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Author Topic: About to take the leap!!  (Read 1873 times)

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madgammer

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About to take the leap!!
« on: February 12, 2007, 11:12:54 pm »
Well after several years on waiting and considering I'm about to take the leap into the full stand up unit!

I've been a long time gamer since playing pong at an early age (grandfather was a SERIOUS electronics geek).  I've owned just about every console known and because of it got into computers after getting a trash 80 and learning some programming at the rip age of 8!

Well that love of gamming has lead me to PC's and a successful career in IT 20 years later.  The old lady thinks I'm too old to GAME, but we all know how that story goes! I've been labled as the boy who can't grow up because I've decided that I want to setup a several full size units on the patio even though I already have a ps1, ps2, dreamcast, xbox, and Super N all on the living room TV.  These are not just boxes with a few games in the living room I mean I have a few thousand games sitting around thanks to being a mod on IRC for a few years and having a few T3's dumps at my control!

Well bottom line is I'm VERY new to the whole inside of a full size arcade game.  I have been reading up on jamma's, the carts, TCB's, Neo Geo's, the battery of death issue etc, but I admit I still have a ton of reading to do,.

I'm planning on picking up 2-4 cabinets for next to nothing because a friend bought a seized warehouse that had a few games that didn't get removed.  A few work and a few don't, but my goal is to setup a jamma cabinet out of all of them them and have the old school buddies over for Fighting tourney's!!

I'm hoping to mount 2/3 boards in each cabinet (if possible) and just switch between them as needed.  (automated or manually)  Not sure if it will work, but if I can be lead to a few good sites on how to setup a jamma cabinet and maybe some good jamma 101 sites I would really be thankful.  I'm also looking for good resources to by parts like an "A" boards, control panel parts, adapters, converters etc.

Hopefully I can get the few cabinets working before summer when I can lounge outside in the cool air and enjoy a Sancho Panza while sipping on a nice cup of java!!

Check out my profile for other hobbies and hit my up on ICQ.

GoPodular.com

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Re: About to take the leap!!
« Reply #1 on: February 13, 2007, 09:34:55 pm »
http://www.multigame.com/jamma.html

"MultiJAMMA is a system designed to allow multiple JAMMA games to be installed in a single cabinet and be instantly selected by the player with the push of a button.

Each MultiJAMMA "Controller" (shown at left) is capable of selecting up to 8 different JAMMA boardsets without needing to turn the power off or physically switch game boards or connections.
"

Sounds like what you're looking for.  ;)

Bob Roberts has a tutorial on how to install the jamma harnesses he sells:
http://arcadecontrols.com/BBBB/jh.html
That should give you a good idea of what's involved.

madgammer

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Re: About to take the leap!!
« Reply #2 on: February 13, 2007, 09:38:56 pm »
VERY good info thanks!  I just read quit a few FAQ and of of them was Bob Roberts.  I like how he is very precise with wiring and goes through step by step on exactly how to wire the cable.

I'll be reading up on the Multigame jamma now this is EXACTLY what I was looking for!


Chris G

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Re: About to take the leap!!
« Reply #3 on: February 14, 2007, 04:51:43 pm »
If you happen to want "Pit Fighter" for one of your eventual multi-game cabs (no, I can't imagine why!), let me know.  I have the board just wasting away in a box.

madgammer

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Re: About to take the leap!!
« Reply #4 on: February 14, 2007, 07:27:17 pm »
 What's Pit fighter?  hahah thanks, but now that I have gotten a link and know that my plan is possible to create a ALL MK cabinet that will have EVERY version of the game I just need to find a Control Panel or get someone to make one for me.  I can probably pull off the wiring, but I don't have tools or space to do any type of woodworking.  So the hunt is on for a working MK CP or to find someone willing to make one for me.  I looked at a lot of the pre-made CP sites, but none have a MK button layout.  Seems like they are all geared toward the standard SF  ???

sphetr2

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Re: About to take the leap!!
« Reply #5 on: February 14, 2007, 08:00:43 pm »
Well that love of gamming has lead me to PC's and a successful career in IT 20 years later.  The old lady thinks I'm too old to GAME, but we all know how that story goes! I've been labled as the boy who can't grow up because I've decided that I want to setup a several full size units on the patio even though I already have a ps1, ps2, dreamcast, xbox, and Super N all on the living room TV.  These are not just boxes with a few games in the living room I mean I have a few thousand games sitting around thanks to being a mod on IRC for a few years and having a few T3's dumps at my control!


