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Good morning! Welcome back to the ValorosoIT channel, the channel dedicated to vintage computers and electronics. For the first time on the channel: Stefan Dawid from Gerundo Retrogaming! What do you want to talk to us about? So much pleasure, thanks for the interview. Today we present an Arcade workstation, actually based on original Arcade components. Obviously, since it cannot transport a 100kg cabin cruiser, it is a condensed version. They are the components of the Arcade, which you said was blown up, basically.
Absolutely yes, in fact here we have all the original components of an 80s Arcade cabinet. Okay. Let's start with the monitor: it is a CRT monitor, as the experts call it, that is, a cathode ray tube monitor, for those who have old televisions in mind. As you can see, properly calibrated, it has extremely bright colors. In fact, you can see it very well. With a focus that one would not expect from an old technology. Other monitors appear to be dancing, colors flickering, but this one is truly... stable. There is a non-trivial calibration job, because clearly these are objects that are starting to be 30-40 years old. So, beyond changing some components, it's really a matter of constantly calibrating it to maintain this image quality.
Excuse my ignorance, but on this monitor here all these calibrations had to be done at the time too or is it something that is only done now because it is 40 years old?
No, they are calibrations that had to be done partly in the factory, partly done by the renter, because the cabinets were rented at the various bars or arcades and therefore, during the installation phase, they were calibrated. Also because they are extremely delicate in transport. That is, in addition to breaking, they will also break. So, once delivered to the bar rather than the games room, there was also optimization and calibration work. Absolutely. That's what you did now to make it so bright, so stable, right?
Correct. Among other things, you give me the opportunity to tell you that the first cabinets, therefore the very early 80s, the classic Pacman, Space Invaders, were single machines, that is, they had very particular graphics. By the way, the graphics were particularly beautiful, some are almost works of art, because the graphics of the game were actually unattractive. Back then, graphics were made for kids. So they were single, single-game cabinets. So there was the graphics which we understand as a kind of sticker printed on the cabinet: you saw a car, a very well made car, then you turned it on and saw four pixels moving.
Exactly, four pixels which in any case for the time, for kids (I experienced it), was one thing... let's remember that the very first ones, like Pong or Breakout, seemed in color, but Space Invaders itself also seemed in color. But the first editions had a nice plastic film so, when you got to that level, it turned green, but simply because the film was glued on. There were these very crude methods. I was saying, single cabin cruisers. Since they were rented, at the beginning of the early '80s, with just a few games, they kept them for perhaps six months, because then the shopkeeper paid rent and took the profit from the coins.
Okay, what happened? That as the number of games increased and the graphic quality also increased, if you had an old one, you had less turnover. So the manufacturer started thinking: let's do something more modular. And so they started making cabinets that were, let's say, universal. So you kept the cabinet, you kept the monitor and you changed the entire board.
The whole card? Not just the ROM, the whole card? Yes, the whole card. So is a card a game?
Absolutely yes. What you see here, by the way, this is an original bracket. It's just the inside of a cabinet. If you want, this, obviously the wood is redone, but the bracket is original, which as you can see is adjustable according to size. There were no standards.
Ah, why could all the cards be different, one smaller, one larger?
They could have been different. Indeed, originally, let's say until the 90s, even the connector was different depending on the brand. So Atari had one, Konami had another.
But now there is a standard, isn't it?
Yes, it's called JAMMA, which stands for Japan Amusement Machinery Manufacturers Association. So Japanese amusement machines. It is still used in the slots, as far as I know, and therefore the connector is the same.
What does it mean? That, for example, the connections with the joystick and buttons and above all the power connection are standard. If not, you had to wire differently every time.
So I was saying, from the single cabinet we have moved on to the multiple cabinet, where you change the card with the new game. They have further evolved this concept. And this is the first card, 1988, and it's an original Capcom card, which is a famous game company that still exists today. If you want, they are the ones who produced Street Fighter 2, which maybe even kids today know. They introduced a further concept: we also make the modular board. So maybe you can't see much, but these are one, two and three cards, three cards one on top of the other. At the base is the processor. Here we have a Motorola 68000 processor, which for the time was about ten times more powerful than any other card.
Like that of the Commodore Amiga. That's right, it was also used in the Apple world. Very successful processor and, as far as I know, also uses Z80s for sound support. So it's very innovative as a concept. Even at development costs: you develop the basic board only once and change the games. So also for the manufacturer... And they are the next two cards.
The reason for the small card is for protection reasons. Because still in the 80s, copyright laws were practically non-existent, there was a flourishing of so-called bootlegs. They were copying and so the original producer said: 'I have to protect myself.' It wasn't enough just to copy the ROMs, but you also had to have the card, the key. The hardware key.
Yes, in fact there are custom chips, as they call them, proprietary. So if you didn't know, at the time they had no way to disassemble it or go and review it. Too bad that this first protection, this system, is called Capcom Power System (CPS). This is version one. They made two more, mainly because they realized that, despite having the key card, Street Fighter itself today is more easily found in bootlegs than originals. At that point they made version two and version three, which have the famous Suicide Battery in here. There is a battery and, if for any reason I unplug this for an extended period of time, so it has no power, the battery will ruin some EPROMs and therefore ruin the program.
