The first parts of the cabinet arrived today. I'm so psyched! As soon as the LEDs arrive from Hong Kong I can get started on the hardware using my office PC. I'm holding off on buying the PC parts until the actual wooden cabinet is built as the prices will drop by the time I'm ready for them.

The first part is the KeyWiz Max 1.5. This board is used to connect all the various buttons and joysticks on your cabinet through a ps2 keyboard port. It comes with software that lets you optimize everything the way you want and the default setup is configured for MAME. There are cheaper options than the Max, but it is a solderless board which is useful for a few reasons

The second part is the LED-Wiz.
This board allows your PC to light LEDs. I'm going to get translucent buttons and light them with the LEDs. While the cabinet is in attract mode, it will play animations (like a screen saver). When a game is chosen, the appropriate LEDs with light the buttons used for each game so players are not confused. The Mala software can also use text to speech to read off instructions for the use of each button while illuminating it. This LED-Wiz attaches with a USB cable and has 32 inputs on it. I only plan on lighting 14 buttons and the trackball, but I wanted to be safe in case I come up with other ideas later.

I ordered the parts from groovygamegear.com their prices are fair and they shipped out everything quickly.

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1 x LED-Wiz 32-port USB Lighting and Output Controller (LEDWIZ01) = $44.95
Device Number 1 (Use if FIRST or ONLY device of this EXACT type)
1 x KeyWiz Max 1.5 (KWS00015) = $34.95
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Sub-Total: $79.90
United States Postal Service (Priority Mail (2 - 3 days)): $7.25
Total: $87.15