Sega Saturn Bartop Arcade Cabinet

For as long as I can remember, I've wanted an arcade cabinet. Specifically, games like Virtua Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Virtua Cop...games that were popular in the mid 90's, that I remember playing at the arcades.

Now, the first thing you'd probably say is to build a MAME cabinet. Well, I did consider that. However, my Sega Saturn that I've kept for all of these years has been sitting in my closet collecting dust. I've always had a soft spot for my Saturn. It was the first "big" purchase I made with my own money (I bought it in 1996 when I was 12), and many of my arcade favorites from the mid 90's were ported to Sega Saturn. MK2, UMK3, Virtua Cop, Virtua Fighter, Daytona USA, NBA Jam, Street Fighter 2...the list goes on and on.

So...I got this idea...what if I built a cabinet around my Sega Saturn? My original aim was to build a full size cabinet. Unfortunately, I share a 700 square ft apartment with my fiance. As tempting as it would be, I decided that a bartop would be a far more logical solution ;D

I googled bartop arcades for some ideas, and came across this Neo Geo build that I thought was extremely impressive, and so I decided that I would use Johnny Modder's cabinet as a starting point.
amoddinghomecompanion.blogspot.com/2010/11/my-fall-project-neo-geo-bartop-arcade.html


I then started pooling parts together. I ordered and received the joystick and buttons from happ controls, and my fiance ordered an Ultimate Bartop Kit for me from North Coast Custom Arcades as an early Birthday present


I created a marquee based on the Nintendo PlayChoice arcade in photoshop, and ordered it from www.gameongrafix.com.

I used a ramen box as a test bed for my control setup (I originally was going to use a SuperPad 8 instead of hacking up a genuine Saturn controller, but after both of my SuperPad 8's died I went ahead and did it anyway. SuperPad 8's are completely worthless!)































Hope you guys like it ;D