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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. ;D
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! ;D 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. ;D
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
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