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I don't Know a lot about Mame systems, but a guy at the show last month offered me a 4 player cabinet with 86000 games and 23000 songs and 6000 videos for $3000.
Is this a good deal?
What should I look for?
Any suggestions would be helpful
Thanks
Ron

It depends on the kind of hardware you are getting and how much value you place on getting the roms.

Thanks Rick
 Is there anything I should avoid?

It depends on what you are looking for?  Do you want an arcade style cabinet?  Or do you want just a computer with the mame stuff in it?  The best thing you can do for mame is buy a good set of joysticks.  I personally love this one:

http://www.hanaho.com/Products/HotRodJoystick.php (http://www.hanaho.com/Products/HotRodJoystick.php)

If you get the arcade style cabinet, some sort of joystick setup will already be included.  Ask what type of interface was used to link up the joysticks to the computer running mame.  You want something that is using this interface:

http://www.ultimarc.com/ipac1.html (http://www.ultimarc.com/ipac1.html)

This is important because most standard keyboards have a 6 simultaneous key press limitation.  On some games, this can become a problem.  This interface fixes that issue.  That site also has lots of other hardware that can be used to make a nice mame machine if you want to build it yourself.

One of m projects is to make a Spongebob Squarepants wooden cabinet with a touchscreen monitor and some PC guts in the inside so it can be used both as a computer and a mame cabinet for my kid.  (Spongebob is really easy as he is mostly square)  I was even thinking of putting in WSM550 guts inside, "Spongebob Slotpants"

The Game comes set up with a 27 flat CRT arcade cabinet, 4 player control panel w/happ joysticks, roller ball, knob control for arkinoid and tempest, gun, and driving set up
I don't know about the computer stuff yet as I didn't spend time talking to him just playing. I did notice in the menu that he had all 86000 games loaded. also he had every
old console game on the menu. I did play Tempest and Golden Tee and they played like the real deal and I want to replace one of my stand up cabinets anyway so instead of going jamma
and swapping out boards all the time I thought this might be perfect

Looks like a big setup if you are talking 27" display.  $3K might be a fair price as some "pro outfits" like ArcadePC charge upwards of $5K for the cabinet alone.

Yeah it was a $5400 set up but a show special for $2900 plus delivery
Is there a way to back up all these games? As you know I don't do well with computers or slots, but I cook a mean Italian Beef samwich

Inside the mame folder(pc) there is rom folder which holds each game known as a rom file
this folder can be many gigs in size mine is like 13gigs and thats 5000 games worth
but take note that when it might have 86000 games most are clones of 1 game so you could
have 1 game title say space invaders but on your master list you have 15 of them being the same game be it u.s. version,japanese,ect
I think the other games you might have are nes,super nintendo,sega which there are many free sites to download and emulator
which plays the game rom so what it comes down to is what pc is inside the cabinet also happ controls work the best in these setups
well built joystick,gun,rollerball are a plus so at 3k maybe not a bad deal but if you like to tinker you could build it yourself for less
all depending on what pc this thing has loaded into it being vid card ram memory ect.

 

You are right I remember seeing 15 versions of a few different games and he even had all the vectrex games
He did use all happ controls though. I'm going to see if I can go to his shop and get the computer spc's b4
I buy. As for me tinkering That's what the beef and beer is for The Repairman who fixes anything I touch

I built mine into a cocktail table version.

MAME - Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator is a software program on a PC.
Each game as stated is a copy of a ROM. I have about 23000 games on mine. I would say for each game I have about 4-6 clones of it.
Ie 1941 (airplane game) I have it in UK, US, Japanese, France, Germany. Then I also have 1942 and the same 5 copies of these.
I have Midway versions of galaga, nameco, and then some say Rom Set1, Rom Set2, Rom Set3. I can't tell the difference between any of them.
Then there are other versions that say Emulation not perfect, and these either have glitches with some video aspects or sound.
I have more than a couple that don't work.

My cabinet is setup for end to end play where the game flips back and forth, and then I have a 2 player console on the side so you can play head to head games like Street Fighter or Joust.

The technical details of building a cabinet (beyond the wood) are rather simple.

As far as playing the games go,  MAME simply maps different keys to the keyboard. For Intance the F key is Player1-Button1 which usually means fire.
The arrow keys are Up,Down, Left Right. The problem with a standard keyboard however is that if you were to press 2 buttons at one time the keyboard beeps.

I used a board called a KE72 (google this). This is really the "heart" of my mame system and ensures great playability.
This simply plugs into your keyboard slot and then your keyboard plugs into this unit. What it has is 72 connectors each get wired up to a button.
For simplicity sake it uses 2 x 36pin edge connectors. The same kind that are used with a IDE hard drive. PIN 1 is grnd which gets daisy changed to every button.
Incidently I only had to use 34 buttons. So the KE72 is overkill.

The buttons are readily avaialble from Happ, and use similar Microswtiches to the S+, S2000 etc. The Joysticks are simply 4 switches, and the difference between a 4way and a 8way joystick is simply a gromet on the pivot arm that restricts the movement to 4 ways. If you are a hard core gamer you will apprecaite having a 4way joystick for games like  like PacMan and DonkeyKong. 8 Way movement still is just 4 microswitches where 2 buttons get pushed at the same time. So if you are playing Pacman and need to get out of the way, and you happen to go up to the right rather than just right, you will find that the poor sap just sits there and gets eaten. Not that I am a hard core gamer or anything but taking the recommendations from those who are  I did install both a 4 way and a 8 way joystick for each of the end 2 consoles.

The trackball which is a must for games like Missile Command and Golden T golf (personal favoriate) plugs into a USB port. This then doubles as my mouse when I am using the PC as a PC.
It comes complete with 2 leads for Mouse buttons. I just used the same type of buttons as I did for everything else.

The spinner which i did not install is sort of needed for TRON, but MAME has an option to set custom button settings for each game.  I have programmed 2 buttons to move the arm up and down (when figthing spiders) or to turn the Tank Turrent.

For video I used a 27" Tube TV - Huge. I got it at a scratch and dent from Walmart for about $189. Most cocktail tables are 19" screens. If you look around for screen bezels you can find Galaga and Pacman ones .... but they are all based on 19".

I did find a 27" bezel but it is designed for the upright version so I didn't get the cool art work. I instaleld a video card into my PC that had Svideo out. When I built mine quite a few years ago when Tube Monitors were still around and a 19" VGA would have cost me $800.

If you are going to install light guns for games like house of the dead or Gunsmoke. You need a Tube TV to work with the scan lines. LCD doesn't handle this.

My total $$ investment into this beast was about $800.00. The big ticket items were the PC$199 - Dell , trackball - about $120, custom cut 1/2" glass for the top $90, Tv $189, Ke72 $109. The rest of the stuff was inexpensive.. Buttons were only about $1.80 ea.

If you like building stuff then paying $3K seems is a bit pricy but you might get a more professional cabinet and you got to count someone elses labor into the equation.

If I was to do this all over again. I would either just build the Games kepad Console and plug it into my Plasma TV when I wanted to use it. Having the extra Cabinet around full time does take up floor space or I would get a LCD and actually build the console low and small so I can use it as a coffee table.

Boy I wish I was handy I could save a fortune

Sounds like it's time to trade Italian Beef sandwiches for a mame cabinet. :79- :167- :71- :71-
Seriously (not about the sandwich :96-). Maybe you can find someone near you with whom you can trade your skills and services, either for help building a cabinet or to have the other person build it for you. You buy and supply the parts.