Somone needs to make a MAME cart based console

[Tkat5200]

just saying...a true homebrew...console and all

I am SURE there are parts you can get off the shelf to make this happen.

 

The ROMS are all online...just need to make them work with the hardware and blammo...start printing carts with TRUE arcade quality ports

Edited September 28, 2015 by Tkat5200

[VectorGamer]

In on roll bread

 

That's why you put a computer running MAME in an arcade cabinet, brah

 

/thread

[CatPix]

MAME is an emulator...

I guess you could make hardware that is compatible with ALL the arcade cabs in MAME... from the Computer Space arcade to the latest Konami boards... but that would be a nightmare and probably too unreliable to be of any use.

I'm not even sure of what the most complex computer made was. I know of the Iskra Delta Triglav

having 3 processors (tho it's unclear if the computer would run and use them at the same time) but there must be others. Tho, I'm talking about different architectures, not multiprocessing as we know today.

[Tkat5200]

I dont want

 

In on roll bread

 

That's why you put a computer running MAME in an arcade cabinet, brah

 

/thread

Don't want it on PC...want a console with carts...wanna kick it OOOOLLD school.

[robotwo]

If you want carts and being able to play different systems on one console.

Then buy something like a Retron 5 and enjoy having loading times for your otherwise instant cartridge media.

[AtariTexas]

Carts make me happy.

[robotwo]

Same here.

Carts are my drug, but I like to run them on individual hardware.

 

I can sniff floppies too.

[CatPix]

I don't get the point...

 

If you wanna do more than one system, then it's emulation on a FPGA or ARM based system that will boot MAME, so hardware wise, it's nothing different from a MAMEcab.

 

Many arcade games were on individual PCB. So it mean you can't just put an MSV or CPS1 connector on that system. It mean making carts specifically for that system rather than using the real hardware.

 

I can see the appeal of it, but really, there is so many arcade games. WHich ones are you going to pick up to be release on cart?

Plus, I'm pretty sure that some arcade editors barely tolerate ROM sharing on games that are 20 years old, but selling physical carts of their games? Nintendo made a C&D letetr for a game that was arguably a copy of SMB, but used nothing of the name, and was available only of a decades-old system, for free (aside of the physical cart) (I'm talking about Princess Rescue).

So here, shamelessly ripping ROM and selling them on carts? They are going to blow a gasket.

 

And maybe some will not care... but most certainly will. I'm thinking Capcom and Konami, especially Konami, will really NOT like it (wanna know how "stubborn" Konami are about this? They stopped released home consoles version of their popular arcade game Pop'n'Music, and they confirmed it was because they do not want European and American players having acess to this game... even if this acces is made on a real, honestly bough game played on a legitimate Japanese console).

 

I'd more understand having something closer of a SuperGun - Hardware, either real CPU and ROM and RAM or FPGA - of ONE system, able to use the carts of the real system.

But there you are going to run an emulator, and THEN you have to make fake carts that will be just Flash, or at best , modern EEPROM that contain a ROM.

You have all the unpleasing side of hardware, and you gotta add all the qirks and unpleasing side of emulation.

Edited September 28, 2015 by CatPix

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

I get what the OP is saying but I think you will have a hard time getting people to buy a console and buy separate carts for games when you can just use MAME and 1000's of ROMS for free already Let's see, buy this MAME console and a few of my favorite carts to go with it OR fire up MAME on PC / Laptop / tons of other handhelds or platforms and choose from a TON of FREE roms? Certainly a hard sell no matter how well implemented. Maybe there is an audience for that but I will be laughing my ass off at people paying for the ROMS on a cart essentially as I chose from the massive collection sitting on my harddrive lol. I just don't see it, I DO understand those without the skill or knowledge buying pre built MAME setups if they must but not separate carts. IMHO the best hope of a modern console running carts being successful is buying having reasonably priced original titles that cannot be had elsewhere for pretty much FREE.

[Tkat5200]

its a dream and this was started to just discuss.

 

the idea was a system that ran most of the old Stern, Bally Midway, Atari games...the old 8 bit ones like Berzerk, Frenzy, Moon Patrol, Wizard of Wor.

 

take the roms from the most popular and coolest sleepers and make carts.

 

but its a pipe dream...

 

BTW I wouldn't want an arcade MAME. I'm not into those...for arcade I go with the original or I don't go at all.

[The Usotsuki]

What about reducing JAMMA boards to smaller plugin cartridges and make a passive motherboard? You plug the cartridge, which would use legitimate arcade ROMs, into the backplane, turn the machine on, boom.

