Oh, I hear you there, Tuna. We all have those little, involuntary spasms of impulse, don’t we? Maybe it manifests itself in a former college quarterback calling his 47th pass of the day as a coach, his proxy All-Pro QB destroying defenses in a way he never could. Maybe we see it when we’re listening to a catchy song in our car, and we flick the “rewind” knob for the eighth straight time because the song’s so catchy.

Or, more appropriately for our discussion today, maybe we see the virus as the silent protagonist in the new book from Rob O’Hara titled, Invading Spaces: A Beginner’s Guide to Collecting Arcade Games. In this instance, the virus takes control of our mind by having us click on the “reply” button to a guy on craigslist selling a three-hundred pound wooden joybox that plays a single game that can be emulated on a watch you could find for free after eating enough boxes of “Circus Fun.”

It’s got to be a virus. No healthy person would make it a habit to collect real arcade games. Right, ha ha? But hey, there’s good viruses and bad viruses. Bad ones make you lose STR, DEX and CON, while good ones have your team passing for 400 yards against the hated Niners, and put two Scrambles in your home.

Er, all right, onto the book! O’Hara begins by putting us into a situation that is not untypical for the type of person that is interested in collecting arcade games: he’s somewhere between Oklahoma City and Austin, completely lost. (In fact, the very first sentence of his book takes a shot at MapQuest, and there is no better way to get me, a reader, onboard, than to correctly paint MapQuest as a server of lies.) Rob and his buddy Justin are on their way to get a game called Heavy Barrel, which is just a great name for a full-size arcade game, like calling one Out of Space or Staircrusher. It isn’t even a game that O’Hara particularly likes, but he makes the decision to go get it anyway because he loves these goddamn things, and this one is a good deal. 

The pair ultimately find their destination, after an eleven hour journey, and meet one of the, ah,  ten types of people you meet when purchasing an arcade game.  They return home with a grim sense of satisfaction, and while reading this, I’m personally struck by how comforting is in knowing that there are other people making the same type of journeys that I have made, for these things. If there is a book out there that stands as a written testament to how maybe, just maybe, I haven’t been driven insane trying to recapture my favorite hobby as a child, then Invading Spaces is it. 

While the tales regarding ‘the hunt’ of an arcade machine make up a significant portion of the book, the other goal that Invading Spaces easily achieves is in describing how to maintain or fix them once they are home. It can be intimidating to find a problem with the monitor or joystick of a thirty-year old machine if it’s been years since your last course on electronics. I bought my first machine in 1999, and did not get another one until 2005 – not really because of space issues, but because I was scared to death to even work on my first game, much less a few others. I got over my fear at first by paying almost retail prices for nicely restored games, but things eventually did go wrong, and I had to scour the Usenet group rec.games.video.arcade.collecting for help, picking up whatever bits of knowledge I could from others. I can safely say that, almost literally, every single piece of information I picked up about this hobby over the first two years is in this book. I was almost smiling in anger seeing it all collected here. (The anger really stemmed from having to use Google Groups to search Usenet all those years, I should clarify.)

For instance, O’Hara explains that a common problem of PCBs is that they are not getting five volts from the +5v line – I cannot begin to explain the frustration I had with a couple of my games acting wonky, until that dawned on me a few months ago. When I read the chapter on Repairs(Electronics) and got to the bit about +5v, I held the book skyward and cursed, loudly. It was here. It was all here. Invading Spaces is an invaluable resource for the non-electrical engineer thinking of purchasing their first arcade game. 

More, O’Hara’s style is friendly and conversational. He doesn’t go off on a berserker’s rant about MAME, like Stuart Campbell or I would do, but does explain that, while it’s nice, it’s not the same. He describes why someone would be miffed to see one of the 26,000 Defender cabinets converted to, say, a 48-in-1 cab, without unfairly slagging the more, ah, extreme group of preservations. And the stories! The stories really are entertaining and well-written throughout – anytime somebody’s retarded brother (their words, not mine or O’Hara’s) mysteriously skulks around a game that may have once functioned before some retard strength saw to it, like some kind of luddite-touch BigFoot… well, I know I am in for a good time.

