Pacman question

[Skeleton Man]

So the original game PCB's connect to the other side of the JAMMA harness, or you have to buy remakes designed for use with JAMMA ?

I've never seen inside a cabinet, so I don't have much idea how the whole setup works..  (I was thinking something like an old atari.. where you have the PCB which connects to the screen and all the controls, and a catridge (smaller PCB with a plastic box around it) plugs into that..  (and then to change the game you just put in a different catridge)

My other theory was that you had the main PCB and then just a chip (ROM) that held the game.. so if you wanted to change the game, you just swap out the chip..  guessing I'm way off here ?

[dr galaga]

With the "classic" games that you are talking about, you have to swap the whole PCB.  In the mid 80's there were a few where you just replaced a cartridge.  The PCB of my Galaga (Galaga was the first game I got and I started on arcade and video forums.  I just kept the same user name so it would be easier for me to remember.) is close to 18" x 12" and there are actually 2 PBC sandwiched together.  The Centipede I have is only one board, but is even larger (larger than a copy paper box lid).  Pac-Man is a little smaller.  This weekend I have to tinker so I'll try to get a few pics inside of the games.  The PCB is mounted to the side of the cabinet, the power supply is on the bottom and the monitor is mounted to a shelf.  Almost every classic (late 70's, early 80's) game has a different PCB, so ROM switching really isn't an option (except converting Pac-Man to Ms. Pac-Man, since it is the same board, just different chips).  
To the casual observer the Pacman that you are playing is pretty close, but after you play the real thing you will notice some differences.  The ones that caught my eye were: fruit appeared late, if Pac is in an area of no dots he should go faster, when you eat a super pellet the ghosts don't reverse direction, when Pac eats a ghost there is no slight pause of the screen.  If you have $20 (at least here in the US) go out and buy a Pac-Man plug & play.  I'm not sure if I gave this to you before, but there is a lot of Pac info here.

I too will try to take some pics inside some of my machines.

[dr galaga]

I forgot that I have my Asteroids in the middle of the room (have to move it to the in-laws due to lack of space).  So here you go.
The first pic shows how things are situated - in this machine.  Very tippy top is the monitor, below it is a small board (with a big heat sink) is the voltage regulator and audio amp (for some reason Atari built the audio amp in to part of the power supply).  Below that is the PCB - which is almost as deep as the cabinet.  The bottom left is the coin door and coin bucket (with lockable lid).
Pic 2 is the PCB.  The brighter green thing in the lower left is a high score save kit that I added.

[dr galaga]

Next pic shows the actual power supply.

The last picture shows the monitor.  This is a vector monitor, a Pac-Man is a raster monitor (like your TV).

I have to make some adjustments to my Ms. Pac-Man cocktail this weekend.  I'll take some pics so you can see how it is set up (JAMMA adapter and all).

What machines do you have left Markito?  I think you said that you got a Space Invaders.  Nice thing about that board is that it has a composite output on the board, so you can test the PCB directly to a TV or VCR if you think the monitor is bad (my friend who has my old Pepsi machine did this).

[Skeleton Man]

Wow.. I really gotta own one of those things some day..  never heard of vector monitors before.. I'm familliar with raster/vector graphics but I didn't know it extended into hardware..

Are the composite ouputs only for testing, or could you replace the original monitor with a TV set if you had to ?

It almost looks like if I had the PCB and power supply I could improvise some kinda enclosure until I could afford a cabinet. I see you can get RGB to composite adapters for boards that aren't already equipped with a composite output.

I thot arcade machines were a lot more complicated.. but they appear to be built just like a PC with a coin mech ! (enclosure, power supply, mainboard, inputs and display)

Did a lot of games use Z80 processors ? I had a portable (luggable) computer with a Z80 CPU..

Last but not least, do they have like sound/graphics processing units or everything done by a central CPU ?

[Skeleton Man]

It doesn't look like it would be that difficult to build my own arcade machine..  apart from perhaps the monitor.. (I can see those being heavy and expensive)

Not too expensive for a monitor. $100-$200 used.

[Skeleton Man]

I see the idea behind the JAMMA harness now..  you can swap the PCB for any other JAMMA board as you please..  and it even looks like you can get adapters to convert older boards to JAMMA..

Are the monitors cross-compatible ? (e.g. any raster game works with any raster monitor)

I know you can get adapters for composite/s-video..  so I wonder if you can get vga adapters..  (so I could substitute a CRT computer monitor)..

All of this is wishful thinking at the moment.. but I'm thinking I can build my own rig as I can afford it..  ($50 here and $100 there I can manage..  $500 or $600 in one shot isn't gonna happen)

Can you buy the wooden cabinets in a flat-pack at all ?

[SIGNGUY]

I'm not to into the PCB, Jamma, Gamma stuff,, but All I know is the original is much better than the computer webgame you linked to earlier in the post.. at least buy the one Doc told you about from Namco until the real one comes around... one will turn up for you eventually in your price range, just keep an eye out.  I just bought the 96 in 1 Game Board from Mikes, haven't installed it yet as I'm scared to touch the board because I feel I might break something... I hope to tackle this over the weekend.  any tips from anyone on the install of this thing would be great.