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Bringing Old Arcade Machines Into the Internet Age

Posted by Soulskill on from the what's-old-is-new dept.

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."

15 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. Please by ArchieBunker · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Post more stories like this. This is what I read slashdot for.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    1. Re:Please by jellomizer · · Score: 2

      Stuff like this only matters for geeks and nerds.
      If there was only a site that had the slogan "News for nerds stuff that matters." That would cover things like interesting hacks and new improvements to technology, and also showing ways to reuse old technology in new ways.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    2. Re:Please by OttoErotic · · Score: 2

      This is what I read Hackaday for. I read Slashdot for...something to do while I'm on the toilet, I guess?

      --
      "Once in Hawaii I had sex with a 102 year old male turtle. It is difficult to argue that it was consensual." - Steve Ma
    3. Re:Please by david_thornley · · Score: 2

      I've got no problems with seeing ads. I do have a problem with executing ads, and that's why I use NoScript.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  2. Re:Evidence of time travel? by John+Bresnahan · · Score: 3, Informative
    Apparently, the game is called "1943". It isn't from 1943.

    I made the same assumption when I first read the summary.

  3. Re:1943 wouldn't that be pinball? by Hydian · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  4. AKA "1943: The Battle of Midway" by Noren · · Score: 2

    The arcade game referred to came out in 1987, it's also known as 1943: The Battle of Midway.

  5. Re:Evidence of time travel? by CarlosM7 · · Score: 2

    1943

  6. Re:Evidence of time travel? by overlordofmu · · Score: 2

    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.

  7. Re:MAME by OzPeter · · Score: 2

    This is still an ugly hack, but still a lot cooler than doing it in software.

    What they did wasn't a hack, it was an elegant way to utlize the exisiting bus based infrastructure. Plug in the new bus master and read your data off without changing the game. Plus the technique is probably adaptable to any number of games from the same era.

    --
    I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
  8. Open source Operating System for Pinball tables by SonnyJimATC · · Score: 2

    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.

  9. Sweet!!! by element-o.p. · · Score: 2

    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?
  10. Re:Evidence of time travel? by Comboman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.
  11. Re:Well done by Sprite_tm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sixpack for the win :) Nope, I didn't see the pacman machine, though I have heard about it. When I obtained an Atari from somewhere, I was inspired by the story and put it in the hallway with a copy of Xenon 2 permanently plugged in. Good times were had, until the machine broke. A bit later we got a PC next to the living room TV to watch all the creative-commons-licensed movies shared around the campus on (*cough*) and we played Puzzle Bobble completely to death. So yeah, the game , if anything, was an inspiration for more gaming :)

    The PC connected to the TV still runs a menu on top of X that's written by me. I also automated the beer-list to a LCD+touchscreen thing, and while it's made out of bad soldering joints and gaffer tape, somehow that contraption still manages to survive.

  12. Please... Please... Please! by c0nner · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.