Project Arcade 158
Craig Maloney writes "Growing up, I found myself more than once in an arcade, be it in the mall, Meijer, or a free-standing building. The atmosphere was unmistakable: loud, with lots of activity, and people getting fully immersed and "in the zone" between them and their pixellated avatar. While playing an arcade game at home has been possible for many years now, the true arcade experience has been a little more elusive. There's something about having an upright video game cabinet, and playing on arcade hardware that gives the game that extra sense of being right in the arcades of my youth. There are many sites out there that have different plans for building a MAME arcade cabinet from scratch, but most read like a post-mortem for how the author pieced together their particular setup. What if you just want to convert an old (non-working, I hope) cabinet into a MAME arcade cabinet? Lots of information is out there, but where do you start? Project Arcade is an excellent introduction for building your own MAME arcade cabinet from scratch, and compiles lots of material into one comprehensive book." Read below for the rest of Craig's review.
| Project Arcade | |
| author | John St. Clair |
| pages | 476 |
| publisher | Wiley |
| rating | 8/10 |
| reviewer | Craig Maloney |
| ISBN | 0-7645-5616-9 |
| summary | An excellent primer for anyone who is looking to create their own MAME arcade cabinet. |
Project Arcade is split up in to five parts. The first part describes the planning process, and comprises complete plans for building an arcade cabinet from scratch. The second, third, and fourth parts are a list of parts and design decisions for the hardware for your MAME arcade cabinet, from the control panel and computer, to the speakers and monitor. The fifth part is a summary of various "off-the-shelf" solutions for purchasing a complete MAME-ready arcade cabinet, as well as links to other "inspirational" projects. Obviously, if you're building the MAME arcade cabinet from the wood up, and outfitting it with your own hardware, then most of the book will be applicable to you. I found all sections to be very valuable, and regardless of which direction I take (build or buy) I'll be more informed when I finally devise my plans and make my purchases.
One thing that stood out in Project Arcade was the thoroughness of the book. Unlike some "build your own arcade books", Project Arcade contains complete plans for an arcade cabinet, from start to finish, including lists of all of the materials. I unfortunately didn't build the cabinet, and am not an expert on woodworking, but the plans looked complete and well thought out. At the very least, it left me with the impression that this was something that I could likely handle with some help. The part I am a little more familiar with (the electronics) was quite fascinating. The book catalogs a great deal of hardware available to the arcade-cabinet builder, and there were parts that I didn't know were available, such as screw-terminal keyboard adapters (no more taking apart cheap keyboards for me). The author details many different joysticks, trackballs, and button choices available, with thoughtful discussion on the pros and cons of each choice. I felt through most of the book like I was being guided by someone who was passionate about building excellent MAME arcade cabinets, and had a lot of knowledge to share. Even the section on pre-made cabinets was carefully put together, with the benefits of each cabinet design explained thoroughly. There are also copious amounts of photos, so you'll know exactly what it is you're looking at. Also, where applicable, there are diagrams and charts to aid and assist.
Unfortunately, the strengths of Project Arcade are also part of its weaknesses. There are a LOT of parts described in the book. After a few pages of the same type of part, my mind started to wander. While the descriptions are comprehensive and insightful, I found myself after a while thinking "I get it already". Detailed descriptions of taking apart keyboards and soldering to them to me seemed obvious, but I can see why the author decided to take the time to explain the process more thoroughly for those who may not be as comfortable taking apart something electronic. Also, the book focused mostly on the hardware for building a MAME arcade cabinet. I would have appreciated the same depth of discussion on the software available to complete the project, mostly because I think the author could have brought some very insightful recommendations on what software to use with the MAME arcade cabinet.
When I build my MAME cabinet, be it a conversion of an old (non-working) cabinet, or from scratch, Project Arcade will definitely be the book I use on that project. While the descriptions can be a bit verbose, the book delivers a very thorough and insightful perspective on what I should be looking for when envisioning what my completed MAME cabinet should be. Much like a do-it-yourself book for remodeling your bathroom, the book can only provide you guidance; the finished project is up to your creativity and imagination. Project Arcade is that guide to building yourself the perfect MAME arcade cabinet.
