Smart Card in MAME Machine?

[electricd]

Has anyone tried this?  I thought of adding a reader to my MAME cabinent, and using it to store credits instead of using quarters.  Similar to what they use for GoldenTee.  Has anyone tried this, or can anyone point me in the right direction?  Thanks!

[OSCAR]

Similiar, but not for inserting credits...  http://mamecheats.fateback.com/features.htm

It uses a Dave & Buster's Power Card to trigger relays for changing P1 & P2's control scheme, from what I can gather from the website.

[paigeoliver]

Basically what you would need to do that is the same thing that Dave & Busters uses. All that reader essentially does is checks back with a computer to see how many credits you have, and then credits the machine for you.

I kind of think it would be major expensive overkill for a home Mame cabinet. What would be cheaper is perhaps to get ahold of any card reader, and rig it to insert a credit whenever you swipe ANY card. You could probably rig a bar code scanner to do that too (scan a bar code, get a credit).

[SirPoonga]

Similiar, but not for inserting credits...  http://mamecheats.fateback.com/features.htm

It uses a Dave & Buster's Power Card to trigger relays for changing P1 & P2's control scheme, from what I can gather from the website.

Wow, I forgot about that, hmm, that's a little out dated and overkill with today's mame


Original post.  You mean credits stored oin a credit card type of thing?
That would be expensive I think.


You mean something like the national chain gameworks does?
It's pretty cool.  you purchase credits.  You get a card.  The card just has a barcode on it.  You swipe the card through the machine, it shows how many credits left after you accept to play the game.  Pretty cool stuff.  I hear you can use those cards at any gameworks.  That is cool.  That means they have a central database or update their local databases everyday.  Since it is just barcode no data is stored on the card.

[paigeoliver]

The cards themselves don't even have to be the right cards. I work at a hotel right down the street from Dave & Busters.

My gold Dave & Busters power card is also a master hotel key that opens every door in the place. All I did was swipe my power card into the "programmer" and made it a master key card.

A similar experiment done with the aid of a friendly D&B employee showed that hotel key cards work just fine as power cards when the D&B employee puts credits on them.

D&B (and hotels that use card keys), don't even really need to use their own cards. They can make your credit card do the same thing.

[SirPoonga]

a magnetic strip is just a magnetic sstrip.

[mykah093]

Honestly speaking, I have not yet tried adding smart card reader to my MAME cabinet. But what if you encounter an error message when you insert your smart card into a smart card reader after an upgrade to Windows 7? What should you do?

by:
access control systems

[JustMichael]

I have no idea about a card reader instead of quarters but I use tokens instead of quarters.  No special software, no network connection necessary, just have coin mechs that accept the tokens you use.

[Thenasty]

why not just create the pieces of a Samrt Card reader. Just built the TOP and BOTTOM part and somehow rig a Microswitch in it so when any card slides, the button gets pressed and credit is issued (cheap, simple)  

Or if you want to be a little fancier, instead of a Microswitch, use opto-switch.

[wxforecaster]

I for one, as a tech geek, find this thread cool. I wish folks wouldn't respond with "this is overkill" or "this is unnecessary for home use" or "why not just use tokens". If someone poses a question, maybe they had a reason for it -- if nothing more than the gee wiz factor of whether/how it could be done. This board is usually pretty good about helping people and I'd hate to see that lost here.

Thoughts from a 3rd party observer...

[Hoopz]

I for one, as a tech geek, find this thread cool. I wish folks wouldn't respond with "this is overkill" or "this is unnecessary for home use" or "why not just use tokens". If someone poses a question, maybe they had a reason for it -- if nothing more than the gee wiz factor of whether/how it could be done. This board is usually pretty good about helping people and I'd hate to see that lost here.

Thoughts from a 3rd party observer...

Considering the thread was bumped from the last post in 2003 and the new question that was posed was purely conjecture (what would you do if you received an error message?), I don't think anyone is really putting the kibosh on the idea. 

[DaOld Man]

For any "do-it-yourself-er" "geeky type" "engineering leaning" "not scared to try it" person:

http://www.riccibitti.com/NUT_chips/card/card.htm

[wxforecaster]

Considering the thread was bumped from the last post in 2003 and the new question that was posed was purely conjecture (what would you do if you received an error message?), I don't think anyone is really putting the kibosh on the idea. 

Hahaha whoops. Man, nothing like a 7 year old bumped post. I'd like to retract my statement