| On this page I will tell you what makes up the basic parts of an arcade machine so you will understand this and the many great pages on the web. 1) CABINET-Wood that the game is housed in often decorated on the sides with side art 2)MONITOR- Displays the images produced by the game. Most are standard CRT monitors, but some older ones are vector 3)POWER SUPPLY- Changes volatage from an electrical outlet to voltage useable by the machine. 4)CONTROL PANAL- Contains the joysticks, buttons, steering wheels or any other devices to operate the game. 5)Coin Door- Where coins are placed when you want to play a game 6)Marquee- Graphic at the top of that machine that tells you what the game is. (Some even display game instructions) 7)Wiring Harness- connects all the game's wiring to the PCB 8)PCB- Stands for Printed Circut Board and contains the actual game data. It's connected to the wiring haness by its edge connector. |
| THE JAMMA STANDARD As I said above, the wiring harness connects the cabinet's wiring to the PCB. Before the JAMMA standad was invented in the mid to late 1980's, almost every game would have its own unique wiring, meaning game PCB's could not be simply swapped in and out like they can with JAMMA. If this sounds confusing, imagine having to re-wire a Sega Genesis or Super Nintento every time you wanted to play a new game. With the JAMMA standard, any JAMMA board can be plugged into any JAMMA wired cabinet and be played right away, just like you can plug any Sega Genesis cartridge into your Sega Genesis. The only problem may be the controls if the games are very differnt (if one used a steering wheel and the other used joysticks.) |
| JAMMA + |
| When I first got stated into this hobby, I heard the terms JAMMA and JAMMA+ and was confused. JAMMA+ simply means that a game has more buttons or players than the JAMMA standard can allow for. JAMMA only alows for a max of 2 players and 3 buttons per player. If they need more buttons or players (Like the the 6 button Street Fighter 2 series or a 4 player game like X-Men), they simply add an additional connector ( usually right on the PCB) for them. You can still play a JAMMA+ PCB without these connectors, at least to some extent. I only use the standard 2 players that JAMMA allows for on X-Men and NBA JAM. For games like Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter 2 that need more buttons, these connectors will be necessary to really play the game. So if you see JAMMA+ you will what it means. |