Will 80's arcade pcb's be obsolete soon / mame more popular ?

[rlemmon]

Hi guys. So I'm Thinking about how the PCBs from 80's games are now in there 20's with some being up to 28 years old.  I wander how long we have until it gets to the point that they will no longer be repairable. What will this mean for arcade game collectors ?

 will everyone be running original cabs with a pc and mame to play there game. Or maybe some will forget about dedicated cabs and go mame or multi cabs.  What are your thoughts on this ?   

[Daviea]

This is a great question.  I've actually contemplated this very same thought on more than one occasion.  My first time 'round was back in the mid 90's when most of the classic were already well beyond their 10th birthday.

Anyhow, I have an opinion on the subject, both as a collector of these games and a manufacturer of reproduction parts as well.

Being a collector, maybe not as "hardcore" as some, I still have an incredible home arcade filled with so many games it would make your head spin.  What matters to me the most is that each of these are dedicated machines that will faithfully run the game for which it was designed....oh, and they have to LOOK and FUNCTION perfectly!!  Sure, I think MAME is really cool and totally has a place -- particularly for people who may not have as much space as I do or the will power to maintain 100+ games.  LOL  But the point is that because I (and many others) are thrilled to own these machines, there will be drive to maintain them no matter what.  Of course, this all hinges on the idea that people will still want to collect these down the road.  My thought on that:  people collect anything they can get their hands on!  Always been that way, probably always will be that way.

On the flip side, as a manufacturer of reproduction parts (which stems from the fact that I'm a collector), I am able to look at any part of a game (controls, cabinet, circuit board) and make a faithful "copy" of said item.  There are a bunch of people out there dedicated to reproducing the parts to keep these machines running.  Old circuit boards are not really a concern... yet.  Most are easily repaired, probably even 30 or 40 years down the road from now.  Heck, maybe even longer.  The trouble spot will be in obtaining the correct components necessary to repair or reproduce the boards, but that may not be a real issue for quite some time.  So far, there are only a very few components which are completely MIA now that were plentiful back in the 80's.  That said, some ingenious people out there have figured out ways around this real problem.

I think these games will be collected, restored, maintained and operated (even if only in our homes) for at least another 3 or 4 generations.  By that time, our plasma power systems will be incompatible with 120V arcade games.  LOL

I really do enjoy this topic, btw.

David Adams
RAM Controls

[rlemmon]

 "Most are easily repaired even 30 or 40 years down the road.  Heck, maybe even longer.  The trouble spot will be in obtaining the correct components necessary to repair or reproduce the boards, but that may not be a real issue for quite some time"

That's good to here. I really hate the thought of these games becoming compost.

[Zobeid]

The machines will be kept alive as long as there is sufficient interest in them.

MAME and other emulators help support that interest.  There will be people who start by building a control panel, then a MAME cabinet, then move on to restoring original arcade games.   So in that sense I think emulation helps more than it hurts.

[Turnarcades]

As with any hobby/interest, bonafide collectors will always exist, and maintain their collection. Most retro collections find a way round high deterioration as they are not subject to the use and abuse they would be when they first came out and were deemed expendable.

[Level42]

Although it may surprise some people, I agree with David.

First: Mame will never be 100% the same as an original game PCB. Also, I don't like my 80's cab needing to boot-up......

Besides that, even it it _would_ be 100% the same, I'd still prefer an original PCB. For originality's sake. Besides the game experience (game play) there is also the aspect about the technology behind the game. I love the electronics of that era. How they solved things in those days that were "impossible" sometimes. The little tricks etc.

In fact, I think a 25 year old arcade game PCB is easier to repair than any modern piece of electronics.
The vast majority of chips on these PCB's are either still available or still in production. They are also "easy" to work on because the large PCB, "big" chips, not multi-layered and "large" tracks and soldering islands.

Also, (once repaired) these PCB's seem to be very reliable. Even after all this time.

I'd worry more about people who are not learning anymore how to work on these pcb's than on the parts availability.

My REAL worry is the CRT situation.
The most threatened race of arcade games are the vectors. I don't think I need to explain that replacement CRT's/yokes for vectors are close to unavailable. A vector monitor is also 100% depending on a CRT. There is NO replacement to get the same impact and look as a vector.
A raster game is "bearable" on LCD (even though I would never put a LCD in one of my cabs), but a vector game would loose 75% of it's charm on LCD....

Of course CRTs are still in production now. But I wonder for how long. I think it will be long enough for all of us but after that.....I hope there a "niche" market will survive, like the vinyl record player survived, but I doubt it because of the cost of production....

