My son has asked me to build him an retro style arcade cabinet. In doing my research online it appears that there are several different emulators (m.a.m.e) and rom download sites. I am sure some one on the forum has experience with this and may lead me in the right direction, or even caution me in other areas.
My son has asked me to build him an retro style arcade cabinet. In doing my research online it appears that there are several different emulators (m.a.m.e) and rom download sites. I am sure some one on the forum has experience with this and may lead me in the right direction, or even caution me in other areas.
thank you for any and all advice
dan
Hey Bonaduce... I've done this a couple of times.
The Super PacMan on the left is a 60 Game-In-One multicade with full JAMMA support in a totally restored Super PacMan cabinet.
The Polybius in the middle is a 9,000 in one multi-arcade cabinet with full JAMMA support, built in subwoofer, and dual stereo sound, with two-player, track ball, and a detachable third controller that comes out from the little door which you can hold onto in joystick form.
The Missile Command on the right is a totally unrestored Missile Command with CRT.
You have a LOT of options... but you want everything to be JAMMA compatible (think of it like a car's ECM wiring), because everything is designed to support it.
Biggest thing in my mind is, I don't want to be elitest, but I am not a fan of the 1-Up Arcade "cabinets." Let me be clear about what I say... I love the 1-Up company in that they've brought arcade machines to a whole new generation. It's just that for an original cabinet, the 1-Ups are a little small, and a little cheap.
My advice is to hunt around on eBay for a "used" arcade machine / cabinet... perhaps one that you like. Restore the cabinet to "original" condition, but put one of the multi-cabinet boards in there. They sell "power kits" etc. There's a lot of people who will poo poo on you for not using a CRT, but I just don't see the benefit unless you're restoring an arcade machine for a museum. Use one of the $150 LED monitor kits. They look so much better, and you can make full use of the screen.
Like, look at this... this is Super PacMan with an LED screen (and not even the biggest one you can get), and it's so much bigger than the 19" monitor that used to be in there.
You have so many options... but getting a good cabinet is the hardest job. The rest of it is just "parts."
Also... if you're looking for something that's still quality, but smaller... they have what's called a "Cabaret" cabinet, or even a "Cocktail" cabinet (sit down).
Here's an example of a nice Cabaret cabinet that's basically been stripped of it's entire identity, and that you could turn into whatever you want...
Note, it's a JAMMA cabinet, and someone has already stuffed in a Moon Patrol board, so you know everything already works... so you can just upgrade things as you choose...
thanks 82, buying a cabinet would certainly make things easier but making it is more enjoyable. So far only cost is the buttons and joysticks ($45). I have everything else needed to get it up and running other than the emulator software and the rom. I know I can't use Retropi, as I am not using a rasberry pi as the main board.
thanks 82, buying a cabinet would certainly make things easier but making it is more enjoyable. So far only cost is the buttons and joysticks ($45). I have everything else needed to get it up and running other than the emulator software and the rom. I know I can't use Retropi, as I am not using a rasberry pi as the main board.
dan
You certainly can make a cabinet, there are a lot of patterns and schematics out there. The only benefit to buying an existing arcade machine, is that you get "all the things" that come with it. Such as the wiring harness, the coin door, the coin mechanism, the controls / switches, etc. All of these things add up to the overall "realism" of the arcade cabinet. Even if you were going to make your own cabinet, it might help to buy a "ready to be trashed" cabinet that already has all these things on it, otherwise you'll need to buy those things separately.
What are your thoughts? No judgement here... I'm more of a purist, like Ogre is with everything being stock, so I certainly have opinions. Haha...
No real thought other than make it look more up to date, as for the games. Son is all about xbox and playstation, the wife and I are more old school, coming from the era of atari, intellavision, and colecovision, last gaming system was a wii. As for being a purist, if i was doing a pinball machine or old juke box, definitely back to as close to original.
Read it and interesting but Wait..you have Missile Command????
I'd like to see it using Phalanx or even THADD .
Hahah... MJ, you have no idea how long I've had that Missile Command. I've owned that arcade machine since I was 19 years old. I bought it for $200 bucks from "Mr. Pac Man Arcade" in the slums of Fort Lauderdale (an area that is now ultra-exclusive and wealthy). I paid some dude $50 bucks to drive it to my apartment complex, where I unloaded it and my roommates and I played it. This was back in 1997-1998.
I then moved it to my dad's house when I moved to a town house that I rented with one other person, and I strapped it down to the back of my 1982 Pontiac TransAm, which I'd also purchased for $250 bucks. It had no ignition advance as it was a computer-controlled carburetor that someone disabled the ignition advance on, and slapped on a normal Rochester QuadraJet. It smoked like hell, and I drove it to my parents where my dad let me keep it in his garage from 1998-2003.
I then moved into my first house when I got married, and it was in the family room. A few years later in 2008, my daughter was born and one day she was in the family room (which we had gates at both doors so she wouldn't run around the house). And she started peeling the graphics off the Missile Command... hahah. I came in, and she had torn off like half of the graphics from one side. I couldn't get mad at her, she was only 2... haha.
I then moved to Maryland in 2011, and I took it with me, it sat in the kitchen in a townhouse we rented. THEN in 2014 I moved back to South Florida, and it sat in the family room ....
I then took it with me to Texas in 2017...
...and now it's back with me in Tampa (as you see above).
I've done work on it over the years. It's still all original, but I've replaced a couple of switches, rebuilt the trackball, used a new control panel overlay, and replaced the speakers.
I managed to find a place that does original artwork... "This Old Game" (styled in the "This Old House" theme), and they reprinted all new graphics. I have to shore up the wood as it's kind of crumbling at the bottom. I forget the stuff I need to use, but I plan to take the entire thing apart, strip the cabinet down, fill in any little holes, paint it, and then apply the new graphics. The monitor is still original, and everything is in good shape... it just needs a once over. It works amazing though.
Full disclosure... the ROMs on these old boards tend to go bad... so Mike's Arcade sells a little board that plugs into the CPU (6502) slot on the motherboard, and directly loads the game information through the CPU slot, bypassing the ROMs. It's a multi-game that includes the original version of Missile Command, whcih was known as ARMAGEDDON... but the name was changed at the last minute because it was during the Russian / U.S. arms negotiations in the early 80s... and everyone feared the world was going to end. So they thought it was too scary and changed it to Missile Command. The little daughter card also saves the high score list too... which is nice. So, even if you turn it off, you can keep the high score.
------------------ Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should. (Jurassic Park)
I built mine from a generic cabinet, an xp laptop, 22" flatscreen, and usb buttons/sticks from amazon. Already had mame and the roms, plug and play. With a usb controller you can play the console games. Very easy and inexpensive to set up. Dunno how you find roms nowadays, I got mine from a torrent site waaaaaay back.
You can buy multigame Jamma boards, just be aware that the 60-in-1 are generally crap in terms of emulation (Pandora box is far better). You can go the MAME method, but you need an interface to connect your controls: https://www.arcaderenovatio...ller-interfaces.html
If you just want arcade games you can go with MAME.. But i recommend Garlic OS.. Its a custom OS that emulates EVERYTHING! All consoles and arcades, and even older pc's, and micro's, hell it even emulates cell phone games.
This link gives instructions on how to install it on a hand held, but you can get all the files and stuff you need there. You could build yourself a retro pie and put garlic on it and have everything.
