MAME Arcade Cabinet Conversion in 4 key steps - PDF document

1 MAME Arcade Cabinet Conversion in 4 key
MAME Arcade Cabinet Conversion in 4 key steps by Christophe Caron Introduction / Specifications: Get a Cabinet and Prepare it ¥ ebay / craigslist ¥ build from scratch vs. conversion ¥ stripping JAMMA wiring / keep 110V for AC Power Supply 1. VGA hookup 2. Switch Power ON 3. Control: Keyboard Hack 4. Software Finishing Touches ¥ Sound ¥ Lights ¥ Cosmetic Hi there. I'd like to present you my MAME Arcade Cabinet. Originally this Cabinet was able to run only one arcade game. MAME which stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator is a software that allows to run and emulate approximately 3700 different arcade games such as, among the most famous ones Ms Pac Man, Metal Slug, Street Fighter II, Galaga etc. MAME can run on many different platforms such as Windows, Unix, OS X etc. but by simply playing it on a desktop computer, even though the games are exactly the same as their arcade counterparts, it lacks the look & feel of the original arcade. That project consisted of removing the original proprietary electronic game board inside the cabinet, replacing it with a computer (PC) and interfacing it. This is now what I will briefly overview with you. First of all, I'd like to point out there are many different ways of converting an Arcade Cabinet into a MAME Cabinet. The way I did it is not THE way, however this is the way that fitted my specifications the most. Indeed, I wanted my cabinet to look as close to the exact thing as the original and by seeing it from the outside I wanted it in a way that no one could tell if it's a regular Arcade Cabinet or a MAME Cabinet. That means keeping the original display monitor (in no way I wanted to use a PC screen, LCD screen or even a TV), keeping the originals pushbuttons and joysticks and being coin operated. I wanted the hardware being as much as integrated as possible (that means "one power switch turn it all", no inside keyboard, mouse, computer case, no floppy or DVD drive, etc.). Concerning the software, I wanted something robust, low tech, low cost that simply allow from booting up, to select a game, play it before finally turning everything off. Before continuing further I'd also like to point out while you may find most arcade games easily out of the Internet, you must, on a legal standpoint, own the original game before you can run it with MAME. Since I wanted something as close to the original, I started with an old cabinet that I have then converted. Let me tell you there is a controversy within the arcade community with converting a cabinet rather than building one from scratch, because some old cabinets may be very rare and unique ; by convertin

2 g a cabinet rather than restoring it to
g a cabinet rather than restoring it to it's original state, it would only accentuate the rarity trend. Anyway. I found my cabinet off of Craigslist (you can also try eBay, or your local Video Arcade) ; it was sold as "working" but coming without any game board. That's exactly what I wanted for my project and I bought it for a little over 100 bucks. When you convert or even build from scratch a MAME cabinet, there are mainly four critical steps you have to go thru: it is the ATX power supply power up , the VGA to the arcade monitor hookup , the control interfacing and the software set up . Out of those four steps, I personally consider the VGA to the arcade monitor hookup to be the trickiest one. Anyway, let's detail each steps. ATX power supply power up The first thing I did was to take a multi meter and strip the wiring of the old game board as well as the wiring of the pushbuttons, sticks and coin mechanism . I just kept intact the original power switch, the 110V wiring for the marquee light, the 110V wiring for the original display monitor and also the 110V wiring for the old game board power supply. Indeed this is where I tapped the standard computer ATX power supply. From here I was able to power in the motherboard, the hard drive (which are both mounted inside the cabinet with some appropriate mounting brackets) and even the coin mechanism's light bulbs (+5V) using a 4-pin Molex connector. The monitor and the ATX power supply are powered on and off with a single level switch on the back of the cabinet. But since turning ON and OFF on all ATX power supplies is software controlled, when I flip the level switch to ON, unlike the monitor, the motherboard would not turn on. To solve this problem, I soldered together PIN # 14 (Green which is PS-ON) and PIN # 15 (Black which is COM) of the 20-pin ATX power supply connector. After this modification, the monitor and the motherboard would turn On and Off with the command of one level switch. VGA to the arcade monitor hookup There are two extension cards plugged into the motherboard: the sound card (a standard Sound Blaster PCI 128, on which I plugged a standard stripped PC power speaker) and the AGP video card. A standard arcade monitor has a harness which is made of 5 wires: R, G and B for the red, green and blue signals and H Sync and V Sync for Horizontal and Vertical synchronization. These 5 wires have first to be redirected on a standard VGA connector. After the harness is properly rewired, it will still not work because real Arcade monitors works with a 15 Khz refreshing rates and computer video cards displays at rates over 25 Mhz. To sol

