CoinDrop v1.3 Released - Now you can insert coins from your front-end!

[headkaze]

CoinDrop v1.3 By Headkaze
=========================

-= DESCRIPTION =-

This program will allow you to send coin drops to Mame from within your front-end. It runs in the background using a very small amount of CPU. When it detects a coin drop it will play a sound effect and store the amount of coins in memory. When you start Mame you can press the start keys and a credit is automatically registerd and starts the game. Dropping coins outside of Mame means you can carry over credits to multiple games.

-= FAQ =-

1. How do I set this thing up on my cab?

Just extract the folder to somewhere on your machine and create a link to CoinDrop.exe on bootup.

2. Where can I change the key settings?

Just open CoinDrop.ini in notepad and follow the instructions.

-= VERSION HISTORY =-

Version 1.3 (13-01-2006) : Now you can carry over credits inserted in Mame
Version 1.2 (12-01-2006) : WhiteList/BlackList added. Now you can say when coindrop is allowed to register credits
Version 1.1 (25-12-2005) : You now press the Start keys to drop coins and can now carry on credits to multiple games.
Version 1.0 (24-12-2005) : First Release

-----------------------------------------------

TERMS OF USE: This program is illegal to use in a commercial setting. If this program is found on a machine in a commericial environment you will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Download Removed This download has been removed. To get a copy you must IM me with a link to your project page.

[Necro]

Downloaded!   Even though I don't have a cab, would be cool to use later.

Only thing, I know Atomic removed this functionality for some reason, does this break some MAME license/whatever thing?

Wasn't sure...just curious.  I personally think it's a great idea!

[Crazy Cooter]

TERRIBLE IDEA...

TERRIBLE IDEA...

TERRIBLE IDEA...

TERRIBLE IDEA...

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=31713.0

[brophog]

So you think it's a bad idea, Crazy Cooter?

[Roughy]

TERRIBLE IDEA...

TERRIBLE IDEA...

TERRIBLE IDEA...

TERRIBLE IDEA...

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=31713.0

Funny thing about terrible ideas about functionality:

That typically means that someone has an opinion.

Which typically means that someone has a difference of opinion.

Which means that the idea is probably good to provide as an option, so if someone doesn't like it, they just don't download it.

However, I'd be very interested in understanding WHY you think it's a terrible idea without having to go through that entire thread.  Any summary?

[Necro]

I think basically the issue is that it lets people use MAME cabinets in a commercial sense (since it can track coin inserts in the front end, you can have the thing sitting in a arcade/etc. and correctly track coin inserts all the time, etc.).

Don't let people get in your face about it though.  You wrote something to help others, and people will appreciate it.

[Roughy]

I think basically the issue is that it lets people use MAME cabinets in a commercial sense (since it can track coin inserts in the front end, you can have the thing sitting in a arcade/etc. and correctly track coin inserts all the time, etc.).

Don't let people get in your face about it though.

[headkaze]

Just because you see a way someone could exploit something doesn't make it bad. The old saying "guns don't kill people, people kill people" comes to mind. That's all I will say on the matter.

Basically, I would like a bit more feedback (if possible) on any problems, or bugs. Also any ideas on how to improve it would be nice. Don't be put off by all the people who bag it because their afraid of the bootleg boogieman.

Finally, I was hoping people could post some cool coin drop wav sounds.

[headkaze]

If there is enough people who agree this program should not be released, I will remove it just let me know. I'm not about encouraging bootleg machines, and I'm not about upsetting a community who I respect. If the feature was removed from Atomic FE, then perhaps I should follow suit. It seems to me (after reading the lengthy post) that there is a great amount of distaste for such a program. Since my intentions are far removed from this sort of behaviour I would like to do the right thing by the community and take this opinon on board. How should I go about making a decision? Who's opinon should I trust? Please post your thoughts and I will remove this program if I believe it to be the right thing to do.

[BobA]

It sounds like a good program for cab builders.  Now if cab builders want to  use it for parties or for their regular use it can probably be used by them but not be those with commercial desires if you put a time limit in it.   Run for a period of time and then loose the coin amounts or stop running.  Not sure what would be most effective but an anoyance would be enough to not have someone try to use it for commercial purposes.

[sharkus]

This is an excellent idea!  I use tokens exclusively, not for commercial purposes, but to limit the amount of games that my kids play.  We also use the tokens as a positive reward system.

Side Note: not releasing software because someone might do something illegal with it is just plain silly.  If software was not released because it COULD BE used for illegal purposes we wouldn't have much software on our computers (including MAME, winamp, bittorrent, etc).

-Sharkus

[youki]

You are the DEVIL!!!

You will kill MAME  and the arcade in general!!!

That's in summary what i heard when i introduced this feature in my Atomic FE....

I'm suprise there is ony few answer to this post...  Christmas , i suppose..

[RayB]

Basically that thread said that:

1. Such a feature enables commercial use of MAME.

2. That's bad because MAME prohibits commercial use of its software.

3. That's bad because there are alot of unethical people out there who will use it for commercial purposes anyways.

4. There are alot of people who will use it for commercial purposes with illegal roms.

5. (coming full circle here) MAME will get blamed for it all.

