My new toy
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My new toy
I just got an original pacman from 1980. It works but the cabinet is a little rough. So, now I have to make a choice. Keep it and restore it (it's pacman!) or turn it into a MAME machine (giving me a bunch of games). It's like making an old car into a hot rod or restoring it to original condition. What would you do?
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Centallica
- Pinballer
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- Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2005 11:26 am
Great catch Jeff on the Pac-man!
This is a true classic and it works too!
My suggestion is to find another empty cab gutted for a MAME cabinet and not put this one to the graveyard! While using a pre-assembled cabinet may save some initial money and time, it may be a headache trying to get the control panel to fit the existing cabinet and more than likely you'll have to custom build the control panel (joysticks and buttons) from parts and configure it to your system (not friendly to a 1st timer). Do some intensive research on the internet before jumping to this project
I would refurbish the Pac-man cabinet, rebuild the monitor (cap set), install a new joystick (Happ) and player buttons. Lots of side art, bezel, overlays repro websites out there to get ideas or buy from.
Build a MAME cabinet around the pre-assembled store bought control unit (many out there x-arcade, slik stick etc) as these are "plug and play". MAME front-end GUI's also have a control setting pulldown for these control units for ease of set-up.
Here's a few websites that may be of interest to get the brain juices flowing
:
http://users.erols.com/mowerman/pacfile.htm
http://www.xensei.com/users/jeffm/www/pacman/
http://www.flamingmayo.com/firstchurcho ... index2.htm
http://www.arcadetreasure.com/projects/mspacman.htm
If you lived closer, I'd help you out with them!
2 exciting projects that will open a whole new hobby
Brian
This is a true classic and it works too!
My suggestion is to find another empty cab gutted for a MAME cabinet and not put this one to the graveyard! While using a pre-assembled cabinet may save some initial money and time, it may be a headache trying to get the control panel to fit the existing cabinet and more than likely you'll have to custom build the control panel (joysticks and buttons) from parts and configure it to your system (not friendly to a 1st timer). Do some intensive research on the internet before jumping to this project
I would refurbish the Pac-man cabinet, rebuild the monitor (cap set), install a new joystick (Happ) and player buttons. Lots of side art, bezel, overlays repro websites out there to get ideas or buy from.
Build a MAME cabinet around the pre-assembled store bought control unit (many out there x-arcade, slik stick etc) as these are "plug and play". MAME front-end GUI's also have a control setting pulldown for these control units for ease of set-up.
Here's a few websites that may be of interest to get the brain juices flowing
:http://users.erols.com/mowerman/pacfile.htm
http://www.xensei.com/users/jeffm/www/pacman/
http://www.flamingmayo.com/firstchurcho ... index2.htm
http://www.arcadetreasure.com/projects/mspacman.htm
If you lived closer, I'd help you out with them!
2 exciting projects that will open a whole new hobby
Brian
I'd vote to keeping it as Pac-Mac. There are tons of nearly free generic JAMMA cabinets out there that are much better suited to becoming MAME cabinets, and even though there are a zillion Pac-Man machines, it'd be a shame to destroy it.
My MAME cabinet is a generic JAMMA cabinet that had Cabal and two trackballs. It runs and plays, but no sound (just got a appropriate PCI sound card with DOS drivers off eBay last week) and I need to figure out exactly how I want the controls laid out so I can have my brother cut me out a new one on his plasma cutter at work.
My other arcade cabinet is a Konami format with Gyruss, Time Pilot, and Lost Tomb motherboards.
My MAME cabinet is a generic JAMMA cabinet that had Cabal and two trackballs. It runs and plays, but no sound (just got a appropriate PCI sound card with DOS drivers off eBay last week) and I need to figure out exactly how I want the controls laid out so I can have my brother cut me out a new one on his plasma cutter at work.
My other arcade cabinet is a Konami format with Gyruss, Time Pilot, and Lost Tomb motherboards.
Grrrr... Can't decide...
I've played pacman a few times... no big deal to me. The graphics are a little garbled, and there's no sound. It probable could be fixed up.
But there was my original plan: A VGA monitor, dreamcast and replaced joystick (that vibrates!).. I want to add two buttons on either side of the joyistick. With a dreamcast, I could play Ikagura... a great shooter... AND play verticle mame games with MAMEdc. So I would still have a version of Pacman.
The only compromise is the four added buttons, but for that I'd get a great sound system, crisp monitor and variety of games including the original pacman.
Until I decide, I will just touch up the paint. That should take a while. I need to figure out the exact colors to match.
I've played pacman a few times... no big deal to me. The graphics are a little garbled, and there's no sound. It probable could be fixed up.
But there was my original plan: A VGA monitor, dreamcast and replaced joystick (that vibrates!).. I want to add two buttons on either side of the joyistick. With a dreamcast, I could play Ikagura... a great shooter... AND play verticle mame games with MAMEdc. So I would still have a version of Pacman.
The only compromise is the four added buttons, but for that I'd get a great sound system, crisp monitor and variety of games including the original pacman.
Until I decide, I will just touch up the paint. That should take a while. I need to figure out the exact colors to match.
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Centallica
- Pinballer
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- Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2005 11:26 am
Playing Pac-man on a MAME cabinet is nice but no comparison to the real thing (It's like playing a Vic-20 game on Vice or on the real thing).Jeff-20 wrote:Grrrr... Can't decide...
