MAME

I am considering setting up some kind of MAME cabinet in my new residence, but I am beginning my research now. It seems there are any number of ways to go, from totally custom and tricked-out, to prebuilt systems. From the project pages I've read, some people go crazy with custom cabinets with every type of controller and button configuration, custom marquees, maple finish, etc... While some people just plop down 3 grand for an ArcadePC and they're done with it.

I think I want to go somewhere in the middle. I'm good with electronics, but lack enough power tools or expertise to be building my own cabinet. So I'd likely have to start with an old arcade machine, or find someone who has nice prebuilt cabinets, etc. There are enough howto's and FAQ's abound that I think I can handle adding on new buttons and joysticks and so forth. I think I'd basically like to (somehow) get a cabinet set up, drop in a quasi-cheap PC, and hook up some controls. My absolute maximum price range is $1,000.

Is this doable? I've seen people pour several grand into some of these projects, and they're even saving money by building their own cabinets. I would have to somehow find a cabinet, and hope that the monitor is good enough... Then interfacing the graphics with the monitor would be a problem.. etc. The main thing I'm concerned with is the controls, I wouldn't even care much if I just had a PC in a big wooden box with a big monitor on top. Or in other words, the arcade "look" isn't as important as the arcade "feel."

So, has anyone attempted to build (or successfully built) some kind of MAME cabinet? If so, what tips can you offer a newbie? It looks like something I could get into, minus the part where you actually build the cabinet. :)

I'd wait until someones gets a MAME port running on the Xbox. Your major cost is likely going to be a monitor. Given that PCs put out a VGA-type signal, you won't be able to use the existing arcade monitor. IIRC, most of those were NTSC, but they certainly weren't VGA. And since the Xbox has a hard drive to store ROMs and a TV-out, and it costs about $400, it's probably the cheapest solution possible. Of course, this assumes that someone gets MAME ported to it. Or the PS2, when it gets a hard drive. Or maybe a Dreamcast. You get the idea.

All that stuff is true, but you would really sacrifice one of those consoles instead of just dropping a cheap PC in there? The cost of a PC to run MAME for DOS *has* to be lower than the cost of a console. It seems a lot of the console's processing power would be wasting away in there. MAME does exist for the Dreamcast but it has its limitations, I suspect those limitations would disappear on the XBox, but that seems to be a long ways off...

EDIT: It seems some guy has already gotten MAME running on the XBox but hasn't released it yet. It could be fake, who knows.

Well, which is cheaper? Xbox (or Dreamcast) + existing NTSC monitor or cheap PC + expensive VGA monitor? I could be wrong.

I think you guys are overestimating the prices of VGA monitors these days. Even 17-inch units are cheap nowadays.

One that can be mounted in a preexisting cabinet?

Hmm.. well Dreamcast is very limited as a MAME platform, the development of the two preeminent DC MAME projects (MAME DC and MAMED DC) have stalled significantly, probably due to the Dreamcast going EOL. So I would write the DC off as irrelevant (he says, preparing to toss his DC out the window.)

I'm not sure which would cost more but then you've got the controls issue... That seems to be a larger stumbling block than the monitor. XBox doesn't have arcade-quality controls. I am sure people will have kits and adapters to adapt arcade-style buttons to XBox inputs, but I haven't seen any yet.

Take the plastic casing off of any VGA monitor and they all look the same inside.

Consumer monitors tend to have mounting equipment at random places inside the cabinet. Whatever works best for the particular case. Arcade cases need to have the monitor mounted at the front, where consumer monitors are never mounted. If he could modify the cabinet, then he could build one himself much easier. But he said that he couldn't do that.

Not that we're not way off topic at this point.

Not that we're not way off topic at this point.

Given the name of this forum, I seriously doubt it!

This is all actually good discussion... FWIW, I think with enough creativity, any monitor can be mounted inside a cabinet, just need to anchor in a platform for it to sit on. Like I said, I don't care if it looks really ghetto, I mainly care about the controls. I don't even care if there IS a cabinet, my main concern is getting good arcade-quality controls to run MAME somehow. Cabinet stuff can come later.

You might want to check out Build Your Own Arcade Controls.

Greetings!

Perhaps a good (and easy) middle ground is the Hanaho HotRod joystick. Not the full arcadePC, just the controls. It plugs in line with your standard keyboard. It really has a great feel to it for most games. Unfortunately, tempest is my favorite, and they do not have a spinner / trackball variation, so I use it in combination with my regular trackball. For $200 it gives you a great arcade feel on your standard PC. For what its worth...

Once upon a time, I considered hacking apart an old Microsoft mouse and using its guts as the basis of a MAME Tempest spinner...

On the bright side, I've heard you can get actual Tempest games pretty cheap. Their vector monitors were one of the earliest color vector displays made, and they tended to blow a certain component with regularity. So as long as you know how to fix that problem component, you can pick up old blown Tempest units pretty cheap from people who don't know how to fix them.

