Mini Arcade Alert!

[+save2600]

Don't know about you guys, but I'm already looking forward to more releases of the Tiny Arcades. Imagine Pole Position with a tiny steering wheel or two-player Joust... or Robotron with two sticks!

[Andromeda Stardust]

Oh I know that. I have a good concept of what would go into it and I'm basing that 30min off of talking to a few people about it like Glen on youtube/facebook and others in a group based around those devices where that popped up. I've watched the DIY videos and basically you have about a dollar (plus shipping if not local for the switch) in parts an the soldering and cutting time to the back of the plastic can smoothly be done around 30min worth of time, maybe a little longer if you don't have good tools. That's the only reason I said that basing it off what I've seen and abilities. You're right though a lot of people will pop off over something and not get the time, part costs, and effort put into it.

 

The Mini arcade hack is basically a 4 port switch of your style choice, 5 pieces of wire, solder, and just carving out a hole in the back of your mini arcade and mounting the switch with glue or whatever you choose to finish the job. There are 2 rows of 4 spots on the board, depending on which game you buy a pair of them are bridged that triggers that game. Wiring up a ground and then 1 wire to each set back to a switch gets the job done. Then it's just a matter of cutting and securing the switch.

So is it two switches or four? Two switches technically can have up to four positions.

 

00

01

10

11

 

Or is it like this?

 

0001

0010

0100

1000

 

And would flipping multiple switches if the latter scenario cause something bad to happen? I may perform this mod on my Pacman arcade come Christmas time. I played a full round of Pacman at the table at Cracker Barrel before my meal came. Afterwords my fiance took it and I won't see it again until Christmas. Pity Galaga isn't selectable.

[Tanooki]

The switch I was speaking of is something like this, though this is an actual switch and not tiny dipswitches on a 4 switch array.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/401303867366

 

If you look at the diagram there 4 wires to each point, the 5th is the ground which if I recall right you solder to the audio solder point on the board inside, while the other 4 go to each point on the board that corresponds to one of the games.

[Osgeld]

so its like this

 

0001
0010
0100
1000

 

[Trinity]

Now if someone could show how to disable the auto-power off and add an ac adaptor port so it could run non stop and a volume control.

[NE146]

Now if someone could show how to disable the auto-power off and add an ac adaptor port so it could run non stop and a volume control.

 

That would be a good one.. Screw the game selector crap, we want the right game in the right mini cabinet.

 

On that note I got 2 last night. Space Invaders and Pacman. There are lots of arcade inaccuracies (e.g. the ghosts don't turn blue if they're in the pen, starting in the middle in Space Invaders, etc.) , but that's not what this is about. I'm sure I would've gone batso had we had this when I was a kid that's for sure.. because how accurate were the Coleco or any other VFD/LED games we had back then? I did see Pacman has the cut-scenes (does it have all three?). It's too early to tell if there is any kind of counting mechanism in Space Invaders.. But whatever, these things LOOK and sound the part and that's awesome.

Edited November 8, 2017 by NE146

[JBerel]

Ain't cheap, but I've used these things before to wire USB into a battery compartment. It would be easier to solder or gator clip in a cheap 4.5v - 5v AC wall wart.

 

http://www.batteryeliminatorstore.com/index.php?id_product=18&controller=product

 

[SiberianSpForces]

Possibly cutting a small piece of foam to cover the speaker may help? Something I'll look at when I get mine in.

[Trinity]

Just tried toys are us for one of these things. No joy. They didn't even have a spot on the shelf for them. And of course, No Classic SNES either... Was tempted by a blue 2 DS but I passed.

[JBerel]

They have 3 of the 4 here, and you do a good dead with the 2 extra bucks they ask. There's a free shipping offer for orders over $25. (I'm not affiliated with them btw)

 

https://thehungersite.greatergood.com/store/ths/item/84923/Tiny-Retro-Arcade-Game-Ms-Pac-Man/156340?origin=THS_GPLA_84923&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI14X7x5Kv1wIVArbACh1SEQEOEAQYAiABEgKgdfD_BwE

[zenmechanic]

There's a clown on a facebook page trying to peddle these for $75 shipped with a dipswitch attached so you can play all four in one. One hell of a greedy markup for 30min or less worth of work and probably (generous) a dollars worth of wiring and a basic 4 pin dipswitch. I was thinking why not just pay the $5 more plus tax and own all of them at that rate as it's idiotic.

 

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.

Edited November 8, 2017 by zenmechanic

[zenmechanic]

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.

 

[JBerel]

I'll grant you that there are plenty of people out there that see electronics akin to brain surgery, and you're legitimately filling a desired demand. I think the distaste you've encountered is because you're taking someone else's product, altering it in the most elementary way and selling it as if it's a new product for a 350% markup. Just cuz these people aren't inclined to modify it themselves is beside the point. They could buy one, send it to you and you both could negotiate whatever fee you like to modify it. That would be a legitimate fee for a service. It may be semantics, but it's an important consideration most people's ethics would appreciate.

 

But taking these off the market to scalp them, while at the same time undercutting the manufacturer's sales by altering the intended use is just bad form by any reasonable reckoning. At best it's slimey, opportunistic and low brow. At worst it's theft of intellectual property. There are lot's of people looking to buy these leading up to the holidays. People who appreciate them for what they are. You're taking them off the market to make a few bucks just like any of the folks who scalp NES classics or other new products before the holidays. There's no law against it, but it's really scuzzy. Hey, it's a free market economy and you're free to do as you like within the law, even if it can be debated that you may be breaking it. Just don't expect anybody else to like it, or especially, revere you for it especially in this community of "trolls". (that doesn't endear you to folks either) Most would call it bottom feeding which is why you don't have much if any competition. You're welcome to the bottom.

