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Project Arcade
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.
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.
The author of this book runs Arcadecontrols.com, which provides a lot more information on building an arcade machine.
Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator
I made a MAME cabinet a few years ago and I enjoyed it while I had it. The one recommendation I'd pass along to others is go ahead and splurge and get the nicest wood you can. I went cheap cheap cheap; bought the roughest, cheapest pieces of crap wood I could get. I never got over that disappointment. That and instead of dropping another $30 on paint, I used the glossy black paint we had lying around. Another big mistake, but cez la vie.
The I-Pac from Ultimarc is a really nice screw-terminal-to-keyboard interface board, and the one I've used in my own arcade console. Its biggest benefit over a hacked-up keyboard is that it uses discrete I/O for all of its inputs, rather than matrix scanning like a keyboard does, so there's absolutely no limit to the number of simultaneous keypresses it can process.
I'd also like to recommend the Opti-Pac 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 is really nice.
http://nyty.ath.cx/arcade/index.html
You don't have to do any winking at all... You can find boards for most classic games on ebay for $2-$40 depending on the game (more modern or rare games can go up to $200) and you can get an EPROM reader for about $50 and rip your own ROMs from the boards that YOU OWN. I know because I've done it.
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.
Collector's Edition
I disagree that it would be irresponsible. Anyone that is into this enough to want to spend the money to make a cabinet already KNOWS the legal situation of what they are doing. The ones that believe the 'abandonware myth' won't listen to you when you try to tell them it's illegal, and if you ever DO get them to listen, they'll just justify it to themselves and carry on.
On the other hand, there ARE legal alternatives other than owning a cabinet and playing MAME.
GameTap, for instance, has quite a few arcade games like Joust that work very well with a good stick, like the X-Arcade Tankstick.
Another interesting idea is to buy a broken cabinet, or even just the board, of the game you particularly want, and then playing it in MAME. You -have- the hardware legally and it probably won't cost near as much as a real cabinet, and definitely won't cost you as much shipping.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
I got this a few years ago when I was interested in building my own box (then had some financial problems with this). It was great, especially if you coupled it with their website. They go into the legalities of MAME a bit, but mostly focus on how to built the machine.
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.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
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.
There are more than that now.
http://www.mamedev.org/roms/
Some of the old games, you can ONLY play them with the original hardware. You can't get a ROM of Deathrace ...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 quite a while.
But, as I understand it with Deathrace it wasn't a rom, but, used hard wired logic circuits?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
+4, Interesting? I could see either -1, Troll or +532, Brilliant Satire, but Interesting?
I do cover the legalities of ROMs and such in the book. I attempted to distinguish between the moral issue of using ROMs (short version: That's a personal decision for you to make) and the legal issue of using ROMs (that for the most part it involves a copyright violation). I mention the various clearly legal ways to get ROMs (the alas defunct StarRoms service for instance, compilations you can buy, etc), and the grey area (are you entitled to use a ROM if you own the board set, for instance).
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/
Build Your Own Arcade Controls
http://www.arcadecontrols.com/
--- saint
Build Your Own Arcade Controls
> The versions of those games on MAME aren't actually rips of the original roms but roms created from scratch to emulate the original hardware.
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's accurate enough for the developers. There's some emulation of discrete sound hardware for a few games, but until the devs find something that's up to their standard then there's really very little work being done outside of that. It's the same thing that's keepin laserdisc games out of MAME. The hardware is long-emulated, but there's no acceptable method of reproducing the video yet.
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 free to distribute. The same concept applies to corporations
Now you're making stuff up - that's just not correct.
If the owner of the copyright is an individual, then that copyright is part of the normal estate, and is distributed to heirs like other property. If the individual is truely intestate, then their property gets escheated to the state - the state would then own the copyright, and could do with it what it sees fit (including releasing the copyright to the public domain, or asserting damage claims against infringers).
If the owner is a corporation, then either corporation was dissolved correctly, and the net assets (including the copyright) were distributed as a liquidating dividend to the shareholders (or the company entered liquidating bankruptcy and the copyright is now owned by a creditor). If the corporation wasn't properly dissolved, then the copyright is owned by a dormant, non-operating shell, with the copyright is in legal limbo.
But this doesn't cause the copyright to vanish or be relased to public domain. Absent the copyright holder releasing the copyright, or the copyright expiring per statue, the copyright is owned by SOMEONE.
Sincerely,
- your local Intellectual Property Fascist corporation asstroturfer
- a/k/a reasonable person who may agree with your position, but doesn't like people talking out of their ass and giving incorrect information about stuff they know nothing about.