Is this MAME?

[General Zod]

Was looking at a few items on Ebay and ran across this .... and no it isn't mine !

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=13716&item=6133389176&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

The SELLER claims this isn't MAME and that MAME itself isn't even on the machine. If that's the case, what could it be?

Also add in the I, WE ... I mean , well you know...Thw whole 1 person compay bit we read about on here a few days ago. Certainly seems to come into play with this fella.

I mean , WTF ... has building and selling MAME cabinets become such a lucrative business that every bloke in the US is whipping one together and selling it on eBay?

*ooops* Sorry for getting of topic and exploding.... basically does anyone have an idea what software that might be? This guy has already avoided 3 of my emails.

[SirPeale]

There are a lot of other arcade emulators.

However; it's likely a Mame cabinet, with either an I-PAC or a J-PAC.  You could check if you could get your hands on it, but that's the hard part.

[paigeoliver]

It could be a new type of bootleg board. Of course all the bootleg boards these days run mame as well. 

Of course anybody who was a decent programmer could easily take the mame source and make it "not mame". It wouldn't be that difficult. Remove the tab menu, all OK screens, and all menus, overlays, options, etc, and you are left with something that someone would have to PROVE wasn't mame.

[Thenasty]

I doubt this guy has the right to sell those ROMS/GAMES. Try e-mailing him again asking if you buy it, could you put it up for business use since you have payed for the GAMES (ala Ultracade).

Probably this dude is one of us pretending to be another user 

[rchadd]

is it running vantage?

http://www.mameworld.net/pc2jamma/vantage.html

[SirPeale]

is it running vantage?

http://www.mameworld.net/pc2jamma/vantage.html

No, there are games listed that VAntAGE doesn't support.

[General Zod]

Here is a link to the last one he whipped up, used a DK cab for the project. Something about the monitor makes it look a little squished on the screen, or perhaps the image just doesn't fit the bezel correctly. 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=13716&item=6122787313&rd=1#ebayphotohosting

He nabbed $1300.00 for that one.

[Goz]

Their webpage doesn't elaborate any further, but it does list direct email and contact info.

-Goz

[Magnet_Eye]

maybe they are using the UltraCade inside it? i seem to recall thats about the # of roms ultracade had in their initial "pack" or something.

[Mameotron]

Of course we can jump into the whole copyright infringement argument again.

[paigeoliver]

Ultracade is horizontal.

[fredster]

Unless the Asians have come up with another batch of game boards past the 30 in 1's, I guess this guy is doing what he says.

He says he wrote the software himself. Maybe he made a custom z80 board that can run all that stuff.  The old bootleg boards from the 80's were the first 'emulators'.

He has a good rep, 250+ with 100% good feedback.  That's not a bad record.

After all, you could cook up your own mame pretty easy.  I've seen some weird machines at the auctions lately I didn't know what they were. 

Those games he has aren't public domain, that's for sure.

But I saw an arab guy in the mall selling a system that had a lot of those games, if not all of them, on a little hand held system (bigger than those walmart controllers) for $55 the other day. You just plugged it into the TV and that was it. It was running some kind of small board, but it wasn't a PC.  It was a dedicated board for sure.

[danny_galaga]

i think people are just getting too complacent about copyright infringement etc. they will just push and push until they attract someones attention and then the 5h1t will hit the fan...
maybe not these guys though. they are at the thin edge of the wedge. but the next guy that comes along might say 'well these guys are doing this and that, so i might just go just a little further. no one will notice'. and then eventually someone might notice...

[paigeoliver]

i think people are just getting too complacent about copyright infringement etc. they will just push and push until they attract someones attention and then the 5h1t will hit the fan...
maybe not these guys though. they are at the thin edge of the wedge. but the next guy that comes along might say 'well these guys are doing this and that, so i might just go just a little further. no one will notice'. and then eventually someone might notice...

Danny, they have been making 900 game mame based JAMMA boards in Asia for YEARS.

The smarter manufacturers don't acknowledge it because

A: There is little legitimate way to make money off most old titles, at least not for the manufacturer.

Case in point, Namco TVGames joystick. All Namco can manage to get for 5 A LIST titles AND the hardware is $15. Which tells me the rest of their library is largely worthless.

B: It costs money to pursue the copyright infringement people, and that is money that they are never going to recoup.

Case in point. Road Fighter. Decent little Konami conversion title, from around 1984. Wasn't a hit, they probably lost a little money on the arcade version, and made it back up with the NES port. Today that title is bootlegged on a 10,000 in 1 NES unit. Konami could do the smart thing and IGNORE IT, or they could waste money going after a game that wouldn't even be popular today if they offered it as a free download from Konami.com

Personally I think a lot of companies would best serve themselves and their customers/shareholders by public domaining their non-viable titles (which is 99 percent of them), and only defending their viable ones.

Namco wastes money defending crap like Mappy. I'm not really saying Mappy is crap, but it certainly isn't a viable product today. Mappy as a character never caught on, despite being in several games. Mappy's time is over, there aren't going to be any new Mappy games, so why waste money defending him.

[danny_galaga]

what i'm getting at though is that ok, manufacturers might not be too concerned about some old title that didn't make much anyway, but what if because some smart arse starts selling heaps of bootlegs of CURRENT games (or even, like music, games yet unreleased). i think someone might get a tad annoyed and pursue them and then there might be a broader crack-down. just takes a whiney lars ulrich type to wreck it for all.
i acknowledge that its unlikely. but who knows what the future will bring?