Welcome To The Dark Side...

[BrentRadio]

Ok, I wanted to start this thread because I am curious about this.

Who here started with building a Mame cab and now is a collector of dedicated originals?

Which way did the flow go? Mame first and then dedicated cabs? Or Dedicated cabs and then Mame?

And has Mame given you a greater appreciation of dedicated cabs or do you look at them as canidates for mameing?

What's your story?

[Paul Olson]

I started with a MAME cab in 2003, then made a modular panel for it a couple of years ago. You would think that being able to play so many games with accurate controls would make me less likely to by dedicated machines, but it turned out to be the opposite. Now a have a pinball machine in the dining room and, 6 dedicated cabs in the garage, and another at a friends house until I can move it up here. My MAME cab is probably still my favorite, but that is probably just because it has been an ongoing project for so long. I started buying dedicated games less than a year ago, and I already have my favorite vid (Donkey Kong) and one of my favorite pins (High Speed).

The only dedicated cab that I may MAME someday is the Ridge Racer. It would be great for all of the driving games since it has a 33" monitor. I think it would be a pretty easy conversion and reversible as well. We'll see though, I still need to add the 270 wheel to my current MAME cab. If that doesn't cut it, I may do the sitdown.

I am fascinated with the progression of MAME, and I hope I can contribute to it when I learn more about programming. I look forward to each release, not so much to play new games, but just to see what they accomplished. 

It has been a really fun ride so far. I have a Wii and a 360 to round out the gaming goodness, so I am pretty well set, although I spend way more time working on the games, and searching the forums than I do playing the games.

I have had a lot of hobbies over the years, but none have held my interest as long as this one. 

[MK3FAN]

That's exactly what I did. I started by building a Mame cab (Mortal Kombat 3 design)







And now have all 5 dedicated MKs and my Mame cab has been turned into a 'dedicated' Mame.











I also have a dedicated 4-player Simpsons and an original dedicated Donkey Kong currently on it's way to me. Once I got started, I couldn't stop. I thought the Mame cab was all I ever needed. I was MORE than wrong....

[CheffoJeffo]

I spent years lurking here and trying to design the perfect "cabinet to play them all" without actually building anything. Then my sister-in-law suggested, out of the blue, that it would be fun to have a cocktail cabinet at the cottage. That wouldn't have to play them all, so I grabbed a generic cocktail from eBay and converted it to run MAME. That was fun and it is still a fun machine to play on.

I picked up a big blue Capcom cab to MAME for my home cabinet. It was running SurfPlanet and my son and another sister-in-law fell in love with SurfPlanet, which was not emulated well at that time. So I looked for a way to leave SurfPlanet in the machine and also have a MAME box. Goz had one of Clay's MultiJAMMA kits for sale, so I grabbed that up and installed it into big blue. Dumped in a Golden Tee 2000 board as well.

From there I went to an auction, picked up a Neo Geo 2-slot, fell in with the local collectors, picked up a Galaga and VS Uni and started my journey down the path to the dark side.

And I *still* haven't put a MAME rig in that big blue cabinet yet.

[Malenko]

i couldnt afford a dedicated at the time (least not in good shape) so I horribly MAME'd a horrible conversion, then put that abomination out of its misery. I built a better MAME then started collecting real cabs. I think Neo Geos are the best, cause they are dedicated and still play multiple games

I wish I made more money and had a bigger house, then I'd have alot more to be proud of

[HaRuMaN]

I started off with MAME, built a desktop controller just to play in front of my PC.

Now I collect originals.  Once we buy a house (in a few months, w00t!) and have more space, I'm going to build a MAME cab.  Originally, I don't think I was going to build a MAME cab, but then I saw somunny's cabinets in person, and now I want one!

 

[garnerb350]

This is my first Mame build ( started in July  08)....and I am blown away now, knowing that there are people here that grew up with the same fascination that i have for arcades. I've always wanted to collect arcade machines, but when you see the prices that an original cab would cost...it shoots you down.

When I was 14, I worked at a tourist trap near the beach, and I worked in the arcade ( we had about 60 cabs, a shooting gallery, and 40 of these OLD 50's baseball/pinball type games ...)  I use to always help the repairmen, because I was interested in how MK or SF2 worked... Arcades blew me away...plus it was freeking awesome to be a 14-17 year old with the keys and giving free credits to the hot chicks in bikinis and ticking off their broke boyfriends.

