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Emulation (Games) Classic Games (Games) Entertainment Games

Quick Fixes For Those Pining For A 6-foot Cabinet 131

Posted by timothy from the not-the-ones-with-velvet-and-brass dept.
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.
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Quick Fixes For Those Pining For A 6-foot Cabinet More

Quick Fixes For Those Pining For A 6-foot Cabinet

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  • Space Invaders... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Kjuib ( 584451 ) on Tuesday June 01, 2004 @07:48PM (#9310569) Homepage Journal
    here I COME!!! I love being able to count the pixels as they disappear when my 2x16 lazer almost makes contact...

  • Sweet! Now all I need is... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ErichTheWebGuy ( 745925 ) on Tuesday June 01, 2004 @07:52PM (#9310598) Homepage
    an old DDR cabinet [coinopexpress.com], KnoppixMAME [sourceforge.net], StepMania [stepmania.com], and a few days of free time. Then I will never have to leave the house again!

  • Xbox MameoX (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SpudGunMan ( 456448 ) on Tuesday June 01, 2004 @07:55PM (#9310617)
    i use a hacked xbox in my cabinet boots faster then the Knoppix solution and you dont need a keyboard at all.

    • Re:Xbox MameoX (Score:3, Interesting)

      by UncleRage ( 515550 )
      The only problem I've had with that solution is the limited amount of memory (as it pertains to NeoGeo and newer ROMs).

      While the PC solution is a few extra steps (not so if you've yet to mod yer xbox), it does provide an overall memory footprint to get the ball rolling with.

      Not to mention cheaper (if you've got a spare PC around). Think Xbox ($150), modchip ($35-$80), hard drive ($40-$80) and then the time necessary to get it all running.

      Personally, for the most part, I'm with you, though. I'm not a hu
  • I assume everyone has a favorite arcade game from their childhood. I was wondering which games people have picked up recently and still, enjoyed playing (pong just isn't as fun as I remembered years ago).

    Recently, I have been playing Cleopatra Fortune and Guwange... legally of course...

    • Robotron and Tempest are two of my favorites. My 2 1/2 year old son loves PacMan, so I've been playing that a lot lately too. He just watches now, but I'm sure it will be just a few months before he figures out how to play it.

  • Wow (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Vaevictis666 ( 680137 ) on Tuesday June 01, 2004 @07:59PM (#9310638)
    not even the article writer can RTFA before it makes it to slashdot...

    I only wish I knew more about the legality of using them.

    ...

    The software for most of these arcade games is not free. If you do not have a legal license for a game you are playing under MAME, you are infringing on someone's copyright.

    I think that about sums it up right there. Yes, most MAME use is illegal. No, they probably won't call you on it for the older games. They might call you on it for some of the newer ones that are still making money in the arcades, but they'd need to catch you first, which is pretty hard if you just do it at home.

  • You don't (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I only wish I knew more about the legality of using them.

    Trust me, you don't.

  • A thought (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Nicholas Evans ( 731773 ) <OwlManAtt@gmail.com> on Tuesday June 01, 2004 @07:59PM (#9310642) Homepage
    If one downloads old arcade games which aren't really distributed by the manufacturer anymore, who are you hurting by using them? Sure, it's a copyright violation, but is it really hurting the distributor, since they aren't even trying to make money off of it? Copyrights are to protect innovation, but is there a point when the innovation should be freed for everyone to be...innovated by?

    • Re:A thought (Score:3, Insightful)

      by zakezuke ( 229119 )
      Sure, it's a copyright violation, but is it really hurting the distributor, since they aren't even trying to make money off of it?

      I couldn't agree with you more. I've always felt that the term on software should be shorter then the term of other forms of published works simply because the only way to access abandoned media is by getting a copy from amature libraries. I remember actually *trying* to get a copy of Agent USA or M.U.L.E the legit way in the 21st century. It can't be done.

