webmonkees

Odd question after being offline for a couple of years of medical recovery.. but now working up to revisiting my tinkering to refresh my skills.. anyhow.. I have an Atari Roadblaster steering yoke that I'd like to add an axis to make it suitable for controlling Atari Star Wars in MAME or equivalent. I seem to recall a 'Microsoft Sidewinder' that some have used to retrofit such controls but given the progress of tech maybe a Arduino would be suitable.. the main challenge is re-configuring the x-only driving yoke to add up-down. There's nothing but the control panel that a generous person sent me to work with, so I'm not destroying a vintage game, jut want to see if it might be possible using some cutting and design to make it work. Someone was trying to make SW yokes but not sure how that turned out, I want to take the Roadblaster yoke as a cheap start for the project. I may have posted about this many years earlier but well I had some medical issues that's been preventing me from many things for a couple of years, this is therapy now.. yeesh. Thanks, Charlie

The cheapest way I can get an arcade emu going short of using a donated PC (which reduces cost) is a Xbox 1 with a softmod and xMAME. Not quite what you want, but the game in the JakksTV is really a nintendo on a chip running a program, so you couldn't use say, MAME code. $59+Splinter Cell (original) $2-$10, then go from there. I think you could get it to boot straight to xMAME. Then get a wireless controller cheap from the gamestop or equivalent and there's your wireless Jungle Hunt/Sinistar for $80 If they were out there, I'd get a programmable controller too, but I'd say someone will figure this out and make one like you.. and I want. Jakks is based on nintendo hardware. Someone rewrite MAME to run on an NES, using only ROM files to make it run, and a flash drive and you're set. Problem being, I thnk it's be tricky to get a 8 bit system to emulate other 8-bit systems.. maybe a SNES on a chip, I'm sure the bootleggers are working on that for next xmas season. I ran my Galaga Jakss game parallel to a real one, and the patterns are identical, so.. somewhere in all that, there is enough original code that in theory you could put another game in there. More coding geekness than I'm capable of rendering, though. All the games are NAMCO based, so it would have to be a pretty close match to that hardware, which does cover quite a few classics.. Nearest you'll get on the Jungle King, though, is Jungle Hunt. The Tarzan folks sued Taito and forced the game changes, and probably wouldn't license a re-release.. So MAME is the only way to get that screaming yodel, short of the actual arcade board.. Sinistar.. possible. I have old emulating programs they came out with a few years back.. came in little Williams cabinet cardboard boxes. Just a matter of who can license what and how. There's a 'multi-williams' board for arcade cabinets that would almost work, but still not quite handheld.

Nothing that exotic. A Crystal Castles upright was there, but it had been converted to Mortal Fighting Street Viligante 4 or something.. The G07 chassis and power supply will live on, though. Just thought I'd update that it was 3 weeks of scavenging, rain, and watching cabs rot away. I got what I could. At this point they're finally cleaning up but most everything is gotten mushy and moldy, not something you'd want in the living room. Glad I could get what I could of it; at leat 5 games are working better now as a result of me carting it home, then to the post office. Which in turn the funds from _that_ are going towards parts I need. Just about have my Centipede ready to put back together from empty.

Most of the decent stuff is _not_ going in the dump.. I"ve gone through at least 5 or 6 runs with the car filled chock-full of the stuff. Every time I stop, the next clear day I remind myself that such opportunities are rare and I fill the car _again. Lots of little things that stack well and ship easy. (well, sorta. I've been trying for a week to find a shipping box for the galaga cp I sold) Most everything I'm trying to send at shipping cost for the small bits, and a reasonable market price for the jamma boards. Didn't find much Atari-specific.. I did score a Escape from the planet of robot monsters marquee, control panel and 'drawer'.. (at the time, Atari made it so the control panel and cpu were in a central 'box' that slid out for maintenance. In my case it slid out and into the car. A few bits here and there and a LCD screen and I can make a complete game out of it.. if I find a reasonably priced cpu board. Can we say 'faded'? Just the control panel- I later retrieved the box it locks into That's no leaf switch.. Got so many monitor bezels and glass that I was able to pick-and-choose and fix up my Centipede with genuine glass instead of plexi.. Not much atari stuff, but you can visit my site to view the stuff.. taking offers before finally giving in and ebaying a lot that I can't use/don't need. I specifically went for essential restoration parts, and stuff that removed easy. and two crts, including the Escape CRT, which may or may not provide useful for connecting up the Galaga.

Arcade operator cleaned up, this stuff is destined for a trash heap. some of it, I agree, others.. well, there's at least two ataris in here, Crystal Castles (converted) and a Escape From The Planet of Robot Monsters on its side (lower right corner) Oh, and a pac man or two, 2 galagas and other varied games with failed CRTs. View the junk Another pic Elizabethton TN Google Map Basically their plan is to load all this and go to the landfill. They have no objections to folks loading up one and taking it home, just don't break the CRTs or pinball glass laying about. It is raining on and off around here, so stop by if you can quickly!

Oops. Didnt learn my lesson from FB1, it seems. Well, sorta. I saw it on clearance for $7 (after laughing at the $19.95 price initally) and got it for the purposes of 'tiny atari controller' rather than 'tiny Atari videogame'. But now I have to mod it just to get it to work right? Sheesh. Guess I can add it to the collection of 'it looks neat, actual gameplay may not match imagination'.. now that's classic Atari! (artwork on box vs. actual game) Ah well. still haven't opened it. Glad I had self-control in the first place to not buy it at regular price. maybe trade it in on a set of C batteries for the Super Pong and await the eventual Salvation Army example of this to show up, if they don't all get thrown away instead.

Not familiar with any game reviewers of the games, but I'll give my opinion on the arcade classics.. I have the namco pac and ms-pac, mostly for the extra games. One I bought for 50 cents and the other 8 bucks, used of course. As far as I know, these systems are based on NES-on-a-chip, with a bit more dedication in the reprogramming to use the original arcade game structure, albeit with a compromise of putting the scores on the side for games that used vertical monitors. (most games covered by the classics series) Galaga and Xevious are exceptions to that. The gameplay is pretty authentic, but there are a few glitches here and there that are only noticeable to the true gaming nut. Such as me. ..the music is a bit off on the games, like they didn't go to enough trouble to properly synthesize it (I have the NES Galaga, and the music is dead-on as far as I remember, just the Bosses were a bit off color but I fixed that with a graphics editor ..the controls are... adequate. A real joystick helps the 'experience, but since most Midway games used a joystick on the left and fire button on the right, it's a bit backwards. I took my .50 cent one and wired in a connector for my arcade control panel, which solved that problem.. On a technical level, there's some crossover noise from the video signal that bleeds into the audio on bright screens. They really need a power adaptor plug, as they can eat batteries, especially if you forget to turn it off like I do sometimes. Not had any interest in the other games they've put out, so can't tell you on that.. X-play might have reviews, but I doubt it. Browse the Amazon.com listings, often people will share their opinions on a particular game there. Aside: Overall, it's less complicated than using a computer emulation, but a modded x-box running Mame is the best to-tv translation, with the bonus of running emulations of about every home console made. Legality may vary on that, of course. If they ever bring out a trackball-based Atari classic arcade box, of course I'll be in line for the thing. Maybe petition the makers of the Flashback? I'd love a Centipede-Millipede-Missile Command combo. But it's much simpler cheaper to bring out the software-based ones..