"There are too many unforgettable memories in the 1980s; At the end of the cold war, Quatro carbonated drinks, Korg Polysix synthesizer, and Commodore 64 home computers. But for some young people, these are not as persuasive as arcade games, or that kind of sweet rebellion. Shrouded in smoke and 8-bit sound effects one after another, they are the caves to explore in the squeezed time: 50 cents and a game currency can make you spend the whole lunch time, honing your skills in these games: little bee, city King Kong, centipede, planetary shooting, Miss bean eater, fire phoenix, r-rype, King Kong, thunder plan, iron gloves, Street overlord, surpass racing, Defender battle
These games, and the arcade machines that play them, are still as attractive as they were 30 years ago. Unlike when you were young, now you can play without a pocket of change, and finally let you surpass those rich children and their endless' keep playing '. So it's time to build your own arcade game console based on Linux and challenge the highest score in the past.
We will include all the steps to turn a cheap arcade game machine shell into a Linux driven multi platform retro game system. But that doesn't mean you have to build the same system. For example, you can abandon the box itself, which is large, heavy and potentially carcinogenic, and put the internal control core into an old game console or the same size box. In other words, you can simply give up the small raspberry pie and replace the brain of the system with a more powerful Linux host. For example, it can be used as an ideal platform for running steamos to play better modern arcade games.
In the next few pages, we will build an arcade game console based on raspberry pie. You should also find many ideas to apply to your own project, even if they are different from our project. Then because we do this with an extremely powerful MAME, you can run it on almost any platform.
We completed this project before the B + model came out. It should also work on the updated motherboard. You should not need a USB hub with power supply
statement
Emphasize that the electronic devices we tamper with may give you an electric shock. Please make sure that any changes you make have been checked by a qualified electronic engineer. We won't discuss how to get games in depth, but there are many legal resources, such as old games based on MAME simulator and newer commercial games.
You need the following hardware
A raspberry pie and a 4gbsd card
One LCD display supporting HDMI
Joystick or
One JAMA arcade game console enclosure
J-pac or i-pac
Step 1: arcade cabinet
The arcade cabinet itself is the biggest challenge. We found a second-hand double bubble dragon game console in the early 1990s on eBay. Then it cost £ 220 to deliver it behind a station wagon. The price of such cabinets is uncertain. We've seen a lot less than £ 100. On the other hand, many people are willing to spend thousands of dollars to buy a complete machine with original side stickers.
There are two main considerations when deciding to buy an arcade cabinet. The first is its size: it's big and heavy. It takes up space and needs at least two people to move. If you are not short of money, you can also buy DIY cabinets or new smaller ones, such as those suitable for the table. Then, the wine cabinet can be very suitable.
These cabinets may be cheap, but they are heavy. Don't move alone. Some older machines may also require a little care, such as repainting and some repair work
In addition to a more realistic game experience, a great reason to buy the original arcade cabinet is to use the original controller. Most machines bought from eBay support two people to play at the same time, with two joysticks and some buttons for each player, plus the selection buttons for player one and player two. In order to be compatible with more games, we suggest you find a model with 6 buttons for each player. This is a general configuration. Maybe you also want to see a console that supports more than two players, or one that has space for other game controllers, such as an arcade trackball (required for games like crazy marbles), or a knob (playing bricks). These can be easily installed later, because there are ready-made modern USB devices.
The controller is the second consideration, and we think it is the most important, because it is used to turn your shaking and tapping into actions in the game. When you are going to buy a cabinet, you need to consider something called JAMA, which is the abbreviation of Japan entertainment Machinery Manufacturers Association. JAMMA is an industry standard in arcade game consoles. It defines the connection mode between the circuit board containing game chips and game controllers, as well as the coin mechanism. It is an interface circuit that connects all cables of two players' rocker and buttons, and unifies them into a standard connector. JAMMA is the size and pin definition of this connector, which means that no matter what the motherboard you install, the button and controller will be connected to the same functional interface, so the owner of the arcade only needs to replace the appearance picture on the cabinet to attract new players.
But first of all, let's remind you that the power supply on the JAMMA connector is 12V, which is usually supplied by the power module in most arcades. In order to avoid damage caused by accidental short circuit or accidentally dropping a screwdriver, we completely cut off the power supply. We will not use any power pins on this connector at any stage later in this tutorial（ Click Next)
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Step 2: j-pac
It's very convenient. You can buy a device that connects the JAMA connector in the arcade cabinet and the USB port of the computer, and converts the rocker and key actions on the cabinet into (configurable) keyboard commands. They can be used to control any game you want to play in Linux. This device is called j-pac (www.ultimarc.com/jpac.html – about £ 54).
Its biggest feature is not its connectivity; It's the way it processes and converts input signals, because it's much better than a standard USB handle. Each input has its own independent interrupt, and there is no limit to the number of buttons or rocker directions pressed or pressed at the same time. This is very critical for games like street overlord, because they rely on the combination of keys pressed quickly at the same time, and it is also essential to deliver a fatal blow to bad opponents who press all their keys after they get angry. Many other controllers, especially those that generate keyboard input, are limited by the simultaneous six inputs of the USB controller they use, as well as the special handling of a pile of alt, shift and Ctrl keys. J-pac can also access inclination sensor and even some coin devices, which can work under Linux without pre configuration.
