I have a question and I am not trying to walk over a line, but I have an "underpowered PC" that I was planning on using on a Vertical setup eventually. Is there a xxx-n-1 that can just be downloaded and loaded on a HDD pre-setup etc???
Not asking where to download it, just if it exists to be downloaded?
Yes, and no.
First, we have to split these boards to x86 and ARM based PCBs:
- PC (x86) based boards are not "underpowered" computers, they run AdvanceMAME, so you do not want or need this.
- ARM boards like 39-in-1, 48-in-1 and 60-in-1, they run vertically oriented games, so this is what you are talking about.
Unfortunately, while these PCBs are "underpowered", they are not PCs, so this is of no use to you again, and If you were to make your own ARM based PCB you would want something like this (
http://www.gumstix.com/):
However, once you realize the cost of this very cool "Computer-on-Modules" and similar 'empty' PCBs is more than actual 60-in-1, then making "your own" does not make much sense any more. What's more, these boards have poor sound, amazingly terrible in some games like Gyruss & Scramble, so you are much better off with some underpowered PC and VAntAGE (Vertical Antiquated Arcade Game Emulator), where even with old 486 PC you would have more games supported and better sound, and if your computer is anything at, or above pentium 233MHz then you can run MAME too, and with it most, if not all, of the '80-'90 games. Both, better price and emulation quality you get with PC based setup, and if you make it yourself then you also get a lot of customization options.
PC based xxxx-in-1 are not really "dumped" as normally arcade ROMs are, they are 'hard drive' images, they are big and they contain just plain PC software you can download, install or copy/paste separately. I would not expect to find these HD images together with other arcade ROMs, but, on the other hand 39in1 and 48in1 are actually even emulated in MAME, so you could expect to find these for download wherever the other arcade ROMs are.