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steptoe

steptoe

of course Im wrong, ask my wife™
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Well, after being fkd about by a company I was subbing for I found myself with a couple of days spare this week,

so I finished (mostly) this off for the kids, ;)

Still need a marquee sorted, @Blue Duck :D

Got all (mostly) the code sorted, its all useable, just need to sort a shutdown code out, and I'm just going through what Roms I actually want to have on it on a permanent basis, will just keep the rest of them on the memory card to swap in as I want to play/try them. 

IMG_20170528_214754.jpg

 
Evans Electric said:
Looks like Space Invaders Stepps ....not that I'd remember them of course :innocent
Click to expand...
That's it Deke,

Original '70s version, I've only put about 10 games on it so far, donkey Kong, PAC man, frogger, pong,  and the likes,  the wife loves frogger, so that's a win, :)

I've got over 2000 games for it, but not all of them actually work I don't think, have an issue getting boot hill to work properly in 2 player,  as it originally used a paddle (turney wheel thing) but I'm determined to get it to work, as I got it to work on the 1 player prototype. 

 
I'd think that , even with the sophisticated games of today , the kids will love Kong & Space Invaders . 

These things are really clever , I however avoid most of them as they give me a headache , I think its the fast eye movement that does it .

 
 A couple of years ago they brought out a re-run of an old Atari games console, it had all the old games on it from late 70's early 80's. Anyway I can't be doing with all this modern stuff, but I do like the old stuff, especially space invaders, and the wife bought me one of these consoles for Christmas. The  grandson who's 10 is mad on computer games, and I tried to get him to play it, "it's no good granddad, the graphics are terrible", blimey kids today, if it isn't virtual reality they don't want to know! I remember when every game was black and white, and, no matter what they were supposed to be, they all looked like that tennis game Pong. Different names they may have had, but at the end of the day they were all 2 little white rectancles on a grey screen, kids today, they don't know they're born !

 
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Nice job Steps, getting all the stuff together to build one myself, any chance of a couple of pics of the guts of it?

Asteroids is the game I am looking forward to getting running, it was my favourite from the 70's.

 
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Went to Jersey on the ferry as a kid in the mid 70s with £10 spending money for the week. Spent the lot on a monochrome Space Invaders machine on the ferry at 10p a pop. :)  Don't do consoles or games nowadays but SI holds a special place in my heart.

I would absolutely love to build a full size one of these. I've got the woodwork skills and the wiring up is no issue but I'd need a good guide being the monkey see / monkey do sort. The "coding" baffles me. 

I've got a Pi B+ and a couple of 19" flat screen monitors, one is VGA and the other VGA/DVI. Presume I need an HDMI/VGA adapter?

Sound wise one of the monitors has a 3.5mm sound in jack and speakers so that's all good I think, will connect straight to the Pi.

Could I power the Pi from the USB port on the monitor?

I know there are kits you can buy but is there a good 2-player wiring diagram about? Can't see why I couldn't use 22mm control gear pushbuttons?

 
roys said:
Nice job Steps, getting all the stuff together to build one myself, any chance of a couple of pics of the guts of it?

Asteroids is the game I am looking forward to getting running, it was my favourite from the 70's.
Click to expand...


I'll get you some pix later roys 

Using some stuff I had lying about (ie, PSU for the LEDs , marquee light was an old LED IP light that was damaged, 9mm perspex was old notice boards getting skipped at a job etc) , it's probably cost about £120 for the Pi 2, joysticks, buttons, wood, edge strip , power in socket, flat screen TV (4:3) off eBay,

Onoff said:
Went to Jersey on the ferry as a kid in the mid 70s with £10 spending money for the week. Spent the lot on a monochrome Space Invaders machine on the ferry at 10p a pop. :)  Don't do consoles or games nowadays but SI holds a special place in my heart.

I would absolutely love to build a full size one of these. I've got the woodwork skills and the wiring up is no issue but I'd need a good guide being the monkey see / monkey do sort. The "coding" baffles me. 

I've got a Pi B+ and a couple of 19" flat screen monitors, one is VGA and the other VGA/DVI. Presume I need an HDMI/VGA adapter?

Sound wise one of the monitors has a 3.5mm sound in jack and speakers so that's all good I think, will connect straight to the Pi.

Could I power the Pi from the USB port on the monitor?

