Slashdot Mirror
All-In-One Arcade Console
ArcadEd wrote in to plug his
Arcade in a Box which is
essentially a PC ready to play MAME, but built into a console with true
arcade parts for the buttons and joystick for a more authentic arcade
video game experience. It's not quite as realistic as, say building your own cabinet, but it
definitely is a lot less time consuming ;)
However I think this *might* miss the boat.
Yes, I have wanted the true arcade experience at home. The rich buy the cabs outright. The crafty either refurb or make their own mame boxes.
But is there enough market for people who kinda want the arcade experience at home, without sweating for it? Aren't they served very well by most consoles?
It seems to me that this is not die-hard enough for the truely rabid arcade fans. However I would love for their sales figures to prove me wrong!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Hey, someone call the FBI, he's distributing modified hardware and violating the DMCA!
Zaphod B
When duplication is outlawed, only outlaws will have
from what I understand, yes it does support kaillera, but it doesn't come with it...but slashdotting sucks, and I only caught part of it.
Looking for Book Reviews? Check out Literary Escapism.
A couple of guys I know tore out the guts of a Mortal Combat cabinet, bolted in a PC and soldered the microswitches from the Cabinet's controls onto a keyboard's innards. That's authenticity.
Yes, I'm still a junky. Are you still a bitch?
According to the FAQ on that website this unit is patented? WTF? People have been making these years? Can you say prior art? And is Cmdr Taco infringing?
I bult my own arcade about 6 months ago. In my quest I went through a lot of trouble and problems of all kinds. I had certian things that I had to have ( 4 player controller, 27" monitor ) and a few things I wanted to have (linux frontend)
After some shopping around I bought a 27" tv an older desktop pc and visited HappControllers to get the arcade items I wanted. Home Depot for lumber. I wanted to use AdvanceMame on this arcade except the tv out support on linux really sux. not to mention the s-video support on AdvanceMame isn't that great. I ended up settling with windows98se running wine32.
The stability isn't great but it does work alright. I haven't seen windows crash during a game yet but between games durring selection and such it hasn't been all that great (long term as this box stays on all the time)
If anyone is looking to do this here is what I would suggest.
hagstorm electronics has a great keyboard encoder ke72t
buy a used arcade (look on ebay sort by stuff near you) make sure it has the size monitor you are looking for and a decent cabinet.
lots of ram and 1.2+ghz if you want to play newer games
64M and 233mhz if you are just in it for the clasiscs.
have fun with it.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Arcade-quality stuff can be very beneficial to the home user if they just *sells* the damn things
consoles suck at giving me the enjoyment i want:
1) every single gun i used for the console sucks ass. (compared to Time Crisis II guns in the arcades)
2) think DDR (dance dance revolution). you know how flimsy the "home" pads are? many people resorts to building their own, or ebay (it's popular), or buying a machine outright (it's a 5k machine!).
3) some of the more specialized contronls (just a *tad* specialized) are completely un-available. think any racing game. you have any idea how cheesy the logitech steering wheels are?
but at the mean time -- if they just sold some high quality stuff, (that can be used for more than one game), you bet i will get them.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
..are building our own mame cabinet.
/. :-)
Lemme tell you something. There is a lot more pride in building something yourself than going out and buying it premade. You actually work to get it, and there is a special feeling in that.
Right now it's about half completed. We've got TONS of pictures, and I'm making the Mame Cabinet in POV-Ray for kicks. When it's all done, we'll be making a seperate page for it all and hopefully getting it posted on
It's too bad that this is really my friend's cabinet. In a way, I have selfishly acted as if it were my own. It's been such a project for me that I really wanna have one for myself. Unfortunatly it'll take a long time to make another. I don't know if I'll end up buying one or making one...
-PovRayMan
----------
Check out my blackbox styles
...that has rolled their own cabinet.
There are also some really cool examples at the Build your own arcade controls FAQ.
For the price of a high end PC setup (around $2,000US) you can have your self a kickass arcade machine, including the dedicated PC it takes to run MAME. I took the plunge last year and havn't regretted it for a minute.
Wife hates it tho...:)
Come on, Tinkler, Tink!!
