A few years ago I had this sudden desire to start collecting the arcade games I remember from my childhood in the 80's. I'm not completely certain why this notion suddenly took hold of me seemingly out of the blue. Maybe it was the nearly mint Pac-Man machine I kept walking by at the Bistro at Sweet Briar College where I work. It wasn't getting a lot of play there in the late nineties where it had lived a fairly sheltered existance for nearly 20 years.

Continue reading "Introduction" »

Posted by Aaron Mahler at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Back when I was collecting classic arcades I spent quite a bit of time playing with MAME. For the arcade collector MAME makes a superb reference tool. It can help check the behavior of a game you might be repairing. In more than one case it became the source for ROMS to use on my EPROM burner while repairing various games (BurgerTime springs to mind). It was also a great way to preview a game you were unsure about when the opportunity presented itself to purchase said mystery game.

Continue reading "MAME vs. Real" »

Posted by Aaron Mahler at 12:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Building a MAME cabinet can cover a pretty wide array of necessary skills. Granted, the more pre-made components you have available the easier it can be.

Continue reading "Skills Needed" »

Posted by Aaron Mahler at 12:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)