I know there are kits you can buy but is there a good 2-player wiring diagram about? Can't see why I couldn't use 22mm control gear pushbuttons?
Click to expand...


I didn't use a kit , all controls wired through the GPIO

even got pins spare, that's 2x joysticks and 10 buttons

GPIO pins

14960566303381798279042.jpg

 
So you bring the wires off the GPIO via a long ribbon cable with a 40--pin female connector. Different to an IDE ribbon cable I assume as all pins are used.

Player 1 on the right and 2 on the left.

Trying to get my head around the wiring...

Pin 1 - 3.3V - that means that there's 3.3V at the pin with respect to GND?

Pin 2 - 5V - that means that there's 3.3V at the pin with respect to GND?

Pin 3 - Coin - what does the 5.6 mean?

Pin 4 - 5V - that means that there's 3.3V at the pin with respect to GND?

Pin 5 - Player 1, what's the "3" and "1" in black mean? And the "3" in green?

...and so on

Nah don't get It! :)

 
The numbers in black on inside are the physical pun numbers,

Numbers in green are what the Pi numbers them as,

Red, such as P1 is player 1 , 1F2 is player1 Fire button 2 ,

Black is the keyboard button it is mapped to, 

So, by pressing player 1 fire button 1 the Pi sees GPIO 10 activated and the code maps this to keyboard button Left Ctrl and this makes the bloke in donkey Kong jump. :)

Its not actually that hard, 

Yep, some ide cables have a blank in them, some don't, I don't know why, I just rooted through my box of bits till I found one that was usable, and used bootlace ferrules to join it to the wiring going to the buttons,

 
@roys

1 - Blue and red  buttons unused at present, will be used for shutdown and reboot when I sort them out.

2- black button is escape, used to change games, the patchy bit of paint is actually one of The speakers, I used the original TV speakers, tinny and beepy, which is about the proper sound, :)

IMG_20170529_155743.jpg

IMG_20170529_155756.jpg

 
3- general overview of rear, need a cover for fan, IEC power in and cat5e point at bottom left, will add an external USB at some point too, screen held in lace by some old shelving brackets I had

4- showing The "ide" cable from GPIO, bootlace crimped to button cables and heat shrunk, 

5- general wiring, could be neater, tbh, I made it fairly long as I wasn't sure just how it would all fit, if you had more patience it could all be made much shorter and neater.

IMG_20170529_174122.jpg

IMG_20170529_174157.jpg

IMG_20170529_174229.jpg

 
6- composite to scart, used an old video camera lead so the outputs on the 4pin jack don't match the traditional colour codes, ;)   the TV cost me £4.20 iirc as its 4:3 and not HD, I wanted 4:3 as that's the ratio the games were originally designed for, its also mounted vertically , the AV input was on a separate board that I done away with.

7- some button , joystick wiring 

8- you'll notice 4wires on the buttons, I've used illuminated buttons, and used a separate power supply for the LEDs so as to not chance draining the power from the Pi, I had an old 12v plug in PSU in the bits box, it also powers an old 12v PC fan for cooling

IMG_20170529_174253.jpg

IMG_20170529_174421.jpg

IMG_20170529_174430.jpg

 
9- front panel, illuminated coin button, with P1 and P2 buttons either side

I will at some point put a coin mechanism on this, :D

But I don't have the money to waste atm, I'll probably make it something like a 5p a credit for the kids, :slap

IMG_20170529_174439.jpg

Blue Duck said:
Looks awesome @steptoe 

Let me know what you want for the marquee! :D

:)
Click to expand...
I will bud, will be something similar, with like a scrawled  -cade  after it, and the two  tone strip under, :)

 
Smart as buttons that is Steps.

i am going to use a Raspberry Pi for the brains for mine, I have bought the buttons and joysticks, bought an amp kit from eBay for about £2 and built that up, I have a spare 19" monitor I was going to use, a couple of old small car speakers, getting there, but well impressed with yours😀😀

 
That's an rPi 2 @roys

If you have a rPi 3 it will run even more games,

Here's the prototype I made with an rPi 1

and tbh, it runs all the old games spot on, it does struggle a bit with some of the mid 80s onward stuff though. 

1496079559900-60587359.jpg

 
@steptoe

I saw this and thought of you! 

86eda85b8097950793f8d30762d9415b_.81fc0e1eddb15aafa979ed1ba83adbd8


 

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