Custom made scale arcade cabinet models

Haven’t got room to house your very own arcade cabinet? Can’t afford that huge vintage Starwars cockpit cabinet? Spouse said you can only own one cabinet….and it has to live in the garage (well, at least you’ve let me have one hon!) Well take a look at these custom made scale model arcade cabinets over at – http://retro-heart.blogspot.com/

Perfect for any retro gamer’s desktop/shelf and at only 5″ – 6″ tall, shouldn’t get you into any trouble from non retro gaming partners

I came across these great looking models on eBay after spotting a model of a Zaccaria Space Pirate cabinet. Being the same cabinet used for my own Zaccaria Phoenix albeit different side art I contacted the owner to see if he could produce a model for me. So far, the email I received from Steven looks promising. I’ll post more on this when I hear more.

Always like the White and Green of the Galaxians cab.

Zaccaria Space Pirate….and hopefully Zaccaria Phoenix soon.

Much cheaper than owning an original, check put the detailing.

….or if you want to go down the DIY route, check out papercade at ‘the way of the rodent’.

Here’s my old n battered paper Pac Man cab.

Pac Man Cake

Is this the best birthday cake ever?

Afternoon 8-Bit.

The Retro Computer Museum will host it’s very first retro gaming event in it’s new premises in the next few weeks (17th Sept) and work has been going on for many weeks to get everything ready for the big day.

Sadly, one of the popular consoles the MB Vectrex had suffered a fault at the last event  therefore I’ve offered to loan mine and as i’d not been down to RCM HQ for a few weeks, thought i’d meet up with some of the chaps to have a looksee and see how things are progressing.

Loading my car before heading down with all manner of old ‘puter gear. My Vectrex in the footwell, a couple of boxes of BBC Micreo & C64 5 1/4″ floppy disks, my poorly Commodore 128 motherboard which i’m hoping one of the chaps can have a look at, Classic Magic Carpet for MS -DOS for one of the RCM members (the 3d glasses were giving me a headache!) and a few other bits n pieces….guarded by my Angry Bird

 

 

It’s great to see that RCM have increased their stock of arcade and MAME machines. This Jamma cabinet in Galaga artwork is looking a bit rough but it shouldn’t take us long to get it looking nice again.

 

It was connected to a Jamma board containing sixty classic games, so we fired her up for a quick blast of Pheonix. It’s a little hard to tell from the photo, but the original arcade monitor is in superb condition. If any one needs to find me at the gaming event, I’ll probably be playing on this

Speaking of Phoenix, RCM have another dedicated cab. Again, in need of a little TLC but shouldn’t take long to struce her up again. It’s usually not my thing, but I love the look of that 70′s fake wood grain.

My Vectrex in it’s new home for the next few weeks. It would be nice to see other gamers try out this wonderfully quirky console and althought the vector based games are very simplistic, most are very addictive.

 

Andy took the time out to show me something really special. His ZXpander unit for his vintage Sinclair ZX81. With this new homebrew device attached, files to can be stored and load directly from modern SD memory cards. No more loading from tape and waiting, a game loads in the blink of an eye. As well as the ZXpander (housed in the memory pack), the monitor is showing a rescently coded version of Boulderdash. I doesn’t look much but concidering that it’s a 30 year old machine with only a meager 1K of ram and the whole screen is scolling, flicker free and contains animated characters…..pretty damn impressive stuff!

 

Sadly, we’d run out of time to have a good look at my C128. We did however narrow it down to the offending chip thanks to a doner C128 so I’ll take another look at it next week.

There’s still a lot to be done at HQ but we’re confident that one more all hands on push next weekend will see everything is place for our grand opening.

If you wish to learn more, head over to http://www.retrocomputermuseum.co.uk

Oh…and btw, brought home my newly purchased Commodore plus/4. More on this later on!

iOS Retro Gaming – Phoenix HD

Now here’s something I didn’t expect to see on the iPhone/iPad (and at the time I downloaded, it was completely free).

Phoenix HD is a classic vertical shooter which has been given a digital makeover to bring it bang up to date for modern audiences. Just one look of the screenshots whilst browsing the app store on my phone and jaw dropped, hit the download button in the hope that it would be as good as it looked. I wasn’t wrong!

