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Bringing Old Arcade Machines Into the Internet Age
An anonymous reader writes "To celebrate the opening of their hackerspace, Sprite_tm of SpritesMods hacked an old 1943 arcade machine to record its high scores, as well as post them on Twitter, via a newly added TCP/IP stack. The bus-tapping module he added to the machine lets him read the full contents of the Z80 logic board's memory, allowing him to store high scores for posterity as well as add an Ethernet interface. The device should work on any Z80-based machine, which makes it easy to add these same capabilities to any old arcade cabinet."
Post more stories like this. This is what I read slashdot for.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
You can't even do this in MAME anymore. They dropped high score support because it was an ugly hack. This is still an ugly hack, but still a lot cooler than doing it in software.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I made the same assumption when I first read the summary.
WMS ones had a dial up modem in a pinball game for testing / reporting it uploaded to a hidden ftp directory.
Well, dogs flew spaceships. Whatever preceded the CIA obviously had access to alien technology, so when they came here from Orion on Z-80 powered ships, well, we naturally embedded these in videogames to find gifted teenagers to pilot our planetary defense fighters.
And that's where Howard Stark came from. All clear now? Good. Enjoy the rest of the movie.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I'm sure that they mean this game:
http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=6769
The Pinballs games with 1943 in the title were Victorious 1943 and World Series 1943 and I don't think either would be referred to as simply 1943.
In the summary's defense, "1943" is italicized.
I agree with the first post (for once): This kind of article is what brought me to Slashdot.
A remote-controlled pinball machine would be quite a feat--especially if you could play it online. Just give the online user access to the flaps and ball release. Maybe use air-pressure to release the ball instead of a spring (seems less likely to break over-time). Give the machine a web-cam and ask for donations to keep the project running...
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
The arcade game referred to came out in 1987, it's also known as 1943: The Battle of Midway.
yea its a game made by capcom
Sigh, 1943 is the name of an arcade game from the late 80s. 1943: The Battle of Midway compared to most of the stuff on this site, it's not really that obscure.
No, but "1943" is from 1987.
http://www.arcade-gameover.com/1943.asp
http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=6769
And the obligitory wikilink...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1943:_The_Battle_of_Midway
See how "1943" is in italics?
English has rules, you know. Titles get italics.
From a five-digit ID, at that. Maybe it's just been too long since fourth grade for you.
Close... z80's were first sold in July 1976. However, the evidence for the possibility of a z80 in 1943 is compelling.
The Admin and the Engineer
Maybe 1943 is a brand name?
Or maybe it's the name of the game. "1943" was quite a popular game long before you were born, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and video games were played in strange darkened rooms called "Arcades".
You will turn it in now.
1943
I loved playing "1943" in the arcade as a kid (in the 1980's not the 1940's) and instantly knew what it was.
I also know who Steve Wozniak is, why he is more important that Steve Jobs and I can do binary-octal-decimal-hexdecimal conversion in my head.
My lawn, everyone get off it.
When I read the headline I was expecting this would be a hack for PacMan, Donkey Kong, or some other classic game that I don't give a rip about.
... This is a story I'm actually happy to see on the slashdot front page. My only question is why the hell is it showing up as just a headline; this should be voted up at least well enough to see the full summary so you know that the hacker at least chose a worthwhile game.
Then I saw it was 1943. That game devoured so many of my quarters back in the 80s
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
my 8 year old can count to 1023 on his fingers SO FAST it ain't funny
he also loves 260
00100000100
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
(I knew that didn't sound right)
0010000100
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I've been working on a project with Brian Dominy that allows us to produce ground up rewrites of software for 90's pinball tables, the main website is here: http://www.oddchange.com/freewpc/ This is BY FAR the coolest project I've worked on, if anyone is interesting in helping out/testing then drop me a line.
The bus-tapping module he added to the machine lets him read the full contents of the Z80 logic board's memory, allowing him to store high scores for posterity as well as add an Ethernet interface. The device should work on any Z80-based machine...
You mean I can get my old Sinclair ZX81 (which used a Z80 logic board, IIRC) on-line?!?! Sweet!
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Pin2k took this one step further, allowing online tournaments, see here for more details: http://www.lovepinball.co.uk/tournament/
True story: We used to have an old PC dedicated to the game "PC-man" in our student house. It too lacked a high score mechanism. Even if it had had one, it wouldn't have served a 20-person student house very well. I hacked the existing game to include a hi-score list which listed each player exactly once. To set a new high score, you needed to at least break your own personal record. This was *the same* student house Sprite lived in a few years later. I don't know if Jeroen got inspired by that old PC-man hack - or if that game PC even survived there long enough for him to see it. One thing's certain- this student house was a great breeding ground for all kinds of interesting projects.
Seriously, you click through and actually post a comment on an article about arcade games but "1943" doesn't instantly define a game for you in the same way as "pac-man" and "space invaders" and "steet fighter" do?
I must be getting old. Excuse me while I shoo some kids off the lawn.
What's weird is that the Z-80 was first released in 1976 which actually puts it closer to 1943 (33 years) than to the present (35 years).
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Yes it was. The way the story was written it looked like it was an arcade game from 1943. That said I actually never remember that game, and I am over 20 but I never spent much time in the arcade.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
It's too bad the italics don't make it into Google Reader.
I have to agree with this. Back in the day this was the kind of thing that I came to /. for along with pointing out the cool techy news from the edge of the mainstream. But now all I am left with are the same stories that broke on CNN earlier in the day. It is CNN for goodness sake. They shouldn't be scooping a specialty news site on their own topic.
Anyway screw news as it is going to be bad anyway and the summary will be wrong and just go with cool stuff. Dude Hacked his toaster to talk with the coffee pot so that the toast and coffee is ready at the right time every morning... great. Another story about how Apple may or may not be releaseing another widget some day but no one at Apple has announced it we only have rumor from someone who thought it would be cool and blogged about it... bad story idea...
Thanks and bring on the Karma. Last time I got wasted down because someone didn't understand the instances of rabies in opossum.
I thought the Z80 was reverse engineered from the Roswell crash?!?
I wished legal Kaillera would update again so I can game online with these old 1980/80s arcade games. There is a new one, but very new and has support to multiple platforms (Linux too!).
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Sure, I have mame, but I'd love it if there were a website that had all these great games up for playing as flash/whatever.
-Styopa
I so miss those arcade machines. Seems the only place they really still have a life is in Japan (go fig).
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
No new scores since 2010. Sucks to see cool projects like that slowly die.
You came here in that thing? You're braver than I thought!
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
See how "1943" is in italics?
English has rules, you know. Titles get italics.
From a five-digit ID, at that. Maybe it's just been too long since fourth grade for you.
I thought it was a young whipper-snapper using the more modern rule of "italics means emphasis" as in 1943 is really F-ing old if you were born post 2000. Now you kids get off my lawn....
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Maybe 1943 is a brand name?
Or maybe it's the name of the game. "1943" was quite a popular game long before you were born, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and video games were played in strange darkened rooms called "Arcades".
LOL I expect that stuff I did in the 80s such as computers would be considered "old" now, but I expected Old Arcade Machines as in "Bringing Old Arcade Machines Into the Internet Age" to mean something like an ancient (to me) electromechanical pinball machine. Other than being in somewhat higher res and having somewhat better sound, most modern arcade games have not changed much since the 80s, so I didn't think of them as meeting the "old" criteria.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger