Andromeda Stardust

Can I be both? OMG HELLO KITTY PACMAN! 😻 OMG HELLO KITTY PACMAN! 😻 OMG HELLO KITTY PACMAN! 😻 Curious how those new mazes play out. Instant buy... 🥰

It's spent at this point. I've cried and moved on. The screen and the cabinet are gorgeous. I have already ordered the mod kit to convert it to a mame box with a highly curated set of roms. Just classic vertical 4-way games with 3 or fewer buttons. No fillers. As a bonus, I get to play all the best Nintendo, Atari, and Namco titles all in one unit. I've decided to resurrect an old dinosaur Athlon XP shuttle pc and install linux mint/mame on it. It should run a lot smoother and be easier to setup than those Pi thingies everyone raves about. I'm even building a cigar box trackball "mouse" for centipede. There is a ton of space to work with inside that cabinet.

I screwed up badly. 😭😭😭 My 12v supply for the led mod somehow got pinched underneath one of the button contacts and shorted out the control panel circuit board. The arcade itself is still functional but all controls are unresponsive unless I want to stare at the ms pacman attract screen. If anyone knows of someone who can offer a replacement pcb or has a pinout diagram for the ribbon header, please let me know. I also really don't like the fact there is a proprietary glop top on it, so I can't just wire the controls to the pin header.

I used a router on the mdf. Wear a mask if you do it. Dang thing smoked so bad it set off the fire alarm. The cab is still full of dust...

I went to the hardware store and bought castors with 3" wheels. That helps, plus I got a pacman stool coming in the mail, which will be a bit shorter than my current barstools, sans the leg extentions. My replacement buttons and coin door came in as well. Blue and cotton candy pink... 💙💜❤ Plus there is something deeply satisfying about the cha-chink sound a quarter makes... 💲 20210312_040948.mp4

I recently "upgraded" my 1up Galaga machine to Ms Pacman coctail (best buy exclusive) with 8 games including Galaga. The old riser does not fit. Been there, tried that. Build quality has consistently improved over the years, though I am in the process of upgrading the buttons and sticks, however the control panel on these cabs sits uncomfortably low. The cab has built in adjustable pegs which would make it simple to attach to an existing surface by way of bolt holes. I could buy an old wooden desk at a thrift store, saw the legs off and attach wheels. Space in my studio is limited and all seating is tall bar stools. It would be nice to roll it out from the wall for two player action. Any suggestions or advice for intrepid DIYers?

I don't know what you are talking about. The guy who did that... ...no longer exists! 💁🏻‍♀️

The stick, I didn't see a safe way to dismantle the handle without breakage so I left it alone. It is very clearly a grey code connector. And yeah, probably me and like 2 other people would buy the adapter of available. The leds are badass too. While the notched plugs seem like a cool innovation, it can be a pita to find a cable that fits. The mini usb is more robust than the micro, though the old fashioned usb-b plug that printers use is bulletproof. I generally think the miniaturization of connectors is part of planned obsolescence. By creating a weakened port, you create a failure point for tech devices. Cue how many times I've seen someone with an ipad or android with a busted power cable trying in vain to back up their device (which needs the charge port to do this) before the battery expired.

My appologies for the necrobump. Yeah I was that one of those goofballs who only backed the stick for $30. I did a quick teardown and took pics of the internals. I was hoping to mod it to work with the old school atari, but no dice. There is nowhere to pull the connections from. The joystick itself is pretty basic, digital button membranes, and the shaft has an optical grey encoder embedded in it. Three ribbons connect the battery, rumble motor, and encoder to the pcb.

Okay so I tried three different micro-SD cables and none of them fit. Apparently Atari created a notch-and-key system to make an otherwise generic cable proprietary. Why??? 🤷🏻‍♀️

So I opened the ataribox joystick. I contributed $30 to the indiegogo campaign way back. Kinda glad I didn't pay full retail for it. The stick itself is fairly lightweight and very comfortable to use, but it is not an "analog" control as the advertisements suggest. It's a very basic design, joypad style. The leds light up when I actuate the directions. The rotary stick has a grey code ribbon cable connecting it to the main board, and there is a rumble motor and a battery. The pcb is multilayer. I was hoping for some way to tap into the joystick directions and somehow wire it to an authentic vintage atari system, but no dice. There is no wire harness connected to the joystick so tapping into it without damaging the pcb seems impossible. Aside from pc emulation, I don't see much of a use for it currently. If someone crafted a usb adapter for it that plugs into a 5v atari system, that would be amazing.

I noticed this too, in the press photos. Serious question folks: Do you guys think this make a viable Linux PC box, of am I better off searching elsewhere? Buy a used laptop or something? I have zero interest in this as a game system. And I know I have dumped on this in the past, but they jacked up the price of the controller for launch. I spent $30 on my classic joystick "preorder" 🕹

Are these actual ports or GameCube/Wii emulations? Pretty sure the switch is capable of emulating GC/Wii era stuff. I know Dolphin isn't perfect and requires a few tweaks depending on the game, but an in-house emulator would squash all that. And yeah, Odyssey IS the spiritual sequel to M64 fans waited for over two decades to get. 3D World was fun, but like 3D Land it plays like a glorified obstacle course. The NSMB style "grid" system feels cheap in a 3D game. I am down for an "All Stars 3D" with M64 (Odyssey engine), Sunshine, and Galaxy 1+2. I would probably retire my Wii/U entirely if they reissue the Galaxy games. Well, I might revisit Super Paper Mario, Kirby Return to Dreamland, and Yoshi Epic Yarn. Those were pretty fun. I got the Galaxy waggle controls mentally worked out with the Pro controller, without the need for a sensor bar. The gyro in the pro controller could easily control the starbit cursor in Galaxy, with an occasional tweaks. L trigger crouch / ground pound, R trigger shoot star bits, Y/B/A Attack/Jump/Spin. Tapping X centers the starbit cursor. Holding X swaps the camera to gyro control and the cursor to R-stick. It also enables the usage of starbit cursor on controllers that lack the gyro sensor entirely. Waggle for spin can be enabled/disable via context menu, and dual joycon can simulate the classic Wii style control scheme.