    • Re:A thought (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Junior J. Junior III ( 192702 ) on Tuesday June 01, 2004 @09:34PM (#9311192) Homepage
      They'll come back at you with the argument that every minute spent playing a free game of Pac Man or Bump N Jump is a minute spent depriving their currently-marketed games of revenue.
      • Yep, because they know i'll pay for the trash they call video games today. On a side note? How can every game be the best game of 2004?
        • I never said it was a good argument, only that it's what they'd come back with. I'd come back with that there are many activities I can choose to engage in which don't add to their bottom line, yet that doesn't meant I'm stealing from them.
    • No, Copyrights are to progress useful arts; that is, they guarantee artists and authors limited monopolies on distribution and derivations, in exchange that some day they will be given to the public domain.

      You're thinking of patents for innovation. Copyrights and trademarks aren't for innovation.

      But are you hurting anyone? No. Would it really hurt to ask the companies? No. Try it some time.

    • Re:A thought (Score:4, Insightful)

      by zerocool^ ( 112121 ) on Tuesday June 01, 2004 @09:59PM (#9311330) Homepage Journal
      Yes, it's illegal. I agree with you, though. At netmar, we had some guy who set up basically an abandonware server. We noticed it because of the huge jump in bandwidth, and we looked - all the stuff was like DOS versions of lemmings and stuff.

      So, we called the feds (who have a computer crime department), and we started trying to get in touch with publishers and distributors for the games.

      Know what?

      No one cared.

      We're still waiting for a call back from the feds, 2 years later. They told us to fill in a submission form on a website, which we did. And we never got any callbacks from any distributors or publishers either.

      This is what makes you jaded to things like abandonware. If the company still owns the copyright, but isn't selling the product, what do you do? What if the company is unwilling to protect their copyright? What does that say about the laws?

      ~Will
      • Actually, the question is, what does the law say about someone who is unwilling to protect their copyright.

        The answer is that they lose it. I'd imagine that your abandoneware fellow would be OK in court at this point.

        • Re:A thought (Score:2, Informative)

          by KDR_11k ( 778916 )
          You're confusing copyright and trademark law.
          • No, I'm pretty sure that undefended copyrights are also lost (the whole RIAA thing was about more than just greed... they HAD to protest their stuff being stolen)
            • Undefended copyrights are not lost. You are definitly thinking about trademark. The RIAA does not lose its right to enforce copyright at a later date if it doesn't enforce its copyrights right now.
      • The old lemmings was made by Psygnosis, which was bought by Sony in 1993. (Sony bought the US part of Psygnosis, Edios bought the European part of the company in 1998). If you had reported to Sony that someone was giving away "Lemmings" and "Oh No! More Lemmings!", Sony still probably wouldn't care, but they would at least give a response along the lines of "Thanks for the heads up, we don't care". More likely, it's the FBI who doesn't really care if someone has a contraband copy of Commander Keen or Bri
        • Yeah, and that's another problem with the whole reporting copyright violaions... consolidation of video game holdings. Think how many titles are owned by Electronic Arts, or Atari. If we went to atari and were like, someone's distributing xYZ game, i'm sure the most common reaction would be, "Do we own that?!"

    • Re:A thought (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dirk ( 87083 ) <dirk@one.net> on Tuesday June 01, 2004 @10:08PM (#9311376) Homepage
      While in general you aren't hurting anyone, this isn't always the case. Sometimes these games are bought by companies who plan to release an update version, including a version of the original as well. Or they are planning to release a compilation of old games. There are at least a few compilations packs that include things such as Pacman, DigDug, Asteroids, etc. So while you may think you never hurting anyone, that isn't always the case. Just look at the current "control games" that have become fairly popular. There is an Atari 2600 one with 10 or so old Atari cart games on it and an arcade version with 6 old arcade games. Certainly your hurting the sales of these type of devices.
      • Ok first off, mods are on crack yet again.