O, and we need reliable sources for all the weird mechanical things on those original cabs....I'd love it if f.i. RAM controls would release the long-awaited SW yoke AND take care of orders professionally.

I had the pleasure of actually having some yoke parts produced by David in my hands recently and the quality looks to be amazing !

[Daviea]

Level42,

You made a couple of really good points.

- Who's going to repair these 40 years down the road?
- Will the CRT monitors still be available down the road?

I have to admit, these are both excellent points of interest.

With regard to electronics and the lack of interest in learning how to work on it, you're right!  For the last decade or so, the interest level in learning component level electronics here in the U.S. (I'm not sure about the rest of the world) has dropped sharply.  In my area lone, there used to be at least 40 different electronic shops back in the 80's.  Even in the 90's there were still a good 20 or so.  Today, I can count 1...2...3...4.. plus all of the lame Radio Shacks.  So, essentially, we have FOUR electronic shops still around.  Now, what this says to me is that there's hardly any interest in electronics as a hobby.  People like me who are die hard engineer types, we'll always find a way to locate our components.  Everyone else?  They'll probably give up any interest for lack of available parts.  It's a sad situation.  40 years from now, it's only going to get worse... A lot worse.  It will fall upon the very few enthusiasts to keep these things (and most through-hole tech) operating.  Surface mount is generally treated as throw-away tech, so....

On the subject of CRT's and their use on vector monitors.  I can't even imagine trying to play Tempest on an LCD.  LOL  The sad truth is that 99% of the manufacturers out there have either already dropped their CRT production or will drop it sometime soon.  Vector tubes have not been made in well over a decade and what supply is left is minimal.  The only good news is that these newer start-up companies in Korea and China, although they typically make worthless items, are totally onboard with making old tech if there's any money at all to be made.  There are a few good companies among them....and, more importantly, they're willing to work with someone ...say, like ME, who'd be willing to order 500 custom-made CRT tubes all at once.  Surprisingly, it doesn't take a very large order (ie: 1mil+ units) to get them to work for you.  The downside is that SOME of those companies like to steal your tech and sell it to anyone who has a fistful of money.  I guess my point is that if someone is determined enough to keep their machines going, the parts CAN be made.

Of the two, I worry about the lack of techs in the future.  That one is actually a small part of a greater concern that people are becoming less and less interested in knowing how their devices work and more inclined to use said device blindly.  It really breaks my heart to see society turning in this direction.

BTW, I'm glad you liked the parts.  I'll have an announcement (with pics) on the SW Yoke project very shortly.

David Adams
RAM Controls

[RayB]

Even MAME interest will fizzle eventually. What will likely happen is the hobby will continue, but it will "move" with the age group. It will survive so long as we are alive, but parts will become more expensive as time goes on.

[scrapple]

my super chexx wont be playable in mame!  =)

[Bluedeath]

I think that cabs will become like antique furniture, and as far mame will be like 50s and 60s music gam,e that are classic will survive in the collective culture therefore they will live (may be the remembers will be different taht the actual ting) forever.

[S0L]

Sounds like exciting news on the Yoke front

On the topic of Mame VS original PCB's - I'm suprised that no-one has yet done some form of Mame on a chip, or even a one chip version of old arcade hardware. There are all manner of programmable chips out there.

That way you'd have instant arcade on - no messing around with OS's and booting, but greater reliability than the old hardware.

Oh actually...



Maybe I spoke too soon. Of course as with Mame there are no doubt legal issues of course...

Of course - I guess that it's still not the real thing

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S0L
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[Level42]

I was about to add that option to the thread....there are some projects here and there.....I couldn't find the site though. By all means, this is a much better option than Mame. Basically (when done right) the complete hardware is put on one chip. So this should give a 100% experience, at least in theory.

The only issue would be analogue chips like f.i. the sound chips on Donkey Kong. Don't think they can be put on those chips....but I'm not sure...

[S0L]

That I'm not sure about - if you follow the link via Youtube, it seems they did a couple of games other than Pacman too though:

http://home.freeuk.net/fpgaarcade/games.htm

Including Asteroids...! If they did Star Wars, I'd be almost tempted to buy one of those kits to see what it is like

Of course, I can't see this ever being a commercially viable option - not unless someone had the rights to the original games, but from a gamers point of view, it's definately cool

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S0L
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[Ummon]

What with carbon fabbing becoming fairly easy, and this translating to the consumer market, I don't think there's any reason to worry as long as, either, the original documentation exists to simply select and have the machine make it, or someone clever enough to create new more efficient versions and, again, all of us point and click.