You can purchase Project Arcade from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
I'm curious... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I'm curious... (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, I don't think it is that large a concern. Many places out there will sell you a blank machine....but, it is easy to get a free 'wink' 'wink' CD on the side of the ROMs to run it.
It has only really been recently that some companies have started putting these old games out there for anyone to play with them again....until the MAME movement, they were largely lost, and many game still aren't commercially available.
I don't personally see anything wrong with it...the idea behind MAME was to save and preserve some early computing. I like to see it when my friends' kids play these old games...hoping it might show them that game PLAY is more important often than graphics or sound. To this day, I think Robotron is one of the most fun and intensive games made. I usually finish a session worn out, sweaty, and have either nearly ripped out the dual joysticks, or have severe tennis elbow.
Wild Gunman (Score:5, Funny)
"That's like a baby's toy!"
Re:I'm curious... (Score:5, Informative)
I worked for 3 years as an arcade tech while I was in college, we'd have bins and bins of scrapped gameboards, most of them had good ROMs and were just tossed in a bin once the cabinet was converted to a more lucrative game. We then scavenged spare parts off these boards for when active machines had problems. It was a great resource for the arcade because when a obsolete proprietary Sega chip failed on still popular classic game X we could dig up the board from the old Sega game Y from the same year that we binned years ago and find the same chip on the similar board.
The arcade I worked at had a lot of classic machines and the head tech actually started reverse engineering and building hardware emulators from scratch for a lot of classics that would die frequently from design flaws. (he was a really bright guy, and IIRC he was the head of the EE department at RI tech, the arcade was just his part time summer job).
There are however quite a few games that were encrypted or had some other form of copy protection to keep arcade operators from cloning machines by dumping the roms to similar hardware from a cheaper game. Even still many of the popular classics have legal roms available for sale. I seem to recall at least one of those "classic games in a joystick" packages coming with a CD that included legal, MAME usable roms; or maybe I'm imagining things.
In any case there are legal ways to obtain roms... though personally I prefer to just use the original hardware too.
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http://www.mamedev.org/roms/ [mamedev.org]
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Some of the old games, you can ONLY play them with the original hardware. You can't get a ROM of Deathrace [wikipedia.org] ...that old B&W one that you drove over people/zombies, and they turned into a grave with a cross tombstone. Man...that one raised an uproar by the powers that be...back in the days before they started targeting music. Yup...parent groups have been bitching about kids stuff for q
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Actually, when it comes to discrete logic hardware like you're talking about there is almost none of it present in MAME. There was an attempt to emulate Pong for a while, but that was eventually ripped out from the main build. MAME's stated objective is 100% accuracy to the original hardware and as of yet there's no system of emulating the circuits back then that'
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You may not personally see anything wrong with it. Some people don't personally see anything wrong with murdering someone. That doesn't mean it isn't against the law.
I stand back a bit and notice there's more to this comparison. You're trying to compare moral issues on legal grounds. I wouldn't compare murder to "illegal" ROMs. If you murder someone, you can never make that person whole again and restore their life. As for copying a forgotten about ROM, and legal bullying aside, the original copyright owner of the ROM can be made "whole" by an effort as minimal as the offender paying a license fee or other compensation.
Life is an inalienable right. Actually, indefeasib
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I guess that's the difference between creating for love of the art vs working for money. Eons ago, game programmers were "ninjas"; today, most of them are just wage-slaves in a big faceless machine. Warren Spector, John Carmack, Shigeru M
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And yes, I am only joking. I understand the point you are trying to make. But laws that exist to basically punish victimless crimes are stupid. Me using an emulator to play a game from the 80s of which the company doesn't even exist anymore is hardly "stealing" profit away from them. Besides, if I counted up ALL the quarters I spent on said games in my youth, I'm sure it would more than cover the cost of a license.
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On the other hand, there ARE legal alternatives other than owning a cabinet and playing MAME.
GameTap, for instance, has quite a few arcad
Yes, it does (Score:2)
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And yet, here you are in the first comment bashing us over the head with the Public Service Announcement that it is a crime wors
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Incorrect statements about intestacy (Score:3, Informative)
So, your legal argument to support your position is "regardless what any goddamn bastard lawyer tells us, we listen to morality and common sense" ?
