Overwhelmed is putting it mildly

[pinballdude]

WOW! There is so much information out there about building MAME systems! Where does one start?
I hope to one day built both an upright as well as a cocktail system with classic early games.
Is there a reliable listing of step-by-step how its done? So many places to download ROMs. So many Frontends to choose.
What are your favorite FE's and where is a good place to get up-to-date good working ROM's?
Terry

[Nephasth]

...where is a good place to get up-to-date good working ROM's?

This question is a no-no around here...

What are your favorite FE's?

I'm currently using Hyperspin and love it. My next (and probably most all) future projects I will be giving MALA a go.

[pinballdude]

Umm...okay. Guess I missed the "No-No" sticky?
My apologies. I know it has to do w/copyright issues but, I asked because
"everybody" is doing it. Should I butt out?
I swear I am a newbie here. Because I am an older fart, I am not well versed
in computer-speak.
Again, sorry.
Terry

[DaOld Man]

I am partial to Mala for the frontend.

Here is a blog I kept on my last (completed) arcade cab build:

http://skennys-arcade.blogspot.com/

Maybe it will get you started anyway.

[Nephasth]

Umm...okay. Guess I missed the "No-No" sticky?
My apologies. I know it has to do w/copyright issues but, I asked because
"everybody" is doing it. Should I butt out?
I swear I am a newbie here. Because I am an older fart, I am not well versed
in computer-speak.
Again, sorry.
Terry

No biggie.

http://arcadecontrols.com/arcade_message_rules.html

Rule #5.

[Rando]

Step 1: Get a computer
Step 2: Load a version of MAME (http://mamedev.org/)
Step 3: Load some ROMS, legal ones here: http://mamedev.org/roms/
Step 4: Wander these boards, get the book (http://www.amazon.com/Project-Arcade-Build-Your-Machine/dp/047089153X/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1327167762&sr=8-5) and see what you want step 5 to be!

Luck & enjoy!

[CheffoJeffo]

Don't forget the BYOAC wiki!

[Bender]

Get the book
look at the Project Announcements forum, loads and loads of info there
Good luck!
Have Fun

[Le Chuck]

I started by reading the posts on this forum.  Go through several of the build threads on project announcements.  You'll see some awesome amazing work but you'll see a lot more of first timers learning as they go, getting great advice, and achieving a cab of which they are proud.  Many of the FEs have their own threads as well and stickied on all of them is a very basic how do I make this work link.  If you have a question use the search function and 9 times out of 10 it's already been asked and answered a few different ways.  

As for ""everybody" is doing it" this site is somewhat of a bastion in this hobby.  It's been here for years and those that have been with it a long time, either lurking or actively participating, want very much to ensure that it continues to be so.  Is there an elephant in the room?  Not really, a lot of folks on here do things the right way, other folks don't but that isn't what this forum is about.  Welcome to the most awesomest build site on the interwebs.    

[compute]

Welcome aboard.  I'd suggest starting with the book, because that will help answer your questions and show you how to do a cabinet build from scratch.  It also explains much of the terminology, so you can get used to the vocabulary.  Unless you know of a decent gutted cabinet, don't buy anything yet.  I've been planning my cabinet for roughly 10 years now.  You don't have to wait that long, just make sure you're building what you want.  Happy building!

[Ond]

Welcome, one thing I did when I'd been here a while was to collate a bunch of useful information in hardcopy for my own reference, it's a bit 'oldskool' printing stuff, but I find it useful sitting at the workbench. Definitely browse the Wiki, Project Announcements, Woodworking (some great 'how to' videos in there) and get the book - which can be purchased in softcopy as well.

[pinballdude]

About rule #5...Not to start a flame war but, when I look at a demo video of Hyperspin and it shows all those gaming systems running  all those games...can that in any way not be illegal? Aren't frontends promoting (in a roundabout way) using illegal roms? Whe I said everybody is doing it, I meant all those Craigslist ads for 60+ games in one cabinet for $700. Heck I saw an ebay listing for a 4 player video game for upwards of $5000 with 35,000 (yes, thousand) games.
I'll admit I am new at this and didn't read before posting. But I am just trying to get an education.
By the way, I know a coin op operator where I can prob get a cheap cabinet. I'm not too good with tools.
Terry

[Le Chuck]

About rule #5...Not to start a flame war but, when I look at a demo video of Hyperspin and it shows all those gaming systems running  all those games...can that in any way not be illegal? Aren't frontends promoting (in a roundabout way) using illegal roms? Whe I said everybody is doing it, I meant all those Craigslist ads for 60+ games in one cabinet for $700. Heck I saw an ebay listing for a 4 player video game for upwards of $5000 with 35,000 (yes, thousand) games.
I'll admit I am new at this and didn't read before posting. But I am just trying to get an education.
By the way, I know a coin op operator where I can prob get a cheap cabinet. I'm not too good with tools.
Terry

Sure it can be legal.  The FE is configurable, so you can make it play the games you have, more appropriately the roms for games that you own the boards to.  There is nothing illegal about having roms of games that you physically own.  FE creators are not advocating the use of illicit roms, their software isn't distributed with roms (or even emulators generally) and they don't link to illicit roms.  They are advertising the flexibility of their software by being able to run anything that you may own.  I have a nintendo and hundreds of cassettes in a closet.  I don't like digging them out so I play rom copies of them.  I configured MALA to do this for me via a third part emulator.    

