The Ingredients - the display

I started this project by selecting the bartop arcade cabinet first. That pretty much limits the size of the display that I can use in my cabinet. I have seen lots on the internet about whether to use a CRT or LCD monitor.

This bartop arcade cabinet is really quite tight for space so really the only choice is LCD. As I have no preference for MAME horizontal or vertical games I wanted a fairly squarish monitor. Above 19" monitors there don't appear to be that many non-widescreen monitors. However there were a few 4:3 or 5:4 19" monitors kicking around.

The first monitor I found was the Xerox XA7191 19" monitor. This was a beautiful monitor with an elegant glass front.

Unfortunately, when I went to collect this second hand monitor it failed to power-on. I took it off the sellers hands anyway in the hope that it would be something simple that was wrong with it. Not to be.

The next monitor that I found was the Dell 1905FP monitor. This is a 5:4 monitor with a resolution of 1280 x 1024. Once again, I sourced it from eBay.

This monitor is fit for purpose. It disassembles easily i.e. the black plastic bezel and casing can easily be removed, leaving a flat square-edged aluminium-boxed monitor. It can be VESA mounted and that's what I intend to use when fitting it in my arcade cabinet. The display is pretty good too.