Who needs pcbs anymore?

[tommy]

I used to be a big collector of arcade pcbs till i found mame, now theres no need for them and no market.

Dont get me wrong mame is good but real games are worthless now it seems.

We have had this discussion before but im finding selling my game boards is harder and harder unless its one of the 10 or 12 not coverd in mame.

Mame deffinetly hurts as it helps the arcade.

[Goz]

Tried selling at the KLOV forums?

[SirPeale]

With all respect, I disagree.  Mame is a great way to get a taste of the arcade experience, but the real boards are what offer the real thing.

If you're having problems trying to sell your items, perhaps you're choosing the wrong venue?

[HaRuMaN]

Or perhaps he just talks too much? 

[Sephroth57]

yeah i agree.. but its a good thing if youre buying. the people who say MAME isnt the same as having a real PCB, are like a 5% minority. most people, if you can play the game fully in MAME, who cares if you have a board for it or not. i mean really, im not gonna waste 100$ on some game i can already play

[tommy]

Or perhaps he just talks too much?

[tommy]

yeah i agree.. but its a good thing if youre buying. the people who say MAME isnt the same as having a real PCB, are like a 5% minority. most people, if you can play the game fully in MAME, who cares if you have a board for it or not. i mean really, im not gonna waste 100$ on some game i can already play

Thats exactly what i mean, no need to buy expensive game boards, the pcb seller loses to free mame.

[HaRuMaN]

Or perhaps he just talks too much? 

Can i pay you off now to go bug someone else. 

Sure...  I take paypal... 

[rchadd]

depends on the game - classic game boards will always trade at premium prices.

what games are you trying to sell? got any classics?

[CheffoJeffo]

With all respect, I disagree.  Mame is a great way to get a taste of the arcade experience, but the real boards are what offer the real thing.

If you're having problems trying to sell your items, perhaps you're choosing the wrong venue?

I think that Peale's right on here ... trying to sell boards here is going to be tough since (from what I've seen) the majority of people are (for lack of a better term) MAMErs. There are some folks who like original boards and machines, but they are not in the majority.

Also depends on what you're selling ... there are entirely too many fighter titles (how many Street Fighter/KOF/A vs B titles do we need?!?) out there to make that sector profitable.

Try KLOV or RGVAM.

Cheers.

[tommy]

Its not just here its everywhere, all my buds used to want pcbs and then seen my mame cab and its no comparison, all games or one on a game board.

[CheffoJeffo]

Its not just here its everywhere, all my buds used to want pcbs and then seen my mame cab and its no comparison, all games or one on a game board.

Maybe all of your friends are now MAMErs .... I started as a MAMEr and changed over to wanting originals.

Where have you tried to sell and what have you tried to sell ?

Cheers.

[danny_galaga]

i think there will be a market for some time since there is always a premium for something original. i have two pcbs (nothing well known) and i cant wait to build a jamma cab to run them in. theres also a fascination with the rest of the gear that runs it (at least for me).
with the original PCBs you are a curator, and theres something satisfying about saving stuff.

[monkeybomb]

I'd have bought the last two things tommy had up for sale if they weren't mamed.  Now I just want to put all the unmamed fighters in my cabinet cuz they're the ones I don't ever get to play. 

I still would like a few more pcb's, but what I'm looking for is narrow and it would be huge without mame.

[tommy]

nevermind-post error

[danny_galaga]

nevermind-post error

isnt that a Nirvana album?

[Howard_Casto]

I hate to say it... but most pcbs are junk at this point as mame emulates them prefectly... and I mean perfectly.  Once the games are booted up and running, even a collector would have a hard time telling the original apart from the mame cab.  This is only 90% of the time though.  There are some games in mame that still have problems and there are some games that use special hardware devices (knockers, lights, force feedback, ect...) that mame doesn't yet support.  And the random incomplete driver, ect...

As a whole though I can't agree with you peale.... mame is just like the pcb, assuming it's running on the same hardware. (True arcade monitor, no stretch, ect...)  the only difference is, the pc is at least 10 years old, unreliable, and takes up enough space and power to make it akward enough that collecting multiple pcbs isn't a playable solution unless you have a cabinet for each one to go in. 

Of course unemulated games/systems are a different story. 

Also if you have a unmodified arcade machine with a working pcb in it.... maming it would be silly, but that's just my opinion. 

I recently finished my gorf conversion after getting sick of throwing all my time/money at getting the original pcbs to work.  Although it bothered me at first, in the end, having a machine that can play gorf, the three games that "inspired" gorf and a slew of other verticals is way better than spending $150++ to buy a new rack set that would probably fail too considering how unreliable the midway rack system was.