My absolute favorite part of the book is the last bit, where O’Hara talks about the games he has owned over the years, and how he acquired them. I can personally listen to that sort of stuff forever, and each little story has a photo of the cabinet associated with it. I have a theory that RoboCop games are unique like fingerprints, and sure enough, both of O’Hara’s RoboCops are different. (Once we assign all three hundred million Americans JAMMA RoboCop games, crime in this country is going to disappear overnight.)

I’ve had Rob’s book around the house for weeks now, and I still find myself going back to it, to re-read a chapter or passage here and there, just to stay sharp. I can’t recommend it strongly enough. If you find yourself with the arcade-purchasing virus, while I am sad to say that there is no cure, this book functions as a wonderful protease inhibitor to let you live with the sickness and still maintain a happy and healthy existence, otherwise. I’ve found that chicks are more than willing to accept this hobby if all the games work, and as this book is a means to that end, it is worth its price four times over in couples therapy. 

If you are like me, and acquire arcade games, you do so while praying to a deity that the circuit boards won’t die. In my own case, I have ensured that this IS the case because I only recently learned how to check voltages. (+5 getting to the game’s printed circuit board fixed my issues with Mr. Do!, Arkanoid and Zoo Keeper - that’s a 30% fix in my arcade right there.)

The circuit boards are the real treasure in an arcade game, because almost everything else can be — or is! — getting reproductions. Scratch up the side art on a game? Stencils or giant “stickers” exist. Mess up the monitor? You can put a brand-new one in, most likely. But yeah, if the circuit board develops problems the average collector is at the mercy of others.

So that’s why FPGA boards like what jrok is developing are so cool – he’s putting Defender, Stargate, Joust, Robotron, Bubbles, Splat, Sinistar and Blaster onto a single board. It uses real hardware, so nothing is emulated (more on that in a sec). This is going to give people the chance to avoid circuit board issues and still have a great multi-game kit. It’s also going to have a JAMMA interface, which will be really convienent for, er, people like me who have a JAMMA cab.

I don’t even know if Williams (the manufacturer of all those games) are particularly troublesome to live with – for all I know, they could be rock-solid. But it would definitely cost me a lot more in space and, er, cost a lot in money to get access to those games. And I am completely out of space. jrok also has the things saving high scores, so at $150 for the board, this will be perfect.

(OK, a note about emulation: it’s fine, it’s cool, and I have emulated games on my 48-in-1, which I love. But yeah, emulation through MAME can get you close, but something genuinely running the game is always going to be ideal. That being said, I’d like to get a Robotron cab, and having the controls for Robotron (two joysticks) on the same panel as Stargate (a two-way joystick and like six buttons) always looks like a mess, so I am not sure how I am going to personally work this.)

jrok is sending the board out to testers soon, and I’ll report back when I purchase one.

 

 

 

 

 

Just a quick note – I updated the Polybius Home Page with info on the following things:

1) The font. I was given this by a gentleman that contacted me through the JC BBS. I have received some e-mail from people asking for the font, and while I love that sort of contact, it’s not fair to not have it available for everyone. But please – you wanna talk some Polybius, just send me an e-mail at beaver@zombieworld.com.

2) I was recently made aware of the site www.polybiuslives.com. They have a screenshot of what Polybius might have looked like if it was on a color X/Y monitor. Good stuff – not sure if there is more stuff at the site that is not obvious to get to, but when I know more I’ll update. I also noticed that there was a mention of polybiuslives.com on Shawn Struck’s blog, so perhaps this is making the rounds.

