Imbecile Inquires Information In reference to JAMMA

Tech Talk
1

So I’ve been thinking about selling my car to afford a Jamma board -Im just kidding, dont get riled up- but seriously, I just like knowing how things work so can any professionals answer my questions?

  1. So the beholden harness; that itself is wired to controls, and the power supply correct?
    1b) if so, that means that the harness is both the input and the output, right?
    1c) how does one play four player games on a jamma?

  2. How do those console-to-JAMMA adapters work?

  3. What is the display plugged into?

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1a/1b) Yes. JAMMA is all of the above. Power input, control input, video/audio output.
1c) Most likely 4-player games aren’t JAMMA, or not only JAMMA. For example, CPS2 is JAMMA, but games like Alien vs Predator uses the Kick Harness for player 3.

  1. Console to JAMMA adapters (ie, using a console in a JAMMA cab or with a Supergun): basically decodes the controller inputs into discrete directions/buttons, draws the RGBS signal from somewhere, and outputs them onto a JAMMA male connector.

  2. The display is connected to the video output lines on the JAMMA connector.

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3

you’re a godsend, alright, i forgot before, but further questioning:

-I’ve read that some boards are slightly different, such as the Neo Geo MVS boards, how do different manufacturers boards differ?

-I saw this board switcher, do the VGA ports override the normal video output?

4

  • MVS boards are different in the sense that the audio lines in particular are different than the JAMMA standard.
    Look at pins L/M/10/11

    Put an MVS board in a JAMMA cab, and you’ll likely get garbled audio.
    Put a JAMMA board in an MVS cab, and you’ll fry something.

  • That board switcher looks like it takes a VGA input signal (and combined with controller inputs), and somehow converts it to a JAMMA edge output; not the other way around. It looks like a cheap Chinese board, though, so you’re likely looking at a noticeable amount of lag.

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5

And alot of other boards have their own harnesses and board headers for additional I/O.

Example: Some Konami and Neo Geo boards have a 4 pin connector for Stereo audio.

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