I love how well this turned out! First finding that it actually had 3 extra games, then finding a cute little test mode screen, Going further to put a selection switches, And how small and lovely this little this in in final :)
Not sure if someone already posted this. For the multi game selector. You could have used the joystick to complete the bridge. The end result is that while the game is off you hold say up and turn on the game at the same time. It loads galaxian. Game off,you hold down at the same time you power on. It loads space invaders. And so on for left and right. I did that to my mini arcade. It works great. No need to cut,glue or add anything else to the cabinet.
As sad as I am to hear that Ben's leaving the show, I support his decision and wish him luck with his future endeavors, and if the show continues, I hope that the next person to take his place will do a good job. He might not be the Ben Heck we all know and love, but I'm willing to give him a chance.
I think the chain on the back isn't for your keys, it's so you can clip it to the outside of your backpack or whatever. That almost seems like a worse idea than keeping it in your pocket, but whatever, people do it.
Add me to the list of those who enjoyed this video's dose of regrettable acting. I loved it. Nice redesign of the system. Making it look like the mini arcade LCD games from the 80s is a nice touch.
btw I have a friend who works at the Hong Kong-based company that manufactures these mini arcades, and after telling her about this hack, she said yep, that's exactly what they did what with putting all four games on the same chip and using a jumper to select, and also the checksum screen was what she constantly saw while debugging the thing
Could you share more about the company? It's no simple feat to re-write the game. If the game plays like the original it is an enormous achievement. I wonder who these geniuses are. Why would they want to remain anonymous?
People talk about buttons being "mushy", but I think with the funky foam on the button contacts, you are bringing it to a whole new level! How do the controls feel?
Great video! I just wanted to say that Ms. Pac-Man is really pretty different. The lady version adds complexity through four different boards, and has “smarter” ghosts. Ms. Pac-Man is more than meets the eye
You need a store. I would buy almost everything you build. You could sell either completely built projects, or you could have people send you their systems to be modded or you could just sell kits with instructions. Please do this! I want a giant Gameboy!
Those of us that bought these when they first came out found out right away about the jumpers for the games. Many have modded them to use a 4 pin dip switch since there is room in the back to cut a hole and mount one.
Very interesting hack up. Cool to know all 4 games are on the board. Gonna have to tear one down if I find one in the wild. REALLY excited for next episode though. Been looking up making basic computers from scratch recently, and a Z80 computer sounds like a fun project!
The jumpers on the mainboard reminds me of those bootleg multicarts you find overseas. They'd often just have solder points that are jumped to change how many "Games" you got on the cart, and then have it (sometimes incorrectly) labeled accordingly.
I wonder if he tried soldering more than one of the A, B, C, D connections at a time. Like A+B to see if other games are on the chip besides the four found.
Hi Ben, great videos. I like the pop culture references. I was wondering if you ever used webtv? It was a set top box that allowed you to browse the web on your tv. It would be neat if you did a teardown and "modernize" it using a raspberry pi or something. It's an idea anyway.
I don’t know if I’d want to kill one of these cute little things just to build what can be achieved with a PI zero. But it is a really cool and simple build.
You could have used the d-pad as a double duty game selector, hold up-turn on for pac man, turn off, hold down-turn on for ms pac man etc as it seems the board only checks on boot probably wouldn’t need any persistent logic.
That was fun. Short, but fun. I wish Ben would try and find a screen that would show all the pixels of the game, not interpolate them, however that's called. Or just go ahead and put a bigger screen. The one that comes with the game is really tiny. Pretty cool little project nonetheless.
Ben, have you tried connecting more than one of the game selection pads at the same time? Could there be more games? (they could have used two jumpers to select the four possible games-as you did-so they may have used the four jumper bits to select 15 possible games (plus the "zero" mode you've found.)
I personally imagine the boot code checks each jumper in sequence, and would initiate the first game in the list if all are high. Would've been cool to see more possible modes with combinations though.
for the super solder episode (if it hasn't already been made), can you talk about choosing flux type & %? R/RMA/RA/WS/NC etc. and how to generally choose % (and how % may vary with solder diameter). I'd be interested to see a side-by-side real time of 63/37, 60/40, and kl100d/lead-free. Thanks for TBHS everybody, i look forward to seeing what the future holds
I love your videos i just wish you'd provide DIY instructions for these projects (even if its in the form of another book...which id buy as your console mod book was incredible!)
Thinking it would have been cool if instead of a switch selector, have printed cards with the game picture on it and jumper for the game, so it’s like putting a rom cart in it 🤔
There is, he mentions it during the design phase, it's at the lower left bottom. You can see it in the finished product when he shows Ms. Pac Man @10:30
They could have had it check multiple links for up to 16 games but they didn't. You can actually wire the joystick lines to the ABCD jumpers so you power on, holding a direction to get a game.
