Anyone have any Custom (PC inside) consoles?

[JesterDev]

I curently have only 3.

My MAME machine (My pride and joy ):

2 8-way sticks
1 4-way stick
Tron Style Stick
Trackball (Translucent with Superbright LED)
Spinner (Oscar Pro)
Lightgun (Act labs tv version)
Atari Joystick (Wired into player one)
8 Buttons per player
3 Each for trackball and spinner
1 on each side for pinball
Coin 1-2, Player 1-2..
29" TV
AMD Athlon 1.8Ghz (Only really only play the classics so this is perfect)
512MB DDR Ram
Geforce 4 MMX
Soundblaster Audigy
Boots right into a custom Linux distro.

Atari 2600:

I have this wired to my Linux box with an I-Pac. I found a fried one on ebay ($2) a while back and tried to think what I would do with it.. Works like a dream. NO mods to the atari whatsoever save for the joysticks and paddles. This is great when I have people over and everyone wants to play an Atari.

NES:

Again wired into my Linux Box and made from a dead system. Nothing all that special here other then the modified controllers (USB).

So anyway. There's noting like playing on the real thing, but these last two are just the results of being bored. I can't bring myself to hack up an Atari to make one of those portable ones..

[Flack]

I'm kind of confused about those last two ... can you explain how they are and what they do a little more? Oh, and people around here LOVE pictures, so if you have any of those projects, throw them online!

[JesterDev]

Sorry, no pictures atm. But I'll be sure to get some. There's really not much to see other then the Mame cabinet. The others look perfectly normal other then the extra wires coming out the back.

Those last two are really just empty shells connected to my Linux box. When I "turn them on" it sends a signal (via shortcut key) to my Linux box which runs a script which runs the emulator front end. I have an S-Video cable attached from my computer to my TV so when I switch to "video#" mode I can play games on my TV just as if it where a real console.

So it's really just a computer attached to my TV to play roms.

The power switches on each are simply modified to use a micro switch which is wired into the I-PAC. So I guess I lied. There are a few modifications made. But they are easily fixable if I where to convert them back.

It's really simple to setup. The only thing I really want to do is write a monitoring program so when I use certain button+directional combinations it loads a certain game.. But that is something way off for now.

[boatofcar]

What a cool idea! I'd love to see pictures too when you get them. Are both consoles attached to the same Linux box?

[Flack]

What a cool idea! I'd love to see pictures too when you get them. Are both consoles attached to the same Linux box?

I assumed they were by the descriptions. What an interesting idea!

And you wired an Atari joystick up to an IPAC? Wow, I didn't even know that could be done!

[JesterDev]

Atari controls are easy to convert. You just have to cut the connectors on the ends and strip the wires. Each wire is color coded like so:

Color Function
1 White Up
2 Blue Down
3 Green Left
4 Brown Right
5 no contact
6 Orange Fire button
7 Red +5V, max. 50 mA
8 Black Ground
9 no contact

So you just take each wire and attach it to the I-PAC in the corresponding slot (of course I'm sure you figured this out. ) SMS controls also work the same I believe, but I've never tried.. Not yet.

[Gamemaster_ca_2003]

Hey If you want a PC Console Just Buy an XBOX

[ddockery]

You can wire just about anything up to an Ipac if you really want to. In fact, you could even wire up adapter to it if you wanted to... this might be a cheap way to get USB functionality out of a lot of old controllers. I need to try this out!