The Mini-Markade

posted Feb 16th 2010 10:00am by
filed under: toy hacks

We love arcade games. Who doesn’t? We feel that the “arcade” feeling just can’t be replicated in any other form factor than an arcade cabinet. [Moslevin] must feel the same way too. He has built, what could possibly be the worlds smallest arcade cabinet. Aside from a coin mechanism, it is fully functional. It is an ATMega328p running his own custom software. The games he has available are Tetris, Invader, and Breakout, all coded by himself as well. We’ve seen small arcade cabinets before, but none this small.

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27 Responses to The Mini-Markade

  • moo says:
    February 16, 2010 at 10:13 am

    Thats one small arcade cabinet XD

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  • l0gic says:
    February 16, 2010 at 10:34 am

    I read the article, it uses the atmega328p, but I cant find the schematics nor diagram, is that supposed to be an arduino?

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  • Moslevin says:
    February 16, 2010 at 10:47 am

    That’s a custom ATMega328p board – not an arduino. Right now it’s just a hand-wired prototype, but I’ll eventually post schematics for it.

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  • silverbyte says:
    February 16, 2010 at 11:13 am

    Is the graphics rendered and displayed using ONLY the Atmega328?

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  • Stf says:
    February 16, 2010 at 11:15 am

    @l0gic
    it’s a AVR atmega328p microcontroller

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  • silverbyte says:
    February 16, 2010 at 11:19 am

    I take back what I said, I saw your using OLED display (by 4D Systems). I believe they sell OLED displays with the graphics driver onboard

    somthing like the “”µOLED-96-G1(GFX)”" @ 50$ us
    (which is pretty pricey for this type of project).

    Would I be able to render the graphics using cheaper method (as opposed to OLED Display Module by 4dsystem )?

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  • Moslevin says:
    February 16, 2010 at 11:34 am

    All of the graphics are stored on the AVR, and all of the animation/rendering is controlled entirely by the AVR.

    The graphics hardware itself is a 4D Systems OLED module, which talks to the AVR over a serial command interface and handles the “pixel-level” interface.

    Everything is abstracted through the RTOS device driver interface though, so there’s nothing in the code that relies on any specific feature of that module, and no difference between the graphics output on a 4D systems display, a parallel graphics LCD, or a PC Framebuffer.

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  • jasonx says:
    February 16, 2010 at 11:50 am

    wow that’s great nice job :-)
    are you planning to release the code and schematics for it in the future ? I would love to build one

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  • rob says:
    February 16, 2010 at 12:21 pm

    that would be perfect for this, web enable it! http://www.guimp.com/

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  • Lupin says:
    February 16, 2010 at 12:25 pm

    You can get the OLED display from farnell (1583044) and interface it directly to the AVR. The interface is straight forward and well described in the datasheet (regular SPI bus). But you need to supply +12V to the display.

    4D System basically charges you for the breakout board (which generates +12V) and the fool proof interface.

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  • jay vaughan says:
    February 16, 2010 at 12:48 pm

    I want to laser-cut my own arcade cabinet .. anyone know of any designs online that are worth checking out before I go ahead and just wing one together myself? Ideally I’d like it to be about 50cm tall .. but I’m open to any options, if there are already designs for the cabinet out there ..

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  • Moslevin says:
    February 16, 2010 at 12:49 pm

    @Lupin – Thanks for the info on the OLED! I plan on doing a limited production run at some point, and being able to drive the display directly would greatly reduce the overall cost (even if it meant moving to a larger AVR part), and if it’s SPI then it should be very easy to implement a FunkOS display driver to drive it.

    @JasonX – I’ll probably release the source in some form in the future, it probably needs a bit of documentation and review before it’s ready for prime time.

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  • Richard says:
    February 16, 2010 at 2:13 pm

    That’s so cool it hurts… nice work. :-)

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  • morcheeba says:
    February 16, 2010 at 2:24 pm

    Awesome work!! I love the mini joystick & color screen. There are doll-house reproductions of coins on ebay, so you could be ready for a coin counter – just add a slot photodetector pair.
    http://www.auctionzealot.com/members/sweatshirtman/nick3(medium).jpg

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  • googfan says:
    February 16, 2010 at 2:39 pm

    needs some paint

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  • Zymastorik says:
    February 16, 2010 at 3:29 pm

    That’s all kinds of awesome.

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  • Paul Potter says:
    February 16, 2010 at 3:37 pm

    Superb work.

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  • bouncy castle hire weston-super-mare says:
    February 16, 2010 at 4:23 pm

    You got too much spare time on your hands… I WANNA BE YOU .. this is awesome :P

    blog bookmarked for life !!!

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  • Osgeld says:
    February 16, 2010 at 5:13 pm

    little putty, sanding, and paint (maybe some scaled down artwork) you could pass it of as a real cabinet

    only tiny

    nifty

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  • Moslevin says:
    February 16, 2010 at 5:15 pm

    Once I finish the last few bits of mechanical fitting, I’ll definitely be painting it and adding artwork. Hopefully I’ll get around to that part sooner than later ;)

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  • Joe says:
    February 16, 2010 at 6:37 pm

    Nice, but does everything fit in the cabinet? All the pictures have a bunch of extra gut hanging out back.

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  • Moslevin says:
    February 16, 2010 at 7:00 pm

    Yes – everything does fit in the cabinet (although there isn’t a lot of extra space, that’s for sure). I have a back panel for it, but I’m waiting to install the power switch in it before I assemble it into the cabinet.

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  • Ben Ryves says:
    February 16, 2010 at 7:10 pm

    Top work. Really nice project. :-)

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  • strider_mt2k says:
    February 16, 2010 at 8:58 pm

    SO COOL

    Well done!

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  • Itwork4me says:
    February 16, 2010 at 10:12 pm

    Kill the girth with some balsa wood. U can cut it with a razor blade

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  • Subbota says:
    February 17, 2010 at 5:52 pm

    You haven’t seen small arcade cabinets until you’ve seen the Pocket Galaga.

    http://arcade.laweb.nl/PocketGalaga/

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  • Subbota says:
    February 17, 2010 at 5:53 pm

    Oh and big thanks to whomever is responsible for allowing capitalization in the comments!

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