6. MAME would then be targetted in the same way Napster was in the 90's. Napster had legitimate uses, but it's gone now (talking about the original Napster, not the rebranded music-store Napster).

Then we all lose.

[loadman]

Here is a WAV I am using... It's a sample of a coin being dropped into my cab.....SPOOKY!

http://www.members.optushome.com.au/backwash/mamewav.WAV

[mahuti]

tornado in a teacup.

[DreamWeb]

This is excellent!  Thank you for your hard work!

[brian23]

Good job. I consider this program a novelty.. nothing more.

[brophog]

Basically that thread said that:

1. Such a feature enables commercial use of MAME.

Of course it does. So does putting a normal front end in a cabinet and inserting coins to play the games rather than putting a coin in to select the game in the front end. This doesnt make it any easier to make MAME commercial than MAME itself already does.

From a practical sense, there is no difference either way because both ensure that you cannot PLAY the game without first inserting money.

[markrvp]

Without trying to add gas to the fire,

has anyone actually ever seen a MAME arcade machine running a multigame FrontEnd in a commercial setting that requires money to play?

I don't doubt for a minute that there are some dedicated cabs that are running MAME to simply play one game (for example an op might have a Tempest cab with a broken XY monitor, so he put in a VGA monitor and is using MAME to run Tempest).

[RayB]

Without trying to add gas to the fire,

has anyone actually ever seen a MAME arcade machine running a multigame FrontEnd in a commercial setting that requires money to play?

Isn't that like asking if anyone has seen a car, while the combustion engine was still being invented?

(BTW, what I listed above was a CHAIN OF EVENTS. Not individual arguments against. You have to consider the scenario based on the chain of events.)

[SirPoonga]

Isn't that like asking if anyone has seen a car, while the combustion engine was still being invented?

People have reported seeing commercial mame machines on ebay and at local places.

Personally I don't see the need for a program like this.  If you loose credits switching games just add more.  It's not like it costs you anything.

Well, if you use tokens to limit play for kids then I guess the kid will loose credits.  BUT without a program like this it teaches the kid patience and making the right decision on when to use a token.

[brophog]

Oh yeah, don't get me wrong. I don't see a reason for this program either. But the argument that it leads to commercialism is a bunch of hooey. Mame can go commercial all by itself!

[lokki]

Without trying to add gas to the fire,

has anyone actually ever seen a MAME arcade machine running a multigame FrontEnd in a commercial setting that requires money to play?

Yes, See them all the time in Mexico, running ArcadeOS and hacked versions of MAME. May not be a big deal in the US, but is big issue in rest of the world.

[SirPoonga]

This doesnt make it any easier to make MAME commercial than MAME itself already does.

Yes it does.  It makes it work more like a commercial multigame system. 

[brophog]

It's pure semantics and looks. There is no reason you need to put coins into the frontend to make it a commercial product.

[SirPoonga]

No, it's the fact that the credits carry over when switching games.  Commercial systems do this.  It's not the fact that you can put in credits at the frontend.

Since credits are free for a home user there isn't a need for a program like this.  But if you want to fake a multigame system using mame a feature like this will make it much easier.  That's the argument against such a feature as it really doesn't do much for the home user but does quite abit for someone using mame commercially.

Also like I said before I don't care if he keeps the program up or not.  I'm just pointing out why people would be against it.

[brian23]

If MAME was concerned about commercialization by allowing coin drops, then there wouldn't be a insert coin feature altogether. CoinDrop is simply a nice add-on to MAME that allows you to transfer your "keystrokes" from one game to the next. I actually find it quite annoying to have to use the i-pac shift function to put coins into a game everytime.

[Necro]

I just brought it up so headkaze would know it was coming.  IMHO, if it's easy to do, some person/company could just do it on their own and sell MAME cabinets anyhow.

I plan on using this once I get my cab together.

[SirPoonga]

If MAME was concerned about commercialization by allowing coin drops, then there wouldn't be a insert coin feature altogether.

Have you seen the EULA?  Do you know about what ultracade did?

Mame is very concerned about commercialization.  But it is a documentation project, inserting a coin is part of an arcade machine.

[markrvp]

Isn't that like asking if anyone has seen a car, while the combustion engine was still being invented?

I don't think so.  Someone answered above that they have seen a lot of MAME cabinets in Mexico.  So the ability for a Front End to manage credits isn't the obstacle keeping MAME cabinets from illegal use.

I understand the argument against coindrop FE management, but I think if operators saw a fortune to be made in classic on-site arcade cabinets we would have already seen it.  It has already been pointed out the Ultracade machines have been poor earners in arcades.

I don't care either way. 

What I would like to see is someone figure out how the game STEPMANIA was written as it seems to be a really flashy type program that would look awesome as a Front End.  It doesn't crash and is very professional looking and allows selection of songs (i.e. ROMS) very easily.  I think a Front End that looks, sounds, and reacts as nicely as the FE that sets up games in Stepmania would be great for our community.

