This page is going to involve a lot of talk about "emulators". Emulation is too big of a topic to go into deep detail, but for those that are new to the concept I'll give a (very) brief overview. Google is your friend if you're a nerd like me and want to learn more than what I'm going to present on this page. For the rest of you, hopefully this quick overview will give you just enough of what you need to know to understand what I'm talking about. I did my best to "un-nerdify" the descriptions.
In order to play vintage video games on modern computer systems, there are two main methods: simulation and emulation. In the case of my arcade cabinet, I'm going to be using emulation.
Simulation is the most common method of playing vintage video games. Simulation in a nutshell means a computer program is written that simulates the look, feel and sounds of a classic game. There may be slight differences here and there from the original, but for the most part it's a close representation of the original game. For example, if you're playing a simulation of Pac-Man on your Android phone, it will probably look, sound and play a lot like the original arcade game. However if you tried to use the old "patterns" that worked in the original arcade game they likely wouldn't work in the simulation as the simulation code probably isn't quite that faithful to the original. It's close enough to call it Pac-Man, but it's not exact.
Emulation on the other hand, means the original code (aka computer program) that ran the classic game is still used to play the game today, but on modern hardware. What is written instead is an "emulator" program that replicates how the original computer chips would have interpreted the original code, and translates the sound and video from the original code to a modern computer. More or less, an emulator is a computer program that sits between your operating system (Windows, iOA, Linux, Android, etc.) and the original source code from the arcade cabinet, and does the translation between the two.
The emulation program reads the original source code from what are universally called "ROM" files. ROM files are created by taking the original ROM (read only memory) chips out of an old arcade game, and copying the information from that chip into a data file. Whereas the original arcade game would get the code to run the game from the ROM chip, an emulator gets the code from a ROM file.
The end result means emulation is a much more faithful reproduction of that classic game, because the code that is running your game in the present year is the same code that ran your game in 1981. So in our above Pac-Man example, the original patterns still work because it's the original computer program that was being used forty years ago in the arcade. Now the only problem is me trying to remember those old Pac-Man patterns from forty years ago.
As a bonus, emulation makes some of the more obscure vintage video games available to play. Probably nobody is going to bother re-writing a Rock-Ola Fantasy game from 1982, as it was a commercial flop. However, as long as an emulator supports the chips that the original machine utilized (and most of those chips were shared among lots of different machines from the era) then it doesn't care what underlying source code is being used. So the original Rock-Ola Fantasy code can be run on the emulated hardware and now this rather unpopular vintage game is available to play.
In the following paragraphs I'm going to be talking a lot about a piece of software called "MAME". If you're wondering what this "MAME" thing is that I keep talking about, MAME stands for "Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator". It's a program that emulates the hardware of thousands (no exaggeration) of old arcade machines. It's the current reigning king in the emulation world. Again, do an internet search on it and you'll find way more information than I'm going to go into on my web site.
So, back to putting together my specific arcade cabinet.
I decided before I got too far into the project that I should get my emulation software together. I still had a 20-year-old DOS version of MAME stored somewhere on a hard drive, but figured it was time to upgrade. My old version would probably still run if I ran it inside a DOS emulator such as DOSBox, but that would mean I'm running an emulator inside of an emulator. Not very efficient. So I set out to download and assemble the files for the latest version of MAME (which at this time was version .228).
Of course, as MAME changed versions over the years it became fairly sensitive to the versions of support files (aka ROM files as explained above.) All my ROM files from my old version would no longer work with the new version of MAME. So I was going to have to locate and download new ROM files as well, and make sure they're compatible with the latest version of MAME I download.
By the way, if you're new to the MAME world, this is the reason that once you have an established installation of MAME you generally don't upgrade it without a real good reason. It's not like Windows where you always want to stay up-to-date with the software. For the most part new MAME versions primarily add support for new games and have fewer bug fixes or changes for the games that are already supported. So unless a new version of MAME comes out that now includes your favorite game that was previously ignored, or (like in my case) several generations of operating system changes have happened warranting an upgrade, you're generally best leaving the MAME version as-is.
After spending an evening researching things, I came to the conclusion that one can spend hours and hours downloading emulators and ROM files, and even more hours and hours configuring everything to get it all working. I really wasn't looking forward to that portion of the project. It's not that I don't have the technical ability, it's because it is tedious and time consuming.
Then while doing more Googling, I came across a website of a guy who sold external hard drives already loaded with the latest versions of emulators, all the matching ROM files, and as a bonus set up with Hyperspin as the user interface and even included all the artwork. It was very close (not quite) to a turn-key solution.