Back home and on the bigger screen on my iPad, it looks simply stunning. But what about the game? Well, as a fan of the genre growing up with the likes of 1942, Gemini Wings and Xenon II (ok that last one on the Amiga was a bit crap but that bomb the bass signature tune certainly rocked!) this type of game has always appeal to me. Simple intense twitch gaming at it’s best.

Control of you ship is via touchscreen and it responds to you finger movements very well so there’s never any danger of feeling that you’ve lost control. With enemies coming at you wave after wave it’s a good thing that the firing your ships weapon systems is handled automatically. I suspect if not, many iPad screens would suffer

As you blown the crap out of everything that moves you can collect the green and yellow energy crystals dropped from your fallen foe which provides you with a much needed health top up. Other items dropped by your enemy will upgrade your weapons systems or provide your ship with time limited shields. Collect one of the super power ups and with a quick double finger tap on the screen, your ship fires a huge volley of immense power laying waste to all but the mightiest of ships.

Things start of pretty easy and the difficulty is steadily increased with some of the larger ships unleashing waves of screen filling bullet patterns that you have to dodge in and out and as you jump from one empty gap to another. It can get quite intense at times but the responsive touch screen control really comes into play here. If they’d got this wrong by just a little, it would have been unplayable.

I’ve always been a fan of these ‘bullet hell’ shooters like the Japanese arcade titles such as Batsugun, DonPachi and Ikaragu and Zero Gunner on the Sega Dreamcast. Let’s hope that Phoenix HD is the first of many stunning shooters to come to the iPad.

Vectrex iPad wallpaper

Just a random trawl through the Internet and I happen to come across a great resource for all things Vectrex. There’s some great articles here as well as game reviews and a large selection of boxart, instruction and overlay scans.

http://www.vectrex.nl/

Using the overlay for Mine Storm, I’ve given my iPad a Vectrex make over

If only there was a Vectrex emulator for iOS, now that would be something!

Ideas for a DIY ‘Mini-Mini’ Mame arcade cabinet.

Sparked on by my trip out to the coast the other week and finding all those lovely vintage arcade games, I’ve since been enjoying some of the classics these past weeks either via MAME or on a variety of my consoles, handhelds and iPhone/iPad.

I’m talking about some of the real old school classics here like Asteroids, Defender, Galaga, Breakout & Frogger, were reflex and button mashing is the order of the day.

The other night, I dusted down an old Atari 2600 Galaxians cart and popped it in for a go. As you can see from the screenshot below, it looks terrible….yet I couldn’t put it down and had one of those ‘one more go’ moments that lasted into the early hours

I have my (almost completed…hopefully soon) full size Mame cabinet in the garage but want something on a smaller scale to have in my study. Something a little more portable yet still provides that touchy feel of a arcade cabinet rather than a desktop PC.

At first I thought about building myself a Mame Bartop cabinet similar to one owned by the Retro Computer Museum (for more details please visit – http://www.retrocomputermuseum.co.uk/) which is a great homebrew cabinet built by Richard and James but it’s still a little too big for my needs. I’m wanting something I can throw into a cupboard when I’m not using it.

I guess I’m looking sizewise something comparable with my MB Vectrex – shown here when I had it set up at my work place the other day for some some lunchtime Mine Storm gaming

I’d also like the vertically mounted screen so I can play all of those classic shooters like Space Invaders, Pheonix and Galaxians.

Here’s the totally brillaint iCade arcade cabinet for the iPad which really looks the business and is just the thing i’m looking for.

However, the downside is that the iPad doesn’t have nearly the number of classic games that I’m wanting to play. Sure there’s a few hits from Atari, Taito and Capcom (and I’m simply loving the 30th Galaga anniversary app) but there’s many more that are missing which I’d really like to play. O.k, I could install Mame4all on my iPad but this would require me to jailbreak it which isn’t something I want to do at the moment.

Still, the iCade case has given me a lot of inspiration and it’s this design that I want use as a base for my own DIY mini ‘mini’ arcade cabinet.

I was thinking about using spare laptop/netbook components and screens and such when it hit me – I already own the perfect bit of kit that would make the whole process that little bit easier (and quicker so i can get my game on!).