I would like to point out that it's a true conversion though, not a butcher job.  The cp was unmodified, I didn't add a million extra buttons or cut up the cabinet or any of those unspeakable acts. there are no holes in the cab for power buttons or any visible alterations what-so-ever.   The only difference is now instead of an arcade power supply and a gorf pcb rack the machine contains a pc motherboard and a pc powersupply. 

(Well, I also threw out the orginal wiring harness, but that was because someone tried to "fix" it before I got ahold of it and ruined it... probably what screwed up the board too.)

When a conversion is done like that, I really can't see how an original pcb even compares to mame running said game.  The only benefit I can see to running an original pcb is a faster "boot time"  other than that a computer has all the advantages. 

With that being said, I don't mame working cabs even if mame would add more functionality.  Finding an original cab, with the original pcb in it working is like a gift from heaven.  Don't mess with a miracle. 

So does anyone need n.o.s. rgb filter, audio amp and various other parts from a gorf machine?   


Sorry to get off topic.... just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents. 

[paigeoliver]

I actually play my real boards more often than I play my Mame cabinets. I have like 50 or 60 boards (counting Neo Geo and STV cartridges) and I change the board in my candy cabinet every few days.

Now to be perfectly honest I can usually load up the same exact game in the Mame cabinet sitting across from it, and not be able to tell the difference (same size monitor, etc), but with the Jamma cabinet I don't have to deal with boot times, or think about what I want to play, I just play whatever is in there.

Howard is right about the space though, the board collection takes up half of an oversized closet.

[Daniel270]

One part of the answer that hasn't really been covered tho....  how technically saavy the person is who has either the MAME or original cabinet.  For some, it's alot easier to build PC's than trying to figure out how to use the multimeter and soldering gun to fix bad traces or damaged boards for an original game.  It's a thought I had when deciding on my original Gyruss game (which is starting to get me a bit curious that I still haven't heard from the guy .... been 5 weeks now)...

I've got a PC in the closet I started building last year and only need a few more things to make it complete...  3.0+ GHz CPU (& cooling fan), WinXP copy and a 19" monitor

[AlanS17]

I've had both originals and MAME machines. I like them both.

I think playing a classic in its original cab is infinitely more fun than playing it on a MAME machine. However, there isn't enough room for all those machines in most homes.

As for MAME in an original cabinet? If it's playing the priginal game and I can't tell the difference, I guess that's all that matters.

I didn't have a problem getting full price for my KI board, though - even after it was emulated.

My brother's CPS2 collection hasn't lost any value according to Ebay, either.

If you're trying to sell an original Golden Ax, of course you're not going to get much for it. You probably wouldn't have in the first place, either. (Just a random game I chose to make a point.)

[MrTroy]

One part of the answer that hasn't really been covered tho....  how technically saavy the person is who has either the MAME or original cabinet.  For some, it's alot easier to build PC's than trying to figure out how to use the multimeter and soldering gun to fix bad traces or damaged boards for an original game.  It's a thought I had when deciding on my original Gyruss game (which is starting to get me a bit curious that I still haven't heard from the guy .... been 5 weeks now)...

I'm in that group.

I have this burgertime... and every single part with the exception of the monitor(cause I'm clueless to what I'm suppose to buy. PM me if you know) and the control panel. From there I have absolutely no clue where to start looking. Most Arcade restorations I've seen so far are like ... "So I used <this> to get the paint off of the side then retouched up all of the holes using <this>. Then I applied paint that was the exact colors. Fixed the Electronics. Bam I have a working machine.

As much as I'd love to have a whole crap load of pcbs... I'm kinda pressed for space. I just wish these companies would come up with some sort of program. Some kind of DRM system that you can trade in your PCBs for something else that ran off of something... like a Mame machine with DRM. Now before anyone huffs and puffs at me with "Why would someone pay for rom x when they can bootlegg it without DRM" for the same reason things like iTunes and Music Match even exist.

I dunno. It make sense to me. But what do I know. I can't get my damn burgerTime in order.

[tommy]

With all respect, I disagree.

[SirPeale]

I guess it depends on the level of the driver development.  Let's take Galaga for example.

I've had the opportunity to examine Galaga on both a real machine, and Mame (of course).

In the earliest versions of Mame there were obvious differences.  The latest version is virtually indistinguishable from the real thing.  I can't tell, I think only someone that is hard-core could.

If you're just looking for gameplay, then emulation is your ticket.  If you're looking for accuracy to the original, you gotta go with original.  Mame is getting better - in some cases, 99.999% perfect.    But I prefer accuracy.

[Crazy Cooter]

... like a Mame machine with DRM.

I feel sick...

Post in the monitor forum, someone there will know which to buy as a replacement (or tell you how to fix the old one).

I'd love to see pcb's for sale around here.  Newsgroup stuff sucks to browse with google.

[ClubNinja]

PCBs for sale more often would be excellent.  I collect PCBs and they make me feel warm and fuzzy.  MAME just makes me feel cheap.