One of my dreams was that one day I was going to get one of those old cabs and keep it in my man cave. A good friend of mine overheard me saying that I wanted to get an arcade....and he told me about MAME and I have been blown away since...  Now in my 30s and it really blows my mind that i am actually building an arcade cab instead of restoring my 72 Chevelle ( which it desperately needs!) My wife thinks i am crazy but she supports me, and my friend who told me about MAME thinks i am crazy because I am wanting to build this MAME cab....he just wants a desktop Mame player.

One thing that is cool is that now I work at a hospital and I was looking through some old storerooms...and LO and BEHOLD...( the arcade gods smiled upon me) I found an old Galaga cocktail cab...The hospital had it for their recreation department... Guess who owns it now?

[CheffoJeffo]

bumping for the weekend ...

[somunny]

I started off with MAME, built a desktop controller just to play in front of my PC.

Now I collect originals.  Once we buy a house (in a few months, w00t!) and have more space, I'm going to build a MAME cab.  Originally, I don't think I was going to build a MAME cab, but then I saw somunny's cabinets in person, and now I want one!

 

Thanks, Haruman.  It would probably be nice if I had you over to actually play them next time. 

As for me, I would love to get some original cabinets but space is limited right now.

[ctozzi]

i went the MAME way then got a dedicated MK cab and the games are so much better on dedicated, so now I have 4 dedicated MK cabs 1, being a mame. I play the mame alot since it's got 1500 games, but play it to see what dedicated cabinet I want next !

[dreamakuma]

Neither. I had a dreamcast as a kid, and there was a laundrymat that had Street Fighter 3: third strike cab. well I got sf3 and played it at home and saw how similar they were, it was a great port, well a few years back (3?) I came across my dreamcast again and played it. I then saw how people were emulating with the console. soon I had nes, snes, genesis, and even arcade games on my dc, I started having this idea about, making my "DREAMARCADE" my girlfriend just looked at me like I was crazy, but approved. Soon i got A taitronics cab that was empty for free and off I went. Now I can play a ton of games and and SF3 all over again. It brought back a childhood that I didn't have much of. good times.

[TOK]

MAME, then dedicated. Its a tie right now, I have 3 MAME (horizontal, vertical and bartop) and 3 dedicated (JAMMA, Golden Tee Fore, and Neo Geo Gold).

If it all had to go but one, the horizontal MAME would stay. As much as I appreciate the dedicated hardware, the flexibility of a MAME machine is unbeatable (and JAMMA xxxx in 1's are just MAME).

[RayB]

My story is a bit scattered...

Let's start by saying I have always had a strange attraction to arcade machines. I designed my own cabinets in the form of color drawing as a kid/teen, constructed 3D "paper arcade" versions (we're talking in early 80's, long before the internet  ) and even constucted a miniature Sinistar out of balsa wood. I ate a hell of a lot of Fritos during their "win an Atari Star Wars" contest. 

In early 90's I worked for Virgin Games and they had a few machines in their lobby. One of them was an "Arcadia Super Select System" in a cut-corner Dynamo, in which they ran their prototype "Spot" arcade game. There was also a non-working golf game of some sort in a white generic cabinet. The machines were owned by one of the two head honchos of the company and I asked where I could buy one TO PUT A SNES IN IT!  Well he offered me the generic for $125.

With the help of one of the programmers who was from England, he taught me about "SCART" and helped me buy a SCART cable for SNES. I bought some new buttons from an arcade distributor, and paid them $20 to punch holes in the metal control panel I had. Virgin had two huge garbage bags of SNES controllers they got for free from tradeshows, so I was able to get two for free that I could hack and solder controls to. Once wired up, this thing was the best way to play SNES games. The graphics were sharp and dual-speaker stereo sound reverberating in a cabinet sounded just excellent. Playing Zelda in this form or SF2 was great.

So then of course I needed more... :-) The Arcadia cabinet stopped working, so they took out the board and offered it to me for $150. What was broken? The sync wire had come off. Soldered back on, this became a JAMMA board cabinet and I started collecting some of my favorite game boards. (Oooo!! it had teh r@re Spot burn in and Arcadia Select System marquee!) 

Next I heard of an arcade auction and bought a Punch-Out there, and later a Super Punch Out kit.

So as you see, the idea of "multi game machines" for me (though in the form of swappable boards or cartridges) started before MAME ever existed.

I sold all of this stuff in 1995 after getting laid off and needing to move back to Canada. (My extensive console collection was all sold off too).