I've played pacman a few times... no big deal to me. The graphics are a little garbled, and there's no sound. It probable could be fixed up.
But there was my original plan: A VGA monitor, dreamcast and replaced joystick (that vibrates!).. I want to add two buttons on either side of the joyistick. With a dreamcast, I could play Ikagura... a great shooter... AND play verticle mame games with MAMEdc. So I would still have a version of Pacman.
The only compromise is the four added buttons, but for that I'd get a great sound system, crisp monitor and variety of games including the original pacman.
Until I decide, I will just touch up the paint. That should take a while. I need to figure out the exact colors to match.
There's a great sense of self-fullfilment taking a trashed machine (video or pinball) and bringing it back to life that no words can describe. I have done a few 60 to 100 hour pinball projects that one would want to check me into the "white padded room" if you saw the pictures but it's all worth it in the end
I like to be able to conform my cabinet building problems myself through building the cabinet ie: my cabinet wasn't 100% squared in the end so I made changes to the front panel to accomodate this and voila problem solved.
With a already built cabinet you have to conform to it's restrictions, limitations (it calls the shots) more and you'll have to fight to conform it to your way with the control panel especially.
You could always Ebay the boards, power supply, bezel and marquee too and give it life that way through another collector who hopefully won't canibalize it further
Brian
I played pacman a hundred times or so... the garbled graphics and lack of sound still bug me. So I went with the upgrade project.
This is turning out to be harder than I thought. Replacing the original 19 inch monitor with a 19 inch VGA seemed easy. Not so. The VGA measures the actual box as 19 inches... the viewable area is probably 17.5. The entire screen is about one inch short of fitting into the frame inside the cabinet.
I thought of making a new frame, but it is not easy either. The round edges of the screen make a box frame impossible. The corner anchors wouldn't meet a parallel line. I need to make an octogon rather than a square.
I put a new screen in my joust with no problem at all. I even rewired the controls. Pacman seems much more difficult. I'll have to drill thru metal with my little dremel kit to add the extra buttons I will need.
Hopefully, when all is done, you won't really notice that it is not an original pacman. Only the added buttons (two on either side of the joystick) will be different.
This is turning out to be harder than I thought. Replacing the original 19 inch monitor with a 19 inch VGA seemed easy. Not so. The VGA measures the actual box as 19 inches... the viewable area is probably 17.5. The entire screen is about one inch short of fitting into the frame inside the cabinet.
I thought of making a new frame, but it is not easy either. The round edges of the screen make a box frame impossible. The corner anchors wouldn't meet a parallel line. I need to make an octogon rather than a square.
I put a new screen in my joust with no problem at all. I even rewired the controls. Pacman seems much more difficult. I'll have to drill thru metal with my little dremel kit to add the extra buttons I will need.
Hopefully, when all is done, you won't really notice that it is not an original pacman. Only the added buttons (two on either side of the joystick) will be different.
I bought a Street Fighter 2 cab very cheap at a garage sale. It was in brilliant condition. Just had a blown monitor. I bought it planning on turning it into a MAME cab.
Anyway, the stupid thing sat in my office for over 18months, just taking up room and gathering dust. My wife constantly nagged me to get rid of it. So I decided to give it to a teenager in my Church who is a real computer guru.
Well blow me down if he hasn't almost totally converted it into a fantastsic MAME cab within 2 weeks. All he is waiting on is a 19inch monitor to finish the job. I couldn't believe it.
The best part is that his parents have told him he can't keep it at home, so it will be coming back to my office in the Church so all the youth group kids can play it - if I let them:-)
Anyway, the stupid thing sat in my office for over 18months, just taking up room and gathering dust. My wife constantly nagged me to get rid of it. So I decided to give it to a teenager in my Church who is a real computer guru.
Well blow me down if he hasn't almost totally converted it into a fantastsic MAME cab within 2 weeks. All he is waiting on is a 19inch monitor to finish the job. I couldn't believe it.
The best part is that his parents have told him he can't keep it at home, so it will be coming back to my office in the Church so all the youth group kids can play it - if I let them:-)
I've had a few opportunies to buy Classic arcade machines (Ms. PacMan, Galaca, Super PacMan, etc.) but all times I have had pass on them due to lack of house space, a pickup truck to move the machine. etc. That has really pained me!
But I vote for restoring the original.....if you want a Mame machine either build a custom cabinet from scratch or find a less important or non-working arcade machine than PacMan to modify. There are only so many orignal PacMan machines in existence....once they are gone, they are gone. I think you will find your original Pac-Man machine, once carefully restored, will only appreciate in value on the collectors market, whereas a MAME machine will not. PacMan (Pac Man / Pac-Man!) was a historically important game.
But I vote for restoring the original.....if you want a Mame machine either build a custom cabinet from scratch or find a less important or non-working arcade machine than PacMan to modify. There are only so many orignal PacMan machines in existence....once they are gone, they are gone. I think you will find your original Pac-Man machine, once carefully restored, will only appreciate in value on the collectors market, whereas a MAME machine will not. PacMan (Pac Man / Pac-Man!) was a historically important game.
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Centallica
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- Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2005 11:26 am