The machine we’re talking about today is a circuit board that lets you make your JAMMA-compatible arcade cabinet capable of playing 48 games instantly and easily. It really is an amazing piece of work, and I am going to hotlink a picture of it from Lizard Lick Amusements.

It’s a cute little guy that I’ve had the pleasure of installing and running the last couple of nights.

If you are unfamiliar with the concept of JAMMA, it basically allowed arcade operators to swap circuit boards and have themselves a brand new game in a cabinet they already owned, to generate more CASH. Ops love CASH. (Usually, when swapping a board in this manner, they’d swap the marquee and control panel at the same time, but hey, not always.) JAMMA eventually had some extensions to account for the extra buttons in a Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat machine, but for the purposes of the 48-in-1 you just need three buttons wired up, a joystick, and then some for service and starting the game and so forth.

If you’d like to buy one of your own, check out the KLOV forum here, or just leave me a comment in this post. This post over at Engadget shows you how to get JAMMA going if you don’t happen to have a full-size arcade cabinet, y’know, just hangin’ around not doing anything. ďż˝For the rest of the FAQ, I’ll see you after the jump!

JAMMA 48-in-1 FAQ by Ice Cream Jonsey
Please distribute, link to, archive, and toss all over the place.
Latest update: 4/16/2008

Q: Are there other FAQs available?

Sure. For instance, this one is a little outdated, but still good: http://www.jammaboards.com/jcenter_48-in-1_multigame_faq.html

Q: What games are available?

There is a list here: http://www.jammaboards.com/store/48-in-1-multicade-pcb/prod_194.html

In case that goes off-line, the lineup is:

Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Super Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Pengo, Gyruss, Mr. Do!, Pac-Man Plus, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Galaga, Frogger, Galaxian, Dig Dug, Galaga3, Ladybug, Millipede, BurgerTime, Jr. Pac-Man, Mappy, 1942, Centipede, Phoenix, Time Pilot, Super Cobra, Super Breakout, New Rally X, Arkanoid, Qix, Juno First, Xevious, Mr. Do’s Castle, Scramble, Bomb Jack, 1943, Zaxxon, Donkey Kong 3, Dig Dug 2, Crush, Tank Battalion, Hustler, Space Panic, Moon Cresta, Pinball Action, Shao-Lin’s Road, King & Balloon, Van-Van Car and Amidar.

Q: Is the manual that comes with it available as a PDF on the Internet?

Yup. Right here: http://www.jammaboards.com/arcade_manuals/39-in-1_Multi-JAMMA_PCB_Manual.pdf

Q: What buttons do I need?

You’ll want TEST and SERVICE hooked up to something, whether it’s on your control panel or elsewhere.

The games themselves use buttons 1, 2 and 3. (3 is only used to select a starting level in Super Breakout.)

Player 1 Start is used to start the game in free play mode, and to save your settings during the setup. (I assume Player 2 start does the same for a two player game. Have not tried it yet.) The Player 2 Start button will save settings as well.

This list also says what needs what: http://forums.webmagic.com/forums-attachments//684386-48-in-1.supplement2.jpg

Q: What is the best joystick to use? (4-way/8-way)

The games that use an 8-way are 1942, 1943, Juno First, Scramble, Super Cobra, Xevious, Bomb Jack, Galaga 3, Gyruss, Time Pilot and Zaxxon. Millipede and Centipede also support 8-way movement, since they can’t use a trackball. The decision for each gamer – assuming you do not have one of those sticks that are easy to change without ripping your control panel apart – is a little sketchier control in the 4-way games versus more movement for the 8-way games. It basically comes down to what games you’ll play more, I suppose.

Some people have also installed two joysticks on their control panel, one 4-way and one 8-way, so that works too.

Q: How do I get power to the board?

You can do it through your JAMMA connector. I personally used an ATX power supply. I shorted two wires so the PS comes on every time the toggle switch on the PS is flipped, and then used the molex connector that would normally go to a hard drive. More info is about getting the ATX going is halfway down the page here: http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/28/how-to-consolize-an-arcade-game

modessitt: Also, a switching power supply can be connected to the JAMMA wiring for power.

