Noob arcade questions.

[tpugmire]

Forgive me if this has been asked or answered before, but I was just curious if it is possible to run a few different games out of one cabinet. I know a little about MAME, but I don't really know if that would work. What I'm looking to do specifically, is run some 4-player games (X-men, Simpsons, Sunset Riders, NBA Jam, TMNT, etc.) all in one cabinet. Mainly what I'm looking for is some technical information, I've seen most of these boards on eBay, but I don't know enough about them to know if they are all interchangeable with the same cabinet. Being a total noob, any help is appreciated.

[tomwaits]

As a starting point, most games since the mid-80's have a standard JAMMA connector. Looks like a PC bus connector and provides power in, coin in, basic controls, video & audio out, etc. If you've got a cabinet wired for JAMMA, it's very easy to swap boards and convert the cabinet to a different game.

**BUT**
A lot of games needed extra controls or audio beyond the JAMMA standard, they're generally categorized JAMMA+. JAMMA only provides 2 joysticks and 3 buttons per player. Anything extra and the arcade PCBs have additional (custom) connectors. JAMMA also only provides mono sound. Later games that offered stereo sound or subwoofers have additional (custom) connectors. Some boards also need extra power through additional (custom) connectors.

Some PCBs feed one extra button through an unused JAMMA pin, but most have additional player controller headers or 6-button 'kick harnesses' if necessary.

The Konami 4-player games might use common/interchangeable 3P & 4P headers but I'm not sure since the only one that I own is X-men.

klov.com has some basic info on every arcade PCB, but you'd need to search individual PCB manuals for specifics about the games you're looking for. There are scans available online for most arcade PCB manuals.

[tpugmire]

Thanks a bunch. I've seen the term JAMMA in all the auction descriptions for the boards I looked at, but didn't know what it meant. I was also wondering, would it be possible to have all the boards in at once, similar to a playchoice 10, or would I be better off just changing the boards?

[tomwaits]

Depends on your cabinet. I have a Capcom dynamo and there's a lot of room inside. When I got it, there were four PCBs mounted in there and you could switch the JAMMA wiring harness between the various games.

Since I keep the cabinet in the garage and have a supergun setup in my game room, I don't keep any PCBs in the cabinet. The dynamo has a slide out shelf so it's pretty easy to swap PCBs in/out. If I kept additional PCBs mounted in the bottom of the cab they'd be harder to access and swap.

Most arcade PCBs fit well in USPS priority mail flat rate boxes. I keep PCB legs on the game PCBs and just leave them totem stacked inside end-labeled priority mail boxes. They do take up a lot of space though. I've also got a Primal Rage, which won't fit in any box... it's the biggest PCB I've ever seen.

[intvsama]

Mounting multiple boards in one cab is possible, but it requires some custom hardware and can get a little pricey.

http://www.multigame.com/jamma.html

Each JAMMA board would need its own adapter, which needs its own power and an IDE connection to the main switch board.

[tomwaits]

Yeah... just to clarify, I was only talking about physically mounting multiple PCBs and manually moving the wiring harness between them to switch games. If you want to switch without opening the cab you need more hardware.

[SegaAges]

Or if you want multiple games, do what some of us have done, and get a board that accepts other games. Maybe Neo Geo, or you could go with Naomi, ST-V, Atomiswave. You have plenty of options.

Now if you are looking for swap without opening up the cab, outside of a Neo Geo, you will have to do an little extra work. Once I get my monitor working, I am going to start working on adding a cart slot to the outside of my cab