MAME - All About Custom Arcade Machines

by Bruce Doh

My name is Bruce Doh, and I am an arcade enthusiast. I'm writing articles to teach others about the awesomeness of MAME, and custom arcade ...

Let me introduce MAME. Now if you're serious about arcade machines, you've already heard of it. For those of you who haven't, MAME stands for multiple arcade machine emulator. If you aren't excited yet, I should probably explain to you what that means.

An emulator is an application which usually runs on Windows, Linux or in rare cases on some other OS, but which plays games designed for other, usually older systems. What MAME does is emulates games from old arcade machines, allowing you to play them on your computer. The really exciting part is this; a whole community has now developed around building arcade cabinets to house computer systems running the MAME software. This means that you can play tons of old arcade games, all on the same arcade cabinet , and it won't cost you any quarters!

Now, MAME is hardly new. It was first publicly released in 1997 by Nicola Salmoria. Since then, support has grown to 3688 different games that you can play. You could have 3688 games all in one arcade machine, and switch between them with a few clicks of a button! And did I mention no quarters?

There are tons of resources available that will guide you through the creation of arcade machines from start to finish. Some of the things you will need are:

* Cabinet -- These are usually built from plywood and painted or covered in decals decals to resemble some nostalgic machine of days past. These cabinets must be specially designed to fit the other parts.

* Computer -- These days, you aren't going to need a top of the line computer to run such old arcade games. As long as it has the inputs, graphics, and sound capabilities called for by the controller, monitor/TV and speaker, it should work.

* Control Panel -- There are premade arcade style control panels available for purchase online. Many people prefer to build their own using a wooden panel with holes cut out, allowing joysticks and buttons to be mounted to the cabinet. When building your own, you will have to deal with a lot of tricky wiring, but there are tons of resources that will guide you through it if you take this path.

* Display -- The display will be housed within the cabinet. The display can be anything from an old CRT monitor to a huge HD LCD TV. The important thing is picking something that will actually fit in your cabinet, and won't be too much for your computer.

I would suggest rolling all of your quarters and taking them to the bank. You won't be needing all that loose change once you've got all of those arcade games in the comfort of your own home. Just round up an old computer, some wood and a few cheap parts, and arcade games will forever be free!

For all of the best resources on Arcade Cabinets, games, parts and guides, check out The Arcade Cabinet

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