I have a netbook that can convert into a thin (-ish) tablet computer. I would be able to mount it into a mini case and attach a USB iPac based arcade controller that I could build -

Sorta like a miniature version of the one I’ve built for my full size cab (see blog post http://stiggyblog.wordpress.com/2011/03/18/mame-arcade-control-panel-part-4/

Time to get out pen and paper and start sketching some cabinet planes…but first time to test the netbook.

Here’s a video I’ve uploaded to YouTube.

Here’s a few more photos -

IBM 5150 Today

As IBM celebrated it’s 30th anniversary of releasing their first PC the other week, the web has been full of wonderfully nostalgic tech stories and recollection from users and fans of these early machines. Of all the ones I’ve read, this one made me smile the most.

Can You Do Real Work With the 30-Year-Old IBM 5150?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/237878/can_you_do_real_work_with_the_30yearold_ibm_5150.html

The 50 Greatest Arcade Cabinets of all time?

Not all classic arcade games were great, in fact some were really terrible, but many of them stood out because of the design of the cabinet, whether it’s the shape, great artwork, or some fun novel twist that helps immerse the player in the digital world.

I came across this great article posted on I-Mockery that lists their top 50 greatest arcade cabinets of all time http://www.i-mockery.com/minimocks/50arcadecabinets/

Some of the pictures brought back many happy memories although a few of my favorites are missing

Buggy Boy (1985) Triple screen model.

Atari’s TX-1 might have been the first triple screen arcade machine I’d played, but Buggy Boy played like no other racing game I’d played up until then. I seemed to recall the one I used to play had webbing down the side ‘window’ similar to real off road racers, but again, this might have been artistic flair of our local the arcade owner.

Space Harrier Deluxe (1985) – Great artwork covers nearly ever inch of Sega’s classic Space Harrier. In you were lucky enough to get to go on the deluxe model with moving cockpit you was in for one helluva ride.

Spy Hunter (1983) – Upright – Although some would prefer the deluxe cockpit model, it’s the upright white box that appeals to me. Spy Hunter also contains the coolest looking controller of all time.

Missile Command (1980) – Upright. Who cannot fall in love with this cabinet. It’s quirky shape, stunning artwork, one of the best control panel decals and that massive black trackball. Sadly, not many of them knocking around now, but was fortunate to have a go on this beautifully restored cabinet at Retro Reunited back in 2009 (see blog post – http://stiggyblog.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/retro-reunited-09/

Other favorites incude

PowerDrift

Wec Lemans

Battlezone

SuperSprint

Daytona Racing

What’s your favourite?

Retro Gaming: Online Sierra adventure games.

Next to Lucasart, Sierra produced some of the finest graphic adventure games around in the 80′s and 90′s keeping happy PC DOS users like myself entertained for hours.

I often return to many of these excellent games today thanks to the wonderful DOSbox and have recently found a site that’s hosting authorised online versions available to play directly in your web browser.

At the moment, the following games are available -

Kings Quest: Quest for the Crown

Police Quest: In Pursuit of Death Angel

Space Quest 1: The Sarien Encounter

The Black Cauldron

Gold Rush!

Even better, iPad owners get tablet versions of these great games which have been optimised for touchscreen. At the moment only The Black Cauldron and Gold Rush! are available for iPad so I’ll be checking back often in the hope that they’ll release my favourite’s Police Quest and Larry games soon.

The Black Cauldron on my iPad

Retro Gaming: IOS 8-bit Rally & Hard Lines

I stumbled across another Retro racing game for iPad/iPhone. This time it’s pedal to the metal action…..well finger to the button!

8-bit Rally

Now here’s a real gem! 8-bit Rally is a racing game that plays homage to all those 2D racing games we used to play on early computers and coin-op arcades. Games like Outrun, Chase HQ, Crazy Cars (the latter being quite dire by the way) and of course, the Lotus Trilogy on the Amiga. The developer mentioned that the latter and Top Gear on the SNES was the main inspiration in creating the game and playing it for myself and seeing all the subtle homages you can tell that they really were fans of the originals.

You start off with just a basic car and a few dollars for upgrades. The more 8-bit cup races you win (or finish in a top percentage) the more cash you get to spend on your ride. Engine, gear box and tyres can be upgraded as well as purchasing those important Nitro packages. In total there’s 40 tracks set over 6 continents so expect a good dollop of road, desert, snow, city (probably) tracks.

