Neo Geo, It Has Arrived... *Further Updates*

[Baker535]

I just won on eBay ($630) a 4 slot Neo-Geo machine with 18 games! I'll probably leave it all original hardware for awhile and buy some other games for it. Eventually though, it will come time for me to add MAME to its capabilities. What would be the best/easiest way to do that and keep everything intact?

Also some general questions to more experienced people...

Does it look in really good shape, is there some sort of standard when it comes to rating the quality of a cab? How would you rate the value vs. the price payed?

Is the MVS board hooked up via a standard like JAMMA in these cabs?

If I ever need a replacement monitor or work done on the included one does anyone know what the original kind was?

Any other tidbits, facts or advice about care and eventual MAME inclusion would be appreciated. This was my favorite arcade machine in my local arcade growing up and now my first cab!

Thanks for looking!

-baker

Oh also here was the eBay description of the item, no real in demand games, but at least it's a start...

You are looking at a SNK Neo Geo Coin Operated Arcade with 18 games. Included Games are, (1) World Heroes II, (2) Mission Lord, (1) Alpha Mission II, Fatal Fury, Fatal Fury II, Football Frenzy, Socker Brawl, Ninja Combat, Baseball Stars Professional, Super Spy, Art Of Fighting, King Of The Monsters, 2020 Super Baseball, Real Dynamic Baseball Stars Professional, Ninja Commando, and one that we can't identify, it is in Japanese. This machine works great and is in excellent condition. LOCAL PICKUP ONLY!

[CheffoJeffo]

My advice would be not to MAME it ... partially because it is a good system in good shape (and I now like Neo Geos) ...  and partially because it's not convenient for Frankenpanelling (if that it what you want to do).

As for your MVS/Jamma questions ...

http://www.hardmvs.com/html/Downloads.htm

Also has manuals and other nifty MVS stuff.

And don't forget ....

http://www.neo-geo.com

Enjoy your Neo Geo ... 

Cheers.

[paigeoliver]

Leave it alone, don't Mame it. My Neo Geo MVS gets more action than my Mame cabinet, a lot more.

That one looks REALLY nice.

[Witchboard]

Agreed.  Looks real nice.  I know you're not wanting to MAME it outright but just add MAME capabilities, but I would still just leave it be.  Play on it a while before you make your decision.  You'll probably end up loving it too much to mess with. 

[CheffoJeffo]

Leave it alone, don't Mame it. My Neo Geo MVS gets more action than my Mame cabinet, a lot more.

Same here ... and I only have two games (until my next two arrive in the next few days) on it.

Cheers.

[JODY]

Yeah, that looks really nice.  I'd put it next to a Mame cabinet...but not Mame it.

[Baker535]

My goal is to keep it all original still, sorry if I wasn't clear on that aspect.

No hacking this machine what-so-ever. I bought this with the intention of giving it a great home. Anything that I change or add I would want to be be stuff that is easily reversible or co-exist with the original state. That's why I said MAME inclusion instead of conversion. That step would be after I've had some really good play time to decide if I should even bother. I'll look through hardmvs more thoroughly now that I have the perspective of an owner. Thanks for the tip!

Also thanks for the confirmation on quality paige. I trust your eyes have seen more of these machines than most... so that is good to hear.

Guess I should go bid on a few of my favorite games now while I figure out the tricky part of getting it to the office...

-baker

[NoOne=NBA=]

Play tends to be a bit more intense on dedicated machines.
I'd leave this one as-is, and build a second one for MAME.

[Apollo]

Great cab, I wouldn't even touch it. I loved my Neo Geo before I sold it and it wasn't even half as good as your cab. You have some good games there too. King of Monsters, Ninja Commando, Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting are all great. Get yourself a couple of Metal Slugs and your set.
Plus Neo Geo is basically JAMMA so almost all PCB's for 8 way games that use 1 or 2 buttons will hook up no problem.
Nice buy.

[paigeoliver]

Not quite Jamma, a 4slot cab is wired MVS, and will require a couple slight mods to run Jamma boards. (Audio pins are different).

[Rip]

As a NeoGeo machine is JAMMA, the easiest way is add an ArcadeVGA video card to your MAME PC, and add a JPac adapter to your JAMMA harness. 

(edit: hmmm just noticed the post about a 4-way not being JAMMA compatible...I know my 1-way is...but if 4-way is not...the rest of the post may be moot...but I think what it amounts to is the MVS audio is stereo, whereas JAMMA is mon, so you may not be able to take advantage of the stereo sound)

The AracadeVGA will generate a 15khz signal and attach directly to the video-in on the JPac (I think it is a female-female video cable), which will in turn pass it off to the arcade monitor (the JPAC will protect and amplify the signal accordingly)

The JPAC also has a ps/2 port to connect to keyboard port on your PC (you will require a male-male ps/2 cable).  It translates JAMMA button and joystick switches into keyboard signals (predefined for MAME) sent to your PC

Both are available from Ultimarc and work great.  I did the same thing to my 25" candy cab without issue. No re-wiring required!  When you want to switch back to NeoGeo, just swap the JAMMA edge connector back to the NeoGeo PCB.

The only thing that may be an issue is that the JAMMA spec only supports 3 buttons per side, and a NeoGeo has 4.  I don't think the JPac handles extra buttons on the JAMMA edge connector, but does support direct wiring from an extra 3 buttons per side (this would require some manual rewiring).  Without it, you'd be limited to 3 buttons per side games.

[paigeoliver]

J-Pac supports 4 button Neo geo just fine.

MVS pinout is different on a few pins.

