Drop in your Atari mojo?

[WizWor]

9 hours ago, Keatah said:

But at least it isn't as bad as the abhorrent abominations on this page.

http://www.wickedretarded.com/~crapmame/

I know.  I have plans for a Mame cabinet.  Too expensive, too much work, and too many problems.  I actually had a Retropie on my TV.  I did not care for the experience.  I was using an Xbox controller and that was not appropriate for Arcade or A8 play.  I even passed on the first gen LUA.  Lots of problems reported.  When reviews of the second launch were positive, I took a harder look and decided to take the plunge.  I specifically wanted the Sams Club version with the pinball controllers, so I joined Sams and waited for the inevitable 'Black Friday' sale.  On November 7, 2020 at 12:07AM, I received my order confirmation from Sams Club...

 

Legends Ultimate Arcade Item 980282588 Shipping: Standard $50.00 off with Instant Savings

Subtotal (includes savings): $449.98

Sales tax: $0.00

Shipping costs: $0.00

Paid online: $449.98

 

I immediately returned to a thread discussing the sale only to learn Sams was out of stock by 12:10!

 

The Legends Ultimate Arcade was a breeze to assemble.  Nothing broken or missing.  Everything fit just right.  I highly recommend it to anyone who pumped quarters into similar machines in the 80s.

Edited May 28, 2022 by WizWor

[Keatah]

Well I suppose that's good you found a solution (for vintage arcading) that works for you.

 

I personally like a slightly modular approach where I can take a piece (or pieces) with me to different locales. Sometimes it may be just a JumpDrive, or my slightly modded X-Arcade stick, or the complete system stuffed into a duffel bag. I also like something totally unobtrusive that blends into a cozy rustic/bohemian decor.

 

It's essentially the All-In-One system we, as kids, dreamed about in the 80's. Imagine being able to play every game ever made on one small box. And arcade machines no less! It also does things we thought of, but didn't dare dream possible back then. Like being able to switch quickly between games, pause/save/load states, allow patches/mods or cheat at arcade games, play at different speeds, tweak display characteristics.. Or just simply turn it on and play trouble-free - because some arcades in my area were lazy at maintenance.

 

14 hours ago, WizWor said:

I know.  I have plans for a Mame cabinet.  Too expensive, too much work, and too many problems.  I actually had a Retropie on my TV.  I did not care for the experience.

I farted around with various incarnations of a MAME cab. Never achieved any harmony or balance. The more games I added, the worse it got. Eventually I came to the conclusion the form factor and control panel was limiting and an upright cab wasn't what I really wanted.

 

I think I did a MAME cab just to do a MAME cab because that was the thing to do during and after the dotcom era imploded. My main goal was never to achieve a strict arcade experience at home, but rather expand on the All-In-One concept. I don't mind having a few controllers to achieve that end, like something for Dotron, or Assault, or a yoke or wheel. If I need them I can plug them in.

 

So once I let the cab idea go wayside I became quite happy with generic big monitor, speakers, pc box, and whatever controller that fits. It's all commodity stuff that can be replaced piecemeal or in full anytime.

 

The time spent tweaking configurations isn't any more than wrenching on real vintage hardware. Likely less.

[Keatah]

And overall, emulation has kept me in this hobby. Expanded it above and beyond what I would have / would be doing had I stuck with real dedicated hardware. Seriously my mojo was suffering and dying playing on real hardware. Drying out and limp. But emulation's virtues have expanded that back into life in so many ways. Just too cool for school.

 

I mean where else can I play Zaxxon, Tac-Scan, Marble Madness I & II, Assault, and others without traveling two hours to multiple arcades? Not for me! Sticking with my (snowed-in winter day) cozy blanket-fort room.

Edited May 29, 2022 by Keatah

[Mclaneinc]

44 minutes ago, Keatah said:

I mean where else can I play Zaxxon, Tac-Scan, Marble Madness I & II, Assault, and others without traveling two hours to multiple arcades? Not for me! Sticking with my (snowed-in winter day) cozy blanket-fort room.

Thankfully not as bad as that here, but I totally agree, my MAME is outdated but 99% of what I liked BITD works very well. For me to find arcade machines, you mostly have to travel to the British coastal tourist places who have them on the seafront. As I'm on the fringe of London, that makes it a fair trek at quite a cost, just to play. That just isn't a good choice, I'd rather play it on my PC, sure a nice MAME cab would be funky, but I can still play what I like on my old PC.

 

I'm happy..

[Keatah]

Eh. maybe it's not that bad. I mean one arcade is 45 minutes away, that has games a, b, and c. Another about an hour away that has games x, y, and z. It's the spread that's very annoying. And to make it 2x worse (and drum up some hate) is that each owner said they try to each have different games. Only duplicating the most common stuff like the worn-out IP of Asteroids, Centipede, Missile Command, Pac-Man, and whatever else is a dime-a-dozen.

