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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.
Does the book out anywhere that abandonware is a myth and that unless you already own an arcades' worth of authentic machines this project will involve copyright infringement? I'm not saying this is right or wrong, just that it would be irresponsible not to make readers aware of that issue.
The author of this book runs Arcadecontrols.com, which provides a lot more information on building an arcade machine.
Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator
how to convince your wife to let you have an arcade machine in the house???
oh right this is slashdot sort of a moot point by in large really.
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
"That's like a baby's toy!"
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
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.
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 project is a pretty good replacement for the background sounds of dozens of arcade machines.
The author of this review asks, "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?" Based on the review, the book seems to focus a lot on making your own replica cabinet from scratch.
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, 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 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.
I took an old Street Fighter II box and re-did it as a MAME box a few years ago but for me, I wanted to do more than just the arcade games. I also included NES, and Atari stuff in it as well. I also liked the idea of running some of the well done remakes of classics (Activision's Space Invaders was done very well, as were some of the other remakes).
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.
No matter how fast computers get, you'll always be waiting - Matt Klem
Having to pay for each game, and taking pride in spending 15 minutes (or 45 minutes) on a single quarter (or any other coin).
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 or $500 on this game, you're not going to leave it now, not without your name on the high score list.
This will never be replicated at home, even if you add the coin mechanism, because you know you still have the money there.
I'm not suggesting that money is the only incentive, and that you can't enjoy arcade games without it, but I do believe it's a big part of it.
North Americans are anything but frugal! Here in the USA and in Canada people spend money like water, let food spoil, spend money on car detailing, botox, and sleepaway camp.
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.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Peter Hirschberg. Take a look at his basement arcade!
How's that for ambiance?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
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.
It's not a real stand up arcade game unless it has cigarette burns on it by the player 1 & 2 buttons.
If you don't possess the skills, you can be part of the crowd of people who admire. Don't you see that there is a role for everyone?
You need to invite strangers to your house while you are playing, who will annoyingly hang around the machine hoping for a free go.
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. 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 flash (assuming cheap flash), but plays great once its going.
+4, Interesting? I could see either -1, Troll or +532, Brilliant Satire, but Interesting?
I own a Double Dragon arcade cabinet and am in the process of restoring it... For the ones who truly want to re-live the 'good old days', especially with a favorite game, you can't beat a dedicated cabinet (READ: *not* MAME).
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.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Actually, his cabinet is one of the ones I featured in the book :)
--- John St.Clair
--- saint
Build Your Own Arcade Controls
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
Oh yes, I was one of those 14/15 year old kids that could totally wipe the floor with you on Defender, Stargate, or Blaster - and I relished the crowd. Back then, Williams Electronics was the shit - the single best game company in the world (next to Atari, IMHO), and Eugene Jarvis (programmer of the Defender/Robotron series) was my personal hero. My best friend's poison was Robotron - NO ONE ever beat him. I once monopolized a cocktail Defender machine in a mall arcade for over 8 hours drawing a HUGE crowd. After the 6th hour, I had enough ships to simply stand up and use the restroom, get a drink, watch other people try and play the 300th+ wave (whatever it was rolled over to at the time), and then after a 1/2 hour or so, took control again.
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!
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
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.
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 (5th Cir. 1988), which the page on Patent Arcade mentions but does not analyze.
In addition, Atari happened in the Northern District of Illinois, which is within the 7th Circuit, and to my knowledge was not appealed; Vault happened in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. A split between federal circuits is prime material for a review by the Supreme Court.