        The market that the Control Stick all in one is targeted at is completely different than what we're discussing here. Nobody who wants to build a full size MAME cabinet and wire the damn controls is gonna look twice at stuff like this.

        Secondly, what an earlier post said about contacting distributors/trademark holders is true. A boatload of these companies died long long ago.

        My point is, if you're playing the games at home on your own MAME cabinet, and you're

      • Re:A thought (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        > Certainly your hurting the sales of these type of devices

        I would argue that the distributors of such things are riding the coat tails of the free MAME players, who have created a market for old games where one didn't previously exist (unless you had the old hardware still sitting around and still working).
    • and this is why copyrights were set to expire, and become *In loud demonic voice* PUBLIC DOMAIN

  • Pining for a 6 foot box? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Me, I'm pining for the fjords!

  • 6 foot cabinet? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Just wait about 50 years or so, and you'll get your very own 6 foot pine cabinet. It'll even be six feet under too! Of course, you'll have a bit of a challenge playing games by then, but hey...

  • If you are really pining for a 6ft arcade cabinet (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01, 2004 @08:05PM (#9310678)
    There is one site that tells you EVERYTHING you need to know.

    www.arcadecontrols.com

    Enough of these side articles about mame.
  • Doesn't nintendo own a patent on emulators for the PC? If so wouldn't this be in violation of Nintendo's patent.

  • 3.NLARGE Y.0UR C.A.B1.NET (Score:5, Funny)

    by JessLeah ( 625838 ) on Tuesday June 01, 2004 @08:06PM (#9310684)
    Are y.ou D1S5AT1S.FIED with the S.1.Z.E. and G.1RT.H of you.r C.AB1N.ET????

    We can help, with our A.11 N.A.T.U.R_AL H.3RB.AL F.ORMULA!!!

    C.LI.C.K H.3RE [slashdot.org] for r.3M0.V.@.L

    • "Touching your donkey kong" (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      On a related note, here's a quote from the summary:

      "Linux-based Live CDs designed to ... touch ... your ... Donkey Kong"

      I may be a Linux geek, but I've never needed Linux to help me do that.

  • Who needs a stand-up cabinet? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ranger714 ( 580794 ) on Tuesday June 01, 2004 @08:10PM (#9310703)
    I'd be looking around for an old-style sit-down cabinet, and then get a copy of the old "Hard Drivin" [klov.com] or "Race Drivin" [klov.com] game...

    Vector graphics, decent force-feedback and an operable clutch, which can really show you who knows how to drive. The physics were pretty realistic, even allowing for throttle steering.

    Of course, it only came with a four-speed transmission, but it's better than the contemporaries, which had no clutch and paddle shifters, with laughable physics.

  • Not to troll.. (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    But why is KnoppixMame so big? AdvanceCD is around 10 MB, while KnoppixMame is around 116 MB, leaving a lot less room for games.

    • Re:Not to troll.. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Afrosheen ( 42464 )
      I've tried both and AdvanceCD rocks. I jammed 4.5 gigs of roms onto a DVD...took forever to build the image but after I burned it, I get sweet gaming anywhere I can find a PC with a DVD-Rom. The exception is my laptop, which doesn't appreciate the modes for the display (framebuffer I guess).

      Otherwise, AdvanceCD rocks. You should try it if you're considering trying something like this.

    • Re:Not to troll.. (Score:3, Informative)

      by drfreak ( 303147 )
      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.

  • StarROMs is more than just limited. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JessLeah ( 625838 ) on Tuesday June 01, 2004 @08:15PM (#9310727)
    StarROMs is a fucking joke. Let's not beat around the bush. If they really want to combat piracy, then they need a much, much bigger selection. A more sane pricing scheme (e.g. 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) would help too.

    • Re:StarROMs is more than just limited. (Score:2, Informative)

      by 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)

    • Re:StarROMs is more than just limited. (Score:4, Informative)

      by mlyle ( 148697 ) on Tuesday June 01, 2004 @08:50PM (#9310933)
      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.

