Multigame PCB's

The Last Bandit

So my niece wants me to build her an arcade cabinet for Xmas.

Given that she's an impatient little wretch with little respect for XP's filesystem, I can't see a MAME cab lasting more that a few days before its trashed due to constantly being powered down hard.

Had considered using Linux with read-only filesystems or ArcadeOS boot cds but using one of these multi in 1 cards seems a lot easier given the VGA & audio out are already there. Basically just need to add a screen and controls.

http://www.jammaboards.com/store/276-in-1-classic-vertical-arcade-multigame-jamma-pcb.html

Anyone have any experience with these ? I assume the playing experience is good enough to fool a 12 year old. Are the alternative better solutions I'm missing ?

It just needs to look and feel authentic'ish..

Myrddin

Enjoy the headache your about to give yoursellf. Telling family your good at computers is one thing, building & giving a family member a mame cab is an entirely different form of masochism.

The Last Bandit

I know, that's why I'm trying to avoid MAME if possible. The simpler the better.

CiDeRmAn

What age is your niece?
Just because,
1- If she is over 18 Atavan is available and not fussy
and
B- If she has an iPad you can Jailbreak it, install Mame for Ios and use an iCade with it.

Ok, no two player but it works well.

Of course, if she doesn't already have an iPad you could come a cropper.

In that case you can probably buy a ready made cab based around either a PC or a multigame Jamma PCB on Adverts.
Mitchomagic is your only man for this stuff, reliable and a nice guy.

The Last Bandit

She's 12 (I think). Icade isn't a bad idea pity I'm too cheap to buy an ipad as well though
Ah its a small bartop I'll throw together, a full size cab would be frowned upon for a great height.

Myrddin

I'd go with an older mame variant & the arcade essentials, should be fairly hassle free from there. Maybe set up the user account with very restricted priviledges & exempt Mame & a UI from them.

Remove its internet capabilities, make it a babrebones install & then ghost the whole thing onto a dvdr for when you need to incase you need to reinstall, at least it'll be only a matter of rep[lacing the ghosted image

Optimus Prime

I bought a 60in1 jamma pcb a few weeks back. its pretty cool, they are all pacman, donkeykong type games though. You can get ones with streetfighter etc on them too. i guess that would be the easiest option.

The Last Bandit

keithgeo wrote: »

I bought a 60in1 jamma pcb a few weeks back. its pretty cool, they are all pacman, donkeykong type games though. You can get ones with streetfighter etc on them too. i guess that would be the easiest option.

Cheers, it does sound like the easiest option. Where did you get it from ? Maybe I should just buy her a CD-i altogether.

Optimus Prime

I bought it from one of the lads over on the jamma+ forum. it was cheaper than anywhere else i seen it online.

http://www.jammaplus.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=36775&KW=60in1&title=fs-multi-game-pcbs-carts-new-prices-and-boards

I think you need to have 10 posts on that forum to see that thread.

o1s1n

EnterNow wrote: »

Enjoy the headache your about to give yoursellf. Telling family your good at computers is one thing.

That drives me insane. Do you know what's the absolute worst?

You spend ages fixing something. You finally get it working. Relief! Of course, because they're family, you get nothing for it.

A week later you get an angry phone call.

'What did you do to my computer?!'

'...eh, I fixed it. You had it completely ruined and I spent hours deleting malware and loads of other crap. It was running fine when I left'

'Well you broke something. Because I can't do X and I could do X before you were there. I thought you were able to fix computers'

/Smacks his head off a desk in frustration.

And another thing, 'fixing a computer' generally amounts to this -

- Open a browser on a working pc
- have the ability to press keys on a keyboard
- understand the alphabet and how words are constructed
- combine those above abilities and type in what's wrong with the computer
- click on a search result
- there's your answer. Now fix it yourself, you lazy idiot!

Sorry, I had to vent, I've dealt with the above too many times to mention

If it's for someone who isn't picky about games, how about a multi game PCB like the Happy Fish ones? Some of the games run a bit slow, but it's just a matter of plugging a PCB into a JAMMA harness. I'm sure it would be more than enough for what you want to do.

The Last Bandit

Everytime I go home I've to reprogram the Sky+ remote to work with the TV...

Spending a while looking at various XX in 1 boards on youtube. Biggest problem is I have is settling on a mix. They're either all old school vertical types like pac man or later stuff like CPS2/NeoGeo ones - I'd like a mix of both (aka MAME) but this isn't for me...

The "Just another pandora's box 310 in 1" looks decent enough, performance looks better than the happy fish boards from what I've seen.

CiDeRmAn

Ask what games she wants to play.
Then find a solution based on that.
She may prefer the vert stuff, maybe the horizontal, either way get her to make the choice then have a look at whats out there.
I have a MVS Mobo rocking a 111in1 cart and it all works just fine, have it running with a supergun plus a couple of Neo Geo pads.
It can hooked up to any display, my particular supergun is S-Video enabled so the picture quality is excellent.

unky chop chop

I have the 1940 in 1 board for last 2 years.
It has a mix of all games new and old...not just shooters or fighters..
Plus you can reprogram them and plonk Roms onto them if you want.
XXX-IN-1.COM has loads of info
I recommend them as an out of the box solution to Mame.

