So,   are you asking yourself what Mame is about ? Have you ever played, in the 80's, at those wonderfull arcade classics like PacMan or Popeye ? If the answer is "no"...well, you can bring your a** out of this site ! ..... Ok, so if you are reading this, you probably KNOW what I mean : everlasting afternoon in those smoky bars with your friends, lots of money spent....but HOW MUCH fun ? Well, Mame was created to bring back all those "arcade memories" : you can now play all those games right on your pc ! You just need the software itself, and the rom of the game you want to play again...that's it ! I came across Mame for the first time some years ago : a friend of mine told about it, and for a couple of months i can't stop myself playin'...everytime i saw a new screenshot, i discovered a game i thought i've forgotten...and i HAVE TO find the relative rom ! Then, thanks to the italian newsgroup dedicated to emulation news://it.comp.sofware.emulatori ,  i found out THE site for Mame lovers : www.mame.dk. It contains ALL the roms supported by Mame, and they are freely downloadble, you just have to register to their mailing list : a small price to pay, anyway. The only thing i really missed was that special arcade feeling, that was QUITE different with the feeling you have playing with your keyboard... ...and that's where the CooL part of the story begins... I can't remember exactly HOW and WHEN...but i DO remember the feeling i  had the first time i saw a site of a guy (from NYC) talking about his first MAME cabinet... So I started my journey for info, electric scheme, pictures, pricing, ecc... After weeks of search between local newspapers, bars, arcade providers, ecc, i found MY cabinet : it was "abandoned" in a arcade warehouse a couple of miles from my home...i spent 150 Eur. shipping included, not so bad... By the way...if you think you can take home an arcade cabinet by your own, with your car, you should be crazy ! It's VERY VERY heavy...and not so small, as you could remember... Continue to the hardware part...