Japan Amusement Machinery Manufacturers Association

Japan Amusement Machinery Manufacturers Association (社団法人日本アミューズメントマシン工業協会), often known as JAMMA, is a trade association based in Tokyo, Japan.

JAMMA is run by representatives from various arcade video game manufacturers, including Namco Bandai, Sega, Taito, Tecmo, Capcom, Atlus.

JAMMA began as a rights group in January 1981, but turned into an organization in June 1989.

As an organization, JAMMA is well known for its namesake wiring standard for arcade machines, but it has also defined other guidelines for arcade operators.

In addition, JAMMA organizes a trade show hosted in Japan called the Amusement Machine Show.

Connector standards
The JAMMA wiring standard was introduced in 1985. Arcade cabinets wired to the JAMMA standard can be made to play all games built to this standard, simply by installing the circuit boards for the new game. By the 1990s, most new arcade games were JAMMA standard. As the majority of arcade games were designed in Japan at this time, JAMMA became the de facto world standard.

Before the JAMMA standard, most arcade PCBs, wiring harnesses, and power supplies were custom-built. When an old game became unprofitable, many arcade operators would rewire the cabinet and update the artwork in order to put different games in the cabinets. Reusing old cabinets made a lot of sense, and it was realized that the cabinets were a different market from the games themselves. The JAMMA standard allowed plug-and-play cabinets to be created (reducing the cost to arcade operators) where an unprofitable game could be replaced with another game by a simple swap of the game PCB, and an update of the artwork.

The JAMMA standard uses a 56-pin edge connector on the board with inputs and outputs common to most video games. These include power inputs (5 volts for the game and 12 volts for sound); inputs for two joysticks, each with three action buttons and one start button; analog RBG video output with negative composite sync; single-speaker sound output; and inputs for coin, service, test, and tilt (the former to accept game credits and the latter to maintain the board).

Later games (e.g.: Street Fighter II, X-Men) use arcade boards that incorporate extra connectors or utilize unused JAMMA pins to implement extra buttons, different controller types, or support more players. These games are sometimes referred to as JAMMA+.

JAMMA Video Standard
JAMMA Video Standard (JAMMA VIDEO規格, JVS) is a newer JAMMA connector standard designed to use modern peripherals.

The standard consists of peripheral device connections and communication protocol sections.

In the peripheral device connections, it specifies the use of separate I/O board for peripheral devices.

It was released in 1996-11-15.
 * 1st edition

Peripheral devices are connected to USB-A port on the I/O board, while the USB-B on the I/O board is used to connect it to the USB-A port on the main board.

It was released in 1997-07-17.
 * 2nd edition

It was released in 2000-05-31.
 * 3rd edition

Video signal standard was defined in 2 steps, with step 1 enacted before year 2000, and step 2 beginning from 2000. Step 2 has different timing parameters.

Recommended timing values for SYNC code were added.

At protocol section, general software entry action code type is added. Character output code now supports ASCII, Shift-JIS. Mahjong controller software entry code, general driver outputs 2-3 are added.

Amusement Machine Prize guideline
The Amusement Machine prize guideline (アミューズメントマシンにおいて提供される適正景品のガイドライン) is a guide for the type of prize that should be provided by arcade operator. The standard was enacted in 2004-11-01. The standard was released on 2004-10-21.

It specifies the retail value of a prize item cannot exceed 800 yen. In addition, following items cannot be manufactured, sold, or transferred to arcades as prizes:
 * Tobacco and tobacco-themed items
 * Alcohol and alcohol-themed items
 * Drugs, or items containing material that causes high, dizziness, hallucination
 * Medium containing contents that interferes with proper youth growth or good social order
 * Items for sex, and items resembling sexual organs
 * Underwear
 * Coupon or similar items
 * Item violating food safety laws
 * Counterfeit brand or counterfeit character items, or items violating intellectual property
 * Item causing physical or mental harm (e.g., weapons)
 * Life forms violating the spirit of animal protection

Connector standards

 * Standard JAMMA Pinout with detailed information
 * JAMMA Standard Pinout
 * USB+VGA (PC/Mac) -> JAMMA interface
 * AMIGA -> JAMMA interface
 * Arcade board connector pin layout

ca:JAMMA JAMMA JAMMA fr:JAMMA Japan Amusement Machinery Manufacturers Association ja:日本アミューズメントマシン工業協会