Amazing! And yes, I been out of the loop for a bit. I guess my pokey Pacman collection will be obsolete. Lol...

So, what is actually on the cart? Is this game a unique port, a hack, or just a copy of existing game? I know of exactly 4 ports of Tetris for NES. A 5th version would be interesting. Nintendo Tetris (gray cart) Tengen Tetris (black cart) BPS Tetris (Famicom) Tetris 2 / Bombliss + variants (Famicom) Tetris 2 Famicom actually plays like real Tetris and completely unrelated to the shameless DR Mario clone by the same name that we got in the US. Edit: manual says "a tengen release." So physical variant of black cart tetris. Carry on.

NES and SNES use the same communication protocol, except SNES controllers send 16 bits instead of 8. Try using SNES controllers with a handmade splice cable.

Arkanoid? 🕹

I have no loyalist nor am any member of a "good old boys/girls" club. When the AVS debuted, I had been following the creator of that project (Brian Parker of RetroUSB aka "BunnyBoy") on now defunct NintendoAge since He posted his "I have a dream" post on Jan 1st 2013. And yeah been following this development nearly as long since it's inception. The AVS is an amazing product in terms of quality and price. It makes a wonderful spiritual predecessor to the Super NT and Mega SG in terms of feature set and price point and I am happy with mine. Paired with a Powerpak or Everdrive, AVS is capable to play ROMs. When Analogue announced the NT Mini debut at $450+, I immediately put in my preorder for the AVS. I have what I consider to be the trifecta of HDMI consoles, NES/SNES/Genesis. With the N64 UltraHDMI internal modded N64 and my adapters for Game Cube and Turbografx, I now have an HDMI for every console I collect for except the Ataris.

Since the Tiny Arcade ones are built on arm from the ground up, I suspect there will be a selection screen much like the NES Turtles II arcade port, so you could select any character without a fourscore. And somehow I doubt they'll add multiplayer to it.

Wait, were the ships green on the originals w/ overlay?

Million dollar question: Plastic, or aluminum?😝

SNES version? Looks like it.👍

That health bar is epic! The world needs more rainbows! 🌈🦄 Part of the issue here is the 320 pixel wide Sega Genesis is cycle locked to half the width of the ntsc colorburst. So naturally alpha blending of pinstripe stages such as the waterfalls in sonic 3 is not visible in composite as it is in rgb on real hardware. It appears the Mega SG output is not cycle locked to the NTSC color burst as in real Sega hardware which is why you get the rainbow banding. The slightly wider 256 pixel width NES/SNES creates moire patterns not present on Sega hardware. My NES creates a checkerboard moire pattern on crt screens but it is very clean. White/black edges on the nes show yellow/cyan/magenta tinted edges on my crt. As far as the analogue adapter goes, none of my TVs, tube or otherwise, support standards other than composite/rf/hdmi, and I have original hardware to use with tube tvs so the adapter is redundant for my purposes. I still think the rainbow effect of the genesis is a fun effect, if technically wrong. Perhaps the adapter firmware can be updated to create a cycle lock with the pixel output and ntsc colorburst as with real hardware...

The touch cube was a novelty. Get the real thing. Or you can pick up Rubik's World for Wii and DS. I solved the profesor cube one day with the wiimotes. It was a chore but I did it. See video game reference. This post is not entirely off topic... 🤣🤣🤣 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubik's_Puzzle_World Modern Rubik's brand cubes rotate slightly better than the old ones and have interlocking rings making popping pieces much more difficult. So lifting up the edge to pop them doesn't work anymore. No cheating!!! Though dis-assembling a scrambled cube to piece back together makes an exciting dexterity puzzle in and of itself. Especially the larger 4x4x4 and 5x5x5 varieties. Ever try assembling a rubik's cube inside of a jar? Basically the core fits through the round opening but not the whole cube. Not for the feint of heart. Jarred 3x3x3 and 4x4x4 Rubik's brand cubes from my personal collection: In 2007, Verdes came out with the V-Cubes which were 6x6x6 and 7x7x7 varieties. Now some truly massive cubes exist. These things IMO cease to be fun to solve and become an exercise in tedium. Then twistypuzzles are not limited to cubic shapes. Meffert produced the Pyraminx, a tetrahedral puzzle, and the megaminx, a dodecahedral puzzle. Learning the Megaminx was a great stepping stone to understanding the dynamics of interlocking layers and piece commutations. The principals learned can be used to solve a huge variety of puzzles including the original cube, without the need to memorize countless algorithms. I got hooked on the puzzle craze in 2007, but after a few years I just became disillusioned by the hobby. Increasingly exotic geometries, some of which were barely usable. Bandaged cubes, internal gear locks blocking specific moves, and other such antics to make the solving process excruciating. Also many concepts got the "let's make 8 different versions of the same puzzle" treatment so we can peddle to desparate collectors...🤦🏻‍♀️

Can we like treat the labels with linseed oil or something? Just dropper it on, set it out overnight, before patting it dry. Then gently heat it on warm for 20 minutes to bake in the stains. This way we can achieve that characteristic mottled texture without the need to age them for three decades. Because it is just not an authentic label without the Acti-Plaque! 🤣🤣🤣