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Converting cabinet
ammonk:
Thanks to everyone with the good info and insight on my cabinet. I think I have decided to mame this cabinet, yet make it reversible. I am guessing that I will have to get a video card that will run at a lower frequency for this monitor. Does that apply to ALL monitors or just the much older machines?
With that in mind, what interface board would you suggest? I'd like to keep the current joystick+3 button controls for now, but maybe build a new control board later with more button support. Any help is greatly appreciated as this will be my first full mame arcade project.
Hawk Daddy:
Your going to need more buttons for player 1 and 2, just for the fighting games, unless you plan on just playing like the classics. You should probably take the top of the control panel off and redo it with your own cp. You can still use the buttons and joys from that one. You would just be able to lay out the stuff better.
Hawk
xmenxmen:
http://www.ultimarc.com/jpac.html
A jpac would be what you need to interface the jamma with the pc and use the existing arcade monitor.
AwesomeAlbert:
if i was you, i would take the cp off, make my own. 7 button player 1-2, 4 button player 3-4. , jpac (no wires), ipac or minipac (if you want a trackball)(leave the old wires hanging in there). Have printed a modified original control panel overlay. make a frontend with a xmen theme.
it would be sweet
(leave the old cp on and just get a jpac and play 3 button games if you dont want to mess with anything)
Crowquill:
I think AwesomeAlbert summed it up pretty well. The JPAC can use buttons 1-3 from the JAMMA harness (X-Men doesn't have start buttons). Additional buttons can be wired directly to the JPAC up to 8 buttons for player 1 & 2. If you need additional buttons you can add an IPAC/MiniPac. You will still need a video card that can output a 15kHz signal. You could pick up a ArcadeVGA card or utilize a software hack for existing cards.
There are basically three types of arcade monitors. Most games including X-Men used "Standard Resolution". This has a 15kHz sync rate. There's also Medium Resolution (25kHz) and VGA capable monitors. Download the manual to your monitor model. If it's a Wells-Gardner K7000 series (which I think is what's most common in these) you can download it HERE. You will probably want to do a "cap kit" on your monitor.
Nice score on a good-looking cabinet. Does everything work fully on it? If not you might want to troubleshoot a bit before trying to change it around too much.