Work In Progress: The Mini-Markade. The world's smallest cab?

[Infinity_Yak]

Hey all - for the last several months I've been working on building what I believe to be the world's smallest arcade cabinet.  I've gotten to the point where the cabinet is more or less assembled, the games are working, and I'm ready to start adding art, etc.

The cabinet itself sits at about 3.5 inches tall, and is modeled after the "paper-arcade" Defender cabinet... except it actually plays game.

Details:

Hardware:  homemade mainboard with an atmel AVR 8-bit microcontroller @20MHz, powered by 2xAAA batteries.  Full color 1.5 inch OLED display and 4-way joystick with 1 button.
Games: Tetris, Space Invaders, and Super Breakout, all with a custom frotend

For pictures and more details, check out my blog at:

http://moslevin.blogspot.com

[SavannahLion]

Yeah, saw that on Hackaday. Checked it out for the most part (nice point to the OLED source) but my attention kind of fizzled when I couldn't locate the build details and the kids started begging for food. Apparently when they're under the age of three you have to feed them occasionally.

[Infinity_Yak]

Details, shmeetails  

I've taken a bunch of photos along the way that I'll get around to posting at some point, along with schematics and source code.  I wanted to at least get something up on the web before the house is put up for sale and my tiny arcade boxes get placed in bigger boxes that don't get unpacked until 2012.  Glad to see some people other than me read hackaday

If there's anything about the build you're curious about, just ask, and I'll try to fill in the blanks.

[SavannahLion]

If there's anything about the build you're curious about, just ask, and I'll try to fill in the blanks.

Actually I am. I'm interested in the OLED choice and your interface. I thought you mentioned which AVR you use, but I don't see that detail either.

[Havok]

What kind of garbage is this? Where's the t-molding?

 

[SavannahLion]

What kind of garbage is this? Where's the t-molding?

 

He has to get it on a group buy, they have a minimum footage.  

[Infinity_Yak]

What kind of garbage is this? Where's the t-molding?

 

He has to get it on a group buy, they have a minimum footage.  

And it's hard to find people interested in 1/16" molding for a 1/64" groove

[Infinity_Yak]

If there's anything about the build you're curious about, just ask, and I'll try to fill in the blanks.

Actually I am. I'm interested in the OLED choice and your interface. I thought you mentioned which AVR you use, but I don't see that detail either.

The OLED is a uOLED-128-G1 from http://www.4dsystems.com.au, which uses a standard UART for the command interface.  This saves on pixel-drawing time since everything is done using higher-level commands (although I have successfully used other displays without affecting performance).

As for the AVR, it's an atmega328p, which has 32K of flash and 2K of RAM, in a 28-pin DIP package.  With three games, a frontend, and an RTOS, it's pretty much full to capacity.

The joystick is a sealed dome switch unit which you can find at digikey (Part: EG4561-ND).  It's wired up one line per switch (like the atari 2600) and the microcontroller polls the switches every frame.

[javeryh]

Pretty neat.  I think you might be better off using 1/8" hardboard for the woodworking - the thickness of the sides are not in proportion to the size of the cabinet (and it looks like you are using 1/4" plywood which is thin to begin with!) .  I am amazed at the creativity and ninja computer skills people have around here...   

[drventure]

What? No Marquee? No Coin Door?

Meh.


<Just kidding> 

That's an pretty dang cool project. What's funny is it's about the same size as those hallmark cabinet ornaments. Stick a hook in it and you can hang it on your tree come christmas! Add a christmas themed "attract mode" and presto! Playable conversation piece 

[Infinity_Yak]

Pretty neat.  I think you might be better off using 1/8" hardboard for the woodworking - the thickness of the sides are not in proportion to the size of the cabinet (and it looks like you are using 1/4" plywood which is thin to begin with!) .  I am amazed at the creativity and ninja computer skills people have around here...   

The top, bottom, and sides are 3/8" plywood, which is great for mounting the controller and display. Everything that isn't structurally significant is a thin maple veneer about 1/16" thick.

Once I cut down the side pieces to be flush with the joystick panel (and paint the cabinet), the only evidence of the thickness will be the weight

I also have ideas for a marquee and coin door, but I have to save *something* for version 2.0.