Graphically, 8-bit Rally mirrors the clunky graphics of man retro racers and the AI opponent is spot on I.e just like it vintage counterpart, is annoying and predictable! That’s, not a bad thing by the way and it made me smile at the tribute.

Unlike some of the older games It doesn’t half shift at a descent pace with the beautifully smooth tracks zipping along at a high frame rate.

Control is via touchpad and/or tilt control which works really well in this particular game and with good customisation to tweak the sensitivity to suit. All on screen buttons are fairly large so for example you don’t miss the break pedal button when it’s needed the most.

If you’re a fan of old style racers, especially the Lotus Trilogy, you’ll simply love this.

At the time of writing, this game is Free via the Apple App store for a limited time.

Retro Gaming: Old arcade machine hunting.

Sadly, classic arcade coin-op games are becoming even scarer in their natural habitat of arcade halls, bars and cafes  in this country. I can’t remember the last classic game I saw outside of a Retro Computer/gaming event and although Mame and Jamma board collecting can recreate some of the magic, there’s nothing that can compare with standing next to rows and rows of arcade cabinets and hearing the roar of all those electronic sounds.

At some point I plan to head down south to the Arcade Barn (http://www.arcadebarn.co.uk/) but until then, will always be on the lookout for those hidden gems.

I was talking to a Facebook friend of mine the other day and he mentioned an old arcade out on the east coast that still had a few machines that where worth investigating. Having today off from work and with the weather looking like it’s going to be a glorious sunny day,  I packed up my gear and headed out early.

I didn’t take long to find the arcade thanks to iPhone maps and a reference photo posted from my friend (I soo love modern technology!).

Hap(p)y Day’s Arcade – Chapel St. Leonards, Lincoln. (the missing ‘P’ had just been removed for replacement).

 

It doesn’t look much does it…well you’d be right, it was a bit run down and not a lot of modern games in there compared to the other arcades around….but for old school gamers, that is just perfect as these run down arcade often still hold some real gems.

 

Sadly not in it’s original cabinet, this was the first game that greeted me inside and just so happens to be one of my all time favorite – Sega’s Wonderboy (1986).

Damn shame that the colors were all washed out – Jon, if you’re reading this, fancy a trip with your jamma repair kit Even with the bizarre coloring it still played like a charm on the big 26″ crt.

Way too many many credits later, I took a walk to the other side of the arcade and nearly fell over myself when I saw what was tucked in the corner.

Starblade – Namco (1991)

I have it for the Sega CD, I have it for the Sony Playstation and Panasonic 3DO. I even play the original via Mjonir (see previous blog post – http://stiggyblog.wordpress.com/2010/06/13/retro-gaming-starblade-panasonic-3doarcade/ ) but nothing compares to sitting in the original cab, massive controller and roar of the sound effects.

Happy days!

The two Electrocoin Goliath cabinets both held a range of games from the golden age of video gaming including Donkey Kong, Pac Man, 1942, Scramble, Rally-X, Mr.Do, Galaxians, Pheonix, Galaga, Ms Pacman. Suffice to say, i spent a hellava long time on these two. The one on the right has a dodgy joystick though

Insert a credit and pick one of 36 vertical classic games.

The Goliath cabinets are really well made and size wise is much more suited to my height than my own cabinet back at home. I’m seriously thinking of tracking one of these down for myself.

Another generic Jamma cab, this time playing Cabal (1988). Not my favorite game (although, the ZX spectrum home port plays very well) it was certainly a worth a credit or five

Happy Day’s arcade offers a small slice of gaming from yesteryear and I’m sure i’ll be back for more.

Whilst I was at the coast, I thought I’d take a stroll along the sea front to find the old arcade that i used to frequent as a young lad. It’s here that I cut my teeth on many classics for the first time like Spy Hunter, Double Dragon, Rolling Thunder, Buggy Boy, Outrun, Super Sprint, Wonderboy, Final Fight…the list goes on.

Smiths’s Arcade – Winthorpe, Lincoln

From the outside, Smith’s arcade hasn’t changed a bit in the twenty odd years since coming here so as homage, have applied a ‘retro’ filter to the picture taken this morning (c/o ‘Camera+’ app for iPhone).

