MerlinArcade

Ok but it's hard to convince in court that the cabinet cost money but the MAME inside was free. Follow me?

Yeah Jason knows already and as for Windows, my cabinets will come with a PC in it already installed and setup. I think that this 2nd approach of letting clients download a zip file with MAME already configured to match with the cabinets ROMs directories and the X-arcade tankstick controller will be a safe bet for me. The more legal responsabilities I can dump on my clients, the safer I am. After all, it's never the end user that gets sued, it's always the front company.

I will have all the folders ready including Launchbox and BB and also have the USB stick for them to copy the ROMs they want to add in the cabinet but tell them that if they do that, they take full responsability for that meaning that they will have to buy the CDs or cartridge to be legal like X-Arcade does. I know that I cannot sell MAME but don't know the difference between selling the cabinet and giving away MAME in it for free and sell the cabinet and let them download on my website the MAME software so that they install it. If the cabinet comes already with MAME, them they may think that I'm selling MAME while in fact it's free but because they will be the ones downloading it then I won't have to face those issues because the cabinet will not come with the ROMs nor MAME already installed.

The key I guess is to sell the cabinets and let the users download MAME, the ROMs and so on.

"Bung maintains copies of a program on the Internet that allows users to make unauthorized copies of the games." http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Nintendo_of_America_v._Bung_Enterprises

Have you heard about the Doctor V64 from Bung? You mount a Nintendo 64 console on top of it and it "makes a backup" of each game you load. They got sued but not because of the copy because that was legal since you bought the cartridge but because Bung would connect their device to their internet and upload the backup to their server and would let clients download the backup from their website into a Doctor V64 device without having a physical copy of the original Nintendo 64 game.

Well I won't have to hire a lawyer, X-Gaming already did and that's exactly what they are doing here with their cabinets. You buy the CDs, any CDs or plastic cartridge of a game and it looks like you have the right to play them in a different format. It's similar to the music industry that lets you rip music CD's wav format and save it into a different format (MP3) and let you play them in a different player (iPod). In the gaming industry it would be ripping the gaming CD's ISO format and save it into a different format (ROM) and let you play them in a different player (MAME).

EXACTLY! Nobody is going to ask you how you managed to extract the ROM files from the CDs. you can always use the Miranda Rights and answer "I have the right to remain silent here right?" hehe However, that doesn't solve my problem. I got the CDs to make it legal but can't find the ROM compilations anywhere beside copies of ISOs while I need ROM files and I don't want to download 250 freaking ROM files 1 by 1 here.

I know but ever since I started talking about making my own cabinet, I got demands on created one for others so I might even go into mass production and I go there, I will need to be legit.

Well if you downloaded the ROMs from the net it's illegal but that's why I am asking you how to extract the ROM games from the CD's ISO. https://www.amazon.com/Atari-Anthology-PlayStation-2/dp/B0002W5S0I/ So you would go to Amazon, and buy say Atari's Anthology in PS 2 format then you can ROM those games in MAME.

According to the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) which is basic the legal part of the gaming industry, we are allowed to make a backup of the games that we have purchased, in my case, these compilations I posted above. Also, I cannot sell, share or give away a ROM file unless it comes with the CDs so the way X-Gaming are doing it, they buy PS2 game compilation CDs to pay for the rights to play them and then their cabinets can run the ROM files using MAME. https://shop.xgaming.com/pages/x-arcade-machine-included-games

I am trying to make my MAME cabinet legit by avoid downloading the ROM files. I've been talking to the gaming industry these past few days and it looks that the cabinet can be legal if I have backup of the games from the CDs themselves but I can't find the ROM files for each one of these major compilations like X-Gaming have done for their X-Arcade Cabinets. Atari® Anthology Namco® Museum 50th Anniversary Midway® Arcade Origins Capcom® Classics Collection Taito:® Legends They buy the PS2 CDs and place them in the cabinet but the CDs are just stored on a shelf and not used because the cabinet run the ROMs from MAME. I need to do the same thing and make my cabinets legit and buy the CDs on Amazon but can't seem to find the ROM for these compilations except finding them 1 by 1 and there are over 250 games here. The compilations that I can find are the ISOs from the CDs themselves which MAME cannot run.

Say I buy the PS2 CD Atari Anthology (which has a few dozens arcade and 2600 games in it) but I want to extract from the CD's ISO file all the ROMs of each game so that I can play them in my PC using MAME. How would you go about doing this? Merlin

Alright thanks Oops! sorry... I clicked the like button too. ;-)

Is there a way to skip the game details/menu page that we see just before the game loads? Right now it goes from this nice looking page... To this ugly page...

I sure will. Is there a forum on self building arcade cabinets here?

Yup. After that, I might take the plunge in trying to sell them in mass. We'll see about that. This could be the 1st IKEA style arcade cabinet coming in 4-5 small boxes that you can assemble within 1 hour instead of the typical fridge bulky cabinet that weights 500 lb that very few people are willing to start building on their own because the task is huge.

Good. You continue to work on the software part, I am working on the hardware part. This baby should come to life in the next few days.

Nice but you will have to shrink it a lot to fit vertical screens. Right now there's too much stuff on the width side.

There...happy now ;-) Thank you anyway. :-D

Well in that case a big thanks to you for your help. I'm sure for now this thread can help a few others who want a vertical theme and want to put their own image in the BG.

Here are my 3 screenshots on both the Platform and Games side. Arcade Platform Arcade Games Atari 2600 Games. It doesn't have a screenshot of the game play but it will soon.

You just beat Jason to the punch here because you found a way to create a beautiful vertical theme. If you want to use my BG then just rename the theme Maddoc1007-Merlin-Vertical or something like that but you did all the work so use your own BG and take all the credit you deserve it.

Try this image. It's bigger so the details look better. Make sure you see it in full size before you save it. It's a 1024 X 768 BG. Thanks again my friend you're one hell of a pro.

Holy sh*t you made it work!!! Great job. So what was the problem?