Fort Apocalypse
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Posts posted by Fort Apocalypse
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Ok, I'm sure to incite with that title, but here is what I'm worried about...
Several years ago when classicgaming.com started up, lots of people were just starting to play around seriously with MAME, and even a classic arcade (a real arcade) opened up locally, I felt like classic gaming was really taking off. Not long after the classic arcade fell on hard times and had to close. Then people went through the whole "build your own MAME cabinet" phase, and of course, then there were all of the plug-n-plays. However, now it's like we're in a period of stagnation, perhaps even people in-general have become tired of classic gaming because no one is really innovating. I don't think it is the economy, or anything like that. I think people have just lost interest. I haven't personally, but outside of the AtariAge forums, I'm just not seeing much action. What is up with that? Is there anything new coming up related to classic gaming that is just going to make it take off or spur new interest that I'm missing? Why isn't there more news on classicgaming.com (just for example of a classic gaming related site that has news items, other than AtariAge), slashdot, wired, etc. on it? Is it old hat? What is going to have to happen to get it back on everyone's radar?
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According to one person claiming to be a winner, it was made by the same folks that made this (and looks to be very close, except for artwork and game list is a little different):Any clue what the actual retail price is?
According to the official rules it's Approximate Retail Value is $2999.99.
These big arcade cabinets always seem to have a very high price tag.
Here is my theory to the big price tag (these are huge guesses):
* it contains rights for 58 coin-ops' ROMs $580? (guessing $10/piece average?)
* it contains rights for 120 Atari 2600 games $150? (guessing just over $1 pp?)
* the arcade controls from HAPP $150? (I could look this up, so this is just laziness to guess that)
* MDF, screws, clear plastic, graphics, paint, etc. for cabinet itself $300? (*way* guessing there)
* 22" Wide LCD High Resolution Monitor $200? (guess- I'm too lazy to look this up)
* Computer with AMD 3200+ processor, 256mb RAM, 80gig hard drive, DVD-Rom $350 (total guess)
* Speaker system with subwoofer $30 (may be low-balling it- total guess)
* $150 labor (guess!)
for a grand total guess of costs of $1910, meaning Game Cabinets Inc. would (by total guesstimation) make just over $1000 a pop.
I'm sure that I'm way off though.
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According to one person claiming to be a winner, it was made by the same folks that made this (and looks to be very close, except for artwork and game list is a little different):
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If/when it's dead as a doornail (or was that doorknob, I forget)...Assuming this isn't going to happen as a Flashback project, should this thread be locked and unpinned then along with the FB2 portable thread, and maybe a separate thread be started up under "Dedicated Systems" for Curt's new project? I'm not sure who we talk to about locking and unpinning it. Maybe we should talk to Albert?I think it is in a coma currently. Like one of those long comas they have on a bad soap opera. From what I see, there are 3 options:
* Atari wins the French lottery
* Atari and whomever else give all rights to all of the work and to the Atari brandname to Curt or someone else so he/they could make it happen, and they would need the $
* Curt wins the French lottery, retires to the French Riviera, and we never see him again
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You're asking all over the place! ( http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=119390 )
Google found the following...
Some info and manuals on Atari 2600 and controllers here: http://www.best-electronics-ca.com/2600_help.htm
Some links to 2600 and 5200 field service manuals (maintenance/repair guides) here: http://www.atariguide.com/help/care.htm
Colecovision repair: http://www.maniacworld.com/game_console_hi...vision.htm#13.0
Intellivision repair: http://www.intellivisionworld.com/English/...ces/Support.asp
I had a hard time finding anything on Genesis repair, so if anyone has a link, that would be cool.
32x repair (warning- vulgar language!): http://www.sonic-cult.org/articles/32x/
NES repair stuff: http://www.nintendorepairshop.com/nes_repairguide.htm
NES quick repair video: http://www.collegeslackers.com/video/nes_repair_guide
Hope that helps
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I definitely remember that project, Pac, and still get applause from me on it. One for the books! I was thinking a littl more low-key than a high speed motherboard like what you used, though. I'm thinking multi-game based over a linux OS core. Not fire-breather multi gig monster
An emulator machine that can be something like 500mhz or something on an SBC stuffed inside the case with little case mod on the outside, maybe just extending the bottom some for thickness.What you did there was way too much for me to attempt! Still awesome, too.
Nathan
I posted about some small MBs that are cheap but are a little big for the FB2 in the "Designing a classic gaming console" thread. Maybe they might fit in a regular sized 2600, although I don't know if the power supply would fit in one. Maybe in an Atari 400/800 casing?
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Another link:
http://forums.slickdeals.net/archive/index.php/t-732598.html
Looks like at least one person on that page won one.
