The History of the Video Arcade

    The Packman Theme ♪

Video Arcade Machines are specialized electronic gaming vending machines that are designed to (mostly) run only one game. The games mechanics are typically designed around quick decision making and hand/eye coordination, so that an average person will only be able to play for about 2 - 5 minutes per coin. Often these machines would feature specialized input devices not found on personal computers or home video gaming consoles.

The close to 300 video arcade machine ROMs being offered in this archive are a cross section of the best ROM arcade games from the 20th century. They have been grouped by play style, and sub-categorized by game mechanics. Included games were selected because of their unique gaming concepts, uncommon theme, and especially if demonstrating superior playability (sound or graphics richness being a far lesser criteria). Most will appeal to all types of players (gentle/violent, young/old, male/female), and they range from easily mastered to frustratingly difficult. A couple of the games are not fully in English, but they were included because their play is easily deciphered.

All of the games being offered are Parent ROMs, which can be successfully played in an emulator using only a keyboard and mouse. If you find a particular Parent enjoyable, explore the Internet for the Clone and Bootleg variants, as these sometimes have superior play mechanics. Be cautioned that a few of the games are unreleased prototypes that may include bugs. Some of the exceptionally popular games have been intentionally left out of this archive (the original "Pacman" for example), and in their place have been substituted some interesting overshadowed alternatives or sequels. Several of the included games you may not have encountered before, due to their original low production quantity or geographic release restrictions, but all are still worthy of your time.


The invention of emulating software such as the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator (MAME), has now allowed many of the video arcade machine games to be playable on a PC. Unlike the actual arcade machines, MAME only allows imput from keyboard key presses to control games. However the PC keyboard can be replaced with one of the commonly available keyboard emulating control panels (such as a X-Arcade Tank Stick) which uses actual video arcade buttons, joysticks, and trackballs to send key presses.

While for many arcade games controller emulation with key presses presents minimal performance degradation (no emulated game can ever play as well as on the actual arcade machine hardware), there are still several unique arcade controllers that cannot be easily emulated. For example, "Disks of Tron" requires the use of a specialized joystick for proper play. Same issue with driving games that use a force-feedback steering wheel. Some games, such as "Punch-Out!!", require stacked monitors to see everything, while light-gun and touch-screen games are totally unplayable on a PC without the supporting hardware.

For PC compatibility, only video arcade machine Read Only Memory (ROM) images compatible with MAME64 0.174 (and mostly earlier), that do not require specialized controllers or other hardware, are being offered here for download (which unfortunately leaves out many outstanding games). You are however not limited to using the MAME emulator, as other emulators are now available that may produce even better emulation results running these ROMs.

~ How to install the below MAME components

 UI Folders

  Filters

folders .zip

  Infos

dats .zip
history .zip

  Images

cabinets .zip - (caution: 2.6Gb)
cpanel .zip
howto .zip
marquees .zip
snap .zip - (caution: 1.5Gb)

 Program Folders

nvram .zip
roms .zip
samples .zip

Place your selected ROM "*.zip" file into the MAME roms folder (do NOT unzip the file). A few games will also have an associated "*.chd" file. This file must also be placed into the roms folder, but stored in a sub-folder you create named exactly the same as the game file name (minus the "extension" of course). Note that for some games an appropriate gaming system BIOS will also have to be placed in the roms folder along with the game [see "roms.zip" above]. Some games may also have may also have imperfect graphics or sound emulation, which may also require supplementing [see "samples.zip" above].

Linked to the icon beside each game in this archive is a short "*.mp4" video preview of the game, which serves as an excellent game introduction or memory nudger. Both the icons and the videos are downloadable, and compatible for use within many of the graphic front-ends now available for MAME.