 

 

Sadly, inside was different story with all those classic games now long gone and replaced with rows upon rows of slots, interactive dance mats and crane grab machines.

I did spot a few old-ish friends here and there -

Ridge Racer 2 (Namco) with clutch pedal and manual gear shift.

Twin Sega Rally – sadly not working.

Noooooo, Frogger, what have they done to you!

Back at Happys Day’s for one last fix before heading home.

Garden Gnome Defence Force

I’m not a huge fan of garden ornaments, the odd subtle piece here and there is ok but and I’m afraid to say that garden Gnomes are definitely a no no.

That was until I saw this

Will you find one in my garden……probably not, but a fun picture that made me smile all the same.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep – book recovers

Just another random surf (via the wonderful Flipboard app) led me to this fantastic article posted at The Fox is Black (http://thefoxisblack.com) about fan made photoshop recovers of one of my favourite books from one of my favourite authors – Philip K Dick. It seems that fan made digital book re-covering is quite a popular subject amongst many art & design websites. Shall have to investigate further!

This is the winning cover by Justin Mezell and I have to agree withe the judges decision. Simply love the Art Deco styling.

You can find the original article here – http://thefoxisblack.com/2011/07/13/re-covered-books-do-androids-dream-of-electric-sheep/

Which reminds me, I haven’t watched Bladerunner for some time.

Retro inspired gaming on the iPad

Well, I’ve had my iPad for about a month now and all I can say is that it has to be, pretty much the best bit of tech I’ve ever own (o.k so I said that about my Atari 2600 when I first got one!). This thing is simply outstanding and can almost do anything…well, almost anything..it probably couldn’t rescue little timmy who’s fallen down a well….although on the other hand, I could use it to email a photo containing GPS co-ordinates to Lassie

I do like the odd game too, especially after falling in love with Angry Birds on my iPhone, and over the past few weeks I’ve come across a few other gems that I thought i’d share. What has attracted me the most to these three are a) that they’re really fun games, B) they’re free (for the moment) and C) they have a certain retro game feel about them that warm the heart of old school gamers like myself.

First up is a game called Hack Run, which takes inspiration from the 1985 Activision classic ‘Hacker’.

The aim of the game is to figure our how to hack into shadowy company and do away with all of their mysterious secrets. Like Hacker, you start off having no idea at all what you’re supposed to do but as you type in a few old school DOS/UNIX commands at random, you start to find your way around and into he system and the game unfolds bit by bit. I’ve never been so excited after hacking (well guessing really) a password and getting it right thus giving me access to untold data. I’ve become so engrossed with it that I found myself entering similar commands whilst working on a telnet client at work

Hack Run

Next up is a Supersonic HD which plays very much like the old arcade game STUNRUNNER. The aim is simple, fly through a tunnel at speed collecting points whilst avoiding obstacles. The silky smooth neon vector graphics also remind me of the Tron movies and also a bit like the Death Star trench run from classic Starwars arcade game. Add a pumping techno music track akin to WipeOut on the PS1 and the beautiful gyroscopic control system that the iPad offers, makes for one hellava game!

Supersonic HD

‘Red Five standing by!’ – oops, wrong film

The last game I stumbled across by accident is called Angry Bots (bet you can’t guess what I was originally searching for!)

What struck me most about this top down, Alien Breed (Amiga), Loaded (PS1) inspired shooter is the drop dead gorgeous graphics. This is, after all, an iPad and not a dedicated high spec games console…evidentially not!

Sadly, there isn’t much in the way of an actual game yet as it appears to be a tech demo for a developer kit called Unity. All you have to do is walk about a bit and shoot t robots without being killed. Controls are handled very via virtual joystick that allow for independent 360 movement and fire which comes in handy as you can walk backwards whilst aiming and shooting.

Dynamic lighting, reflection, rain drops and atmospheric steam clouds, it’s all here without having to water cool that gfx chip

Red light scopes are cool!

So there you go, three (well, two and a bit) excellent examples of retro inspired, pick up n play arcade games for the iPad. I’m looking forward to discovering more and I’d be really interested to hear from you if you have other recommendations.

Happy gaming!