What people choose to do and sell on fleabay and CL doesn't change the rules of this forum.  

[Paul Olson]

About rule #5...Not to start a flame war but, when I look at a demo video of Hyperspin and it shows all those gaming systems running  all those games...can that in any way not be illegal? Aren't frontends promoting (in a roundabout way) using illegal roms? Whe I said everybody is doing it, I meant all those Craigslist ads for 60+ games in one cabinet for $700. Heck I saw an ebay listing for a 4 player video game for upwards of $5000 with 35,000 (yes, thousand) games.
I'll admit I am new at this and didn't read before posting. But I am just trying to get an education.
By the way, I know a coin op operator where I can prob get a cheap cabinet. I'm not too good with tools.
Terry

Obviously, there are plenty of examples on the internet of people breaking copyright laws, and also breaking the terms of the MAME license. The owner of this site has decided that open discussion of how to break those laws and rules is not allowed. I know it may seem silly to new people to draw the line at discussing something that most people do, but it really is not within the scope of this site, and would only be detrimental to the site as a whole. This is one of the few sites that actively supports the MAME license, and I think that is one of the great things Saint has implemented.

This forum is here to help guide you in making controls and possibly an entire cabinet to play games on. You will find an enormous amount of information here in that regard. Feel free to ask any (allowed) questions, but you will get the most benefit from searching and reading. This hobby has evolved a lot in the last 10 years, and you have that entire history at your fingertips here. I have been here for almost 9 of those years, and have never stopped being amazed at the amount of useful information shared here.

[yotsuya]

ROMs aside, if you have a source where you can get a gutted cabinet for cheap, I would think that would be the best way to start.

[pinballdude]

OK. Thank you so very much for great discussion. I am a person who appreciates the history of these games and how things like the acquision of the roms work.
So if I have x amount of Nintendo games, can I ask where to get those roms?  And "somewhere" I have an old Atari 5200 as well as 2600.
By the way, I appreciate that the forum asks that things be kept legal. OK by me. I just asked the wrong question.
You gave me the WHY of things. The statement about FE tells me something I did not consider...that the video for the FE was just an ad for it.
I'm supposed to ask questions, right?  How else to learn?
Hope everyone has a great weekend!!
Terry

[Nephasth]

If you really want follow the straight and narrow, when it comes to NES games you can buy a CopyNES from retrousb.com and copy the rom files off your NES carts... But people usually find what they're looking for, so...

[Gatt]

About rule #5...Not to start a flame war but, when I look at a demo video of Hyperspin and it shows all those gaming systems running  all those games...can that in any way not be illegal? Aren't frontends promoting (in a roundabout way) using illegal roms? Whe I said everybody is doing it, I meant all those Craigslist ads for 60+ games in one cabinet for $700. Heck I saw an ebay listing for a 4 player video game for upwards of $5000 with 35,000 (yes, thousand) games.
I'll admit I am new at this and didn't read before posting. But I am just trying to get an education.
By the way, I know a coin op operator where I can prob get a cheap cabinet. I'm not too good with tools.
Terry

It's not in the companies best interests to fuss at the existing niche market,  so long as the niche market remains user-unfriendly enough so that the average joe isn't able to get it all together.

You see,  alot of those same companies will use MAME in order to create all of those rereleases you see.  Either they'll use it as a reference to get their program working,  or they'll just use what they need out of it.

In fact,  in honesty,  you can see that Micosoft Arcade was influenced by the emulation communities efforts.  So it's really a win-win all around,  they ignore the emulation community (mostly),  and the emulation community ignores them if they borrow code or ideas.

Plus,  honestly,  they're just as big geeks as any of us here.  IIRC,  there's even a MAME cabinet in Blizzard's offices,  though I think it's permanently turned off because they thought it would send the wrong message.

[leapinlew]

The main questions you want to ask yourself is:

What types of games do I want to play?
This is the most important question. You'll notice lots of guys building different types of machines with different controls and monitor orientations. If you check my signature, you'll see some of my machines. You might be asking yourself "but if I am using MAME, can't I build 1 machine to play everything?" the answer is yes, if you are willing to make sacrifices. The answer to "what types of games do I want to play" for me was 3 different types of games. Machines looking mostly original was also important.