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Here is the description and list of games from that page:
Description and Details
(Limit 1 winner per household.)
Product Features
Classic Arcade: Includes 178 games. The Arcade system comes with an internal powerful computer running Windows XP home which includes a 80GB hard drive, & it's compatible with existing PC software & hardware. Equipped with a 22" WideScreen LCD flat panel high-resolution monitor, premium 2.1 audio sound system with subwoofer, mouse & keyboard & an Ethernet adapter for access to the Internet & e-mail.
Two Player Control Panel: The control panel features controls for two-player, side-by-side games, a full-size 3" arcade trackball plus pinball flipper buttons.
Commercial-Grade Arcade Components: Equipped with Happ Controls™ buttons & joysticks for the ultimate in quality & reliability. Our cabinets are designed tough for extreme play!
Large Internal Hard Drive: The custom-installed 80GB hard drive provides enough storage space for lots of games, music, photos or anything else you want to store!
Upgradeable: Your game machine will never be obsolete like other systems. You will always be able to add the newest games and accessories.
Easy to Use: You will be able to play games right away without having to learn any complicated programs. Plugs into any standard outlet. 1-Year warranty.
Instruction manual included.
Games list:
Activision
Game Rating: E - Everyone
Atlantis 2
Barnstorming
Beamrider
Chopper Command
Comando
Cosmic Ark
Cosmic Commuter
Crackpots
Demon Attack
Dolphin
Dragonfire
Enduro
Fathom
Fire Fighter
Fishing Derby
Freeway
Frostbite
Grand Prix
Hero
Kaboom!
Keystone Kapers
Laser Blast
Laser Gates
Megamania
Moonsweeper
No Escape!
Oink!
Oystron
Pitfall!
Pitfall! 2: The Lost Caverns
Plaque Attack
Pressure Cooker
Private Eye
Riddle of the Sphinx
River Raid
River Raid 2
Robot Tank
Seaquest
Shootin' Gallery
Skiing
Skyjinks
Space Shuttle: A journey Into Space
Spider Fighter
StAMP ENERGYede
Star Voyager
Starmaster
Subterranea
Count: 47
Atari
Game Rating: E - Everyone
3D Tic-Tac-Toe
A Game of Concentration
Adventure
Air ∗ Sea Battle
Asteroids
Asteroids Deluxe
Basic Programming
Battlezone
Black Widow
Bootball
Bowling
Breakout
Canyon Bomber
Centipede
Centipede
Circus Atari
Codebreaker
Combat
Crystal Castles
Crystal Castles
Demon to Diamonds
Dodge 'Em
Double Dunk
Flag Capture
Fun with Numbers
Golf
Gravitar
Gravitar
Haunted House
Himan Cannonball
Home Run
Liberator
Lunar Lander
Major Havoc
Math Gran Prix
Maze Craze
Millipede
Miniature Golf
Night Driver
Outlaw
Pong
Quadrun
Radar Lock
Realsports Baseball
Realsports Football
Realsports Tennis
Realsports Volleyball
Red Baron
Sky Diver
Slot Racers
Space Duel
Space War
Star Raiders
Star Ship
Stellar Track
Street Racer
Submarine Commander
Baron
Super Baseball
Super Breakout
Super Breakout
Super Football
Surround
Swordquest: Earthworld
Swordquest: Fireworld
Swordquest: Waterworld
Tempest
Video Checkers
Video Chess
Video Olympics
Warlords
Warlors
Yar's Revenge
Count: 73
Midway
Game Rating: T - Teen
720°
Blaster
Bubbles
Defender
Defender 2
Gauntlet
Joust
Joust 2
Marble Madness
Paperboy
RAMP ENERGYage
RAMP ENERGYart
RoadBlaster
Robotron 2084
Root Beer Tappers
SPLAT!
