for quite some time to find one.

[goku4eternity]

what arcade part do you have to buy, and after you buy the rom file, can you play donkey kong legally on your computer?

[tom61]

what arcade part do you have to buy, and after you buy the rom file, can you play donkey kong legally on your computer?

When it comes to strictly arcade parts all you need is the joysticks and buttons, if you're going to make an emulator cabinet. You'll need something to need something to interface between the arcade joystick and buttons and the PC, either an encoder designed for the task (like the Ultimarc I-Pac) or a hacked USB gamepad.

If you can somehow buy the rom file licensed for play on the PC, yes, it's legal to emulate on your PC. If you mean the physical ROMs from an actual board, under US law, pending it's not encrypted, you have to dump the ROMs to a file yourself to be legal.

[goku4eternity]

Are there any mame rom websites that have legal roms?

[tom61]

Are there any mame rom websites that have legal roms?

The MAME site itself has a few public domain rom images. There used to be site that obtained licenses for some games to sell to end users, but I can't remember the name of it nor find it on Google(likely meaning that the site is gone).

[SpongeBuell]

It's sometimes worth it to look around for something, too. Craigslist, local arcades (if any), or other places often exist. If you just want a cabinet, it's not too hard to find a non-working unit. For dealers, look for amusement or vending companies in your area.

[Rekarp]

The plywood alone to make the cab would cost around $60-$80. And that is the cheap stuff. Not including paint, trim, plexi. For all the wood for the pinball machine I am working on tallied in at about $120ish. Still need to buy more to.

Good luck on your project! If you need any help building it just stroll on down to the Arcade forum section.

[cotton509]

Bestbuy.ca MSI Wind online only - $200
Case parts - 150$
Screws and misc - 20$
Paint - 20$ - 40$
Amount of arcades simulatable - Free