A couple of days ago I spotted this on Craigslist:

I have a Dynamo cabinet in perfect condition free to the first taker.

I'm moving having a moving sale this weekend, and if it's not gone by then I'm going to break it up and toss it into a dumpster.

I's empty except for a power-supply (I believe)... it may have a harness inside also (not sure).
I picked it up tonight.

The cabinet is FAR from perfect condition, though it's in OK shape, especially considering the price.

The cabinet has Wheel Of Fortune graphics on the sides and on the control panel. There is a clear plexiglass marquee panel laying inside the cabinet.

The control panel has a couple of start buttons, and also two buttons on each side of the center hole. There is no joystick.

I don't believe this is a 'Dynamo' cabinet - for one thing, there is a sticker on the side from some Dade County regulatory agency, dated 1989. I doubt Dynamo existed in 1989.

I didn't have time to examine the machine when I finally got it home tonight, so the above is pretty much all I know so far.

Question:
1) How do I unlatch the control panel so that I can flip it forward to examine the underside?
2) MAME - Assuming I want to run a MAME set-up in this thing, do I need to buy an IPAC (IPAQ?) to wire the controls to the PC, or is there another way to accomplish that? (I'm confident the answer to this is easily found online, and I'll certainly do that, but any advice from you guys is welcome too.)
3) Carpentry - where the cabinet is damaged at the bottom from being dragged during various moves - that's is undoubtedly very common damage - how is that repaired?


If anybody attending NAVA tomorrow is looking to unload a joystick I can use for this thing, I'm in the market.