ARCADE BOARD in mame cabinet?

[the3eyedblindman]

I am building a mame cabinet, and wanted to know if there was anyway to also run original arcade boards in the cabinet, I see them cheap on ebay all the time, is there anyway to like hook them to a pc?

[DaveJ-UK]

Why would you want to "hook" an arcade game board to a PC?

Just plug it into the JAMMA harness assuming you haven't ripped it out in your MAMEing. If you use a JPAC this should be a piece of cake.

[BigBri]

I would love to have a gauntlet pcb.  That's non-jamma.  Would it still be possible to hook up to pc?

[XtraSmiley]

I would love to have a gauntlet pcb.  That's non-jamma.  Would it still be possible to hook up to pc?

I hate to ask the obvious here, but can't MAME run Gauntlet with 100% accuracy?  Now putting like SF:RUSH or something that isn't emulated makes a little sense... but old games like Gauntlet?

[the3eyedblindman]

Yes, that is what I am talking about, games like SF rush and the newer golden tees that arent run in mame, how would i go about getting those to work in my cab from a pc and from the arcade controls im going to build? Someone said something about a j pac, i dont know what those are, could someone please type some instructions on how to get old game boards to work from a pc..?

[AmericanDemon]

Its not going to connect to your PC at all.  You would need to have an Arcade monitor to run this or build yourself a Supergun to fit inside your cabinet.  Its just as simple as wiring multiple devices to each button.  It'll get messy with the wiring, but it'll be cheaper than building a seconardy cabinet.

[krick]

Here's how I would go about running "real" JAMMA arcade PCBs side by side with a MAME computer:

1) put an arcade monitor in your cab
2) wire the cabinet using a JAMMA harness
3) buy a Multi-JAMMA or Double JAMMA adapter
4) connect the real PCB to its own power supply and one connector of the multi-JAMMA
5) connect the MAME computer to another connector on the multi-JAMMA using a J-PAC
6) enjoy

[Goz]

I've posed the question on a number of boards and never actually found someone who could confirm that they were able to use a multi JAMMA with a JPAC. I would love to see an example if so. I hope that  you are right and that it is possible, because if it is, I know what I'll be ordering myself for fathersday.

-Goz

[Rocky]

Here's how I would go about running "real" JAMMA arcade PCBs side by side with a MAME computer:

1) put an arcade monitor in your cab
2) wire the cabinet using a JAMMA harness
3) buy a Multi-JAMMA or Double JAMMA adapter
4) connect the real PCB to its own power supply and one connector of the multi-JAMMA
5) connect the MAME computer to another connector on the multi-JAMMA using a J-PAC
6) enjoy

I would do it this way except I would not get the multi-JAMMA adaptor. It's not that hard to turn the game off and switch the harness to a different edge connector.  Save yourself $100

[krick]

Good point.  He didn't say that he wanted to run both at the same time.  Yeah, in that case, I'd just swap the connector too.  Of course, if he was switching boards a lot, that might get tedious and possibly subject the connectors to undue wear.

[SirPoonga]

Note about hte non-jamma boards.  Most of those can be converted to JAMMA.  Juat get a jamma fingerboard and start wiring.

[the3eyedblindman]

Seems to hard for a first timer, will probably just run mame, console roms, and pc games..

[pointdablame]

It's really not hard at all. Once you get it set up with a jpac, and if you keep the JAMMA internals from your cab, its no harder than plugging in a new game on a system really.

Well ok, it might be a bit tougher than plugging in a cartridge, but not really.

[krick]

It's really not hard at all. Once you get it set up with a jpac, and if you keep the JAMMA internals from your cab, its no harder than plugging in a new game on a system really.

I believe he's building his own cabinet from scratch so he doesn't have a JAMMA harness or JAMMA power supply.  I also think (from reading other posts he made) that he intends to use a PC monitor.

[the3eyedblindman]

CUSTOM BUILT CABINET, pc, AND 19 INCH TELEVISION, AND I PAC, HOPE THAT HELP, COULD I DO IT WITH THSES?

[SirPoonga]

Anything is possible with enough time and effort
I don't know how you could do the video conversion form JAMMA to TV, I know it's possible.  

[Snarbald]

Here's how I would go about running "real" JAMMA arcade PCBs side by side with a MAME computer:

1) put an arcade monitor in your cab
2) wire the cabinet using a JAMMA harness
3) buy a Multi-JAMMA or Double JAMMA adapter
4) connect the real PCB to its own power supply and one connector of the multi-JAMMA
5) connect the MAME computer to another connector on the multi-JAMMA using a J-PAC
6) enjoy

I would do it this way except I would not get the multi-JAMMA adaptor. It's not that hard to turn the game off and switch the harness to a different edge connector.  Save yourself $100

If I knew it was gonna work, I think I'd go ahead and spend the hundred bucks. I mean, if your already spending the money to build a cab/computer/etc and are springing for a golden tee(or whatever newer, unemulated game) board, a hundred bucks is probably going to be a drop in the bucket. To me it'd be like going out and buying some ultra high end hometheater setup and then running it off of an old vcr instead of springing for a DVD player or something.