Which means you have to take it back to the factory or the manufacturer. So this was their solution. For those who do retrogaming... A bad solution though, eh? Oh yes, very bad. A truly extreme, radical solution: 'Do you want to copy me? I'm dying.
That's right, 'if you try to take me away, you take me away dead'.
Ok, so let's say that nowadays, in fact, for those who do retrogaming there are two types of cards. In fact, having to buy one (because they have a non-trivial cost), I preferred this one to avoid having problems. There are alternative methods, but it's still a headache today.
Yes, well, this could still be a suggestion for those who listen to the video, to perhaps avoid buying cards that could commit suicide from one day to the next. Absolutely, check carefully. They lived for 40 years, then you come along, buy it and bam, it dies.
But then they also, how to say, die of them too because, having... This is from '88, so it has its own age. At the previous event we did, we wanted to show it because, let's say, it was new for our group. Connected... a nice column of smoke and stink... disconnect everything! The power supply was fine, it's exactly the card it had... definitely the card. Yes, it's actually the capacitors, typically, that blow. There was a capacitor, now without boring, to be replaced.
Luckily, because often the damage then cascades and at that point you throw everything away. So far, therefore, we have seen the monitor and the card. The other two key elements are, obviously, the so-called dashboard and the power supply, because both the monitor and the board had a power supply, which was very particular. Plank. This is a reconstructed dashboard, but it absolutely reflects the design of another very famous cabinet, which is the Neo Geo by SNK, because it was particularly ergonomic. As you can see, for the fingers, both in terms of how they positioned the keys, which are not the classic linear ones, and because there is a support surface. Obviously, if one is from the front, now from the side it doesn't work. However, the components: they are all joysticks and buttons still Arcade. These are companies that still exist. They have some peculiarities: for example, there are micro switches.
Since we're talking about the history of information technology, micro switches... This is also a curious discovery, that is, the actuator under the button is a micro switch. Typically, the best ones are Cherry. You will say: 'But who is Cherry?' Well, the one about keyboards. Mechanical IBM keyboards, which many still appreciate because they had Cherry micro switches. The most successful modern gaming keyboards - I'm not a brand to avoid advertising - offer the special version: you pay, with Cherry microswitches, because when I write they have to hear it in all the company offices! Me too. No, but there are, apparently, statistics. I started with those mechanics, but there are statistics that say that, since you have the feedback, you can write faster. Whether it's true or not, you know... Yes, in my case I write quickly, but I delete just as quickly, because maybe you make 10 mistakes, so...
Oh, but also the delete click. The delete click...
Here, the last component of a cabinet is obviously the power supply part. Here we have recreated, as we were saying, a condensed version, so in a single box we find the two power supplies. You see, there are quite a few wires, but we can assure you that everything is done properly, safely.
Yeah, well, I'm not putting my finger in there anyway.
No, no, also because here we have a 220 to 128 alternating transformer.
Ok, 220 is bad for us...
Yes, enough. There is a fuse though, if you want...
Yes, I wouldn't want to test it myself.
Absolutely not. The monitor is powered with these two voltages, while, because otherwise it would have been too simple, beyond all the standards, three different DC voltages are also needed: 5V, 12V and -5V. And they're done by this other power supply.
Ok, so three DC voltages plus the AC for the monitor.
That's right, two alternating voltages. He too has two alternating tensions.
Here is an important thing for those who want to try their hand at restorations: these monitors reach up to 10,000 volts. So, you see there is protection. CRT monitors should never be touched, ever. They have the step-up transformer, which rightly... is very high voltage. So there are methods to download them. Contact the experts because this is the only element where there is a danger.
For those who don't want to deal with all this components, or simply don't have the space for a cabinet, there are modern options today. Of course, there are software options, so MAME or other emulators. But, let's say, for the more purists or for those looking for something that comes closer, you have two examples here. The first one, which is this one, is a Jamma card, so the same standard as bar cards. So a cabinet can be inserted (in the connector) and it is an FPGA, so in a hardware way it emulates games, therefore very faithful. Or, in the second case, you see a Raspberry, which is this other green board. It's a Raspberry with an additional board called Recalbox, which allows, again, to connect it, in this case, as you can see, again to a Jamma comb.
Is this Jamma too?
Yes. And of course they will be multi-game. So, the difference between the two is that the other, for FPGA boards, is pure hardware. So, the first one, white, is called BitKit. Among other things, a very small American company produces it. It depends on what the programmer develops, how faithfully he manages to recreate the hardware of the time. The moment we go to the Raspberry platform, obviously, always with all the trappings of the law, it goes with the ROMs, obviously if you have the game ROMs...
Exactly, this is the substantial difference.
Then I see that there must also be like a WiFi or something on that FPGA, right?
Yes, because obviously there is an ancient component here too, which is the Jamma connector, but then the update happens... We are in 2024, so somehow...
Absolutely yes.
Thank you very much, then, for all the explanations. Thank you. It was a pleasure.
My pleasure. And see you next time!
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Ciao!