    • StarROMs is a good start (Score:4, Interesting)

      by siredgar ( 144573 ) on Tuesday June 01, 2004 @08:50PM (#9310936) Homepage
      StarROMs [starroms.com] is a good start. 51 games at an average cost of $2.15 each if you buy them all is more than reasonable. If StarROMs proves commercially successful, you can reasonably hope that other ROMs from other vendors will become commercially available as well. Trashing StarROMs because of their limited selection is like slamming a baby learning to crawl because they aren't walking and running yet. Give it some time and see what happens. I know they are looking to expand their offerings but they have an uphill battle convincing copyright owners to let them. Note that StarROMs isn't out to combat piracy. They're out to make money. That they convinced Atari that they could do so while combating piracy is what I hope other vendors take note of. If it takes off then it's likely that competitive forces will come into play similarly to what's happening in the MP3/digital-format-of-your-choice music industry today. Perhaps a competitor will open up shop with the pricing scheme you envision and the selection you want. So I wouldn't call StarROMs a joke by any means -- I'd call it a good first step. I personally hope they make a killing so they can grow like crazy and offer more consumer choices... --- saint Build Your Own Arcade Controls FAQ http://www.arcadecontrols.com/ Project Arcade http://www.projectarcade.com/
    • I suspect that part of the problem is that arcade companies are still making money of old stuff (e.g. the various classic game packs for PS2/XBOX/GC/GBA/etc or the arcade machine with mspac/galaga or the TV joystick thingos)
      Hence, having the old games downloadable = less people buying the new stuff.

      Also, they would be reluctant to allow this because they have no control over the roms being distributed or the emulation engine.

  • Here's My MAME Cabinet (Score:3, Informative)

    by nuxx ( 10153 ) on Tuesday June 01, 2004 @08:16PM (#9310734) Homepage
    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:Here's My MAME Cabinet (Score:4, Funny)

      by LMCBoy ( 185365 ) on Tuesday June 01, 2004 @09:18PM (#9311100) Homepage Journal
      Your poor mother...she's got "Bad Dudes" right next to her china hutch!
    • Where did you get the piece that the speakers mount on? My cab has been unfinished for a couple years because I can't find a way to close the gap between the top (where the marquee should be) and the monitor bezel.
      • I made it. :) It's juts 3/4" MDF like the rest of the cabinet is... I actually made the whole thing from scratch, cloning a Data East cabinet and adding 3" - 4" to it.
    • Wow, that's cool, I wish I had the time/expertise to make something like that. That said, the real thing is even cooler - one of my friends has an old NeoGeo cabinet, and that thing is built like a fricking tank. I had to help move the thing, and it weighs about as much as a fridge, if not more. The part around the coin deposit is metal, and the rest feels like hardwood. Man, they don't build 'em like they used to...

      Incidentally, the guy has MAME on his computer despite having the real thing. I wonder if h
      • " I wonder if having the actual ROM cartridge makes it legal to have on the computer? "

        In a word, yes. That's the whole point to the MAME licensing requirement, that you own the actual hardware the game is released on, therefore your ownership rights are transferable to another platform. In a perfect world, I'd have arcade roms in a warehouse vault and that'd justify my ownership of my MAME cd collection.
      • Actually, I've got a NeoGeo as well. And you're right, it *is* built like a tank. I need to do a bit of work on mine still, but it generally works fine.

        http://www.nuxx.net/gallery/condo_basement/DCP_057 2 [nuxx.net]