I have built 2 MAME machines myself, both out of old cocktail style cabinets. It is my opinion that if you try to build a "do it all" control panel you will be sorely disappointed. The best control panel is one set up like the game you are emulating. It is easier if you like the classics (like I do), because their controls are similar. These monster CPO's do let you play many games, but if you are after the same feel as you remember, here are some pointers:
Keep it simple. Build more than one Control Panel if you have to play lots of games.
Use leaf switch joysticks and buttons. I used micro-switch types in my first CP, and replaced them with leaf style within a week.
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
starcraft is acually kinda nice on an arcade trackball. quake and other 1st person shooters are not all that great though.
I havent tried Neverwinter nights but I bet that could actually work out quite well.
Then there are of course all the freed and hand made roms available on the net (most of them suck)
of corse the primary use would be to play the 3500 illegal roms that are available to a diligent googler, that would be the primary use of something like this.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Anyone else think this is overkill for simulating machines that generally had < 1 MHz of processor, < 64k of memory and graphics in the 320x200 range (if you were lucky)?
They might have a better market if they just sold their button-box... Or better yet, some sort of lego-like button box where you could "plug in" buttons, trackballs, joysticks, &c, to get the same config as the original machine.
Want authentic? Do what I do, buy arcade cabinets (real ones) and put games in them (real games). OR do Mame the "Right way". Read on...
Mame is great, and mame is an arcade emulator, however, most people who run mame in an arcade cabinet run it on a PC monitor which is the absolute laziest way of doing it, not to mention the ugliest. If you're not afraid of DOS you can make your DOS mame display on an arcade monitor, which is both authentic and prettier. I mean who has a 38" computer monitor?
Home made cabinets are ASS unless they're designed (DESIGNED, not "based") on real cabinets. Control panels are often too big, monitors are too small. A lot of money went in to the design of the real arcade cabinets, finding out exactly which height was most comfortable (and therefore profitable), which you just can't duplicate with a homemade cabinet unless you use antoher cabinet as a guide. and if you have another cabinet, why build your own.
Buying cabinets is also much cheaper than building them, and much less of a pain in the ass. Arcade Infinity has lots of cabinets that are less than $600. (look for Jamma cabinets in the gallery)
If you're going to do it, do it right. get a J-Pac (www.ultimarc.com), use a computer for the sole purpose of sitting in your mame cabinet, and for God's Sake, please don't build your own cabinet unless you want to watch your friends wince at your effort when you have finished it.
For those of you looking to build your own cabinets or consoles like the one shown Ultimarc is a great company thats makes the keyboard interface used in the Arcade in a box. They also mak emayn other very nice products.
Story still pending..
A namco system 22 emulator (ridge racer, ect) has been release called vivannono.
You can find out about it here.
http://www.geocities.com/viva_nonno/
A cheaper device for Atari aficionados...
Obviously you've had little or no experience with MAME.
.36 running on a 486, and it runs Pac Man, Galaga, Dig Dug, etc quite well.
Yes, for the 'classics' its' quite overkill. I've got MAME
However, when I want to bust out and kick some ass in Mortal Kombat III, the 486 just doesn't do it justice. Out comes the Athlon, and watch the body parts fly.
For more information on MAME, see news://alt.games.mame or http://www.mame.net or the alt.games.mame website at http://www.tombstones.org.uk (where you can also see my mugshot, ugly as it is)
If anyone decides to put together your own MAME cabinet, please, for the love of all things holy, do NOT use a rare classic cabinet to do it in!!! There are a ton of cabinets built for conversion kits, and crappy JAMMA games can be had for $50-$200 in these cabs.
If you come across a classic cabinet in your hunt for a machine to "MAME," please consider restoring it. There are many resources available on the net and usenet for parts and assistance in doing so. I've put many a converted classic back together and it's a real thrill to see a long-dead machine come back from the dead.
"You're getting brutal, Sark. Brutal and needlessly sadistic."
"Thank you, Master Control"
-Sark and the MCP
OK, first off I am a true fan of arcade and MAME and I would never do anything to violate that. I make these boxes for those that wish to have the arcade expercience at home, and don't have the time or knowledge to build their own cabinets or boxes.
