Horizontal vs Vertical for MAME cabs

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 3:55 pm

Everyone making a MAME cabinet has a choice - horizontal or vertical monitor? The best choice is a big honking horizontal, because you can just deal with black bars on the sides for vertical games. But what do the GAMES demand?

I am eliminating the following, because I already got 'em:

HORIZONTAL:
Crystal Castles
Xenophobe
ZooKeeper

VERTICAL:
Mr. Do!
Tempest
Gyruss
Spy Hunter
Ms. Pac-Man
Pac-Man, thanks to multikit
Pengo, thanks to multikit
Space Invaders, thanks to multikit
Super Pac-Man

And I am eliminating the following trackball games, because my MAME cab will not have a trackball:
Centipede, Millipede, Missile Command, Marble Madness, Quantum

That leaves us will the following must-have games, that any MAME cab worth its salt should be able to play:

Donkey Kong (vertical)
Robotron (horizontal)
Gauntlet (horitzontal)
Paperboy (horizontal)
1942 (vertical... I think)
Qix (vertical)
Joust (horizontal)
Sinistar: actually, unplayable without the 49-way stick, so nevermind.
RoadBlasters (I know this is a terrible game, but there was one at the bowling alley our parents bowled at when Mike and I were young. I have a shitload of nostalgia for it.) (horizontal)
Major Havoc (horizontal)
Kung Fu Master (another horrible game, but one that was on location at Krony's Pizza in Hamlin. So.) (horizontal)
Defender & Stargate (horizontal)
Asteroids & Asteroids Deluxe (horizontal... this was the Vectrex's issue with emulating this correctly, as the Vec is vertical)
Galaga (vertical)
Dig Dug (can't remember)
Tron (er.... can't remember)
Discs of Tron (horizontal)
Warlords (N/A, thanks to 4 paddles on my Atari 8-bit) (horizontal)
Wizard of Wor (horizontal)
BurgerTime (horizontal)
Q*bert (vertical)
Elevator Action (horizontal)
Dragon's Lair / Space Ace (horizontal)
Track and Field (horizontal)

... OK, this looks like horizontal is killin'. I'll just buy a Donkey Kong.

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 6:02 pm

RoadBlasters was excellent. You suck.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 7:02 pm

Why not just buy a large LCD and shove a computer under it?

Anyway... Guess there isn't any interest in shmups; just a slight nostalgia for a few well known titles.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 7:59 pm

pinback wrote:RoadBlasters was excellent. You suck.

You could continue just by putting quarters in it. It was kind of a cash grab. That's all I mean. Can we still be friends?

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 8:01 pm

Anonymous wrote:Why not just buy a large LCD and shove a computer under it?

Well, if I did that, there wouldn't be an exposed anode cap that would electrocute me the moment I got careless. Where's the adventure???

Actually, I'll probably go that route - actually, depending on price, I should go for a 25" CRT to begin with. I have no idea how an arcade monitor would react to an NES or 8-bit emulator, for instance. With the computer monitor is all known quantities.

Anyway... Guess there isn't any interest in shmups; just a slight nostalgia for a few well known titles.

I love them! I just forgot about them (except for 1942) as I was reading off KLOV's Top 100 list. The freeware shoot-em-ups are fantastic these days. That'd be a strong point for a vertical monitor EXCEPT that I think that a lot of really good, free shmups were made in the present day, on our (obviously) horizontal computer monitors.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 8:38 pm

No real use for a vertical (if anything, just a large enough horizontal moniter with black bars) but I've seen dedicated setups of elongated Sony's of exotic design, for playing Cave's older games (Radiant Silvergun and everything else).

When I suggested shmups, I meant anything pre-2000 and not the freeware group; more the mame set up, where it is touching territory of the more dedicated fan base (remember reading a discussion thread about the correct refresh rate for DoDonPachi, which errupted into a minor conflict other the type of CRT to use).

Since were talking about this, why not throw a dual boot MythTV/dedicated Mame distro together?

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 10:28 am

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:
pinback wrote:RoadBlasters was excellent. You suck.
You could continue just by putting quarters in it. It was kind of a cash grab. That's all I mean. Can we still be friends?

Not until you acknowledge the awesomeness of the game's music, and how it would kick into that drum solo/final riff thing as soon as you crossed the finish line, right in time with the soundtrack.

Not until you acknowledge that.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 11:28 am

pinback wrote:
Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:
pinback wrote:RoadBlasters was excellent. You suck.
You could continue just by putting quarters in it. It was kind of a cash grab. That's all I mean. Can we still be friends?
Not until you acknowledge the awesomeness of the game's music, and how it would kick into that drum solo/final riff thing as soon as you crossed the finish line, right in time with the soundtrack.

Not until you acknowledge that.

I will play tonight and acknowledge that riff.

Did I tell you about how I got it to work with the Major Havoc roller nicely? Should I tell you?

Jack Straw · Post by **Jack Straw** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 12:30 pm

You should build 2 cabs - one vertical and one horizontal.

AArdvark · Post by **AArdvark** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 3:09 pm

Make the cabinet so the screen slowly rotates 90 degrees and chunks to a stop when a vertical game is selected. That would be cool! Totally impractical, but COOL!

THE
ROBO-GAME
AARDVARK

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 4:00 pm

Jeff is making two cabs (a horizontal and vertical). I only have room for one MAME cab, though. I am completely out of space - I have ten machines downstairs, and that's all I'll ever be able to have. Xeno's gotta go to get another in. Which is fine.

Vark - there have been people experimenting with just that! I'll see if I can find pics.