While I don’t often report on developments that happen in the MAME world, I found this to be very cool. It is a mini-ITX motherboard that includes a JAMMA connector so it can be easily installed in a JAMMA arcade cabinet. The model is labeled as the AR-B5290 and it supports either Pentium M or Celeron M processors, two DIMM sockets for up to 2GB of DDR2 RAM, an IDE controller and SATA controller, 2 USB ports, an RJ-45(ethernet) port, PS/2 ports and the company that is building these boards(named Acrosser) offers free Windows CE and WinXP Embedded customization services for all of its boards. As far as gaming functions, this is what it supports:
-JAMMA interface and 72-pin “golden finger” interface
-24 x 5000 Vrms isolated digital inputs
-5 x TTL interrupt input lines
-43 x 500 mA Darlington transistor outputs
-2 x 8-bit DIP switches
-16 bits user definable GPIO on DB-25 female connector (optional)
So if you’re into building your own MAME cabinets, this might be a nice option to take if you have a JAMMA cab available. Sure this isn’t the only option available for running MAME on a JAMMA cab but it sure makes it nice. The only thing we don’t know about it is the price.
(Click on the image to enlarge)