 

But I tell ya'. When I want to play these games there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that compares to having them in your own home. On a quality setup. A true 80's experience⁽¹⁾ is generally long gone. And not sure if the effort to recreate it all is totally worth it. The socialization of aspect is all very different now. And our ages change the perspective. Oh the fun isn't gone. But we just see so much more that can be accomplished with 2 hours of time wasting in traffic in inclement weather. It's just not worth it for what's supposed to be a relaxing activity.

 

So @home gaming via your favorite hardware, (Upright cab, MiSTer FPGA, i9 emulation rig, R-Pi, whatever) is really the best solution. It's that that keeps my mojo well lubed.

 

(1) I have yet to walk into an arcade and say "Wow! Time stopped here! It's really 1985! Today's classic arcade recreations today are always always missing something or doing something different enough to break the illusion. It may be their location, the warehousy feel with unfinished ceilings, the overemphasis on outdated mascots. Especially missing is the 80's faddish & frenzied atmosphere. No store to walk to to get cartridges to take home afterwards. The music is wrong. The carpet color wrong (if they even have it installed). No neon lights. Bland white or black walls. No sense of being on the electronic frontier, like in TRON or anything similar. No cheap EGM publishings. No wonder of what's around the corner next. No quarter rationing. No interest in hi-score initials. No news broadcasts expressing wonder and amazement at this new phenomenon. Also missing is the artful arrangement of the cabinets themselves. Today they are lined up so as to get maximum number in minimal space, lined up like soldiers in a troop transporter. Not the artful asymmetrical arrangement of yesteryear, with actual colorful space to walk around in. So if you're looking for an authentic 80's experience all of that and more needs to be there. Otherwise you'll need to do a lot of internal patching to reposition old classic games into today's culture.

[+DarkLord]

I suppose for the arcade scene it's okay but I'd never pick emulation over a

real Atari Lynx, Jaguar, 8bit, or ST...

 

Just me but I prefer the real thing baby, no substitutes will do...  

 

[WizWor]

13 hours ago, Keatah said:

I personally like a slightly modular approach where I can take a piece (or pieces) with me to different locales.

One of the things with real hardware for me was maintenance.  While I like the durable Wico sticks, my favorite Atari joystick was the CX40.  Generally, breaking the last CX40 led to a retro game hiatus.  In fact, I found these forums looking for joystick options.  When one of the Flash consoles was a disaster, I found a guy selling CX40s on ebay.  As I recall, I bought 100   My kids were very young at the time and LOVED the Atari game console.  That console, btw, was my first XEGS.  I found it at a flea market while negotiating for a slate pool table.  Good times.  Anyway, I ended up attaching a couple of these sticks and running games off an Atarimax cart.  It was a very portable, very reliable (I still have it, except that the sticks are, once again, Wico Command Control sticks), instant on system.  I keep the system in a duffle bag so I can bring it with me on a whim.    

[Mclaneinc]

12 hours ago, DarkLord said:

I suppose for the arcade scene it's okay but I'd never pick emulation over a

real Atari Lynx, Jaguar, 8bit, or ST...

 

Just me but I prefer the real thing baby, no substitutes will do...  

 

That's the thing with the arcade machine era, there's really not a lot of difference between an Asteroid machine and a MAME cabinet from today, it's a hodge podge of electronics thrown together to play that game, whereas a dedicated console or computer is designed with custom stuff in. Ok, there are newer arcade machines with custom stuff in, but I'm talking of the classic arcade era, the same machine that played Galaxian could play a multitude of other games. My wish would be to have a decent powered MAME cabinet that had the visual triggers for back in the day, a feel that looked of that era. And of course a full selection of games of that era.

 

Like Keetah, if I walk in to an arcade of these days it simply has no feel of back then, just the same as when I'd walk in to Silica Shop in Sidcup on a Saturday to a chorus of Miner 2049'er, pac man, galaxian etc etc sounds, the place was full of people from that time loving the atmosphere, the old arcades that survive now have zero liveliness. 

[WizWor]

On 5/30/2022 at 5:42 AM, Mclaneinc said:

My wish would be to have a decent powered MAME cabinet that had the visual triggers for back in the day, a feel that looked of that era. And of course a full selection of games of that era.

 

[Keatah]

I got absolutely nothing against LCD/emulated/modernized upright cabs made today. Or the genuine vintage particle/wood ones with discrete TTL from yesteryear.

 

Just the maintenance and repairs is a time consuming issue for the old ones. More frustrating I'd imagine compared against 99.9997% reliability on new stuff.