        That shot's down in the basement of the MAME cabinet and the NeoGeo right near each other.
  • In a perfect world, I mean. I use MAME, and I use it to play really old arcade games. Yes, I realize that this is almost certainly illegal--Nintendo would probably sue my ass off if they knew that I played Donkey Kong with my setup. But why? Look at it realistically; Donkey Kong is freaking old. Even if Nintendo were to rerelease it for, I dunno, the GBA or something--hell, they might have already done this--how well would it actually do? Most people who play games today would take one look at it and say "Eeew! That's crap!" based on the graphics / difficulty and go away. The only people who would actually buy a rerelease of Donkey Kong would either be people who played it in arcades long ago or those or who, like me, played it via MAME. MAME is therefore actually a good thing--it spreads around old games and gets people excited and interested in them, thus boosting sales if those games are ever rereleased. Changing the subject slightly, look at Super NES emulation. Tons of people use things like ZSNES to play old RPGs like Final Fantasy VI. When Square actually did rerelease that game, it sold pretty well, but it arguably would not have sold nearly as well if the ROM trade hadn't made games like that popular among "pirates." Hell, I played that game on an emulator and then gladly purchased the rerelease when it came out; had I not played the game before in ROM form, there's no way I would have done that. Emulation, especially for older/obsolete game platforms, is a Good Thing.

    • Re:Mame use shouldn't be illegal. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Grishnakh ( 216268 ) on Tuesday June 01, 2004 @08:31PM (#9310815)
      As far as I'm concerned, playing roms older than 13 years is fully justified and should be legal. The original copyright term in this country (USA) was 13 years; after that, everything went into the public domain. This was further backed up by the Constitution, which said Congress could enact legislation to protect the arts for "a reasonable term". Only lately has Congress passed laws extending this term to infinity (every time Steamboat Willy is about to fall into the public domain, Disney gets Congress to pass another law extending copyright). The way I see it, these copyright extension laws are all unconstitutional. Therefore, if you're feeling guilty about playing a game that's more than 13 years old and not paying for it, don't.
    • Look, Linux is freaking old. Just let anyone steal the code.

  • iGame Arcade Store (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cowscows ( 103644 ) on Tuesday June 01, 2004 @08:23PM (#9310773) Journal
    Really, what would be perfect for this whole MAME rom issue would be for someone to create the equivlent of the iTunes music store, just geared towards old, obsolete arcade games. Gather all the roms together, make them accessible through a clean, easy, and reliable interface, and charge a reasonable price. Just like in the music world, it wouldn't end all of the illegal copying going on, but it would create a decent alternative.

    There are, of course, a lot of practical issues that would make this very difficult to do. There are a whole lot of little game developers, it'd probably be hard to track down who owns many games, and offering newer games along side older ones would complicate a lot of things, least of all the pricing issues.

    But yeah, it'd be cool.

  • self-delusion (Score:5, Funny)

    by nomadic ( 141991 ) <nomadicworld.gmail@com> on Tuesday June 01, 2004 @08:24PM (#9310781) Homepage
    MAME user: I wish the law wasn't so ambiguous about playing ROMs.

    The Law: It's illegal unless you have the copyright owner's permission.

    MAME user: like I said, so vague...

    Copyright holders: Don't do it. We don't give permission.

    MAME user: can't I get a clear answer out of either of you two?!

    • Re:self-delusion (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AtariDatacenter ( 31657 ) on Tuesday June 01, 2004 @08:58PM (#9310983)
      > MAME user: I wish the law wasn't so ambiguous about playing ROMs.

      I wish the law just made sense when it comes to playing ROMs! I mean, by the strictest of interpretations, if I physically move the ROMs off of my boardsets and plug them into the computer where they are read (and not cached) as the game is played, then it is probably legal.

      But if I emulate Pac-Man with a copy of the ROMs on my computer and not on the actual ones in my game room, then I'm a criminal. Oh. And I'm stealing from Namco, too.
      • Well if you own the physical ROM then you have a de facto license to use it. Using an emulator in that way wouldn't be illegal.
        • >Well if you own the physical ROM then you have a de facto license to use it.

          I'm not sure you do. Copyright law says very little about licensing, except where it entails the transfer of copyright. The "right to use" license doesn't really exist.

