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"Western" cabinets (upright, cabaret, cocktail)

An overview of Western (US/EU) arcade cabinets — as opposed to Japanese candy cabs. These include the tall upright, its scaled-down cabaret / mini version, and the cocktail / table cabinet. Wooden cabinets (MDF/particleboard), usually a smaller, fixed monitor, and JAMMA wiring from the mid-1980s on.

A cocktail (table) cabinet — the screen lies flat under glass, the two players facing each other.
A cocktail (table) cabinet — the screen lies flat under glass, the two players facing each other. Photo: Tomomarusan, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Western form factors

Format Description Screen Note
Upright tall vertical cabinet (~1.8 m / 6 ft), control panel at waist height, lit marquee on top CRT ~19–25″, often fixed the dominant format in North America
Cabaret / mini scaled-down upright, less bulky, aimed at small spaces / the home smaller CRT compacted "upright" style
Cocktail / table low table cabinet, screen flat under glass, 2 players seated across horizontal CRT, image flips (game-controlled) each turn common in 1980s bars

(Per Wikipedia — Arcade cabinet.)

The footprint of all three formats, from a manufacturer ✅

The figures above are second-hand orders of magnitude. These come from an original document, and they cover all three formats at once: Bally/Midway's Standardized General Instructions (© 1983), under "Location requirements". ⓘ The table is identical in all five manuals of that family archived on this wiki — so it is a house standard, not one game's spec sheet.

Format Floor space Height
Upright 32″ × 25″ (81 cm × 63 cm) — APPROX. 70″ (175 cm) — APPROX.
Mini (cabaret) 20″ × 24″ (50 cm × 60 cm) 61″ (153 cm)
Cocktail 32″ × 22″ (81 cm × 55 cm) 29″ (73 cm)

⚠️ The metric column of the heights does not follow the inch column. 70″ is 177.8 cm, not 175; 61″ is 154.9 cm, not 153. The floor-space figures convert correctly. ⓘ For a doorway, trust the converted inch figure: the manual states the cabinet 3 cm shorter than it is.

⚠️ The manual never says which of the two figures is the width and which the depth — and two of the five manuals print the upright in the opposite order (25″ × 32″ instead of 32″ × 25″), the same numbers transposed. ⓘ This wiki does not arbitrate: the source does not say.

✅ And the operating envelope, which cabinet spec sheets rarely give:

Item What the manual writes
Mains Domestic 110 V @ 60 Hz · Foreign 200 V to 240 V @ 50 Hz
Temperature 32 to 100 °F (0 to 38 °C)
Humidity not over 95 % relative

ⓘ The same manual puts a number on the mains floor below which no game works — 105 VAC — and describes its symptom, which is not the one you expect → mains chain.

📄 MCR System Games — Standardized General Instructions · MCR II System Games

Construction & materials

  • Wood: MDF or laminated particleboard panels, unlike the moulded plastic of candy cabs. Heavier to move, but simpler to repair/rebuild.
  • Artwork: side screen-printing, backlit marquee, bezel around the tube. Dedicated cabinets (Pac-Man, Mortal Kombat…) carry game-specific artwork.
  • Monitor: usually smaller (~19–25″) than a candy cab's 29″, and most often non-rotatable (orientation fixed at build time). ⚠️ "Most often" is not "always" — see the documented counter-example below.

A western cabinet with a rotatable monitor (1983) ⚠️

The counter-example, from the maker's own service manual

This wiki writes above that a western upright's screen is "most often not rotatable". ⓘ True most often — and here is the proof that it is not a rule:

"The monitor mounting board has the feature of holding the monitor in a horizontal or vertical position."

ⓘ That is Taito America's G.T.C. 100 Universal Cabinet. Two thumb screws, pull the board out by its hand slots, turn it over, put the screws back. ⚠️ Nothing improvised: the drawing labels the part "Monitor Cover — Horizontal or Vertical".

ⓘ The difference from a candy cab is still real: a candy turns its tube without stripping the front; here you open the cabinet and take out panel, glass and artwork. ⚠️ But saying "western = fixed at manufacture" is wrong, and a 1983 conversion manual said so before us.

The compact format, at two makers ✅

The three-format table above is Bally/Midway's. A second maker puts figures on its slim cabinet — and it names its axes:

Bally/Midway "Mini" (© 1983) Taito America Trimline™ (ref. 72-0001-001)
Footprint 20″ × 24″ (50 × 60 cm) — ⚠️ axes unnamed width 20″ (51 cm) × depth 24″ (61 cm)
Height 61″ (153 cm) 54″ (138 cm)
Weight (not given) 190 lb (86 kg), packaged
Mains 110 V / 60 Hz (range) 120 VAC 60 Hz, ⓘ ≈ 250 W
Screen (not given) ⓘ parts list: Monitor Shroud 14″

⓵ Both footprints are the same pair of numbers, 20 and 24 — and ⓘ Taito says which one is the width, where Bally/Midway never does. ⚠️ That does not prove Bally/Midway's convention; this wiki still does not arbitrate. ⓘ But the Trimline is genuinely lower than the Mini: 54″ against 61″.

📄 G.T.C. 100 — Service Instructions · Crazy Climber Trimline™

Wiring & power

  • JAMMA (56-pin edge) has been the standard for generic uprights since ~1985 → JAMMA wiring. Pre-JAMMA cabinets use dedicated harnesses.
  • Power: cabinet PSU (often 110/230 V by region) — see the power principle; the +5 V rail is critical for logic.
  • Controls: fixed panel (dedicated) or rewired (generic JAMMA cabinet) — see Control panels.

Western vs candy cab (JP)

Western upright Candy cab (JP)
Material wood (MDF/particleboard) moulded plastic
Monitor ~19–25″, often fixed — ⚠️ but not always 29″, often rotatable
Artwork dedicated screen-print + marquee neutral shell, interchangeable panel
Ergonomics standing seated

(See also the overview: cabinet types.)

Repair (cross-cutting)

  • CRT monitor: recap + adjustments — see Nanao MS8 / MS9; ⚠️ high voltage.
  • Wooden cabinet: re-glue/reinforce panels, replace T-molding, redo artwork.
  • JAMMA contacts, harness, buttons/joysticks.

Playing a PCB at home

As with candy cabs, you can wire a JAMMA board without a cabinet via a supergun.

Photos / assets

(To add: dedicated US upright, cabaret, glass-top cocktail.)

Repair & maintenance

Modernise (video, PSU, JVS, upscaler, PC/FPGA) → Modernising a cabinet. CRT monitor (discharge HV!) → CRT safety · Wells-Gardner / Sanyo 20-EZ (US) / Hantarex (EU) chassis · recap → Recap · diagnosis → PCB fault-finding.

Sources & attribution

Image:

Review & corrections

How this space is used

Spotted a wrong value, an outdated procedure, a chip reference that does not match your board? Say so here, with what you observed (model, board revision, serial number, measurement). Every report is cross-checked against a source before anything changes — an unverifiable correction is published as “reported by …, not cross-checked” rather than silently applied.

Reading is open to everyone; posting requires signing in with Discord. Reports from the wiki's declared reviewers are handled first; anyone else's are read too, but go through a human before anything is changed.