Spy Hunter
Super Sprint
Toobin'
Vindicators
Count: 20
Namco
Game Rating: E 10+ - Everyone 10+
Bosconian
Dig Dug
Dragon Spirit
Galaga
Galaxian
Mappy
Pacman
Pole Position
Pole Position 2
Rally X
Rolling Thunder
Sky Kid
Xevious
Count: 13
Taito
Game Rating: T - Teen
Battle Shark
Bubble Bobble
Colony 7
Continental Circus
Electric Yo Yo
Elevator Action
Exzisus
Gladiator
Great Swordsman
Jungle Hunt
New Zealand Story
Ninja Kids
Phoenix
Plotting (Flipull)
Rainbow Islands
Rastan
Return of the Invaders
Space Gun
Space Invaders
Space Invaders 2
Super Qix
Thunder Fox
Tube It
Volfied
Zoo Keeper
Count: 25
Total number of games: 178
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Information on it at: http://pepsi.yahoo.com/oldschoolornew/prizeosgaming.php
Here's another thread on this with codes (although I got all my codes from Mountain Dew bottles): http://asdfhj.com/free-mountain-dew-codes-...-new-school/113
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Gators1223 on Tom's Hardware gave me this setup (roughly $135 with CF card and adapter):
here is the abosolute cheapest build on newegg
cpu: AMD Sempron LE-1150 Sparta 2.0GHz 256KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 45W Single-Core Processor - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819103196
Motherboard: PC CHIPS A15G (V1.0) AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813185113\
Memory: CORSAIR ValueSelect 256MB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 533 (PC2 4200) Desktop Memory - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820145528
POWMAX MATX3304-S Silver SGCC Steel MicroATX Desktop Computer Case 230W Power Supply - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811145004
looks like you'd also need a CF adapter for $25: http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SY...-B1&cpc=SCH
Also, the MAME brain for < $150 wouldn't need the I-Pac VE Arcade Control Interface so you could subtract $35 from it.
Hmm, maybe they're about even? It's too early to do the math.
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Have you looked at Damn Small Linux (DSL) ?I think it should boot of various devices - not sure if you can do a command-line only version but might be worth a look.
AFAIK, if your machine allows USB booting then it should equally allow booting e.g. from an SD card plugged into one of those $8 adaptors.
You could even setup a cable + header and have it tied inside the machine with your boot card, then just use an external port for other plugin stuff.
The actual CPU/hardware you use would depend on what consoles you want. Something like a sub 1 GHz processor and integrated video should be fine for arcade games up to the mid to late 1980s.
If you're emulating the 16-bit consoles and early 3D machines like the PS1, Jaguar etc. then you'd probably want something a bit quicker, probably >= a 2 GHz P4 equivalent.
These days old P4 Socket 478 boxes, and Athlon XP midrange systems go for next to nothing, so they're a pretty cheap and capable setup. Plus, you can also easily make them perform HTPC functions as well.
Thanks! That's good info. Yeah, I've installed DSL a few times and run it a little bit. iirc from a recent install it is Debian-based with v2.4 kernel? I'm guessing most emulators would run on it too. My guess is that the guy that did the DIY article wanted something more recent for whatever reason, although I agree it would be slower, and like the idea of DSL running it.
!The main goals I had for console were:
* must be really cheap (but not break apart cheap)
* must have games on some kind of card/cartridge/CD/DVD (since it is supposed to be a console) or have easy ability to buy/download online
* must not be too big (a full sized or even mini ATX case is too bulky for wide distribution)
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Yep, and it looks like the GP2X according to Froogle retails at around $ 179.99 + s/h and it is more of a portable gaming device that you can use with a T.V. than something you'd probably be happy sitting in your living room out all of the time as a classic gaming console. I'm not knocking it though. Would be nice to have!
And Pandora is also a little pricey at $330.
It's worth pointing out that MESS is actually not a very good emulator. It needs a lot of system resources, and the GP2X port of it does not run very well...In another topic about the design, I added some other links to devices and cheaper options in terms of hardware, most notably there was a guy that had a DIY article: Build A 'MAME Brain' For Under $150 which is cheap, relatively small and packs a greater punch than the GP2X with a 1.2 GHz processor.
Granted, a lot of people seem to like portability, but for me, a cheaper, dedicated console would be an easier sell. I think $150 is still too expensive though for most people. I think $70-80 is probably the max that the average consumer would pay for a dedicated classic gaming console. Even that might be a hard sell if you have Jakks pumping out $20 devices, even though they only play 5 games each compared to (potentially) thousands. And I know, you can't sell MAME/sdlmame (or MESS/sdlmess, Stella, and most other emulators I'm guessing, even though I didn't look at all of their licenses) on a device that is for-profit (so I'd suggest making the company to sell it a non-profit, although I don't know if that would satisfy legal requirements), and you'd have to have agreements with those with rights to the games to sell them (although I'm sure those with rights to the old games would sell them very, very cheaply if they knew there was a chance to get the most possible profit via more sales and distribution)- the goal being to have hundreds to a thousand games or more in each card possibly.
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Here's info on setting up to boot into AdvanceMenu in Linux:
http://osdir.com/ml/games.mame.advancemame...5/msg00027.html
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There is an article I found from not long ago where there is a description of setting up a <$150 box for classic gaming.
It looks like sdlmame and sdlmess (along with stella, etc.) would be the most up-to-date linux version for multiple classic arcade and old computer and console emulation.
Has anyone installed linux on a compact flash card before? Is it pretty straightforward?
Is there a good solution for a single menuing system that you could boot into and run off of a flashcard to run both classic arcade games (via mame) and classic console and old computer games (via mess, stella, etc.)?