Biggest difference (and most important one) is that the speaker negative is tied to GROUND in the Neo Geo harness. The stereo audio left+ and right+ is output through the pins that NORMALLY drive mono audio + and mono audio -. The mono audio (on the boardset) is on different pins altogether.

There are also some other differences, but they are unimportant when it comes to J-Pac and mame.

Basically a Neo Geo multislot cabinet is JAMMA once you swap a couple wires.

I however am sort of stuck right now trying to figure out how to run a six slot board and a Jamma board on a Jamma switcher. I might have to resort to having a separate mono speaker, as I can't see any other way to do it without tying the speaker- to ground in the whole cabinet, which can damage some audio amps.

[Baker535]

Thanks guys for all the feedback and info, very much appreciated. Until I get familiar with the cab I'm not going to attempt anything. Just need a few favorite games and I'll be set for awhile.

-baker

[Baker535]

Two other things came to mind after the great responses and some more thinking...

Anywhere besides eBay can I get MVS carts or kits for a reasonable price? For now I'd perfer more of a store to purchase from than sellers boards...

Also transportation... is there anyway I can make this more secure when I transport it. I only have access to a small truck so my only option is to lay it down. Seems like this is a big no no... but is there anyway to make the best of the situation?

Thanks again!

-baker

[paigeoliver]

Two other things came to mind after the great responses and some more thinking...

Anywhere besides eBay can I get MVS carts or kits for a reasonable price? For now I'd perfer more of a store to purchase from than sellers boards...

Also transportation... is there anyway I can make this more secure when I transport it. I only have access to a small truck so my only option is to lay it down. Seems like this is a big no no... but is there anyway to make the best of the situation?

Thanks again!

-baker

Your best option with THAT cabinet is to lay it down. It isn't a big no no, it is the norm. Just make sure the monitor and power supply are bolted down before you do it (they SHOULD be, but every once in a while you'll run into a game that has one of those items just sitting in there, having not been bolted down after the last repair.

As for carts, ebay really is the best place. I prefer sellers  ju707 and  yaton6262.

[Stingray]

Leave it alone, don't Mame it. My Neo Geo MVS gets more action than my Mame cabinet, a lot more.

Mine does too.

I agree with pretty much everyone else. Don't MAME it, it's far too nice.

-S

[Baker535]

I got the machine on Saturday. It survived the little bout of rain at the town I was picking it up from (it figures, the rest of the trip was beautiful and sunny). We were prepared and had a tarp, it was also wrapped in blankets. It is a monster! Even with my uncle's help I about killed myself unloading it, but it was unharmed. Next time it gets moved I am stripping out everything I can before moving and using a U-haul.

This thing is in amazing condition. It was bought from an amusement vendor brand new and has been in a home since day one. I am now only the second owner. I opened it up and there was barely any dust. All particle board and plywood looks like the day it was made. PCB's look like new, vinyl is in excellent condition with very little flaking or scuffs, all art is in excellent condition. The 4 slot marquee LED lighting system is really cool, I have never seen flat panel LEDs like that before. Speakers sound great. Control panel and original buttons were in excellent condition, even the LCD credit counter read outs. Coinbox looks new. I seriously got an insane deal. It was like using a time machine to get this.

That being said only one small thing was the monitor. No burn in and excellent color, but it has a couple of white vertical lines in it on the left hand side, very faint. I hear cap kits usually fix a lot of monitor problems. I'll have to post some questions in the monitor forum next. High voltage electronics scare me... so I'll either live with it, try to find someone to repair it, or replace it when it starts bugging me.

I lucked out on the games it came with. It also had a copy of Viewpoint which I hear is uncommon. Good thing because I really like that one, the music is excellent. Also some carts had serial numbers and a few had matching boxes. I even got a few more suprises...!

World Heros (Japanese label)
World Heroes II,
(2) Magician Lord /w/ 1 mini marquee
Alpha Mission II /w/ box, matching serials, artwork, no mini marquee
Fatal Fury /w/ 1 mini marquee
Fatal Fury II
Football Frenzy /w/ box, matching serials, artwork
Soccer Brawl /w/ box, matching serials, artwork
Ninja Combat /w/ 1 mini marquee
(2) Baseball Stars Professional
Super Spy /w/ 1 mini marquee
Art Of Fighting
King Of The Monsters /w/ 1 mini marquee
2020 Super Baseball
ViewPoint /w/ 1 mini marquee
Sengoku /w/ box, matching serials, artwork

(3) Neo Geo memory Cards! All seem to work too, boxes, instructions and 2 even had the plastic carrying sleeve! Some various other mini marquee's were thrown in... Cyber Lip, Ninja Commando. Also empty boxes of Cross Swords and Robo Army...

This was covered by my work as a bonus for hard work on a project I just finished up. Because of that I went crazy on getting some more carts. Besides the initial offering. I just picked up...

Metal Slug 1+2
Panic Bomber
Last Blade 2
Magical Drop 3
Puzzle Bobble
Samurai Shodown 4
League Bowling
Blazing Star
Aero Fighters 2

With this collection of games and the condition of the machine I agree with everyone else. I will not add MAME to it until components start to fail and can't be replaced. Even then no extra buttons or frankenpanels. Again, it would still look, run and retain all functions as a dedicated Neo Geo machine.

Thanks to everyone for answering questions, giving advice and reading my story!

-baker

[paigeoliver]

Are you keeping your double copy of Magician Lord?

[cbmeeks]

man, you got lucky!

Keep that thing as-is and don't MAME it.

Also, if you do decide to move it again, don't take it apart.  Just get you a UHaul or whatever with a lifting gate.  One that can life about 1000 pounds should be more than enough.

You will save your back, your time, and your sanity.

great find

cbmeeks