A friend of mine dropped by this weekend, and of course we ended up talking about arcade games for a while (since I bought four of them this week, the topic's on my mind). While talking, the guy mentioned that he had never seen inside an arcade game. Ever. I was surprised, I figured everyone had seen a few of these with the backs off, but apparently not. Anyway, while moving the Neo Geo Dual Slot into my gameroom, I took the back off to do some cleaning. Here's what the inside looks like.



As you can see, 99% of an arcade game is ... well, air! I think people assume that it must be stuffed with parts due to the weight, but again, 99% of the weight comes from the wood and the monitor.

With the back off, you can see the back of the monitor. This is the part people always warn you about shocking the poo poo out of yourself on, so if you have no business working up there, stay way. On the right mounted to the wood you can see the PCB -- Printed Circuit Board, or basically the motherboard of the game. Since this is an MVS game and takes carts, you can see the MVS cart sticking out of the PCB. Down in the bottom of the cabinet is a power supply that looks not unlike a PC one, but with a few more wires. In the front of the game you can see the metal box that surrounds the plastic tub that quarters fall into.

And that's all there is to them!