I have a Donkey Kong cabinet. It's monitor is setup vertically (on it's side) and it has a 4 way physical restricted joystick with 1 button. This accurately plays about 30 games. This cabinet is my favorite as it plays all the classic 80's games I love. It looks exactly like a Donkey Kong machine with a 19" arcade monitor. The joystick is important to consider, but I really don't know any way to tell you which joystick is the right one for you. What I did was took my favorite joystick and use it for all my 4 way games. This plays Ms. Pacman, Frogger, Galaga, Dig Dug, etc.

I have a mortal kombat II cabinet that has two 8 way joysticks and a 25" arcade monitor setup in a horizontal fashion. It plays hundreds of games, but the main ones are Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Ghosts'n'Goblins, etc.

The 3rd cabinet is a spinner cabinet that plays tempest and a few others.

You'll notice some people put all these controls on 1 cabinet. Called a frankenpanel. There is nothing wrong with doing that, but you'll need to decide how you want to build. If you put all your controls on 1 cabinet, some people think that it's not as nice looking or functional. If you want multiple machines, it takes up more space, costs more, and requires more maintenance.

How much do you want to spend
Plan carefully, put together a budget, and plan on exceeding it. It's usually cheaper to convert than build. Also consider the cost of any tools you may need.

Build or convert?
You can build a machine from scratch, or you can take an old machine and convert it. Converting is a great way to get started. Find an old arcade game for free or cheap. Put in a monitor, controls, and configure MAME. You'll have a working machine very quickly, but more importantly, you will have gained the skills to decide if you want to build another one and will most likely learned a few lessons.

What controls to use?
Everyone here has walked this path. You will too. If you know you only want to play a few different games, find out what controls they originally used and that will most likely be the feel/look you're looking for. Try out plenty any controls before committing them to a control panel. I used to have no preference on controls, and now because I've built my own arcades, I'm very specific.

Get Saints book
The guy who runs this forum: http://www.amazon.com/Project-Arcade-Build-Your-Machine/dp/047089153X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327237502&sr=1-1

Good luck

[Crazy Cooter]

So if I have x amount of Nintendo games, can I ask where to get those roms?  And "somewhere" I have an old Atari 5200 as well as 2600.

No.  There should not be ANY discussion publicly or privately on where to obtain rom images.  This has been made clear over the years by the site owner.  The only exception are the ROM's available through the mame devs because they have exclusive distribution rights by the owners.  Those are available on the mamedev website.

[pointdablame]

OK. Thank you so very much for great discussion. I am a person who appreciates the history of these games and how things like the acquision of the roms work.
So if I have x amount of Nintendo games, can I ask where to get those roms?  And "somewhere" I have an old Atari 5200 as well as 2600.
By the way, I appreciate that the forum asks that things be kept legal. OK by me. I just asked the wrong question.
You gave me the WHY of things. The statement about FE tells me something I did not consider...that the video for the FE was just an ad for it.
I'm supposed to ask questions, right?  How else to learn?
Hope everyone has a great weekend!!
Terry

The best way to explain the situation (IMO) revolves around the BYOAC boards itself.  You're not wrong that FE videos and MAME cab vids will have games of questionable legality.  You're not wrong that "everyone" might be doing similarly.

BUT -- this board is a great resource, and Saint (the owner) doesn't want to put himself at risk.  So just don't ask about roms here.  Don't ask where to get them, what you have, what sites to use, etc.  It's still not gonna fly around here if you say "I've got 300 NES games that I want to backup for personal use *wink wink* so where can i get em?"

 It's not a matter of a moral stance, its just meant to make sure that BYOAC doesn't get in trouble.  A google search will be just as useful as asking here in this instance, so just try to avoid it.  And welcome!

[taylormadelv]

Sure it can be legal.  There is nothing illegal about having roms of games that you physically own.

From what I understand, actually this can be considered technically incorrect. If you use mame, it does not mattter if you own the original boards/roms or not. The legality issues are the same if you actually run the roms in mame. To be perfectly "legal", a coin op game needs to be running on the "real" PCB, not emulation.
Everything you read here is for personal enjoyment ONLY. Members here are not building arcade cabinets for revenue purposes. So FE's are just facilitating people in making games for themselves or friends, not for sale.
Just like "the old days" of "bootleg" arcade PCB's, today the same unscrupulous people would illegally use mame for their own purposes. This site does not support these people and when they start asking questions that even scrape revenue making concepts (ie:coin drop programs) they get nailed here quick. Go slow, don't rush. Doing things to quickly can create problems, you will learn young one! Good luck!