You, sir, are my hero.  :cheers:

Texasmame

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Re: About to take the leap!!
« Reply #6 on: February 14, 2007, 10:31:05 pm »
What's a "gammer?"

 :P

Crowquill

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Re: About to take the leap!!
« Reply #7 on: February 15, 2007, 05:25:55 am »
The beauty of JAMMA is that there really is no setup. Since the cabinets are standardized, swapping games really is almost as simple as changing a console cartridge. Granted it's a huge, stripped down cartridge with a wiring harness instead of a cartridge slot, but you get the point. This holds true for any game that uses 3 or less buttons.

Since you're planning to play mostly fighters, another consideration is that any game that uses over 3 buttons uses an additional wiring harness for the extra buttons. Because of SFII's popularity this is usually referred to as the "kick harness". If you're dedicating a cabinet to all MK or all Capcom CPS-2 games you should be OK, but if you want to switch games between different manufacturers/time periods then you'll have to do some creative wiring. For example, my Primal Rage cab had been converted to Tekken 3, but to play Soul Edge (another Namco game from a similar time-period), I had to change some of the button wiring. as the pinouts are different even though the kick harness uses the same connector.

Here's an example of creative wiring. If you look at the pic of the PCB in the KLOV listing for Tekken 3 (http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=&game_id=10061) you'll see that someone has soldered wires so that the extra buttons are connected to pins on the JAMMA harness (which technically has enough pins for 5 buttons). This way they don't have to worry about using the kick harness for this game. They'll also be missing out on stereo sound in this case, but probably not too big of a concern.

One other consideration is the type of monitor. Most games use standard resolution monitors while some like the Virtua Fighter games use medium resolution monitors. The good news is that if the Primal Rage cabinet is like mine, then it uses a Neotec N2515 which handles both standard and medium-res.

I mainly wanted a JAMMA cab to play games that MAME doesn't handle well. Mostly these are 3D games, but Mr Driller 2 stays in mine most of the time now. I'm also planning on piecing together a Neo-Geo 4-slot as I can put in a good variety of games and switch them by pressing a button.
Brevity is not my strong suit.

madgammer

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Re: About to take the leap!!
« Reply #8 on: February 15, 2007, 03:34:32 pm »
That's for all the feedback.  This will be a dedicated MK cab, but I more than likely will replace the CP on it since I don't have room for the extra button I need.

I have been reading up on a lot connectors, and I found a few places that have dedicated cabling for specific MK games.  I think I can probably get each one to work fine, but my goal is to use the same cab and have all MK games working at the same time and have a switch button wired so I can toggle between games as needed.  So I will essentially have 4 jamma cards mounted in one cab and hopefully wire them all up to work at the same time. 

fjl

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Re: About to take the leap!!
« Reply #9 on: February 15, 2007, 06:09:15 pm »
What's a "battery of death issue?" I've never heard of that. Enlighten me...

Crowquill

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Re: About to take the leap!!
« Reply #10 on: February 15, 2007, 06:52:31 pm »
What's a "battery of death issue?" I've never heard of that. Enlighten me...

Capcom CPS-2 and some other boards like Sega's System-16 include what is called a "suicide battery". Usually it was included to deter bootleggers. In the CPS-2's the actual game roms are encrypted. There is a seperate processor that decodes the roms so that they run properly. This is powered by a battery. When it dies, the main hardware can't read the encrypted ROMs and the game stops working.

More info here: http://www.arcadecollecting.com/dead/dead.html

The batteries can be replaced before they die, but once they do, your CPS-2 board is pretty much shot. I currently have a Shinobi PCB that has no sound due to it's dead battery.
Brevity is not my strong suit.

madgammer

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Re: About to take the leap!!
« Reply #11 on: February 15, 2007, 10:18:55 pm »
That the same article I read.  Apparently there is a place you can send your boards and they replace the battery for you.  I have it in a note somewhere, but over the last week alone I have about 40 online articles, and 50 websites that I have been reading through so it may be a while before I can dig out the info.