3 ve this you can use a special software c
ve this you can use a special software called a Tweaker that will lower the refreshing rate of the video card. But the solution I chose was to order a special video card (called the Ultimarc ArcadeVGA), that natively display at a 15Khz refreshing rate. Control interfacing Now let's go over the controls: the pushbuttons and the sticks. MAME use different keyboard key codes to control the game: for example you get Fire1 by pressing the Ctrl key. So basically what I did is substitute some keys of the keyboard with original arcade pushbuttons. This method is called Keyboard Hack: I took apart a standard PC keyboard (PS2 connector) and use its circuit board (called encoder) to interface arcade controls to the computer. First, you have to do an inventory of all the key codes you need (which are Player 1 controls and fires, Player 2 controls and fires, Coin 1, Coin 2, Start 1 and Start 2). A keyboard encoder is made of different electric contacts separated in 2 groups (let's call them X and Y) and by randomly connecting contacts from the group X and the group Y using all the possible combination, you get the desired key code. For example, on my encoder - each encoder is different - if I connect the contact 4 of the group X and the contact 11 of the group Y, I get the key code R. I would say this step is time consuming and can only be successfully achieved with careful planning. The Keyboard Hack method I just described is obsolete. There are now on the market commercial encoder iron all the pushbuttons and joysticks to the PS2 connector of the motherboard. Software Now that most of the hardware steps have been reviewed, let's talk briefly about the software. Besides the games that are in fact single computer files called ROM which contains a copy of the data f rom a using three different softwares. First, the Operating System: I'm using Freedos which is a using Mame for Dos. Freedos and MAME for Dos make up the backend. But since they are command-line only software, I'm using a frontend which is called Game Launcher. So here is what happen when I turn on my cabinet: the computer boot, first the BIOS and then the Operating System, FreeDos, and then Game Launcher, the front end. From here I can select the game I wanna play from a list, using the sticks and the pushbuttons. I select a game, which is then launched with MAME for Dos and can then play with it. cabinet. I deliberately overlooked the aesthetic aspect of it, but you can find many different side arts, marquee art , control panel art or even plastic T-molding at online stores such as MAMEMarquees.com or ArcadeOverlays.com To end, let's briefl

4 y review some links of interest: Like on
y review some links of interest: Like on any topics, the online collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia has some good articles of interest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcade_game http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcade_cabinet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAME The official MAME website where you can download the latest version and read some related documentation: www.mamedev.org The website MAMEWorld claims to be the "Largest MAME resource on the Internet" and I frankly believe this claim to be true ; a ton of information about various software, tips projects and so on: www.mameworld.net Dos MAME support is I believe the most complete website documenting a DOS Arcade Cabinet running MAME. Great stuff there: www.mameworld.net/dosmame/. MAWS is THE database where you can find information about any games available for MAME ; a reference website ! www.mameworld.net/maws/ KLOV for "Killer List of Videogames" is a full database of the different arcade cabinets produced throughout the years: 4000+ machines listed ! www.klov.com The BYOAC Wiki contains some really exhaustive information for whoever wants to build their own MAME Cabinet ; http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/ You got a problem, have questions or would like to show off your newly built MAME cabinet ? The BYOAC Forum is probably the most active forum of interest where you can some very resourceful and knowledgeable people. http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/ The official Freedos website where you can download the latest installation CD or floppy disk www.freedos.org as well as the related page, on Wikipedia of course: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedos The official website of Game Launcher, unfortunately the development has stopped in 2003, but Game Launcher is still a great a functional piece of software: www.dribin.org/dave/ game_launcher/ Some online stores I personally tried and was very happy with: www.ultimarc.com where you can find, among many other thing the ArcadeVGA Video Card, the I-Pac or even sticks and pushbuttons. Shipping from the UK with no problems at all. Really a great website. www.mamemarquees.com and www.arcadeoverlays.com are websites where you can order any type of graphics for your cabinet. Has many reproduction or can even do custom work, as you wish. I tried them both, excellent quality and service. Great stuff. Finally, a book "Project Arcade: Build Your Own Arcade Machine" by Publisher that may be considered as THE Bible within the MAME community because of the thorough information it contains. This concludes this presentation. I know it was pretty dense, in a short period of time but I hope you had enjoyed it. Bye now