Fans of vintage Apple ][ and TRS-80 games will undoubtedly recognize the image above in short order. Taipan! was a popular game in its time, and [Simon] decided it was a great title to try recreating with an Arduino.
His goal was to use a standard Arduino Duemilanove to reproduce the game, rather than opting for a Mega or something like the Raspberry Pi. Seeing those two options as “too easy”, he ventured into the project with some self-imposed limitations, making it a more fruitful adventure.
In the end, [Simon] had to use two Arduinos – one to control the gameplay and another to run the display. Simon tucked both boards, a keypad, and an LCD screen inside a first run copy of Tai-Pan, a move that is sure to please Apple aficionados and Xzibit fans alike.
[Simon] made sure that no detail was overlooked during the port, making sure to include every line of text as well as every bug found in the original game.
Check out a video of the finished project below, and be sure to swing by his site for a very thorough build log.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8wUh_5Q38w&feature=player_embedded#!&w=470]
Beautiful build. I like the keyboard. Also a nice bit of systems engineering.
“…and Xzibit fans alike.”
lol. I’m an Xzibit fan from back in the day and it took me a second to catch this. I was searching my brain for some sort of lyrical reference before it occurred to me that this was a ‘Yo Dawg…’ reference.
Well played Mike. Well Played.
YESSS they kept the bugs! That was one of the best parts of the game. :)
Oh maaan, now I remember loving the version of this I had on my Amstrad as a kid. I’d forgotten all about it!
Dammit, now I want to play this but I have to work!
Stuff work :)
Whoa, this is easier than I remember it being.
“Bad Joss! Bandits have beaten you up and stolen 40 Million from you!”
Too bad they missed the other 17 million in my sock. Or the 200 million in the bank. (I retired on 680 million…)
I’ve been playing this game since it came out on the Apple 2. (Off and on) I have a version on my smartphone and on my pc. You can get the windows version here http://www.old-games.com/download/5612/taipan-for-windows or play it in your browser here for a quick fix http://www.taipangame.com/
I like this build!