          Don't forget that copyright is a government-enforced monopoly on the publication of works. The DMCA (for better or worse) extends this to incude copying at home for whatever your reason. Sorry, but even if you own the physical rom, you probably do not have

  • But does Linux MAME make sense? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by AtariDatacenter ( 31657 ) on Tuesday June 01, 2004 @08:27PM (#9310793)
    I now run my native desktop as Linux. But I've done a speed comparison with some games between MAME under Linux and MAME under DOS. It isn't necessarily Linux's fault, but MAME under DOS just runs faster than Linux, and that means that more games can run at faster framerates with lesser hardware.

    I'm trying to see a compelling reason to run a Linux based MAME cabinet, as opposed to an MSDOS dedicated MAME cabinet? The speed issue really hurts.
    • This may sound stupid but if it matters to you remember that MS isn't the only dos, if you like FOSS there's freedos [freedos.org]. Also, since you said that your runing Linux as a native desktop Im guessing that the installation is not as minimal as possible, If you get rid of X and all that (this is considering its for a dedicated machine) and maybee try a modular kernel it would pribibly be much faster (insert distro propaganda here).
    • Try adding an NVidia card with their HW-accelerated drivers. Although having a multitasking OS is going to give you some overhead, better driver support may give you better performance in some of the higher resolution games. I'm quite happy with the performance of xmame on my system.
    • I have advance mame cabinet with linux. Few reasons to use linux. I use LAN to maintain my cabinet. It is much easier than staring 640x480 max resolution arcade monitor and uploading the games. I've got ps/2 trackball and 2 usb act-labs light guns. I don't know if it's eaven possible to make them work on dos. I did get the light guns working with windows xp (doesn't work at least with w2k) and house of the dead 2. In xp mame is slower than in linux. Also I've found that UAE (amiga emulator) seems to be more

  • Title sounds like Spam... (Score:4, Funny)

    by el-spectre ( 668104 ) on Tuesday June 01, 2004 @08:34PM (#9310834) Journal
    Want a 6' Cabinet?

    Eh? Do ya? Wink wink, nudge nudge.

    Say... No... More!

  • real use for advancemame projects (Score:5, Informative)

    by satsuke ( 263225 ) on Tuesday June 01, 2004 @08:39PM (#9310865)
    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.
    • I have an older television in my cabinet and it seems to work pretty well. You're right, the fuzziness produced mimics the old arcades perfectly.

      --trb
    • Good point...

      I've tried that route.. using a VGA cable hack and advancemame (and arcadeOS, ArcMon Sys TRS drivers in DOS, etc) and nearly lost my mind (although it was a site to behold when it actually worked!)

      Although not cheaper, it's much easier to use an ArcadeVGA card [ultimarc.com] from ultimarc (who has great customer service!) and you can use whatever flavor of mame you want with a real arcade monitor... you can even get windoze to display (interlaced mode) on your arcade monitor (so you can play dragons lair in

  • Knoppix Mame? Hard work is done. (Score:1, Informative)

    by 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: [dyndns.org]

  • Alert (Score:4, Funny)

    by cookiepus ( 154655 ) on Tuesday June 01, 2004 @09:38PM (#9311211) Homepage
    Whoever says that weed doesn't make you dumber. It took me about a minute to figure out what this story is about and another two deciding how the hell the headline made any sense whatsoever.

    It does.

  • why pine away... (Score:4, Informative)

    by enrico_suave ( 179651 ) on Tuesday June 01, 2004 @10:35PM (#9311495) Homepage
    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 (Score:5, Informative)

    by NachoDaddy ( 696255 ) on Tuesday June 01, 2004 @11:07PM (#9311639)
    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.
  • I thought this was an article about casket building when I first saw the headline.
  • ...AdvanceMAME would support medium resolution monitors as easily as standard resoution so I can use it in my broken BOTSS cockpit (I think BOTSS machines all came from the factory already broken). That's too sweet a monitor to leave sitting there and I haven't made much progress on my Blitz 2000 cab lately.

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