[brian23]

If MAME was concerned about commercialization by allowing coin drops, then there wouldn't be a insert coin feature altogether.

Have you seen the EULA?

[RayB]

I don't think so.

[loadman]

I was up until now resisting entering this discussion instead just providing a link to a wav as the author of Coindrop requested..

[youki]

Funny, it is same discussion we had few month ago when i introduced AtomicFe with this feature.

Concerning MAME Cab in a exploitation context.  There are lot of  in Spain and Italy too.

And i saw one in North Carolina in U.S.

Some PCB are sold including MAME and 400 or 900 roms too.  They are JAMMA board with a Hardrive, you just plug to your Cab  , and you boot up directly on a FE (Arcade OS , i think). And you can choose up to 900 games runing with mame.
The credit management is done by electronic.

These boards are called "900 in 1"  , and "400 in 1" . You can find some of them on Ebay sometimes.

Boards are made in china.

So, i don't think credit management in FE will change something.

Personnally i decided to put in "stand by" the coin management from the FE in Atomic. Just to avoid polemic and be concentrated on others features.

I agree with lot of you. It is not necessary at all to have a coin management from the FE , but it is just for fun and for a little more "arcade" feeling in a mamecab.
And from my personnal point of view , it was more for the technical aspect i wanted to do that.

[Grasshopper]

Headcaze, I think this is a great idea and I appreciate your efforts.

It's true that your program will make life slightly easier for pirates but I honestly don't think it will make a dramatic difference. I've seen a number of almost certainly illegal multigame machines in arcades and some of them already had polished front ends capable of tracking coins. Admittedly I've also seen others that simply had instructions on the bezel warning users that coins entered whilst in the front end would be lost. But let's face it many of the far east pirates are perfectly capable of hacking into MAME for themselves and have probably already done so. The bottom line is that 95% of the pirates' work has already been done by the MAME (and other emulator) developers. This Coindrop program is merely icing on the cake.

Anyway, I've never really bought into the idea that MAME is solely a "documentation project". Obviously that's part of it but I find it hard to believe that the MAMEDEVS don't also want to play the games. I think they stress the documentation side of MAME to try and give themselves some legal cover in the unlikely event they get sued at some point.

I haven't downloaded the program yet but one thing I'm wondering is whether any coins are lost if you enter coins in MAME and then return to the front end.

[dntaskwho]

Im having trouble getting it to work. I have it loaded and hear the coin drop noise when I press 5 or 6. So I select the game I want and mame loads. When the game starts no credits appear. Pressing 1 or 2 player does not do anything. Am I doing something wrong?

[dntaskwho]

I don't understand why some people have a problem with this program. True it can be used for commercial gain which is wrong, but 99% of the people on this board are using illegal roms to play mame. The only difference is that they are not making money off of them.

[SirPoonga]

Anyway, I've never really bought into the idea that MAME is solely a "documentation project". Obviously that's part of it but I find it hard to believe that the MAMEDEVS don't also want to play the games. I think they stress the documentation side of MAME to try and give themselves some legal cover in the unlikely event they get sued at some point.

This is a narrow minded idea.  Just because it can play games doesn't mean that is its main purpose.  There's plenty of software examples of this where the main purpose of the software is not the popular use.
If mame was about playing games it would be more like the kawaks, nebula, zinc, modeller, viva nonno, etc.. emulators.  It would take advantage of computer's hardware.  Mame emulates EVERYTHING, including the graphics engine the arcade game used.  Go ahead, take zinc and play a game like strider 2 on a PIII 500, now play it in mame.  Unplayable in mame at that speed.  You can do the same with neogeo games.  Try playing a neogeo game in mame on a PIII 500, barely get full frame rate.  Now run kawaks or neoragex.  There are many other examples where they could make it much more player friendly.

People with opinions like yours usually don't realize there are other arcade emulators out there that are much better for playing the games.  It's because of this that retrocade stopped.  Since mame is so popular now people didn't want to contribute to retrocade.  But retrocade can run the games it supported better than mame (it didn't need a big computer to play them).

Anyway, here's comments that Haze (http://haze.mameworld.info/) has made on this board.  Haze controlled the mame project for the last couple of years.  He still develops but I think Aaron Giles is now who determines new releases.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=36710.msg337849#msg337849
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=37734.msg337151#msg337151
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=37734.msg338799#msg338799
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=37779.msg340653#msg340653
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=38190.msg346650#msg346650
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=38854.msg352453#msg352453

[Crazy Cooter]

If there is enough people who agree this program should not be released, I will remove it just let me know.

Besides the MAMEdevs themselves, I also think it should be pulled down.  It's been possible to do this in MAME for quite some time, it's just not worth having it around.  the potential for abuse is too much.

Going with the gun thing... it would be like legalizing full-auto weapons.  The bad things outweigh the good.

[brophog]

Going with the gun thing... it would be like legalizing full-auto weapons.  The bad things outweigh the good.

Or, instead of making silly laws for what amounts to a fancy slingshot, we could teach people to use their brains rather than running around chasing the infinite number of stupid things they could possibly do.

And of course, none of that is related to this program as this thread has sidetracked greatly.