picked up a MAME w/cab the other day........

[CartridgeStealer]

its really retro, its circa 1983 era. it has 1 joystick, 2 fire buttons, and a "dial" to play games like Arkanoid.

its got 600 games. it may sound like a lot but games like "return of the jedi", "street fighter" and some others i cant think of are missing and I think cant play on the current set up . they bascially need more than the basic two buttons.


its a pc monitor. I started examining it and it doesnt have games past 1986-87. it has gauntlet and gauntlet 2, but they operate at a slower pace. games like rygar, 720 and paperboy are not on there. so, I guess the computer itself isnt powerful enough. can i upgrade it?

There is a switch on top. I have to go to the mame game menu screen in order to shut it down properly.

[CartridgeStealer]

[paigeoliver]

The computer is quite replaceable. That looks like an AT style K6 based computer, likely really slow, replace it with something pentium 3 class and you will be playing almost anything you want.

[CartridgeStealer]

Thanks!!! does it cost much and is it easy to do? I wouldnt know where to start.

[SithMaster]

outside pics please i want to see the cab.

[slider2732]

It is easy to do, but needs lots of hours spent going 'WTF' at it to get it to run right lol
Main things would include the presumed hard drive with the MAME software. It will be configured for that ATI Rage video card and for the soundcard that's on the machine.
You might get lucky by taking both off and putting them on the replacement computer...but there are always factors not planned for and usually needs a lot of tweaking.

Also, if you replace with something a lot newer, it may not even have ISA slots on it, cos i'm guessing the soundcard will probably be a genuine soundblaster.

The cab will be 1983, but the PC is about 1997.

Is it DOS based ? or Windows ?

[CartridgeStealer]

I believe the cab was homemade, but I could be mistaken. Its doesnt weigh as nearly as much as the standard arcade machine. I worked in an arcade and those weighed alot!

[CartridgeStealer]

[slider2732]

Sooo...the PC spec currently is:
AMD K6@300Mhz processor
64mb RAM
2.5Gb hard drive
DOS front end

While i'd recommend putting a whole new Pentium III system in there:
You could tweak things quite a lot, by installing more RAM and possibly up to a 450Mhz or 500Mhz end of the line K6. The thing being that these would be very cheap to do and easy, with no configuration problems.
As soon as you work out the little bar on the side of the processor after taking the heatsink/fan off you'll have nearly done the processor upgrade. Same with the RAM if there are a couple of spare slots. I'm guessing there's just one module in and the motherboard probably has 3 slots. Typical for those boards is to go up to about 256mb, maybe more. Though performance won't benefit much with the lowly games currently on the system, as they don't need much RAM.

Lot of time seems to have gone into the art side...it's bright and cheerful, bordering on garish. Very nice in some ways

[slider2732]

*edit*..after having another look at your original pics.
The RAM seems to be the 2 strips of pins type, so they'll be 16mb x4 lots.
I'd say the board is maxed out pretty much.
Those older AT style ones probably won't go much above the 300Mhz processor already in it.

[CartridgeStealer]

*edit*..after having another look at your original pics.
The RAM seems to be the 2 strips of pins type, so they'll be 16mb x4 lots.
I'd say the board is maxed out pretty much.
Those older AT style ones probably won't go much above the 300Mhz processor already in it.

thanks. I kinda had a feeling that there wasnt much more I could do with the current hardware. Someone told me years ago that the stuff in the late 90's wasnt able to be upgraded.

is it easy to swap it out? and if so, what could be put in its place?

[More Cowbell]

I can't believe that someone hacked a classic "Video Game" cab to make a MAME cab. 

[Sir Auros]

Honestly, I'd leave it as it is unless you're set on replacing the control panel. It looks pretty good for what it is - a cabinet dedicated to retro games.

[CartridgeStealer]

Im more or less pissed that there are so many games that arent on there such as return of the jedi, mario brothers, pac land, sub roc, and a bunch of others that came out around the time the others were released.

[Malenko]

Im more or less pissed that there are so many games that arent on there such as return of the jedi, mario brothers, pac land, sub roc, and a bunch of others that came out around the time the others were released.

so get a cheap used P3 computer and update the roms.  You could easily add another button in there too. if you redo the control panel, you could prolly move the spinner over a tick, the controller to the left a lil more, then add a Street Fighter button layout, but then you'd be limited to a 1 player cab.

if you kill the giant spinner you could do you controller layout like mine:



hit up craigslist, I saw a P4 3.2 system go for a couple of hundred the other day, with a KB,mouse,monitor,etc
honestly though, for a large portion of the games you dont need that powerful of a  processor especially the Street Fighter games and ROTJ

[severdhed]

if you know anyone who works on computers, chances are they have bits and pieces lying around that could piece together a decent mame computer, that they would be willing to give you for next to nothing.