My website does not say the product is patented, it is pending, I am working with lawyers to see if it is legit. If you take the time to read my reasoning for patenting, maybe you will understand. I was torn between this for quite sometime. After posting messages at www.arcadecontrols.com and mameworld.com I came to the conclusion that I should try it. Everyone I chatted with agreed. This is not final, and I may not even go through with it considering how high the cost is.
There is nothing illegal in the box, or any modified hardware. It is no different than buying up computer parts and piecing one together to sell to a user, like most computer stores do.
My sales are not hi, and I don't expect them to be, I take great pride in each unit that I build for someone. Every piece of the unit is custom designed for the users.
Trust me, I don't have the time to be making 1000's of these and I don't plan on that. I enjoy making people happy that want to relive their childhood.
I built my first mame cabinet almost 4 years ago.
If have questions, please feel free to email me at arcaded@arcadeinabox.com
To set the record straight, in my dealings with BYOAC (www.arcadecontrols.com) and other custom built arcade cabinet sites, no one has ever created a box like this.
I understand what a patent is and I understand what it is for. I just fail to see anything truely unique in this design. I personally have a problem with a patent system that lets someone make minor changes to something and call it unique, or for that matter patent something generic or in common use. As for prior art I remember seeing sites and having friends build MAME cabinets and such very shortly after MAME came out, and seeing as I don't have a copy of the patent application I can't make a judgement on anything but what I see and I don't see anything that makes this guys MAME console differnt from the one a buddy of mine built a couple years back. But maybe that doesn't exactly meet the legal definition of prior art since it wasn't "published at least 1 year before the patent application or in common use.....blah blah blah". But that is my opinion.
I think Title 35, United States Code section 103 which basically says that a worker of ordinary skill, knowing the prior art, would have found the patented invention obvious. Hmmmm, I am a worker of ordinary knowledge and from what I see this invention is pretty obvious. But who knows, that is my opinion
Mine has a place to set your beer.
I am working with some programmers on getting a working copy of linux to run well on the box. I don't supply the roms. There are many ways for people to get legal roms, legally.
whoops, sorry. Thanks for the fix.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
I second that. I bought a dual board about 4 years ago and it is still running dual 233s I bought a second one about 2 years ago and am still running it now dual 500mhz overclocked 333 celerons. I will be getting a dual athalon soon, it will by a Tyan as well.
Tyan boards are nice.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Hmmmm, I am a worker of ordinary knowledge and from what I see this invention is pretty obvious.
I'll show you how a computer science student with no electrical training could have thought up this mod.
The Apple II, C=64, Amiga, and Atari ST computers had their keyboards built into their cases. Some desktop x86 PC cases, and all notebook computers, are the same way. Call this piece of prior art "Keyboard In PC Case".
Some users have suggested modding a PC keyboard using microswitch buttons from an actual arcade machine, or otherwise connecting a JAMMA joystick to a PC using the PS/2 keyboard interface. Call this "Keyboard With Arcade Buttons".
Keyboard In PC Case + Keyboard To Arcade Buttons = what Ed is selling. Given the design goal "arcade enclosure for a device that runs software designed for Microsoft Windows", and given the prior art, I don't see how anybody with a CompTIA A+ certification could not have come up with such a mod.
Ed, could you provide more information on relevant patents so that we can know what you invented?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Where's the substantial noninfringing use?
Where's the infringing use? There are hundreds of PC games designed for use with a keyboard or digital joypad, such as Jazz Jackrabbit (proprietary) for PC, Street Fighter II (proprietary) for PC, or any of EA's console-style sports sims (also proprietary). Plug in a light gun and bind the joystick to WSAD[1] for a natural control setup for a first-person shooter. (Point your gun at the side of the screen to turn your character.) Or you can plug in a Visoly Flash Advance Linker and play Game Boy Advance games that you've bought at Best Buy, through the VisualBoyAdvance emulator. Loading licensed copies of those games onto a licensed copy of Windows creates fun without violating Title 17, United States Code.
Or you could just throw on Mandrake 9 and an open-source game such as Tetanus On Drugs, a GPL'd clone of Tetris that will make you hallucinate. Available for Windows, Linux[2], and Game Boy Advance. Or try any of the other excellent open-source games such as Doom, Tux Racer, etc. Some of the gnome-games work well with the included trackball.