Steve X2

unky chop chop wrote: »

I have the 1940 in 1 board for last 2 years.
It has a mix of all games new and old...not just shooters or fighters..
Plus you can reprogram them and plonk Roms onto them if you want.
XXX-IN-1.COM has loads of info
I recommend them as an out of the box solution to Mame.

Is that one of the Windows 2000 boards. I had a couple and had nothing but trouble with them, even the newer versions.
Better off with a cheap pc with mame and frontend if thats the case.

unky chop chop

Yeah Stevo It's those Win 2000 Jobs.
Added bonus if something goes wrong the OS is in Japenese!
Your right though, Mame is better and much easier to maintain if you get Hardware/software faults,it's just the xxxx in 1 boards are for a lazy man out of the box solution.
I have heard stories of sub standard hardware put into many of them and you are basically fecked if either of the two mobo's goes on them.
what issues did you have out of interest?

Steve X2

unky chop chop wrote: »

Yeah Stevo It's those Win 2000 Jobs.
Added bonus if something goes wrong the OS is in Japenese!
Your right though, Mame is better and much easier to maintain if you get Hardware/software faults,it's just the xxxx in 1 boards are for a lazy man out of the box solution.
I have heard stories of sub standard hardware put into many of them and you are basically fecked if either of the two mobo's goes on them.
what issues did you have out of interest?

A few issues, fans running at crazy speeds and making a load of noise. Hard drive powering down at random, and generally crashing a lot to that lovely Japanese/Chinese/Asian version of Win2k.
This was on the older and more recent versions. I had planned to mod them with a nice CF card adapter but with all the issues I sent them all back and just created the Hyperspin PC.
They use really old and crappy 10GB IDE drives on a load of these, even the new models and those drives are nearly on their last legs before you even get them.

unky chop chop

Yeah Hard drive on mine was IDE, made a sound like a bag of hammers when it was being accessed.
Ghosted it and threw onto brand spanking new one.
Haven't looked on xxxx in 1 forums in a year or so but I'm fairly sure you can get Sata now.
Anyway you were right..Why bother when you can be in control of all your components in a Mame set up.
Damn you, now I've got the urge to get a mame box together.I've been putting it off for too long

Steve X2

unky chop chop wrote: »

Yeah Hard drive on mine was IDE, made a sound like a bag of hammers when it was being accessed.
Ghosted it and threw onto brand spanking new one.
Haven't looked on xxxx in 1 forums in a year or so but I'm fairly sure you can get Sata now.
Anyway you were right..Why bother when you can be in control of all your components in a Mame set up.
Damn you, now I've got the urge to get a mame box together.I've been putting it off for too long

In the mean time you could grab a CF to IDE adapter on the cheap and stick a CF card in as the main drive. Nice and silent and the speeds would be better on it as well.

unky chop chop

yeah cheers I'll look into that.
Don't fancy messing with a Bios in Chinese though

Steve X2

unky chop chop wrote: »

yeah cheers I'll look into that.
Don't fancy messing with a Bios in Chinese though

No need to go near the bios. The cf card will just connect to the ide adapter which will plug in as normal to the board.
It wont know the difference.

The Last Bandit

60-in-1 board old style will do grand, simple solid state turn on and off-able. No way am I taking on support of a Mame box 160 miles away If they want fancy pants stuff the Wii virtual console is there.

What's the typical aspect ratio on vertical monitors ? 3:4 or closer to 9:16 ?

CathalDublin

3:4

might be worth flicking through this thread

The Last Bandit

So got the 60-in-1 up and running this evening.

Actually its not too bad, menu system is nice and basic and disabled games are removed from the list.
Does take over a minute to boot up though and the volume is not consistent across the menu and games which is a bit annoying.
Couple of duplicates/hacks and a few games requiring a trackball which I'll disable so it's more like 50-in-1.

Hopefully get the cab finished this week.

o1s1n

Is decasing LCDs one of your pass times?

Looking forward to seeing the finished cab!

The Last Bandit

So finished this off in plenty time for Xmas so give me a chance to test it Actually it turned out to be a fairly simple build and not half as much arsing about as with previous builds. Could do with a little refinement but overall very happy with it.

Unsurprisingly playing shumps on a vertical is a much nicer experience, hooked up the laptop for a bit of Mame goodness and decided I have to build another one of these just for Mame shumps for myself

The Icade board is actually decent enough, few annoyances like no continues and inconsistent volume across games but I'd have no problem sticking on of these in a old cocktail cab for instance.

Ok ignore the stickers, I'm not a huge fan either but I'm sure my 12 year old niece will like them !!

Steve X2

You should make up a few of these for xmas. I'm sure you'd sell them on no probs and probably to a few peeps on the forums here.

The Last Bandit

Might do that

As I say I've a few tweaks to make which I'll try out on the mame shooter version and build a couple of templates and jigs to make reproducing it a bit easier.

CiDeRmAn

How much did the build cost?

The Last Bandit

I think it breaks down like this:

Wood/MDF €25
Plexiglass €10
Paint €12
Stickers €20

Controls €20
PSU €14
LCD €10 - secondhand
60-in-1 €52

So approx €163 just for all the bits and obviously quite a bit of labour involved

CiDeRmAn

Well, stickers aside, it looks the business!
You could have a little business of your own there!