Another option is a similar device called i-pac. It does the same thing as j-pac, except that it does not support the Java connector. This means that you can't connect the jam controller, but at the same time, you can design your own controller layout and connect each control to the i-pac. This may be a little difficult for the first project, but it is the way many arcade fans choose, especially when they want to design a control panel that supports four players, or a panel that integrates many different types of controls. The way we adopt is not what we recommend. We have transformed a second-hand x-arcade tank control panel with input problems, replaced it with a new rocker and button, and then connected it to a new JAMA interface. In this way, a very good place is that we can buy all the wires used at a cheap price (£ 8), including the edge plug of the circuit board.
The figure above shows the j-pac we have installed on the cabinet. The blue and red wires on the right are connected to the additional player buttons 1 and 2 on our cabinet
Whether you choose i-pac or j-pac, the keys they generate are the default values of MAME. That is, there is no need to manually adjust the input after running the simulator. For example, player 1 will map the keyboard direction keys to up, down, left and right by default, and map the left Ctrl, left alt, space and left shift keys to buttons 1-4. But the really useful function is, for us, a double key shortcut. When you press and hold the player 1 button, you can enter MAME's own setting interface by pulling the rocker of player 1 to the lower position, issuing the P button to pause the game, pushing it to the upper position to adjust the volume, and pushing it to the right position. These special combination keys are cleverly designed and will not cause any interference to normal game playing, because they will take effect only after pressing and holding the player 1 button, and then you can do anything you need while you are running the game. For example, you can completely reconfigure MAME, use its own menu, and change input binding and sensitivity while playing games.
Finally, press and hold the player 1 button and then press the player 2 button to exit MAME. It is very useful if you use the Startup menu or MAME manager, because they will automatically start the game, and then you can start playing another game as fast as possible.
We have adopted a more conservative approach to the display screen, taking away the original bulky and broken CRT of the arcade and replacing it with a low-cost LCD display. This has many advantages. First, the monitor has an HDMI interface so that it can easily connect directly to raspberry pie or a modern graphics card. Second, you don't need to set the low-frequency refresh mode required to drive the arcade screen, and you don't need the special graphics hardware to drive it. Third, this is also the safest way, because the arcade screen often has no protective measures behind the fuselage, so that the high voltage is only a few inches away from your hand. It doesn't mean that you can't use CRT at all, if that's the experience you pursue - this is also the most real way to obtain the game experience you pursue, but we have fully fine tuned the CRT simulation part in the software. We are very satisfied with the output, and we don't need to use that old CRT, which makes us happy.
You may also need to consider using an old 4:3 aspect ratio LCD instead of a modern wide screen product, because the 4:3 mode is more practical for playing vertical or horizontal screen games. For example, playing vertical screen shooting games, such as lightning, if you use a widescreen display, there will be a black bar on both sides of the screen. These black bars are usually used to display some game guidelines, or you can turn the screen 90 degrees so that you can use each pixel, but this is not practical unless you only play vertical screen games or have an easy to operate rotating support.
Loading the display is also important. If you remove the CRT, there is no ready-made place to install LCD. Our way is to buy some medium density fiberboard (MDF) and cut it into a place suitable for the original CRT. Fix it. Let's put a cheap VESA support in the middle. The VESA base can be used to mount most screens, large or small. Finally, because there is smoke glass in front of our cabinet, we must ensure that the brightness and contrast are set high enough.
Step 3: assembly
Now several large hardware parts have been selected, and the final location of the arcade cabinet has been basically determined. It is not too difficult to assemble these parts together. We safely disassembled the power input part behind the cabinet, and then connected a compliant socket in the space behind the cabinet. Connected to the wire behind the power switch.
Almost all arcade cabinets have a power switch at the upper right corner, but usually there are a large number of wires hinged on it at the lower part of the cabinet, that is, our equipment can use ordinary power connectors. There is also a fluorescent tube on our cabinet, which is used as the backlight of the lampshade on the machine. Before, it was directly connected to the power supply. We can use an ordinary plug to keep it connected to the power supply. When you turn on the power switch on the cabinet, the current will flow into all parts of the cabinet - your raspberry pie and display will turn on, and everything will be ready.
The j-pac module plugs directly into the JAMA interface, but you may need a little manual adjustment. Standard JAMA only supports up to three keys per player (although many informally support four), while j-pac can support six. In order to connect additional buttons, you need to connect one end of the button switch to the GND of the j-pac and the other end to the screw fixed input on the edge of the j-pac board. They are labeled as 1sw4, 1sw5, 1sw6, 2sw4, 2sw5 and 2sw6. J-pac also has a direct sound connection, but we found that there is too much noise to use. Instead, connect the speaker on the cabinet to a second-hand SoundBlaster power amplifier, and then connect it to the audio output port of raspberry pie. The sound does not have to be pure, but the volume must be loud enough.
Our raspberry pie has been connected to the left of j-pac, and the display and USB hub have been connected
Then connect the j-pac or i-pac module to your PC or raspberry pie through the PS2 to USB cable, or directly to the PS2 interface of the PC. If you want to use the old PS2 connector, there is another requirement. Your computer must be old enough and this one, but we found that the performance of USB is the same. Of course, this can't be used for raspberry pie without PS2, and don't forget that raspberry pie also needs power. We generally recommend using a USB hub with power supply, because lack of power supply is the most common mistake for raspberry pie not to work. You also need to make sure that the raspberry pie network works, either through Ethernet (perhaps using a power line adapter hidden in the cabinet), or through a wireless USB device. The network is critical because after the raspberry pie is hidden in the cabinet, you can reconfigure it without connecting to the keyboard or computer
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