Maker and arcade gaming fanatic Marco Guidolin has designed an adapter which helps to attach arcade cupboards to PCs for emulation — however with out having to hurt the unique wiring on non-JAMMA-standard cupboards, not like conventional approaches to the issue.
“Sadly, largest arcade cupboard producers like SEGA, Nintendo, Atari and others didn’t undertake JAMMA and the destiny of such non-JAMMA cupboards is commonly a ‘brutal’ reconversion: emptied and rewired from scratch. Positively a [despicable], not respectful observe, in the event you ask me,” Guidolin writes by the use of background to the challenge.
“I’m firmly satisfied that we, tinkerers with a gentle spot for the arcade world and free from enterprise constrains ought to fear about remedying this case. That is my small contribution to the problem: an interface with the purpose of simplifying the conversion of devoted, non-JAMMA cupboards, sustaining the unique wiring.”
This two-part adapter goals to avoid wasting basic arcade cupboards from damaging conversion to multi-game PC-connected machines. (📷: Marco Guidolin)
Named for the Japan Amusement Machine and Advertising Affiliation, the JAMMA commonplace was launched in 1985 to make it simpler for arcade operators to maintain clients curiosity by swapping out sport boards in cumbersome arcade cupboards with out having to interchange the entire unit — and to make it simpler for producers to rapidly swap to producing cupboards for the following sizzling sport with out having to retool utterly. Any JAMMA cupboard can, in concept, settle for any JAMMA-compatible motherboard — but when your cupboard is not JAMMA commonplace, your choices are extra restricted.
Guidolin’s CoinOp Join is designed to handle the issue with out damaging basic arcade cabs. The adapter, powered by an Arduino Micro and an Arduino Nano R3 working side-by-side, accepts a collection of “fingerboards” which adapt its wiring for a variety of non-JAMMA cupboards — together with the SEGA X-Board, Tremendous Dangle-On, and Outrun cupboards, the Atari System 2 and Pole Place cupboards, and the NAMCO Pole Place cupboard.
When put in instead of the unique sport board, the CoinOp Join permits the cupboard to be related to a PC to play emulated variations of the unique sport — both whereas the unique board is being despatched off for restore or, within the occasion that it is irreparable, as an outright alternative for the unique sport board. “I’m not suggesting you to interchange your cab authentic sport with a PC to run an indefinite variety of video games. Do not get me mistaken,” Guidolin notes. “Unique {hardware} [has] to be preserved, and you’ll wager there’s nothing extra real than real {hardware}.”
The board will be custom-made for various arcade cupboards utilizing “fingerboards,” like this for the Atari Pole Place cupboard. (📷: Marco Guidolin)
The challenge is an off-shoot of Guidolin’s earlier Raspberry Pi Pico-powered Whirlwind board, which was designed to attach a JAMMA-standard cupboard to a PC — which in flip was a successor to Monsterbash, itself a successor to Earthshaker, which in flip was based mostly on Guidolin’s Jammarduino proof-of-concept adapter design. For JAMMA-standard cupboards, Whirlwind is successfully plug-and-play — however for non-JAMMA cupboards, there’s the CoinOp Join.
Full directions on constructing and utilizing the CoinOp Join can be found in Guidolin’s Instructables write-up, whereas firmware supply code and Gerber information for the primary board and its fingerboard add-ons are printed to GitHub below an unspecified open supply license.