Get thee to the courts, next Chief Justice, for who could argue that !
Abandonware IS A FACT - a patent/copyright CANNOT EXIST in reality when all parties involved died and the holding corporation dissolved.
Who, then, owns the copyright? Care to provide a reference in the US Code to this 'abandonment' provision?
they die intestate and their assets are fre
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A myth you say? Really? Software that the copyright holders won't sell you, and refuse to support to the point that getting them to even acknowledge that it exists and they own it is an accomplishment -- all just a myth like unicorns and pixies?
Seems odd that I have drawers full of the stuff.
Or perhaps you mean a myth that abandonware is legal? That might be a myth if people actually thought that. But they don't really.
We know its illegal; we've just e
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I use roms I don't own, but I also collect real system boards of my favorite games when I can find them.
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So sue me.
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Answer from the author (Score:5, Informative)
One point I want to make though is that the book is not about building a MAME cabinet. You'll never hear me refer to one as a MAME cabinet. It's about building an arcade cabinet that runs various software which is an important distinction. Most people will run MAME, of course, however there are hundreds and hundreds of other software games that you can run legally that don't involved copyright violations. Digital Leisure games, Atari releases for the PC, shareware/freeware games that are replicas or similar to arcade games, retroremakes.com, Dance Dance Revolution, the open source dance pad game I can't recall the name of, Williams Classics if you can find it, etc. The two top games as far as my kids are concerned on the cabinet I built are Jazz Jackrabbit and a game called "Best Friends" (retro64.com).
At any rate, thanks for the review Craig and the comments everyone!
--- John St.Clair
Project Arcade
http://www.projectarcade.com/ [projectarcade.com]
Build Your Own Arcade Controls
http://www.arcadecontrols.com/ [arcadecontrols.com]
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1. There are several PC games that you can purchase which are "arcade style" and would be well suited to a cabinet.
2. With a little work, you can convert a regular console controller into into an arcade stick. Place the console inside the cabinet (rather than a PC), and you can play your legally
Four players? (Score:2)
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I was thinking more along the lines of:
1. "Arcade Classics" compilations for PC. These are often budget titles containing several classic arcade games and can be purchased from major retailers.
2. PC games such as MeltyBlood series and Big Bang Beat (both J
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Most of the games I can think of are, admittedly, 1-2 players. I haven't seen any arcade style games for more players than 2 on PC.
Why not? Why don't developers target set-top PCs, which have many of the same issues?
"Arcade Classics" compilations for PC. These are often budget titles containing several classic arcade games and can be purchased from major retailers.
Which would let one copy the ROM files from the disk into MAME. But I was looking for something that runs natively on a PC without the slowdowns inherent in an emulator running on an older computer.
PC games such as MeltyBlood series and Big Bang Beat (both Japanese "Doujinsoft" Fighting games), or the Korean beat 'em up Dungeon & Fighter. You can legally purchase these online.
Per 17 USC 602, can I legally purchase them online without moving to Japan or Korea? Are they in the English language, or would I need to purchase English locale files for them separately? And how much does a copy cost, compar
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2. I'm not certain how each individual compilation set works. It is said that "Atari: 80 Classic Games in One" for PCs have certain issues on some games, for example. If you want the real deal, I'd go out and try to buy an original arcade PCB.
3. IANNAL but from my interpretation of
17 USC 117; nine non-Exidy ROM sets (Score:2)
you cannot use the ROM off any medium other than the one it was intended for, ie the Game Board.
In what country? As I understand it, if the owner of a game board dumps its ROM to play on a computer, U.S. law (17 USC 117) considers this dumping an essential adaptation and thus not an infringement [bitlaw.com].
There is also 1 rom placed in the public doamin by the author and 2 more of questionable origin. See the MAME site for more info.
That was then, when Gridlee and Robby Roto were the only ones. Since then, Exidy has licensed nine of its old ROM sets for non-commercial redistribution [mamedev.org].
Not to mention that you can use these 'MAME' cabinets to play hundreds of other LEGAL PC based computer games like Quake, Unreal etc or any other game that fits into the cabinet paradigm.