 

Your hat's in the mail. You can have it for $70.

[zenmechanic]

I'll grant you that there are plenty of people out there that see electronics akin to brain surgery, and you're legitimately filling a desired demand. I think the distaste you've encountered is because you're taking someone else's product, altering it in the most elementary way and selling it as if it's a new product for a 350% markup. Just cuz these people aren't inclined to modify it themselves is beside the point. They could buy one, send it to you and you both could negotiate whatever fee you like to modify it. That would be a legitimate fee for a service. It may be semantics, but it's an important consideration most people's ethics would appreciate.

 

But taking these off the market to scalp them, while at the same time undercutting the manufacturer's sales by altering the intended use is just bad form by any reasonable reckoning. At best it's slimey, opportunistic and low brow. At worst it's theft of intellectual property. There are lot's of people looking to buy these leading up to the holidays. People who appreciate them for what they are. You're taking them off the market to make a few bucks just like any of the folks who scalp NES classics or other new products before the holidays. There's no law against it, but it's really scuzzy. Hey, it's a free market economy and you're free to do as you like within the law, even if it can be debated that you may be breaking it. Just don't expect anybody else to like it, or especially, revere you for it especially in this community of "trolls". (that doesn't endear you to folks either) Most would call it bottom feeding which is why you don't have much if any competition. You're welcome to the bottom.

 

Your hat's in the mail. You can have it for $70.

 

 

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.

[Flojomojo]

Modifying these things and charging to recover the time spent doesn't seem overly scummy to me. It's not as if these things are in short supply, like the Nintendo Minis, which have been ruined by scalpers.

 

It's a valid point that for a few bucks more, a person could have all of the variations, with their own cabinets and screens and controls. Enough to fill up a dollhouse.

[Tanooki]

Modifying them is as JBerel is right, but I agree asking a few bucks more as you put it is fair, say like the price of 2 of them. But when you get into almost full price of all 4 that's off the reservation. You're at a level when you really should just buy the originals and support the maker so they can profit and continue to make more of them. As those pictures show it's a basic unit. Anyone with basic tools and equipment already can do this without much of an issue if you understand how flux and solder work and can follow connecting properly both ends of a wire 5 times over (per game plus ground.) It's fine if you want to provide a service, just don't expect people to be overly thrilled by it, far less so when it gets into senseless and exploitation levels too.

[+MrBlackCat]

Can we get a Flashback in one of these cabinets yet?

 

How about a Wishlist!

 

I saw Galaga and Joust earlier... good ones.

 

I would want Tron, Zaxxon, Q-Bert and Donkey Kong.

 

Based on this set of four games, does anyone who knows about licenses and who owns them have any prediction as to what a second series of these might contain? If they sell well, more will surely be made... but I have learned from this site how messed up getting game rights can be.

 

CatNapDreams

[JBerel]

Given that the first four are Namco licenses, I would expect anything from this list may be on the table.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Namco_games

[ComputerSpaceFan]

I applaud zenmechanic for speaking up and I don't think what he's doing is scalping per se. It's worth noting that at least up in Vancouver Canada we can't get these things anywhere. So his offer to get me one in the cabinet I choose and then mod it so I can play all four games for the price I would pay if I could find the darn things seems perfectly reasonable and I'm actually kinda tempted to pay him the $70.

And yes I know how to work with electronics, give me my old workshop from the 90's and I could easily do the work myself, but can I get those tiny arcades up here? Nope!

[Andromeda Stardust]

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.

I don't care about what end of the digestive track the hat is worn on; I just wanna mod my own come Christmas time.

 

You seem familiar with these pcbs. I have soldering skills, know how to use a multimeter, and possess engineering knowledge of electronics. Where do I hook up the switches and which is the best one to use? Radio Shack used to make a 6 position 2 pole switch that could easily be modded to a 4 position. By tying the common to ground, you didn't even need the other pole. Alas, they went bankrupt, and the switch was huge. A pair of DPDT switches could be arranged to incorporate one of four outputs to a single input. That's how I'd do it, with a momentary pushbutton for the reset switch.

 

Thanks for the tips.

[JBerel]

It's worth noting that at least up in Vancouver Canada we can't get these things anywhere....but can I get those tiny arcades up here? Nope!

Why can't you order these through any of the internet sites mentioned in this thread and others?

[NE146]

I played a lot of Pacman handheld electronic game ports.. and it's funny to me how in just recent times we can go from one of the worst of them all, to probably the best of them all.

 

[Tanooki]

Aww I still consider this one of the most fun that didn't try and copycat the original:

 

I also have the Tomytronic one too on my desk and the molding on it is just awesome.

[NE146]

Yes exactly, but those fall in between the recent two. They are much better than the yellow LCD one (funnily enough since they pre-date it by decades), but obviously fall short of the new "mini-arcade" one.

 

On that note, prior to this I always considered Entex Pac-Man to be the most fun, even above the Coleco one.

Edited November 10, 2017 by NE146

[Tanooki]

You're right I know that. I would almost consider the tomytronic an outlier because it doesn't even attempt to try and match the original pac-man maze or behavior but it is quite fun and strategic in its limited setup (you can only chomp in one direction!) The other though that one they really did try their damnedest to get it right and over 35 years ago at that. I think it says a lot and also just how patently sad it is that in the end the only better of that Coleco other than a custom Pi hack would be the Mini Arcade that just came out. Sure the behaviors of the ghosts are a bit different but stylistically they nailed it. The various other LCD, LED, whatevers over 30 years really never quite did the arcade one justice as the Coleco to the Mini Arcade feel to me like quality bookends to a bunch of filler for those not looking for really pac-man, but a potentially fun 5min time wasting pac-man type filler game. That Entex if I remember was Pac-Man 2 and I agree it was very solid and unique.