ericman - the blog

This is my blog about designing and building my MAME cabinet.  It is the perfect project for me - it combines all my favorite hobbies:  woodworking, computers, video games, hanging out in the garage MacGyvering, designing stuff and frequent trips to Home Depot.

FYI - this blog is upside down.  You'll find newer content at the bottom of the blog.

I started by sketching a few concept drawings to see what I liked and then used Google Sketchup to make a 3D model.  Here is the virtual ericman that I designed and used as a model:

and here is an actual photo of the finished result:

I put the name "ericman" on the model as a placeholder thinking I'd come up with a cooler name later, but after a picture of the model with the ericman marquee hung on the refrigerator for a few months, it kind of stuck.

There are two really cool features that aren't immediately evident in the photo.

First, ericman has a rotating control panel with three sides, each with a different set of controls (a single 4/8-way classic balltop joystick; dual 8-way fighter joysticks; and a trackball and spinner).  This gives the authenticity of an arcade control panel, but also has enough controls to play lots of different games.

Second, ericman has a rotating monitor that is switchable between horizontal or vertical.  This allows you to play portrait games like Frogger, Pacman, Donkey Kong, Centipede and Galaga; as well as landscape games like Robotron, Defender, Asteroids, Marble Madness and Joust.

Fitting both a rotating control panel and a rotating monitor in the same cabinet took some thought and a lot more time to design and build, but were definitely worth the effort.