Unfortunately, too many PC games do not fit into cabinets. I'd love to something else to play on a 4-player cabinet like that used by Teenage Mutant Ninja
117(a)(1) != 117(a)(2) (Score:3, Interesting)
Atari v. JS&A concerned the sale of devices that make chip-to-chip copies for "backup" purposes, not chip-to-disk copies for emulation purposes. Backups fall under 117(a)(2), and the court in Atari found that 117(a)(2) does not cover chip-to-chip backups. The copies used in emulation, on the other hand, are not backups; they are an "adaptation ... created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine" per 117(a)(1). Compare Vault v. Quaid, 847 F.2d 255 ( [harvard.edu]
I bought this a while back.... (Score:1, Insightful)
I would recommend it to anyone serious about building their own cabinet.
For more information.... (Score:2, Informative)
calling cmdrtaco (Score:2)
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--- John St.Clair
Many options (Score:1)
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Yup...got mine in an old original Tempest cabinet. I'm gonna redo the sound...put in better stereo speakers and a big subwoofer...
missing (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:missing (Score:5, Funny)
Re:missing (Score:4, Interesting)
It won't replace the ego boost from the throngs of humans crowding over your shoulder in awe of your godlike playing skills, but the Arcade Ambience [hofle.com] project is a pretty good replacement for the background sounds of dozens of arcade machines.
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Yeah, because a lot of people have that level of skills.
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Attention! It's all about the ATTENTION! (Score:4, Insightful)
I was kicked out of almost every local arcade and pizza place. The smart asses at one Italian-owned pizza place in Philly invited me back in a few days after they had kicked me out. 'Hey! Youa, COME IN! COME IN! You cana play, that's a nice boy...' I soon found out why they were all smiles - they had jacked up the difficulty settings on their Stargate machine - almost no Inviso, extra lives at 40,000, not 25,000, etc. Still, I lasted about an hour and a half on a single quarter and they weren't as smiley when I left that night.
For a 14 year old boy, there's no better ego booster than doing something very few people could and being recognized for it. Later, I entered (and won) a regional contest on Stargate - I still have the cheesy t-shirt.
Yeah, it was all about the attention I got. To this day I love to perform - I run a small school network and always try to be the 'answer man' when it comes to anything remotely related to computers and on the weekends, I play with my classic rock band, 'Dizzy Lizyrd'. ROCK ON!
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The other thing you had to be careful of - and I did not know this until it happened to me that day at the mall - it was like the 4th or 5th million rollover and I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention when all of a sudden, I noticed I was down a ship. Well of course it only showed the first five so that meant that I only had FOUR ships left! In a
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I'm not sure about that, it seems that a lot of people buy a lot of games, buy lots of hardware, accessories, TVs and such.
Maybe it's just antisocial, possibly having nothing to do with frugality.
Personally, I hated the loud environment.
Most of the places that had the machines didn't maintain them very well. Many machines had noticeable screen b
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what north america are you talking about? (Score:3, Insightful)
And all though I spend an large amount of time in the arcade in the 1980s there were better places to be social.
Skating Rink, corner store, the shopping center.
Of course in my day you could smoke in the arcade, buy dope, and check out rat tails and members only jackets and listen to Pat Benatar. Maybe that is why we do not go to them.
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*One of the biggest arcades in Toronto,ON back in the day was the "Funland" On Yonge St. The entire front of the place was fold away doors and in the better weather they would open them all up. Since a
Great book and great site... (Score:1)
does the book cover (Score:4, Funny)
oh right this is slashdot sort of a moot point by in large really.
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Or you could just get rid of the exercise machine she forced you to buy that's been used only twice.
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Pay for nice wood (Score:3, Informative)
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You do realize that's like commenting on a build your own PC book by pointing out a link to Dell right?
Kinda missing the point? Just maybe?
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This book is about making a MAME setup from an old arcade cabinet. Offering another place to start with similar materials is by no means cheating.
If you want to demand that I turn in my card, demad the same of the book's author.
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You provided a link to a finished product, completely bypassing the whole process of making the thing, to any extent, yourself.
Not saying it's not a viable option, just kinda odd considering...
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Again, I restate the point that this book is *starting* with an arcade cabinet, not making one from sheets of plywood.
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That's why we've got this thing called money. I can pay someone else to do stuff that I'd either rather not do or don't want to spend the time on.