At least that was their status several years ago when I considered getting one, but haven't looked into it recently...

Yeah, a spinner is key. Arkanoid is my downfall. If I made my own cabinet it would definitely have to have a spinner. Then again a trackball is also needed for Marble Madness, a few bowling games, golf games... Then of course you need to put a racing wheel and pedals on there for Pole Position and the myriad of other driving games... And who can forget the shooting games? Gotta have a light gun... Pretty soon nobody will be able to see the cabinet with all the peripherals I'll need on the damn thing!

Sigh. I can see myself spending way too much time and money on this project. But the hours of fun...

XBOX inputs are USB (even though the connector may not look like it).

Yor best bet as far as cost and connections go is to build a low cost PC into your cabinet. You have a large choice of more than capable graphics cards, all with NTSC output to suit your needs as well.

Using an XBOX would be like using scuba gear to feed your goldfish.

You should have plenty of choices for joysticks as well, whether you decide to retro-fit your own from old arcade machines or old computers (WICO positively made the best joysticks to have ever hit the market in the history of joysticks) or if you decide to buy something pre-built to suit MAME and a wide selection of games.

I haven't looked at any plans for cabinets, but from the ones I've seened open, you should be able to build something fairly easily. Next you have to decide what orientation screen to use... :) There should be software to help deal with issues like this too.

Bruno

would be like using scuba gear to feed your goldfish.

Great metaphor. I'll have to remember that one and be sure to use it sometime.

Unfortunately, tempest is my favorite, and they do not have a spinner / trackball variation

Microsoft no longer makes the Easy Ball trackball mouse, but it might be worth it to find for something like this.

Greetings!

The old tempest games are relatively available on ebay, etc. For me, I am very space constrained, so even a cabaret cabinet would be too much real estate for me to deal with. I have seen the spinners come up occasionally, and I have been thinking of trying to retrofit one into a desktop model (similar in design to the HotRod Joystick). I was even thinking of using something like the Cappuccino PCs, embedding it in the same box as the controls. That is a project for when I have more time.

The trackballs are also available. I have seen a number of them (marble madness varieties) around as well.

If I were to get serious, I would probably look into getting an old tempest cabaret or cocktail model and cleaning it up. I have all of the boards (I purchased a few board sets, and even have some extra ROMs to run Tempest Tubes if I feel like it), but I just don't have the time and space to invest right now. Eventually...

It looks like there are some real good aftermarket spinners around from what I've seen. Of course it'd be nice to wire in an original Tempest spinner provided it is in good condition, but I've read that the feel of the Oscar spinners is pretty close.

I am still doing a lot of research to determine what I want to do for a MAME setup. I think I'm going to start by building a small and somewhat cheap arcade control setup for my PC. I REALLY like the the I-Pac interface which adapts arcade controls to USB in what looks to be a painless manner... Much less "ghetto" than hacking up keyboards and Sidewinder joysticks. The way it looks from what I've read, I could pretty much buy the controls, the I-Pac interface, start wiring things up, and have a working prototype in the course of a weekend. That's pretty nice. I've cut myself off at a $100 for this phase to see if I really want to dive into it.

If after that, the itch is still there, I'll think about some way of making a full cabinet happen in my new residence. At that point I could totally see myself getting way into this.. I already know what my dream control layout will look like if I had a cabinet, and with the interfaces that exist these days, there aren't really any limitations except space. I don't want to dive too far into this just yet though.

Speaking of Tempest, anyone tried out Tempest Tubes in MAME? Those levels are sick! I think I was born 10 years too late, I would have loved hacking into arcade machines back in the day.

Greetings!

Actually, I have a great link for you. Tempest was one of the four or five games that kept me sane while in college, so I did a bit of research on it. Check out Tempest Editor - create your own levels, including a history of Tempest Tubes and exactly how it was hacked to begin with.

Yeah that was the first link I found when I was searching for info about Tempest Tubes a few days ago. That is really funny how he did it all in one weekend. When I said "I was born 10 years too late" earlier that's the kind of stuff I was referring to. Those guys were true hackers.

Greetings!

Indeed!!! Still, there is much amusement to be had now. Unfortunately, even the name "hacker" has been misappropriated and tarnished by those that should not even be mentioned...

Yeah unfortunately that happens sometimes when these phrases get coined and misinterpreted. The media's interpretation of the word "hacker" is like calling a police officer a "killer" because he has the legal right to use deadly force. When you think of it, white-hat hackers and black-hat cyber-criminals use the same tools and methods, but with different goals.. Just as cops and criminals use the same tools and methods. But some of us are neither white hats nor black hats, we just like hacking. I think we need to coin a new phrase that hasn't been tarnished by the media yet.

There is one. ``Cracker''. I believe that RMS coined it. Unfortunately, it is also a derogatory term that is essentially equivalent to ``white trash'' -- possibly the inverse of ``nigger'' (sorry). Which all reminds me of this SNL skit, back when SNL was funny.