zenmechanic

Tiny Arcade V2 info: Model used: Dig Dug Just as the last set of devices, the second round of these units are just as mod-able as the first. See my post from pages back or check the various youtube videos or facebook groups on methods. Jumper layout on the PCB is as follows: G - Galaga O - Galaga (The rom might be 512k instead of 256k like the previous units) F - Frogger E - Dig Dug Game selection is set by a 0 ohm resister and can be swapped just like last time. As you can see in the pictures below the other games run great. Dig Dug seems to be the best of the bunch. Later tonight I'll dump the firmware and see if there is anything else on the EEPROM. Enjoy.

If it were easy then everyone would do it, right? Not everything is drag and drop with GUI interfaces.

It's not really a walled off version of MAME, it's a hacked version of MAME4DROID. If you read my post a few pages back it links to the facebook group where I posted the information on how to access and add games to the unit. Via the internal USB header you can gain ROOT shell access to android 4.4.2 that's on the system itself and push different apks or roms to the unit. The default android launcher is the Data East hacked M4D, but this can be changed to something like NOVA launcher. You can then uninstall the DE software and install the legit MAME4DROID apk and have access to all the existing ROMS that were installed on the unit as well as an assortment of bios files. Currently I'm working on a base image that can be reflashed to the unit with the DE launcher stripped out and should launch directly to MAME4DROID or retroarch or whatever you'd want.

I dumped the eeproms from most of the bridge direct and tiny arcade units if you are interested.

Yeah, that regular you mention is me and I posted about it a few pages back in this very thread. PM for details or check the facebook groups that were linked.

The link was alive when I posted to the various facebook groups. Oh well, that's life. It's still accessible via the Wayback Machine if someone reallllly wants to look at it. Facebook groups: My Arcade / Dreamgear Fan Page Tiny Arcade Fan Group Bridge Direct Arcade Classics Fan Club

I'm not sure if anyone here is a member of the Bridge Direct/My Arcade group on facebook but I had a few posts regarding the Data East 10" multicab and how to mod it. The unit itself is running Android 4.4.2 on a stripped down tablet PCB originally manufactured by Denver Electronics. You can review the base unit here. That particular link was set as the default home page in the android browser on the unit. Hilarious. The mod isn't really difficult. Inside the case the mainboard has an onboard micro USB header. If you connect a usb cable from the board to your PC it will recognize it as an android device and from there you can use ADB to get shell access to the unit. BTW shell access is pre-rooted. This unit has an Allwinner A23 with either 512MB or 1GB of internal storage. If you use an OTG cable + a usb hub you can use a keyboard/mouse and mount external storage. Networking support is baked into the rom but I haven't had the chance to test it. From here you can push different launchers to the unit, kill processes, or install other emulators or applications. If you just want to fix that horrible aspect ratio you can do the following: connect a OTG cable and an external mouse. Right-click and go into settings and you can change the landscape aspect ratio. No more stretched games! From this point you'll notice that the backend emulator is really just a hacked MAME4Droid with a custom front end. Here's where it gets good. Since you have root access you can hit /data/apps and pull some of the .apks that were deployed to the unit. One of them is called DataEast_preload.apk. If you push this to a different android device you'll find a few interesting things. One: It'll extract the MAME4Droid app, plus all the ROMS(and system bioses) and will set itself as the default launcher for your device. I found that out the fun way by loading the apk on my old Nexus 6p. If you want to go the dangerous route like I did you can push a different launcher to the device. I was able to install and launch Nova Launcher with no issues. Once installed I uninstalled the DataEast hacked MAME4Droid and installed the Play Store version. All the existing roms stayed intact and adding additional roms was easy via ADB push or you can copy paste them on the unit with the OTG cable and setup I mentioned above. NOTE: Since this is a knock-off chinese tablet there is no easy recovery is you fuck it up. I've yet to find a decent way to backup the unit for easy restore or to pull a working image of the device. If you screw it up you might not be able to fix it. Enjoy some pictures. If it's kosher to post the links to the facebook group there are a few videos there as well.

I've got one of those SD Card NOAC units coming tomorrow by way of amazon. I'll see what I can find out after I disassemble it. FYI: I did dump the EEPROM from the Bad Dudes MyArcade unit and found the other game related data from Burgertime, Karate Champ, Caveman Ninja and others.

Most of the "arcade" roms that on these bridge direct units are direct copies from various bootleg NES multicarts. So far I've found remnants of these multicart menus from the EEPROM dumps I've done from both the Centipede/QBert model and the Rampage model. Both have "380 in 1" and "4 in 1" menu tiles in the CHR area of each. I did manage to extract the qbert rom from the EEPROM dump and play it via FCEUX and Nintendulator as well. Next stop is buying another frogger and joust to see what I can find.

I wasn't expecting people to revere me on this board as much as I was attempting to provide insight as to what and when the information was found, what was possible with these machines and what could be done with them. Thanks for the hat. Make sure you send it COD.

Might as well elaborate on a few things. One, there isn't a volume control available on the unit as additional hardware would be needed to allow for that kind of modification. Two, using a dip switch with multiple options selected or manually bridging two points results in a flash of white on the LCD then black with no gameplay. Three, the MPU is most likely a PIC10 processor not ARM based on the firmware pulled from the unit. You could mod in a reset switch onto the PCB utilizing the unused B- and B+ points on the PCB. I've highlighted in the picture below where those are located. This in conjuncture with the dip-switch mod would allow for game swapping without power on/off.

Hello! I'm the described clown(or asshat) that posted that on facebook. I've lurked on this site and this thread in particular and decided that it was finally time to step in and explain things. Back when it was first announced in early October that these units were available at Cracker Barrel I immediately purchased a Space Invader model, took it home, and disassembled it. I wanted to know how it worked and what parts were used. After realizing that the PCB was most likely the same in each of the four available units only locked off via a 0 ohm resistor bridge, I popped it off, bridged the points and posted the pictures to two different groups explaining the hack and how to access each game and the test mode. You wouldn't believe the amount of questions I received either in the threads or via PM's about how to do it. I received even more when I completed my first full mod complete with dip switches which turned into a pile of questions: "Can you make a video on how to do it? what is a switch? What type of switch? Where do you buy the switches? how do you solder? What's a soldering iron? Can you add a USB port and dump the games? Can you upload new games?" with a few saying "Hey, that's cool. Can I buy one? Can I pick which model to mod?" So I sold a few. Yes, you can do it yourself. Yes, it's "super easy" to do it. Is my price high? $70 gets you the model you want modded and shipped. Hell, someone like Tanooki or JBerel could come in and undercut me on pricing and that'd be totally fine. I'm providing a service to folks that either don't know or don't want to know how to accomplish the same thing. The Tiny Arcade Fan Page on facebook has good documentation along with videos on how to accomplish the mod posted by both Glen Planamento and Charles Tweedy. I've dumped the firmware and provided the datasheets for the EEPROM there as well. Honestly I know this is just feeding the trolls and posting "First!" on things but it needed to be said. Maybe Tanooki will be so kind as to purchase that hat for me. I'll sharpie an S on the front and be a SASSHAT.