[+5-11under]

its a dream and this was started to just discuss.

 

the idea was a system that ran most of the old Stern, Bally Midway, Atari games...the old 8 bit ones like Berzerk, Frenzy, Moon Patrol, Wizard of Wor.

 

take the roms from the most popular and coolest sleepers and make carts.

 

but its a pipe dream...

 

BTW I wouldn't want an arcade MAME. I'm not into those...for arcade I go with the original or I don't go at all.

 

First find the schematics for the games you want included.

Second, find the parts that are the same in each one. That will make up the "console" portion of your system.

Third, find the parts that are different in each one. That will make up the "cartridge" portion of your system.

After that, you will know the answer.

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

its a dream and this was started to just discuss.

 

Which is exactly what we are doing, but typically such discussion will also provide the realities and the opinions on why it is not feasible or likely.

[Keatah]

For proof-of-concept you get a fast booting PC and an external docking station. You get an SSD and put one rom on it with mame. Set it to autorun. When the SSD is inserted it runs. Build your docking station into a not-PC-looking stb case. Set up a minimal and blank desktop, strip out unnecessary drivers and services to get that fast boot time.

 

You can do similar with SD cards, which are gaining popularity with classic gamers more and more. And at the cost of a dollar or two, they won't break the bank.

 

Klutzy? Eh.. Take it 1step further, get a defunct beyond repair VCS. Strip out the main board parts except for the cart connector. Or leave it and just cut all the traces. Wire it into a mini or micro itx board's SD reader. And take a VCS cart, cut the rom out with cutters, solder in the SD card and close it up. Now you have mame based arcade missile command. When the new cart is inserted mame autoruns. Beauty part is the rom and mame version can be matched and kept entirely on the SD. Might as well do the whole OS. Still clumsy? Yeh..

 

SD cards can be labeled and stored like micro cartridges, too, if you just use them bare.

 

It was discussed that mame would not translate to FPGA easily, each game would need its own core written. Been done for some games. And keep in mind FPGA is not a hardware recreation, but, still, an emulation.

 

I agree and understand that carts have appeal to many for the old school experience. But with mame being +20 years old, it *is* old school too.

 

Best bet is to build a small itx box and pack it with emulators.

Edited September 29, 2015 by Keatah

[VectorGamer]

I dont want

 

Don't want it on PC...want a console with carts...wanna kick it OOOOLLD school.

 

You can have your console by loading MAME onto an Xbox.

 

If you want old school you throw a PC into a cabinet using arcade controls for the real old school gaming experience.

 

Max RD already touched on the legal issues - if memory serves the only ROMs that have been made publicly available are those by Exidy.

 

If there ever was a console made to play MAME ROMs on cartridge nobody would buy it. And the arcade manufacturers would block it.

[awhite2600]

Here's a cool take on the MAME / cart concept. Although it will never happen... We all know that the game companies hate MAME and the illegal sharing of their old, intellectual property.

 

What if a "legal" MAME console could be created that played "legal" copies of old games sold on individual cartridges? The console would be little more than a PC running MAME in a nice looking console case. High quality arcade controls could be part of the hardware package or an option if the console ships with a more standard joypad. Individual games or game collections could be licensed from the IP holders and sold legally on cartridges. These carts could contain encryption and/or region locking to satisfy the game companies. The console would boot MAME and then run the original games from the cart.

 

Would the games companies buy into such an ideal? Probably not. Would gamers pay to play MAME when it can be downloaded for free? Probably not. Would the console violate MAME's open source license? Probably.

[Tkat5200]

Here's a cool take on the MAME / cart concept. Although it will never happen... We all know that the game companies hate MAME and the illegal sharing of their old, intellectual property.

 

What if a "legal" MAME console could be created that played "legal" copies of old games sold on individual cartridges? The console would be little more than a PC running MAME in a nice looking console case. High quality arcade controls could be part of the hardware package or an option if the console ships with a more standard joypad. Individual games or game collections could be licensed from the IP holders and sold legally on cartridges. These carts could contain encryption and/or region locking to satisfy the game companies. The console would boot MAME and then run the original games from the cart.

 

Would the games companies buy into such an ideal? Probably not. Would gamers pay to play MAME when it can be downloaded for free? Probably not. Would the console violate MAME's open source license? Probably.

boom that's exactly what I am talking about.LOL but yeah...all those issues kinda kill it.

[CatPix]

Would the games companies buy into such an ideal? Probably not. Would gamers pay to play MAME when it can be downloaded for free? Probably not. Would the console violate MAME's open source license? Probably.

