Linked cabinets for 4 player play?

[Danny R]

Please note:  I'm not talking about networked cabinets that communicate with each other, ala various racing games.  I know that isn't likely to happen.

What I had in mind was setting up two standard mame cabinets, each with a 2 player console, that would sit side by side.  Individually both would be fully independent, each with its own computer, etc.

However if someone wanted to play a 4 player game, an A/B switch of some sort could be hit on the second cabinet that would make the second cabinet just an extension of the first.  The monitor of the 2nd cabinet would just be a switched over so it was a duplicate of the first, and the control panels would be linked so that the 2nd cabinent served as the 3rd and 4th player positions (or perhaps 1st/3rd on one cabinet, 2nd/4th on the second, so that two players could have ample room too if they wished)

Let me know if anyone's done something like this before.  And if they haven't, perhaps you could point me toward switches and the like that might serve as a good starting point to developing this.  Just wondering if anyone has ever done something like this before.  Easier to build something by following the leaders rather than blazing the trail oneself.

The advantages of such a system are numerous.  First of course is that every player would have plenty of room.  The 3rd and 4th players would be positioned optimally so they can see the screen and not off at an angle as many 4 player control panels have them.   Also by linking two standard control panels, you gain a lot of options in playing other games.  Tank like games can be played two player with one player on each machine.  This is somewhat awkward on a standard 4 player control panel since the side controls are usually not in line with the front two.  And of course having two mame machines is always better than one.  

[pointdablame]

Something similar was discussed here a while back... someone was going to make a his and her cab for him and his wife.

I guess this would be possible, but I get the feeling that it may be a bit harder than what I am thinking.  I would think you would need both a VGA splitter cable AND a VGA switch box.  You would have to hook the second cab up so that the switch box would either run the monitor straight from the second cab's computer (i.e. like a normal independent cab) or be run through the vga splitter cable.  When the splitter cable option was on, both cab's monitors would have the same picture.  That should in theory solve the video side of it, although you wouldn't be able to use a TV with this idea since you'd need to use VGA cables in my example.  You could use computer monitors or arcade monitors using a vga cable hack.

The control side of things seems a bit more complicated, or at least messier.  Cab one would need an Ipac4 or a similar 4 player encoder.  Your best bet would be to route all the wires to molex connectors or similar detachable interface.  You could set up player 1/2 controls on cab one as normal, and run the wires for p3 and p4 to the second cab.  To get the second cab working independently however, you would need another encoder in the second cab.  You could put an Ipac2 in the second cab and run those through molex connectors as well.

Unless I'm missing something (very possible) I would think you could switch between modes by 1) switching the VGA box to the desired mode, and 2) plugging/unplugging the molex connectors in cab two to be either independent or P3/P4.

I supposed you could technically wire cab two as both P3/P4 and independent by putting 2 wires on the quick disconnects, but then if you happen to play a 4p game on cab one while cab 2 is running, lots of problems could exist.

Well there ya go.... that's my idea on about 2 and 1/2 hours of sleep, so yeah... take it with a grain of salt.

[spystyle]

That's sounds crazy/cool !

Or maybe build a dedicated dual like the one pictured below by Nintendo.

I think Saint has one, a google search on the cab lead me here :
www.arcadecontrols.org/www/collecting_mine.html

Maybe he'd post the measurements