First of all, a warm welcome to all my new blog readers who are exclusively for the content on the Arcade Cabinet - I’m glad that you are enjoying the show  :)  The finished arcade cabinet with only a few cosmetic changes left to do.

The cabinet is complete, with only the 6ft decals on each side to be done - it looks so *naked* without them.  The silly part is, I’m having a tough time deciding what I should use.  So until then, Optimus Prime takes the first watch.

Even without installing Home Server just yet, I’m really happy with the result.  Currently I’m running heavily modified version of XP Media Centre.

UPDATE:  Home server is installed and working sweet.  It feels sooooo good to have everything backed up. 

It allows me to play arcade games (using MAME), and watch TV and Movies whilst sitting (and drinking scotch) on the deck.  There is something quite enjoyable about watching classic movies on an arcade machine!  I even use the arcade machine as a juke box. 

I think BBQs these holidays are going to be a lot of fun.  So far I’ve spent ~$478 of my [self imposed] $500 AUD budget, and the build has taken about 16 hours.   This excludes waiting for the paint to dry and the 4+ hours I spend playing arcade games and watching tv/movies.  =)