I've messed with AdvanceMENU before on an old PC and it worked great. Is that what you'd suggest using?
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BTW- just found this article- this guy did what I'm talking about in March 2008:
Build A 'MAME Brain' For Under $150
Same idea and everything, pretty much. Except it needs an A/V card.
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Assuming that one form of the device would be booting off of a CompactFlash card (CF) or USB flash drive, what should it boot into, and what should be on the CF/Flash drive?
Thinking booting into Linux (would depend on speed of device, but maybe Puppy Linux) and to open some emulation or menuing app to open up different emulators. There are a number of different ways of doing this. Which is best?
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The mini-golf places are where all the arcades went (in fact they've been there for many years). I think mall space is just too expensive.
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My intuition says that Tegra will be cheap and fast enough a year or two from now. Perhaps it is time to try to get engineering samples
You should definitely do that!
The thing I'm struggling with is in trying to find something that would work today for a mini-form factor to boot off of flash memory or memory card for low cost. The two issues are how to solve the two issues of price and A/V or HDMI out (although some newer TVs are taking VGA). Most of the boxes that are cheap, aren't cheap enough (although I'd bet they are definitely in the price range for people that are interested in doing this on their own for a project). And to get A/V or HDMI out, you'd need a video card (PCI, AGP, PCI Express etc.).
The closest thing I've found so far is the this Atom MB at what was $80 in January (2008) which includes the Atom 230 CPU which was $29 if purchased alone. It supports 8 USB. I guess if you get some cheap up to 2 GB 533MHz or 667MHz DDR2 memory (found HP 512MB DDR2 PC4200 PY105AA Memory for $8.99), got a cheap flash drive (4 GB flash drive for $9.99 after mail-in rebate) (assuming it can boot off flash-I don't know if it could) and a cheap tv-out card ($4.95 for TV Wonder) and power supply for $12.00 you'd be set. Also there are some boards that have HDMI out integrated like GIGABYTE GA-MA69GM-S2H Socket AM2/ AMD 690G/ DDR2-800/ RAID/ A&V&GbE/ MATX Motherboard.
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Ok, if you are looking for a small console box that has memory card input and I assume is fast enough to run emulators for a good percentage of classic games (pre-1990s) and classic computer emulators, if you can get them onto a Compact Flash card that it can boot off of, this appears to be the deal: DM&P/Icop eBox 4300 or Zonbu mini.
A less expensive option is the NohrTec Microclient Jr in quantities of 1000+ is $90 USD but as one-off's are $120.00 USD + $46.00 USD shipping to the U.S. (so $166 total) just for that and then you need the CF card (although I could find much cheaper CFs fairly easily).
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There's a Tegra video here:http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/200...ile_market.html
One article says that finished products which use the Tegra chip will cost between $200-$250. Would that be too much for a classic console?
Usually a "finished product" has a display, keyboard etc. I am thinking of only having the Tegra chip plus a socket for a SD card, a socket for sound/video, a socket for power input and sockets for USB ports. The cost would be rougly $20 plus the price of the Tegra chip. It may of course cost $190 right now but usually the price developement curve is very steep during the first year a new chip is out. I would not be surprised to see it drop to around $50 a year from now. If the chip costs more than a complete eeePc there is no way it can survive so the price of Tegra has to be low.
But of course when you add
- a HDMI aware LCD monitor for $500
- an USB joystick for $40
- an USB keyboard for $40
- a SD memory card for $40
- a mobile phone power adapter for $20
to get a large price tag. Or you can loan the joystick from you X-BOX, the display from the family TV, the power adapter from your phone and the SD card from your camera...
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Karri
You can subtract the HDMI aware LCD monitor for $500 since everyone will have an HDMI-compliant TV, we hope, and the other stuff won't be nearly that much I'd think if it was a package deal. I know for a fact that you can find a USB game controller, keyboard, memory stick. and mobile phone adapter each for well under $40.
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Its more than likely the entire reason a system like this hasn't been already made.I think the reason it hasn't been made is that no one has had the balls to do it. I'm sure you'll make it work!
I'll keep looking into the emulation side of things, also. Be sure to take pictures and notes as you create your console and maybe start up a topic (link to it from this one) where you can show your progress. I'm really interested in seeing it!
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Has classic gaming gone stale?
in Classic Console Discussion
Posted
Here is a theory- maybe the generation of us that would typically be innovating (writing new applications, coming up with products and technologies) stuff that might get people into classic gaming are all having babies/families and are too busy to do anything. If that is the case, does it mean that those who are a little older and whose kids are older and may have more time are too "mature" to spend time playing around innovating things related to classic gaming/retrogaming?