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.

Comments

I'm curious...

[Have Blue]

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.

Re:I'm curious...

[cayenne8]

"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?"

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.

Re:I'm curious...

[twistedsymphony]

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.

does the book cover

[atarione]

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.

Wild Gunman

[HTH NE1]

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. "You mean you have to use your hands?"
"That's like a baby's toy!"

Re:missing

[smurphmeister]

North Americans are more interested in being frugal than social. This is such a lie! Why, if I could afford a plane ticket to wherever you are and wasn't afraid of leaving my house, I'd come over and kick your ass right now!

Re:missing

[Tackhead]

> What's missing from the home experience isn't the cabinet, its the people and the loud environment. North Americans are more interested in being frugal than social.

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.

FYI

[Duncan Blackthorne]

Granted, some of this has already been said, but I'm going to try to cover it all in one place.

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.

Answer from the author

[siredgar]

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/

Attention! It's all about the ATTENTION!

[Chordonblue]

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!