Quick Fixes For Those Pining For A 6-foot Cabinet

Joe Barr writes "Over at Newsforge [part of OSDN, like Slashdot], there's a look at the arcade/system emulator movement and two Linux-based Live CDs designed to put you in touch with your inner Donkey Kong: KnoppixMAME and AdvanceCD. I'm happy with gameplay under both. I only wish I knew more about the legality of using them." S!: We previously covered release details on KnoppixMAME and AdvanceCD last year, and also mentioned the categorically legal, if limited StarROMs site on Slashdot Games a few weeks back.

Just in case the server crashes and burns...

[mirror_dude]

Just in case the server crashes and burns (like they usually do),I have put up a mirror.
The mirror of http://entertainment.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid= 04/05/14/1441241 is at http://mirrorit.demonmoo.com/r_616/entertainment.n ewsforge.com/article.pl%3fsid=04/05/14/1441241 [demonmoo.com]
The mirror of http://www.starroms.com/ is at http://mirrorit.demonmoo.com/r_616/www.starroms.co m/ [demonmoo.com]

If you are really pining for a 6ft arcade cabinet

[Anonymous Coward]

There is one site that tells you EVERYTHING you need to know.

www.arcadecontrols.com

Enough of these side articles about mame.

Here's My MAME Cabinet

[nuxx]

If anyone is interested, here [nuxx.net] are a bunch of photos I took of my MAME cabinet when I built it back in the summer of 2000. The pictures are kinda crappy, and were all taken at my parents house, but they show a full stand-up MAME machine, with a cabinet made competely from scratch. The cabinet was patterned off of a Data East Robocop / Bad Dudes cabinet, but made a bit deeper to accomidate my monitor.

Re:StarROMs is more than just limited.

[Anonymous Coward]

StarROMs is not the only way to get legal ROMs for MAME, HanaHo [hanaho.com] distributes Capcom games with their products, and you can get some SNK games like the Metal Slug series at Play-Asia [play-asia.com]

(The site says they are ports, but I know for a fact that at least Metal Slug Collector's Edition includes the ROMs for the first three Metal Slug games)

real use for advancemame projects

[satsuke]

The "real" use for advancemame and related programs is the magic it can work with real arcade equipment.

I for one bought an old Rampage game that had been converted to Sunset Riders .. dead .. for $35 at a local auction last year.

$4.00 in parts and $120 in joysticks / buttons / PC interface and some time on a drill press and I've got me a SF2 style cabinet with enough room to add another 2 joysticks and a spinner for spinnet games and berserk like games.

All played on a real arcade monitor at 15.75 khz (that would be a 19" CGA monitor).

Believe it or not the monitor is better because it isn't so crisp and high quality as a PC VGA monitor is. The look and feel of these old .50mm dot pitch screens is what makes it feel authentic.

Advancemame's wonder is that you can feed it the scanning range of your monitor and it will generate a mode line that drives your video card and monitor at native resolution and scanning rate ,. rather than mame32 and others that use line doubling or tripling and overscan to get the same effect.

Don't forget that most of these old games .. even new ones .. run at 320/240 or less.

Re:StarROMs is more than just limited.

[mlyle]

a sliding scale based on the age of the ROM-- 1970s and early 1980s ROMs like Pong and Pac-Man for $5, late 1980s ROMs for $10, early 1990s ROMs for $15-- with all prices decreasing as time goes on)

All the starroms games cost less than $6 in credits. And many are only $2. (There's better deals if you buy more credits at once, too.

In general, new titles are more expensive than older ones on starroms (with the exception of some early classics like Tempest for $5.50).. They do only have the Atari catalog, though.

Knoppix Mame? Hard work is done.

[Anonymous Coward]

Goodbye harddrive! The console system I've set up has an *old* harddrive with which I've installed a basic linux system that automounts a network share containing my roms. Plays games well, but the hard drive is dying.

I'm in the process of tearing apart a KnoppixMAME iso as I type - add a script to run after boot and I can finally use the magnet from the old hard drive to cause my BOFH boss to have a really bad day!!! MUAHAHAHA.

Just kidding. Obligatory howto on how to remaster a Knoppix bootable CD. http://gnubox.dyndns.org:8080/~sunil/knoppix.php [dyndns.org]

why pine away...

[enrico_suave]

Why pine away... just build one =) (or convert one --> UberCade: Mame Taito cabinet conversion [randomdrivel.com]

As mentioned ealier Build your own arcade controls [arcadecontrols.com] (be sure to check there forum, where helpful folks like me will help you along with your project... hey quit snickering!)

Also of note is the new "how to" book by the guy who runs byoac... (with my referral link included of course =P ) PRoject Arcade Book [amazon.com]

*Shrug* or you could *shudder* use an x-arcade desktop controller [myaffiliateprogram.com] if you can't fit a full sized cabinet, or cocktail, or cabaret cabinet in your pad...

e.

Emulation IS perfectly legal

[NachoDaddy]

The rulemaking from the U.S. Copyright Office [copyright.gov] is perfectly clear. If you have rights to the game (as in you own a broken one, bought ROMs from StarROMs, etc), AND you the machine isn't made anymore, you can emulate the machine, even if it has anti-copying built in.
So, the rest of us that have 2000 ROM sets for games we haven't ever seen in person, let alone own a broken original, then we are 'breakin the law'. But you know what else... NO ONE CARES!
No one cares because there is no money involved. The people that own the rights to all the classic arcade games know that it's not worth there time and effort to try and sell old stuff. They're never going to make another Defender machine. They tried to sell Defender and other classics on CD, but that was hardly worth thier time and effort. They will sit on those old rights forever. I have approached a few of the owners and tried to buy the IP from them, and secure the rights for what I felt was some biz-ops, but they have some lazy ass lawyers that are not even sure what games they have right to (becasue of all the mergers), and they weren't willing to look into it.
So if they aren't even willing to figure out what games they have the right for, how willing do you think they are to sue individuals over small time infrinement cases? Not very willing at all.
As long as MAME keeps their distance from ROM distribution, they have nothing to worry about as there are legal and legitimate ways to use MAME.
As long as you're not selling turn-key MAME cabinets fully loaded will all ROMs, you have nothing to worry about. Your not profiting from having and emualtor in your living room, and people that aren't making any money (from their illegal activity) generally don't get sued.

Re:Not to troll..

[drfreak]

A lot of space is sacrificed for the eye candy of using X whereas AdvanceMAME uses svgalib. They are certainly more "Advanced" than me in that respect. But with DVD burners getting so cheap, the difference in space between the projects shouldn't be a factor in deciding which to use. If you plan on using an arcade monitor, go with Advance. If you want a nice graphical wizard to remaster a CD with roms on it for you, my project might be a better choice.

Re:A thought

[KDR_11k]

You're confusing copyright and trademark law.