 

A note, the old CRT Asteroids has a nice intense scintillating glare from the bright dots that refract and disburse off various layers of glass. LCD can do that do, because, watch youtube vids of the actual cab. You see the effects happening right on your own computer monitor. Just a matter of asking the GPU to do that.

 

Maybe someday MAME will come with a BrightVector mode that's an available preset out of the box.

 

Which reminds me, wouldn't it have been cool to have had MAME (as it is today) back in the day, in a box, on the shelf, in those bookstore-like software stores? Just for novelty of distro'ing it that way. Of course we're all happy with the way it goes today.. Just some musings that's all.

Edited May 31, 2022 by Keatah

[Mclaneinc]

For me it has to be a crt, as sharp as my PC 16:9 is its just wrong for games..

[Keatah]

Yah..see.. It has to be LCD for me. I want the perfect (no need to adjust) geometry. Things like keystone, curvature, stretching. That's gotta be eliminated.

 

If I want distortion and the fuzzies I'm more than happy to edit some ini files to dial it in. Which I do do with nearly every emulator that supports it.

 

No real difference timewise compared to tweaking an analog CRT. Just a different toolset!

Edited May 31, 2022 by Keatah

[Keatah]

56 minutes ago, Mclaneinc said:

For me it has to be a crt, as sharp as my PC 16:9 is its just wrong for games..

16:9 is wrong for many many vintage games. And even general computing of the era. Especially if stretched. So I keep some 4:3 monitors. Or remain vigilant about correct scaling when using 16:9 with 4:3 software.

[Mclaneinc]

Yes indeed, I only play as per the games actual ratio, I'd rather have big borders than an overly stretched screen. The only way I would use the 16:9 is if I could rotate the physical screen for shoot 'em ups. Sadly, it's a fixed screen and it's WAAAAAAAAAAAY to much hassle to pick it up and turn it on it's side for any time I want to play a shooter.

 

Anyway, if you turn it on it's side all the letters fall out... 

[Keatah]

I watched the ALU 1 Year Review. It's great that the durability is good and that it is rather turn-key compared to building up a MAME rig.

 

On the other hand it is instafail because it has to go on-line to "revalidate" some games every 5th play. Da'fuk is that?

 

Also a little unclear about the dongles thing. It looks like you can plug in some select stand-alone emulator boxes like the Genesis thing or a 1up(?) self-contained HDMI "player" (which is also emulation). Basically it appears that the ALU supplies the controls and audio/video out. All the work is done in the dongle thing. Also not for me.

 

For the $700 price tag I can get an Intel NUC and have so much more versatility and capability. Make it an even $1500 give or take a buck and I can get a nice mix of controllers like a good keyboard, mouse, X-Arcade, and 8BitDo. And 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD. Most importantly the NUC platform remains totally ready to accept updates to each emulation platform (MAME, Stella, Altirra, Vice, and more). And does it in a standard way.

 

Support from the communities that host those emulators is top quality. Bug fixes are seemingly handled rather quickly, not that there are any that need addressing. Not with some 20-years of solid work and testing behind them.

[WizWor]

1 hour ago, Keatah said:

On the other hand it is instafail because it has to go on-line to "revalidate" some games every 5th play. Da'fuk is that?

Stop it.  Seriously.  Stop talking about things you know nothing about.

1 hour ago, Keatah said:

Also a little unclear about the dongles thing. It looks like you can plug in some select stand-alone emulator boxes like the Genesis thing or a 1up(?) self-contained HDMI "player" (which is also emulation). Basically it appears that the ALU supplies the controls and audio/video out. All the work is done in the dongle thing. Also not for me.

You plug it in and get additional games.  Clear enough?

1 hour ago, Keatah said:

For the $700 price tag I can get an Intel NUC and have so much more versatility and capability. Make it an even $1500 give or take a buck and I can get a nice mix of controllers like a good keyboard, mouse, X-Arcade, and 8BitDo. And 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD. Most importantly the NUC platform remains totally ready to accept updates to each emulation platform (MAME, Stella, Altirra, Vice, and more). And does it in a standard way.

Except I paid $449.98.  

1 hour ago, Keatah said:

Support from the communities that host those emulators is top quality. Bug fixes are seemingly handled rather quickly, not that there are any that need addressing. Not with some 20-years of solid work and testing behind them.

I'm out of here.  We have strayed too far from reality for me.  When I was in school, we built a computer from discrete components.  It was very cool that we could do that, but not one person replaced their polished computer for the one built from discrete components.  You like emulators -- probably because you cannot afford much else.  That's fine.  To drag up a slide show of Mame disasters and characterize that as the state of the art is simply dishonest.  Enough is enough.

[Keatah]

Woot!

2 hours ago, WizWor said:

Stop it.  Seriously.  Stop talking about things you know nothing about.