I don't see how the arcade software publishers could even think of attacking this fellow.
__________[1] Yes, I know, "We Suck At Deathmatch." But are there really any advantages to EDSF over WSAD in the typical FPS game?
[2] Linux binaries aren't available because the distros' ABIs vary and because I have only so much space on my web host.
Will I retire or break 10K?
There are many ways for people to get legal roms, legally.
There are? What way would you suggest for players to obtain licenses for arcade game binaries cheaper than buying the boards themselves?
My solution was to play the PC port.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Yes -- The sweet smell of sawdust and a $80 router blade (for the t-molding) that I may never use again....Never had a high as good as building my own cabinet. Kudus to the BYOAC guys...You rock.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
That is the most incredibly pathetic brand of snobbery I've ever witnessed.
We're talking about toys here. Most people are already going to be a little embarrassed to put so much time and effort into such a childish indulgence, let alone becoming some sort of expert on it. And god forbid someone should want to make something of his own design with his own hands...
No... wait... the most pathetic was that time I was in a gaming store and saw a morbidly obese man with poor personal hygiene loudly deriding some 14-year-old kid for buying the plain dice. This is just a close second.
If you want to give suggestions, I'm sure people will appreciate it, but talking about how "home made cabinets are ASS" is just sad.
Excuse me, but outside of nostalgia, why would anyone want an arcade cabinet in their home? Is there some hidden joy in standing up while playing a game? Or in being inches from the display (usually a low res TV screen).
At home, the console paradigm works much better: Sitting or laying down somewhere comfortable, using a hand-held controller on an extended cord, viewing the TV screen from afar. And heck, you can even use that very same TV for other everyday uses! Like watching programs, viewing DVDs, recording on your VCR/PVR, and routing pr0n videos though your TV-out and onto the bigger screen. Did I just say that last one out loud?
But seriously, can you name one good reason to have big honking stand-up arcade cabinet? Unless you run your home like a real arcade, it's doubtful.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
I'm not trying to put you down for liking arcade games, or putting lots of time, effort, and money into them. As someone who posts on /., I'm obviously not exactly making the best possible use of my time myself. It's for being openly derisive of people who don't put as much time, effort, and money into them.
Some people are boastful about their skills, talents, and accomplishments, and derisive of others who don't measure up to the same standards. This is rude, but not pathetic (unless they're making stuff up), because at least they're talking about positive traits. Being a snob about your indulgences, especially ones commonly seen as childish, is sad, sad, sad.
Incidentally, the "I'm not pathetic, I have sex!" defense is now a pathetic cliche.
First off you will need a small x86 computer platform. The VIA Eden EPIA does the trick. The EPIA is smaller than the original Nintendo, it can be run without any fans, and it has built in CPU, Video, Audio, USB, and NIC. Not only that, but the built in video has TV-Outs, so you can hook up your NES Box to a big screen TV!
Next your home built NES box will need console gamepads. Not those cheesy PC gamepads, but real standard commonplace gamepads. The original Playstation gamepads will do the trick. They are tough, small, responsive, and easily fit in your hand. In order to be able to hook them up to your NES box, you will need PS Converter USB adapters (all parts listed below).
Finall you will need 64MB of PC133 SDRAM, and you will also need a harddrive. A 2GB drive should be enough. Put a barebones Debian Linux install on it, along with the best NES emulator there is: FCE Ultra. Everything wraps up into one neat package that you can hook up to your TV alongside your VCR.
Here are links for the ingredients:
Currently the best NES emulator for the Dreamcast runs fast enough to only render every other frame. This causes issues in certain games where a graphical entity such as a sprite is rendered every other frame for graphical effect. This can cause such aforementioned sprites to be completely invisible as the game renders every other frame that the emulator is not displaying!
Emulation on the dreamcast is interesting, but in practice its not all that great. The software is too young at the moment to be of use to hardcore gamers. FCE Ultra on an EPIA is just like the real thing! It runs at full speed, with perfect emulation.
Need I neven get into SNES or Arcade emulation on the Dreamcast? Its there, but its slow! Even for 1980s games!
Happ Controls