Usual newbie questions , but I did search first !

[ssjenkins]

Hi All,

 Wish I'd found this forum a few days ago as I've running around like a headless chicken looking for things when I could have found everything here .

 Anyway , down to business . I've got my own arcade machine . It's a proper machine and not a DIY job . It's JAMMA with a Hantarex MTC9110 25" monitor . I've currently got 2 Jamma boards ,Crazy Kong and Scramble but I was looking to convert the machine to Jamma and sell the 2 boards . I would prefer not to physically alter the machine too much . Obviously sticking a PC in it is a bit of an alteration but you know what I mean .

 OK , here goes . Am I right in saying that all I need is :

1) One PC . More on that to follow .
2) One "J-PAC" from Ultimarc .
3) and one ArcadeVGA card also from Ultimarc .

 Really all I'm interested in is playing old games , pre 1980 (anyone remember those years

 Regarding point 1 . I have no PC . I was thinking of getting a used P3 700M , 128RAM , Win98SE ?? as I don't think I'll be needing any great processor power .

and I think points 2 and 3 speak for theirselves .

Any help , advice etc would be greatly appreciated .

Sammy

[Hoagie_one]

sounds about right.  cant see you needing anything more powerful than a 700 mghtz PC.  In fact, you may want to find an old build of Mame, like .35.  It runs the older games better on slower machines

[ssjenkins]

That was quick Hoagie_one  . Many thanks for the info . Thanks also for the Mame advice . Actually I was going to mention that . There's so many versions kicking about that I wasn't sure which one to go for . I'll have a look for .35 . Well I'll get the old credit card out again and let's see how we get on .

Sammy

[Hoagie_one]

you can find older versions of mame here

[Flinkly]

you mentioned you were going to convert your arcade cab to jamma.  just to clarify, jamma is the industry standard, so your not really converting it to jamma, your converting a computer to jamma to connect to your arcade machine.  other than that, you sound like your on the ball with this.

[ssjenkins]

Hi Hoagie_one . Just to confirm . As it'll be running from within Windows I should be looking for an older version of MAME32 , not MAME . Correct ?

Thanks

[Hoagie_one]

That depends.

[ssjenkins]

OK , thanks folks . You're right Flinkly , I am "converting a computer to jamma to connect to your arcade machine" . Sorry if I wasn't clear enough . Now I'm lost as I've never heard of "MameWah or Kymaera " so I'll do some more reading and get back on that one . Mind you I know more or less what hardware I need to I can take care of that while I'm sorting out the software .

Thanks again

Sammy

[Tiger-Heli]

That depends.  Mame32 is the windows version that looks like a windows application, has a user interface like a windows applications and what not.  If you are going to use a frontend like MameWah or Kymaera then you should use the windows command line version.

Just for clarification, since you were recommending MAME 0.35 and now are recommending windows command line MAME:

R37B15 was the first Windows command line version.  I would recommend it or later for most games, b/c you can take advantage of hardware stretching (probably won't matter with an arcade monitor and arcade VGA, however).

Any command line version previous to this was DOS MAME, which will work under Win98, and should work under MAMEwah, so it can be used.

[Hoagie_one]

yeah, i was just giving a "for instance".  I dont know what old version of mame is recomended usually

[Rocky]

I've got my own arcade machine . It's a proper machine and not a DIY job . It's JAMMA with a Hantarex MTC9110 25" monitor . I've currently got 2 Jamma boards ,Crazy Kong and Scramble but I was looking to convert the machine to Jamma and sell the 2 boards

Just to clarify.... Crazy Kong and Scramble are not JAMMA boards.

Is your cabinet JAMMA and the boards are running with adaptors?

[ssjenkins]

Hi Rocky ,

 Yes , you got me . As you correctly noticed they are in fact NON-JAMMA boards . I bought and made the adaptors but the machine has a JAMMA harness . The monitor is currently mounted vertically but can be turned horizontally . It (Hantarex) also has a 180 degree shift plug which I have to move depending on which game I'm playing . I think most of the "older" JAMMA games are vertical orientated anyway . The control panel I have has 3 buttons for each player and if I'm not mistaken the joysticks are Happ 4/8 way configurable .

 I've found an old Dell P3 500M 128RAM which I think will serve my purposes and I've just placed my order for the J-PAC and ArcadeVGA card . I'm not 100% sure on how to set up the VGA card but I'll sort out the problems once I've got all the hardware together .

Thanks

Sammy