Around late 90's, the desire came back and I attended Starburst auctions in Toronto, but never bought anything due to living in a tiny apartment and having no means to haul them. An uncle of mine worked for an operator and managed to get me a Galaga in exchange for a pc monitor and some computer help.

Next came owning my own home which opened the floodgates! Bought a generic and MAMEed it! Followed by more dedicated!

Honestly, dedicated was always first and foremost. There's something about the look and design of those beasts I love. However, owning a MAME has shrunk down the machines I want. Games with low replay value, or which were commonly kit form I don't need to own as standalone, and I don't collect JAMMA boards anymore.

Thanks for reading this novel. 

[retrometro]

i have a mame cab but i desperately want to collect original cabs.  There's something about the controls feeling feeling too perfect and the monitor too big (27") that makes mame feel artificial even if I can't tell by sight and sounds.

[RandyT]

Collecting originals is difficult due to space requirements, but it's also difficult to resist owning one or two originals if your reason for getting into MAME is to get closer to the hay day of videogaming.

I started with a gutted Defender cab and fitted components to it so I could play arcade and arcade style games with my Amiga 1000 (This was ~20 years ago).  The same cabinet is now my MAME machine.  But I also have a real Galaxian and Twin Cobra (someone else converted from a Crystal Castles cabinet) which I picked up afterward and won't MAME.  Well, at least not the Galaxian...jury's still out on the TC conversion.  I also have a Williams High-Speed pinball machine.

So for me, it was software like MAME and Visual Pinball that brought me back, which then inspired me to collect a few originals.  If I had the space, I'd have more.

RandyT

[TheShanMan]

For me MAME led to collecting originals, which likely wouldn't have occurred if MAME didn't exist. Now, while I consider having a MAME cab essential, the only way I'll build a MAME cabinet is if and when I decide to convert my Centipede MAME cab back to Centipede (I never gutted it, so hopefully it will be easy to get working again). Well, I take that back. One of these days I might build a MAME cocktail cab.

When we get our next house, we plan to have somewhere around 10 cabinets.

[Neverending Project]

MAME first, then dedicated. Although I have yet to actually finish any project.

I came across this site, and that ignited some sort of dormant spark in me - I never really knew I wanted to get into this "hobby" until I came here. A bit of craigslist searching, fifty bucks and a short drive later I had my first empty cabinet ready to MAME (Capcom Mercs). Well it quickly became apparent that without an initial plan, this conversion process would never end. My control panel is now modular, I have no artwork, and the front end - although configured - doesn't even have any usable gamelists on it yet.

Next thing I knew I found a local Paperboy in need of restoration for $60. I didn't even know I wanted it until I came across the ad. So I was then able to justify it by thinking to myself that the controller was unique enough to want to own, and the gameplay was fun enough that my kids would like it. Then I came across what I thought was a dedicated Galaga, although it turned out to be a Galaxian conversion. The price was right, so that joined my collection. Oh, and in the meantime I had decided that pinball would be really fun too, so I picked up a completely non-working Flight 2000. Yet another machine that I have no clue how to repair (yet).

So over the holiday break, my wife and I decided to turn our unused formal dining room into another playroom/gameroom. This would get the games out of the garage into the house. I actually had to hire a couple of guys to help me carry the MAME cab in through a window, cause it was about 1/4" too wide for the doorway! I rationalize it by thinking that if I don't paint the dining room, it is still a dining room - just with no table, no chairs, and with three arcade machines and a pinball in it.

Anyway, now that the games are inside, I actually find myself working on them a lot more. It is inspiring (and a bit overwhelming) to walk by them every day and see what still needs to be done. So now my wife thinks I am obsessing over them (which I am, a bit), but maybe 2009 is the year I finish a project (and maybe start 10 or so more...)!

[HaRuMaN]

Thanks, Haruman.  It would probably be nice if I had you over to actually play them next time. 

Yeah, that would be cool.   

 

[isucamper]

I've got to say that owning a dedicated machine (or machines) always seemed like an awesome fantasy, but nothing that I ever saw myself actually going through with.

However, I have been a MAME nut since the late 90s, and have always wanted to build a MAME cab for the specific purpose of messing around with MAME and replaying the old games from my childhood.

Now that my cab is playable, I'm getting addicted to high score chasing.  I'm finding justification in getting a few dedicated machines for the purpose of submitting official scores to Twin Galaxies.