It's kind of like my Operating System. Even though Linux is free, I'd still rather pay for it than create it....
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Sheesh.
But considering the topic at hand, it'd be more interesting to talk about actually building one than skipping the entire topic completely.
No need to get all up in arms.
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I'm confused by your analogy, now if it related to a car...
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I designed my own electronics for system control, largely because most of the MAME controllers of the day we
Bah... (Score:2)
My own parts recommendations... (Score:3, Informative)
I'd also like to recommend the Opti-Pac [ultimarc.com] to connect trackballs, spinners, or optical joysticks that don't have built-in USB or PS/2 mouse interfaces.
And while I'm on the subject of spinners, the SlikStik Tornado Spinner [happcontrols.com] is really nice.
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Am I missing something here? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you want to build a cabinet from scratch, it sounds like this would be a fine book. If you want to convert an old cabinet, there are much easier solutions. Ultimarc, [ultimarc.com] for example, produces several products that convert standard JAMMA interfaces to PC keyboard and video connections. JAMMA is the standard that arose to allow for easily changing games out in arcade cabinets.
I ultimately ended up with a HotRodSE [hanaho.com] connected to a home theater computer because I didn't have the space for a dedicated cabinet. Ultimarc's products, though, appear to allow for the joystick and buttons on a JAMMA cabinet to connect to a PS/2 interface and for the video connector to hook to VGA (refresh and resolutions on arcade machines are different from standard computer modes). They even sell an AGP or PCIe video card that appears to have a special RAMDAC so that you don't have to screw around with getting the weird video modes working.
I've never used Ultimarc's stuff, so I have no idea how well it would work. Assuming it's decent, the formula would be pretty simple: find an older Street Fighter cabinet in decent shape (functioning buttons and non-burned screen). They have six-button configs, which seems to be the most buttons used for the majority of games, thus saving you from having to cut holes for new buttons. Street Fighter was also ridiculously common but is old enough that you should be able to get the cabinet for a few hundred dollars if you're in/near a big city. Pull the board, plop in a computer, wire a couple of adapters, spend some time on a nice front end, and it shouldn't be too much work to have a functional MAME cabinet.
In praise of Ultimarc (Score:2)
Front-ends were my worst problem (Score:3, Interesting)
What I found was that pretty much every one of the launchers/front-ends I found sucked. I found nothing that allowed me to incorporate multiple emulators, and non-emulation apps, into one nice little launcher. Yes, there were some nice apps out there but nothing really worked overly well, and I was very disappointed. All I wanted was a long list of games, each with a screenshot, and a launch button. Nothing fancy.
I ended up writing my own little app which launches when the machine boots, and then kicks off whatever app/emu is required to launch the game.
For me, writing the app was part of my experience, but it would have been nice had I been able to just use something that already existed.
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My MAME Cabinet (Score:2)
The cabinet was built completely from scratch, patterned off of a early 90s Data East cab.
Of course, I did this all back in the summer of 2000, so some of the electronics I used for it might be a bit dated. However, I think most
One thing still missing (Score:2, Interesting)
I think it was the fact that I had to pay for each attempt that made me memorise most of Slapfight and R-Type. I've played both on MAME (R-Type on the Wii as well), and I don't have the same motivation. If I die, I die. Press 5 a few more times and have another go. It's also the amount invested so far that can make a difference (when you realise that you've already spent around $100 o
New Edition??? No, I guess not... (Score:2)
Does this really need a book? (Score:2)
Why?
Because this involves a relatively easy task! If you have an old cabinet and can build a PC, buy an X-Arcade dual (and perhaps the trackball), and whip out your jigsaw. Half an hour of work (not counting the PC itself and finding romsets for your favorite games) will give you a decent base cabinet ready to roll. Add another hour if you want to go all out on decorations.
Meh (Score:2)
Then of course there's the
Besides being a few years late (2004) (Score:3, Informative)
I run mame on my desktop, which is ok, but I always (and still) want a spin, real joysticks, a flight stick, and the great old games. I've learned you can put multiple simulators on a machine and run stuff like old Apple II games up to fairly recent PC games.
This book is not comprehensive is everything you can do, but it gives you a great start if this is a hobby you would like to do. Well worth the price. And definintly check out their website. You could easily spend hours there.