Yeh no no 11:09.

 

2 hours ago, WizWor said:

You plug it in and get additional games.  Clear enough?

Couple more dongles and we'll have a Borgified control panel. Shit hang'n everywhere.

 

2 hours ago, WizWor said:

Except I paid $449.98.  

Because you couldn't afford a proper PC? The $1500 I pay gets a superior solution.

 

2 hours ago, WizWor said:

I'm out of here.  We have strayed too far from reality for me. 

Emulators are reality. They are the preferred method of doing vintage gaming as evidenced by the increasing sales of all kinds hardware and products running them

 

2 hours ago, WizWor said:

You like emulators -- probably because you cannot afford much else.

Because I do emulators I can afford many other things. No expensive ratbaggy hardware to contend with.

 

2 hours ago, WizWor said:

To drag up a slide show of Mame disasters and characterize that as the state of the art is simply dishonest.

At the time those cabs were made, they were considered state of the art by their makers. The whole site is a rough parody.

 

[+DarkLord]

"Emulators are reality. They are the preferred method of doing vintage gaming as evidenced by the increasing sales of all kinds hardware and products running them."

 

Certainly not preferred by me and I know I'm not the only one...

 

Hey, if you like emulators fine - go for it. Don't try and act like they are the end all and be all though. They are hardly that. No matter how good they get, they will

never, ever be the real thing...

 

[Chris+++]

We can come to the same conclusion to which nearly every thread leads, and it's ultimately a positive thing:

Everyone's different!

 

 

[Keatah]

3 hours ago, DarkLord said:

Hey, if you like emulators fine - go for it. Don't try and act like they are the end all and be all though. They are hardly that. No matter how good they get, they will

never, ever be the real thing...

Reasonable enough. But I believe they will eventually be the only thing remaining as real hardware attritions itself out of circulation.

[Keatah]

3 hours ago, Chris+++ said:

We can come to the same conclusion to which nearly every thread leads, and it's ultimately a positive thing:

Everyone's different!

Oh sure. No issue there.

 

It kinda bothers me there has been no proper hardware or FPGA recreation of the original 2600. There have been some attempts. But as I've pointed out in other posts they are funky formfactors, or don't have the correct signaling on DB9. They don't even have proper slide switches and can't instantly power-up (FPGA needs to load a bitstream). Or they are dumb-ass cartridge loaders. I loathe those loaderz!

 

[+Stephen]

3 minutes ago, Keatah said:

Reasonable enough. But I believe they will eventually be the only thing remaining as real hardware attritions itself out of circulation.

There's still people driving Model T and Model A Fords, so yeah, maybe in another 60 or 70 years all the real hardware will be gone, but I'll be long dead so it won't matter.  A lot of this electronic hardware is way more robust than people think.  I am still running an SAE Mark III amp from 1970 and much to everyone's surprise, I - wait for it - haven't even recapped it.  Still puts out a clean 120 watts per channel clean on an oscilloscope.

[+DarkLord]

20 hours ago, Keatah said:

Reasonable enough. But I believe they will eventually be the only thing remaining as real hardware attritions itself out of circulation.

 

I'm 60 now and I'll be long dead by that time.

 

I can remember an article in a famous computer magazine from the 90's... It was about an Amiga fan desperately trying to find

enough parts and "jury-rigged" innovations to keep his last Amiga still running.

 

That was in the 90's, IIRC. Last I heard, there are still a few Amiga (and ST!) fans around and quite a bit of (still) working hardware.

 

I believe that the reports of the retro scene's upcoming demise are greatly exaggerated...  

 

[Mclaneinc]

5 minutes ago, DarkLord said:

 

I'm 60 now and I'll be long dead by that time.

 

I can remember an article in a famous computer magazine from the 90's... It was about an Amiga fan desperately trying to find

enough parts and "jury-rigged" innovations to keep his last Amiga still running.

 

That was in the 90's, IIRC. Last I heard, there are still a few Amiga (and ST!) fans around and quite a bit of (still) working hardware.

 

I believe that the reports of the retro scene's upcoming demise are greatly exaggerated...  

 

The first line sent chills down my spine, I'm just about to turn 62...

 

My second Amiga 1200 which I sadly had to sell a couple of years ago was still as it was on day one, not even needing a recap and never had a repair in its life. And I know It's still going strong as the guy that brought it was over the moon with it and sends me the odd email to say how it's going. Was a lovely machine, HD, 8meg or ram, looked new.

 

Just shows the old stuff can keep...Sad that the cabinet enthusiasts often trash a decent couple of Atari's to get the pokeys though, they ARE getting hard to find as are some SID's for the C64. Thankfully, like pokeys there are alternatives out there..