Some of you around the world may have come across these Android-based gaming tables installed in your local fast-food outlet, and may even have been lucky enough to paw at one that was actually working at the time.
Originally based on an ancient mini PC, with a 1080p flat panel LCD and a touch overlay, they would have been mind-blowing for small children back in the day, but nowadays we expect somewhat more. YouTuber [BigRig Creates] got his hands on one, in a less than pleasant condition, but after a lot of soap and water, it was stripped down and the original controller junked in favour of a modern mini PC. To be clear, there isn’t much left beyond the casing and display from the original hardware, but we don’t care, as a lot of attention was paid to the software side of things to get it to triple-booting into Windows 10, Android x86 and Linux running emulation station, covering all those table-gaming urges you may have.
Internally, there is a fair amount of room for improvement on the wiring side of things, and [BigRig] is quick to admit that, but that’s what this learning game is all about. Now, many of you will choke on the very idea of playing games on a table system like this, after all, it’s pretty obvious this will be really hard on the back and neck. But, it does offer the easy option to switch from landscape to portrait orientation, simply by walking around the side, so it does have an upside. Also you’ve got a handy place to dump your beer and the takeaway when it arrives, so maybe not such a bad thing to have in your apartment? And, yes, it does run Doom.
We were particularly amused by the custom boot logo as well as the slick custom art in emulation station. It’s attention to detail like this that makes a build a great one and a conversation piece at parties. Now if only he could sort out that wiring job.
Thanks [Raj] for the tip!
Hey it actually works! Sure beats the Taylor ice cream machines.
Theie machines work… just as long as your aren’t using the McDo’s version that is designed to need costly servicing calls.
It’s my understanding that the design of those so-called “ice cream machines” is such that extensive daily maintenance is require to keep the machines clean and safe/healthy. Sadly, many franchisees fail to properly care for their machines.
In a perfect world, Taylor, the mfg of the machines, would have redesigned them by now to require less intervention/maintenance, but their guaranteed market of McDonalds that are required to buy the current machine makes such a redesign not cost effective.
People that work at McD restaurants also report breaking down the machine to clean it before the restaurant closes, and the refusing to dispense any ice cream once cleaned, because they’ll need to clean it again before closing for the night.
Ex mcdees employee here, let me point out the contradiction in your views. The machines do require moderate daily maintenance and a thorough going through less regularly. Even the moderate maintenance is still a fair old amount of work to do right. So it’s often started before the finish of a shift so as to not keep staff in the store 4hours after closing. (I used to do “closes”as a student and night owl anyways it allowed me to have my days free for whatever I wanted.) Tldr:the machines are often maintained correctly, that’s precisely why the cleaning is usually started early! They just like to break. In my experience as an employee doing the job you describe.
The problem isn’t the franchisees failing to properly care for their machines–the machines by design have a cryptic UI and give extremely inscrutable feedback in order to heavily favor expensive service calls by a Taylor-authorized technician, of course. Service calls are a very significant source of revenue for Taylor. A simple thing like having a little too much mix in the hopper that takes a bit too long to heat or chill results in a failed 4-hour cleaning cycle and a cryptic, obtuse error message that only a Taylor technician can decipher, requiring a service call. An of course neither the technician nor Taylor is going to tell you what the message means and how to avoid it the next time, only that it’s fixed (again) and will be ready…after another 4-hour cleaning cycle.
I would love to see someone take advantage of this by making a small soft serve ice cream cart and setting up shop next to all of the McDs with down ice cream machines. Perhaps they could even sell something called McBlizzards or something and perhaps the spoon could be used as the primary blending device.