FYI (Score:5, Informative)
For 15 years I repaired arcade games and pinball machines. In that time I must've installed a couple thousand 'conversion kits' to make over an old game into a new one. I left that industry in 1997, but I doubt things have changed much: converting an old game into a new one is much cheaper than buying a whole new game.
* Old arcade game cabinets (with or without working games in them, or even with non-working games in them) can be purchased; similarly, brand-new cabinets, manufactured with installing a new game kit in them are available. It's much easier and cheaper to renovate an old cabinet than it is to try to build one from scratch, that's for sure.
* Arcade-style buttons, joysticks, trackballs, etc. can also be purchased brand-new and used. Common controls like 4- and 8-way joysticks and standard pushbuttons are much, much cheaper than you'd think and readily availble.
* Older or "classic" arcade game PC boards can be had for a song from reputable companies. Most of the business the last company I worked for was buying and selling used hardware. While using an emulator is kinda cool (used to have an Asteroids emulator back in the day), nothing plays quite like the originals. Wiring up most of the old classic games isn't that difficult, most have one single harness connector and require +5 and +12 volts, monitor (RGB plus sync), speaker, and controls. Some multi-board sets are more difficult, but a decent company will sell it used with some sort of workable wiring harness and documentation showing cabinet wiring (I used to generate my own documentation if there was none available).
* Newer games (hopefully, all still) use a standard 56-pin wiring harness, which allows you to switch games as easily as pulling one PC board and installing another, no (or minimal) rewiring necessary. Where I worked, I started manufacturing adapters from the older games to the newer wiring harness standard, to facilitate selling older games to people and vendors that wanted them.
* Commentary on the legality of ROM images: last time I checked, even something as old and ubiquitous as Pac Man was still of great interest to Namco, and they'd sue your pants off if they discovered you pirating them. Piracy of arcade game hardware and software always was and probably still is a big problem for the arcade game industry; I'd see knock-off arcade games all the time. Copyright holders would sue the living daylights out of anyone trafficking in such things -- although I kept a library (past tense!) of EPROM/ROM/PAL images around for repair purposes, and you can likely still download them from the 'net.
A pixellated avatar? (Score:2)
It's not a real standup arcade game (Score:2, Funny)
To be truly authentic.. (Score:3, Funny)
Nothing can truly replace a dedicated cabinet... (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason is simple: You get the cabinet's original dimensions, artwork (side-art, bezel art, banner art, control panel art) that was half the reason you loved the game in the first place. There was nothing like scanning an arcade for your favorite game and seeing it, all lit up, ready for you to pump in a few quarters.
Re:Nothing can truly replace a dedicated cabinet.. (Score:2)
The reason is simple: You get the cabinet's original dimensions, artwork (side-art, bezel art, banner art, control panel art) that was half the reason you loved the game in the first place. There was nothing like scanning an arcade for your favorite game and seeing it, all lit up, ready for you to pump in a few quarters.
I think you're a bit confused here - MA
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$2k? Wow. Must be a nice s
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I think the best compromize would be to build 5 MAME machines, each with a different control scheme, and on each load up all the games that use that particular scheme. For
For the lazy ones... (Score:2)
Wow...what a useless book... (Score:2)
If Americans really want arcades they'll show their love with money. So far Americans would assume play games at home, and steal games via MAME (things this book pushes). Thing that Arcades in the US really missed is those sutpid asse
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Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator [mame.net]
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only if linux/bsd runs fine on the hardware. i still find no end of issues with ATI cards.
Best home arcade goes to this guy: (Score:3, Interesting)
Peter Hirschberg. Take a look at his basement arcade! [peterhirschberg.com]
How's that for ambiance?
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I do hope there are useful pointers to graphical front-ends.
I had trouble finding a frontend I liked, and actually started writing my own in wxWidgets, until I ran across 3D-Arcade [mameworld.net]. Took a while to figure out how to set it up (and I'm still figuring it out since the config is quite complex), but its nice to walk around in the virtual arcade, pretty cool stuff.
And as a side note, a working 3dArcade set can fit on a 1GB flash drive, and makes an inexpensive gift at christmas. Launches a bit slow off the fl