I had a great time checking out the Aarghcade over a few beers and they were most helpful in telling me about their own cabinets. Apparently the only major difference between the Aarghcade and the Time Machine is that Theo's Time Machine has dual spinners for games like Ikari Warriors (which had a rotating joystick in the original upright arcades).
The cabinet construction itself was very professional and solid. No amount of hammering on the joysticks or buttons really caused it to shake around or jiggle the monitor. This was thanks to their 2x4 frame and the means by which they permanently affixed the monitor to the cabinet. The monitor bezel was a simple black-painted plexi which looked very nice & shiny though they noted that plexi is prone to minor scratches over time so it's a bit less resilient (though easier to work with) than glass. I think I'll go the plexi route too, though, to make sure it's not going to get broken and also to help keep the weight down.
They are using MAME32 as the frontend, which gives you all the convenience that Windows-users are used to with regards to using the mouse to scroll around to find the game you like and/or browsing by game genre. Despite their Windowblinds/Object Desktop and CursorXP customizations of the interface, it still felt very much like Windows to me. I think this confirmed for me that my tastes are more towards completely obscuring the fact that it's Windows running the show by using Mamewah to completely shroud the OS and make everything navigatable through the joystick and buttons rather than using the Trackball like a mouse.
This was also the first time I'd had a chance to see Daphne (for games like Dragon's Lair) and Zinc (for 3D Fighter Games) in action. It's truly stunning the way the computer can smoothly recreate the originals. It's currently unclear where my Celeron 500's processor (with GeForce 4 Ti4600) will be too slow to play games - I guess I'll know once I have a chance to try out Zinc and Daphne on there. I won't be too surprised if its age limits me to older, less system intensive games.
Having had a chance to try out their trackball setup it quickly became clear that my earlier control panel draft in which 3 buttons are below the trackball needs to be updated to place those buttons to the right of the trackball. This makes it easier (for right-handed people anyways) to play games like Missile Command, Centipede, etc without having a second hand under their trackball hand's wrist. I think I will try to situate my spinner and trackball such that they can share the 3 buttons.
In other news, I placed my order through SlikStik to get the rest of the buttons I need in order to get that Proof of Concept control panel up and running. I've also contacted my brother-in-law who will be handling my construction (and his) while I am free to get my control panel/software/front-end configured (and his). The goal being to have both he and I get a machine out of the same efforts.
The only remaining parts to order (aside from cabinet construction materials) is a spinner. I am pretty sure I'll be ordering the (budget-oriented) EZArcade EZ Mount Arcade Spinner (with Aluminum-plated knob upgrade). Later I'll have the option to buy a steeringwheel attachment for the spinner (though without a footpedal, I think this will still be somewhat cludgy).
Coincidentally, it was the EZ Arcade site's Cabinet Building links that first linked me in to look at the Aarghcade site (and from there meet Dan & Theo). Dan was surprised I hadn't found his site through BYOAC - I'm guessing EZArcade folks must have bought a copy of Dan's MAME Cabinet Construction Plans at some point and payed homage through a link.
Well more later - i'll just be organizing my rom collection while I wait for the buttons to arrive. Seeing the vast tracts of ROMs on the Aarghcade, it became clear that I would rather have quality over quantity. I'm going to toss all the clones I don't want and also all the Mahjong/etc that's cluttering my drive. Hopefully there will be a working Proof of Concept CP to report about by the end of January.
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