MAMEWorld Forums - EmuChat - Re: Confused about the new MAME license and FAQs...

> Basically I was trying to find out if I could put one custom system together using a
> Raspberry Pi/PC, a CRT TV, and a few PCBs (kind of like this Instructable, but with a
> coin acceptor) as a summer project to make a few bucks while I'm at school, without
> dealing with boatloads of legal red tape and breaking a bajillion copyright laws.
>
> Given that you advised an attorney (which isn't feasible for me since I'm not trying
> to make that kind of a profit), I will either get the manufacturers' permission and
> proceed (not likely that they'll respond/agree, though) or just forget about it.

If you're that technically inclined and would actually be buying the PCBs, why not use it as an educational opportunity to build a proper JAMMA cabinet and a set of custom-to-JAMMA edge connector converters for the games you want to run. Depending on how old (or new) the games are, you may not even need that last step.

In that case, it entirely obviates the need to contact the original manufacturers, who have a next to zero-percent chance of responding or saying okay in the first place. Be aware, though, that the more popular classic games are getting more and more rare by the year, so the actual cost of obtaining the original PCBs for you to then dump the ROMs for use with MAME would be cost-prohibitive if this is something you were actually hoping to make any money on. Even if you did end up going the MAME route, a Raspberry Pi is not going to provide anywhere near an acceptable level of performance on modern versions of MAME, so then you're out of pocket to build the computer inside as well. You're looking at a lot out of pocket just to make your idea work, even if we ignore the potential legal issues.

Anyway, person-to-person, my advice is to go the whole nine and make your own cabinet that runs actual PCBs, or make your own MAME cabinet that you operate for the fun of it, or shelve the idea entirely for now. The level of interest that the majority of people at universities actually have (rather than profess to have) in classic arcade games other than a handful of mega-classics is rather low, after all. If it were high, the arcade business would still be booming, but from everything that I've seen, arcades are in fact shuttering left and right.