[Paul Olson]

Does anyone know for certain that the double jamma connector will work with a j-pac?  I have the opposite set-up.  I have a dedicated Tekken 2 jamma cab that I also want to use for MAME.  It would be a pain to swap the harness everytime I wanted to switch (although I'm not sure that will be very often).

Thanks, Paul

[the3eyedblindman]

Does anyone have instructions running a jamma  pcb in a cabinet that is the basis of a tv, a computer, and an ipac?

[Mooters]

I have seen an RCA to kamma setup but im not shure if i've seen a JAMMA to rca setup but i bet they exist.

Spyder

[pointdablame]

Does anyone have instructions running a jamma  pcb in a cabinet that is the basis of a tv, a computer, and an ipac?

Stop thinking about the computer for one thing.  To run a JAMMA board you will have absolutely nothing connected to your PC.  You would have to put the internals for a regular JAMMA game in your cab and either use an arcade monitor (which I see you aren't doing) or find a way to convert the JAMMA video signal so that you can use a TV (which I don't know how to do, so I can't help you in that area).

Basically, I think you need to realize a few things.

1) If you are looking for a way to just plug in a Jamma board into some sort of adapter for a PC, it's not going to happen (although that would be cool )
2) You put Ipac in your last post, I'm assuming thats a typo cuz you mention Jpac a few times, but I just want to make sure that you know the diff and the fact that you need a JPac. (assuming you are going to create a standard JAMMA cab, otherwise you can use an Ipac, but you won't be able to play JAMMA board games then.)
3) You're going to need new hardware to get this running. You're gonna need to a supergun, or a double edge connector, or the internals of a standard JAMMA cab, or some combo of these.  

Good luck getting in running.  I'm planning to use a Jpac on my cab too and will just plug in JAMMA boards as I get the urge, but my cab is an actual cab, not a hand built one, so you'll have to do a bit of extra work to do what you want.  I think its worth it though if you know there are games not in MAME that you want to play.

[Goz]

Does anyone have instructions running a jamma  pcb in a cabinet that is the basis of a tv, a computer, and an ipac?

If you are in fact going to use JAMMA with TV then you need JROK

http://www.jrok.com/hardware/RGB.html

Hope it helps,

-Goz

[paigeoliver]

Ok, from someone who has done a lot of arcade stuff.

#1. This is idiocy. Almost every AFFORDABLE game pcb is perfectly emulated by Mame. The unemulated games tend to have PCBs that cost almost as much as the entire machine.

#2. Power supply can't be on without a load, or it will burn up.

#3. The J-Pac docs reccomend removing the power supply.

#4. REAL Jamma games need a power supply.

#5. (specific in your case). JAMMA standard does not support televisions. The amount of money/time required to get a JAMMA board displaying on a 19" TV is more than what a 19" JAMMA cabinet costs.

If you are going to be throwing ANY money at a 19" cabinet, then by all means upgrade the display from something other than a television.

Basically, go ahead and make your Mame cabinet, and just BUY a JAMMA cabinet.

[Paul Olson]

-paigeoliver
The jpac docs also say to leave the monitor power as is.  The monitor is powered by the power supply.  I would think the monitor would cause sufficient load on the power supply, am I right?

I'm getting ready to put the computer and jpac in the cab.  I was hoping to leave everything working in the cab so I will just have to swap the jamma harness to switch between the jamma board and the jpac.  Will that work?

Thanks, Paul

[Snarbald]

I'm seeing some talk about powersupplies getting messed up in a multi jamma thing, well  http://www.multigame.com/jamma.html this one uses a pc powersupply to power the boards.

[Rocky]

-paigeoliver
The jpac docs also say to leave the monitor power as is.  The monitor is powered by the power supply.  I would think the monitor would cause sufficient load on the power supply, am I right?

I'm getting ready to put the computer and jpac in the cab.  I was hoping to leave everything working in the cab so I will just have to swap the jamma harness to switch between the jamma board and the jpac.  Will that work?

Thanks, Paul

The monitor is powered through the isolation transformer (AC), not the power supply.  The power supply converts the power to DC  (+5v, +12v, -5v) which is used by the game PCB. If you don't have a game PCB, no load on the power supply.

When using the Jpac, you leave the Isolation transformer intact to power the monitor, but remove the power supply since it won't have a load.

[Sephroth57]

its really not worth the time or money youre going to have to invest in this. do you REALLY need to have some kind of unemulated game, you realize any type of newer game will be anywhere from like 200-500$+ you might as well think about buying the real machine.

[Paul Olson]

Hi Rocky,
Thanks for replying to my post.  Everything in the cabinet is wired to the power supply.  The power supply is the only AC plug in the cab( until I add the computer).  If I remove the power supply, what will power the monitor, marquee light, and the lights on the coin doors?  Do I plug it all into the computer power supply?

Thanks, Paul

[dirt]

to get around the power supply problem couldn't you just install a toggle switch right before the power supply? that way your monitor will still get power from the transformer and  you could use the jpac. just make sure you turn off the power supply before plugging in the jpac?


dirt