Q: How does the VGA monitor support work?

All you need to do is plug the VGA connector on your monitor into the VGA port on the board. (And you’ll want to rotate your monitor on its side. No bars here!) If you want to use an actual arcade monitor, you’ll be going through your JAMMA connector for red, green, blue and sync.

Q: How does the CGA arcade monitor support work?

modessitt: If you are using a normal CGA arcade monitor – the sync is composite negative sync and must be hooked up that way. Also, there is a dip switch setting to use it with either standard-res or medium-res monitors.

Q: The screen image is upside down! Do I have to remove/rotate my monitor?

modessitt: No. The screen image can be flipped by switching dip switch #1 on the PCB if the picture comes up upside-down.

Q: Can you use a trackball for Centipede and Millipede?

You can’t. The 48-in-1 doesn’t support it. The 60-in-1, which is a separate board that does a lot of the same things does, though.

Q: Can you use a spinner for Arkanoid and Super Breakout?

cadillacman: As i have learned… 48-in-1 does not support a trackball or anything except a 4 or 8 way joystick. The 60 in one is supposed to support a trackball[...].

Q: Can you disable games and turn off the default music?

Yes. Hold the TEST button when you boot up, and you’ll eventually go into a menu that lets you disable games. If you disable them all but one, the PCB acts like a “dedicated” version of that game.

modessitt: These changes can only be made if the TEST button is held at boot up. If they hold the SERVICE button down, it will only show the color-grid screen, and the input test screen, not the menu screens. I normally hook the TEST wire to the S2 button, that way I can enter test at anytime I power it up without opening the coin door to get to an internal button. It will say “Setup OK” on the screen when the save is finished. and that saving can be done after all changes have been made (not necessary after each screen), but MUST be made on the volume adjust screen before moving on to the input test screen.

modessitt: If you are putting this game into an existing JAMMA cabinet that doesn’t have TEST or SERVICE buttons in it, and you don’t know how to add them – TEST mode can be entered by flipping dip switch #4 on the PCB.

Q: I want to do things like enable fast shot on Galaga and give myself 5 lives on Donkey Kong. Can that be done?

Yes. When you go into service mode, you can set the specifications for each game.

Q: The volume is too low / too high.

modessitt: There is an orange volume pot on the board that can be adjusted with a small screwdriver, and a volume adjust screen at the end of the menu that can be adjusted. I normally turn the board adjustment all the way up, then turn it down with the screen adjustment. When setting the sound on the screen, note that the music that is playing is a little softer than what the actual game sounds will be. If in doubt, play Scramble – one of the loudest games on the PCB – to see if it’s too loud.

Q: Does the 48-in-1 save high scores?

jethrokiller: I was very disappointed in the high score feature as well. It would be awesome if they would save high score AND Initials. But all the 39/48/60 in 1′s only save the top score, and no initials.

FrizzleFried: For clarity purposes: MOST/ALL games allow you to enter your initials, and even retains full scoring information WHILE POWERED. When you turn off the power all info is lost aside from the highest SCORE ONLY (no initials).

modessitt: Some games will save the highest score only with no initials. Some won’t save any. Some only save if you start another game afterwards…

Q: Are there any 2 player simultaneous games on the 48-in-1 warranting the need for two Joysticks?

“RussMyers”: 1943 is two-player simultaneous. (1942 is not two-player simul).

There is a DIP switch setting to put the system into two-player mode. I assume you need it set that way for 1943. (Need to confirm)

modessitt: The two player simultaneous will require the dip switch setting in the menu to be changed to “Upright – 2 Joysticks” for it to work. And – obviously – you will need two joysticks on your cab, with buttons for each player.

Q: Am I a bad person for disabling Donkey Kong 3?

No.

Q: Seriously?

Fuck, no.