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MAME is the Multi Arcade Machine Emulator. On December 24th, 1996, Nicola Salmoria began working on his single hardware emulators(for example Multi-Pac), which he merged into one program during January 1997. He named the accomplishment by the name of Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, or MAME for short (prounounced as the word 'maim').
Printed circuit boards from arcade machines are "dumped" to software form--this process basically sucks all of the information from the ROM chips on the circuit boards and converts it to software. The software files created are called ROMS, which can be run on the MAME emulator. The emulator emulates or mimics the behavior of the original machine. Thus, thousands of old discontinued arcade games, as well as a few recent titles are brought back to life on modern computers! I, like many others, have decided that to authentically recreate the arcade experience, there is no substitute for a real arcade machine. I interfaced the arcade monitor, joysticks, buttons and sound to a PC to create this experience. |
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This is a photo of my arcade machine. It was once a Streetfighter 2 machine that was converted to Chain Reaction-a rare Japanese style game. After about a month of searching for a cabinet, I finally got in touch with Pacific Coast Amusement in Santa Barbara, CA. This cabinet was sold to me for $200. I thought the price was spectacular, given that it included a 25" Wells Gardner Arcade monitor. However, the previous owner had hooked up the monitor without an isolation transformer, which restricts the voltage delivered to the monitor. Thus, the monitor was 'blown' and needed to be repaired. Monitor repair ended up being one of the biggest jobs during this project. |
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