The games companies might walk into that idea. After all, if they just have to says "yes" and receives royalties, if they don't have to handle the cost of pressing the Cd (or burning the EEPROMs in our case), making the emulators for their console versions (think of the "arcade classic collections" from Taito and the likes on PS2/PS3 etc...) well it's free money. Plus, instead of getting fees on 30 games in one, they'll get it per game. 30 times more the money!

 

Would gamers pay to play MAME?

If the console was cleverly made (having JAMMA connections, VGA and RGBi video output, that would allow the console to be fitted into a JAMMA arcade cab) I'm sure there will be people to buy it.

If gamers were only about money, we'll have much, much more people playing on emulators and only a handful of crazy people wanting the real hardware.

Look around you. It's not what is going on. People buy cartmods of RPG games with fan-made translations, that are available for free on the Internets. People pay 200$ to own crapsacks like Action 52. And it's not only nostalgia. I own a Magnavox Odyssey, a Bally Astrocade, a Videopac, an Atari 2600, a Channel F. Those consoles were long dead and forgotten when I first grabbed a game pad around 5. The Odyssey and Astrocade weren't even released here, and the Channel F is pretty unknow. I own them and enjoy them.

 

 

I also think that having a kind of exernal connector that would allow cart adapters to be plugged on the back of the console and allowing to use CPS/MSV carts and other removable cart systems (DECO Cassettes ) would help selling it.

 

 

Does that violate the Open Source licence? Depends of the licence. Most Open Source software doesn't ban the use of the software into a closed source system, as long as some condition applies, mostly allowing to access the open source part of the system, displaying the open source licence parts, etc...

 

On paper, this is a great idea and I'll sign for it.

In reality, it's even more of a niche idea than the Retro VGS can be, so don't count on me to even give a centime for it.

Edited September 29, 2015 by CatPix

[Pixelboy]

One way to avoid the legal issues is simply to create an open-ended "SD cartridge" for PC (or Raspberry PI, or whatever machine/OS can run MAME). For this to work, you need three things:

 

1) A custom cartridge casing: The cartridge would house a PCB which is simply a SD card reader linked to the pins of an edge connector as directly as possible. The assembly would be as simple as putting the ROM files of an arcade game (with sound samples, config files, and whatever else MAME needs) on the SD card, inserting the SD card into the card reader on the cartridge PCB, inserting the PCB into the cartridge casing, a few seconds of screwdriver work, slapping a custom label onto the cart to cover the screw holes, and voilà: You've got yourself a MAME cartridge.

 

2) A cartridge port peripheral: This peripheral would probably be plugged into your MAME PC via a USB port. Just plug your MAME cartridge into this peripheral so that your MAME PC setup can read the files on the SD card inside the cartridge.

 

3) Some software installed on the MAME PC that reads the content of the MAME cartridge, copies it in a local directory, and starts MAME with the proper command line options.

 

You could theoretically put anything on the SD card inside the cartridge, and you could theoretically have any programmed script reading the contents of the "SD cartridge" and doing whatever you want with it, so there would be no real legal issue involved. The bottom line is that you could have the "arcade game on a cartridge" that you long for. To push the "illusion" to its maximum, you could house your MAME PC + cartridge port peripheral into a console-like casing, assuming your MAME PC has a TV-out option (like HDMI) so that you can plug it into your TV.

[Keatah]

[..]

3) Some software installed on the MAME PC that reads the content of the MAME cartridge, copies it in a local directory, and starts MAME with the proper command line options.

[..]

 

Be kinda funny.. The game keeps playing when you pull the cartridge out.

[awhite2600]

boom that's exactly what I am talking about.LOL but yeah...all those issues kinda kill it.

 

What I picture is something along the lines of the Flashback consoles. Instead of having built in games the console would run special, licensed carts. I wouldn't expect anything too "geeky" like Jamma slots, cart ports for "real" console cartridges, SD slots, etc. Keep it simple and consumer friendly. The carts could contain the MAME ROM images of either a single coin-op game or a collection from a publisher. Think "best of" Konami, Williams, Namco, Atari, etc. HDMI output would be nice to allow people to use modern TVs.

 

The public would be receptive if the cost was low. Make the console $30 to $50 (perhaps with a pack-in cart) and then sell additional collection carts for $10 to $25. It would be almost like free money to the game companies to license their old titles this way.

[Tkat5200]

OMG you are totally on the same page. WOOT WOOT

[Keatah]

There are mame-to-jamma adapters. Don't know what it all entails.