The MAME software (and the other emulators) are free. All of the ROM files can also be downloaded from various sites for free. The Hyperspin front end is free. So what would I be paying for? Convenience. Lots and lots of convenience.
I mulled it over for a few days, and then decided to pull the trigger. The seller had a basic MAME drive for sale for $200, but then I noticed that for $25 more I could get a 2TB drive that also included lots of console, computer and handheld system emulators in addition to MAME. It included all consoles up to the era where the Wii and Playstation were released. That seemed like a no-brainer to me.
For about $140 more the seller also sold an 8TB "ultimate" drive that included even newer systems such as Playstation and SNES, but I really didn't feel I would ever play those newer games to justify the additional cost. The Tundra Boy has these original console systems so if I ever want to play them I can just use his. Or I could always upgrade my cabinet. But for now, the middle tier drive seemed to be the sweet spot of what I would use.
So in addition to MAME which in itself emulates thousands of machines, the hard drive came loaded with 22 additional vintage computer system emulators (everything from the Apple II to the Sinclair ZX,) 41 vintage console systems (Atari 2600 to the Vectrex,) and 10 handheld device emulators (like the Nintendo Gameboy and the Sega Game Gear.) That's a ton of stuff included. Enough to keep me entertained until I move to assisted living.
An empty 2TB portable drive would cost me $50 by itself if I went out and bought one. So for an additional $175 above the cost of the hard drive I would save myself dozens of dull hours of searching for and downloading all of the files, plus all of the configuration. It seemed like it was worth every penny. Plus the fact that this drive came with a ton of emulators that I probably wouldn't have gone through the trouble of installing myself was a bonus. As long as I have them I will probably mess with them.
I'd heard stories of shady sellers on the internet putting together MAME collections that are incomplete, configured poorly and not completely working. Generally these sellers are just out for a quick cash grab. I wasn't sure if this seller was legitimate or not. After poking around on the web site for a while I decided that he had put enough work into the details of the site that I decided it was worth taking a risk. Most shady sellers aren't going to spend the time putting together a web site of this detail; they just want an easy buck. Hopefully I didn't just throw a couple hundred dollars away when I clicked the "submit order" button!
After I made the purchase, my credit card was charged immediately but it was about two weeks before I got notification that my drive shipped. During that time I started to wonder if I had gotten ripped off. Happily the item finally arrived. It came with instructions on the installation and configuration that had to happen to get the drive running on my system. It really wasn't too hard to get everything going just by following the included directions. Much to my delight, the drive worked as advertised.
The configuration to get the drive working on my system took about 1/2 an hour (which matched what was stated on the web site.) One of the installation files wouldn't load because there was one piece of missing dependency software on my system (.NET Framework 2.0), but it didn't take me too long to download that from Microsoft's site and once that was installed I was back on track. Thankfully because I work in technology I was familiar with the .NET Framework software, so that didn't throw me for a loop. That's the one thing I noticed about the install that may trip up a more novice user.
The install instructions came with an email address I could use for support questions, along with encouragement to contact the seller if there any problems. As it turns out I didn't need to utilize the additional support, but it was nice to know it was available.
There are indeed shady MAME sellers out there. I am very thankful that I found a good one. I would heartily recommend this vendor for anyone looking to put together their own MAME/emulation system, and who like me, are too lazy to spend the next several months of free time collecting all of the files necessary.
By the way, I'm purposefully not including the name of the site where I purchased this hard drive. Why? Well, I'm not sure but I found on a lot of arcade emulation sites they would obfuscate the name of the seller. They must have a reason, probably for liability purposes. So for whatever their reason is, I decided to do the same. If you do a search on "2TB Hyperspin Arcade Drive" the site where I purchased the drive isn't too difficult to find, and the website URL rhymes with "mom connector dot com". Remember, that's a rhyme. I don't recommend you actually visit momconnector.com.
The only thing I wanted on my machine that this drive didn't include was Visual Pinball/PinMAME. It did have some other pinball emulators (technically pinball is partially emulated and partially simulated because you don't have a physical ball rolling around.) I decided I could try those other pinball emulators and if I still wanted VP I could always install it later on. The nice thing about the Hyperspin front end is that it's extremely configurable, so as long as you have the drive space to install the software you can probably use Hyperspin to launch it.
So now I had the games set up and running on the computer. With that minor hurdle out of the way, I felt comfortable proceeding with the cabinet construction. I didn't want to start building a large, complicated project only to discover that I didn't have anything that would work as the brains of the system.
Before I could actually start building, however, I had to obtain all the materials needed.
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This page last updated on 09/21/2023