Arcade cabinet
An arcade cabinet, also known as an arcade machine or a coin-op cabinet or coin-op machine, is the housing within which an arcade game's electronic hardware resides. Most cabinets designed since the mid-1980s conform to the Japanese Amusement Machine Manufacturers Association wiring standard. Some include additional connectors for features not included in the standard.
Parts of an arcade cabinet
Because arcade cabinets vary according to the games they were built for or contain, they may not possess all of the parts listed below:- A display output, on which the game is displayed. They may display either raster or vector graphics, raster being most common. Standard resolution is between 262.5 and 315 vertical lines, depending on the refresh rate. Slower refresh rates allow for better vertical resolution. Monitors may be oriented horizontally or vertically, depending on the game. Some games use more than one monitor. Some newer cabinets have monitors that can display high-definition video.
- An audio output for sound effects and music, usually produced from a sound chip.
- Printed circuit boards or arcade system boards, the actual hardware upon which the game runs. Hidden within the cabinet. Some systems, such as the SNK Neo-Geo MVS, use a mainboard with game carts. Some mainboards may hold multiple game carts as well.
- A power supply to provide DC power to the arcade system boards and low voltage lighting for the coin slots and lighted buttons.
- A marquee, a sign above the monitor displaying the game's title. They are often brightly colored and backlit.
- A bezel, which is the border around the monitor. It may contain instructions or artwork.
- A control panel, a level surface near the monitor, upon which the game's controls are arranged. Control panels sometimes have playing instructions. Players often pile their coins or tokens on the control panels of upright and cocktail cabinets.
- Coin slots, coin returns and the coin box, which allow for the exchange of money or tokens. They are usually below the control panel. Very often, translucent red plastic buttons are placed in between the coin return and the coin slot. When they are pressed, a coin or token that has become jammed in the coin mechanism is returned to the player. See coin acceptor. In some arcades, the coin slot is replaced with a card reader that reads data from a game card bought from the arcade operator.
- Service menu/mode control panel, which controls settings of the game and performs maintenance mode and diagnostics test. It is usually behind the cover for coin slots, coin return, and coin box.
Types of cabinets
There are many types of arcade cabinets, some being custom-made for a particular game; however, the most common are the upright, the cocktail or table, and the sit-down.Upright cabinets
Upright cabinets are the most common in North America, with their design heavily influenced by Computer Space and Pong. While the futuristic look of Computer Space outer fiberglass cabinet did not carry forward, both games did establish separating parts of the arcade machine for the cathode-ray tube display, the game controllers, and the computer logic areas. Atari also had placed the controls at a height suitable for most adult players to use, but close enough to the console's base to also allow children to play. Further, the cabinets were more compact than traditional electro-mechanical games and did not use flashing lights or other means to attract players. The side panels of Atari's Pong had a simple wood veneer finish, making it easier to market to non-arcade venues, such as hotels, country clubs, and cocktail bars. In the face of growing competition, Atari started to include cabinet art and attraction panels around 1973–1974, which soon became a standard practice.Arcade cabinets today are usually made of wood and metal, about six feet or two meters tall, with the control panel set perpendicular to the monitor at slightly above waist level. The monitor is housed inside the cabinet, at approximately eye level. The marquee is above it, and often overhangs it.
In Computer Space, Pong and other early arcade games, the CRT was mounted 90 degrees from the ground, facing directly outward. Arcade game manufacturers began incorporating design principles from older electro-mechanical games by using CRTs mounted at a 45-degree angle, facing upward and away from the player but towards a one-way mirror that reflected the display to the player. Additional transparent overlays could be added between the mirror and the player's view to include additional images and colorize the black-and-white CRT output, as is the case in Boot Hill. Other games, like Warrior, used a one-sided mirror and included an illuminated background behind the mirror, so that the on-screen characters would appear to the players as if they were on that background. With the advent of color CRT displays, the need for the mirror was eliminated. The CRT was subsequently positioned at an angle permitting a typical adult player to look directly at the screen.
Controls are most commonly a joystick for as many player as the game allows, plus action buttons and "player" buttons which serve the same purpose as the start button on console gamepads. Trackballs are sometimes used instead of joysticks, especially in games from the early 1980s. Spinners are used to control game elements that move strictly horizontally or vertically, such as the paddles in Arkanoid and Pong. Games such as Robotron: 2084, Smash TV and Battlezone use double joysticks instead of action buttons. Some versions of the original Street Fighter had pressure-sensitive rubber pads instead of buttons.
If an upright is housing a driving game, it may have a steering wheel and throttle pedal instead of a joystick and buttons. If the upright is housing a shooting game, it may have light guns attached to the front of the machine, via durable cables. Some arcade machines had the monitor placed at the bottom of the cabinet with a mirror mounted at around 45 degrees above the screen facing the player. This was done to save space, as a large CRT monitor would otherwise poke out the back of the cabinet. To correct for the mirrored image, some games had an option to flip the video output using a dip switch setting. Other genres of games such as Guitar Freaks feature controllers resembling musical instruments.
Upright cabinet shape designs vary from the simplest symmetric perpendicular boxes as with Star Trek to complicated asymmetric forms.
Games are typically for one or two players; however, games such as Gauntlet feature as many as four sets of controls.
Sit-down or table cabinets
Cocktail cabinets
Cocktail cabinets are shaped like low, rectangular tables, with the controls usually set at either of the broad ends, or, though not as common, at the narrow ends, and the monitor inside the table, the screen facing upward. Two-player games housed in cocktails were usually alternant, each player taking turns. The monitor reverses its orientation for each player, so the game display is properly oriented for each player. This requires special programming of the cocktail versions of the game. The monitor's orientation is usually in player two's favor only in two-player games when it is player two's turn and in player one's favor all other times. Simultaneous, four-player games that are built as a cocktail include Warlords, and others.In Japan, many games manufactured by Taito from the 1970s to the early 1980s have the cocktail versions prefixed by "T.T" in their titles.
Cocktail cabinet versions were usually released alongside the upright version of the same game. They were relatively common in the 1980s, especially during the golden age of arcade video games; however, they have since lost popularity. Their main advantage over upright cabinets was their smaller size, making them seem less obtrusive, although requiring more floor space. The top of the table was covered with a piece of tempered glass, making it convenient to set drinks on ; they were often seen in bars and pubs.