Ataroid (95.583% completed)- aka "DropBox ruined my Build Thread"

[stigzler]

All my posts below are knackered now, because DropBox (Est 2007) are a bunch of D**ks, dropping everyone's public links + thus breaking their images. However, true class prevails and the Atari 2600 (Est 1977) will outlast any of those geniuses at CrapBox. So, the final product, below:

Ataroid is a pimped up Atari 2600, rescued from the recycling bin. Its innards were kaput, so it was given a new lease of life via an Odroid XU4.

Specs

CPU: 8 Cores @ 2GHz- Samsung Exynos5422 Cortex™-A15 2Ghz and Cortex™-A7 Octa core CPUs
RAM: 2Gigs- 2Gbyte LPDDR3 RAM PoP stacked
Onboard ROM: 32 GB eMMC5.0 HS400 Internal Flash Storage
Stroage: 1TB USB3 Internal Storage
Rear Ports: 2xUSB2, 1xSPDIF Optical Out, 1xPhono out, HDMI Out, 1xGBit Ethernet
Connectivity: WiFi, Bluetooth and Xbox360 Controllers.
Expansion: 4x powered USB3 ports still available inside the chassis.


Systems Emulated + Features:

From Vectrex..up to N64, PSP, Dreamcast and Playstation 1 (at full speed, with minimal glitches)
Runs Kodi @1080p @5.1DTS


Pictures






Video



Build Pics
Find Here

[markc74]

Seeing that Atari all naked makes me wish i could have used switches like that on my cab.

Maybe for the next one. 

[stigzler]

Washed....





Ordered...





Dreading...

[DaOld Man]

Very interesting!
I thought about cramming a Pi into one of those Ataris, but couldnt find a non-working one with a decent price.

[stigzler]

The best laid plan...

[Dal1980]

Oh wow great idea and you've brought it together on the plan looking good already!

You put it in the dishwasher lol! Never thought of that. What setting does Atari recommend? xD


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Le Chuck]

Okay, looks cool.  I'm interested. 

[BGoulette]

Looks good! Just curious about "difaculty" -- is that for Italian educators? or should it say "difficulty"?

[emphatic]

Sexy project!

[stigzler]

Expensive Tetris.....

[vwalbridge]

Nice work so far. 

Man, I really love the retro look of the 2600. Such an iconic form factor and design. Just love those switches at the top of the unit.

[Generic Eric]

Plus eleventy if you can make it turn black and white at flick of switch.

[stigzler]

Remote Control Joysticks...

[stigzler]

Spit 'n Polish....

[Dal1980]

You're awesome! The Ataroid is awesome! Awesome


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[stigzler]

Maiden voyage and encouraging aural temperance...

[stigzler]

Working on the rear AV Port...

[stigzler]

Working on the USB3 hub...

Came in a nice case, unfortunately:


The guts:


Couple of problems. Firstly, they put the barrell connector in the wrong place when they designed it, meaning it butted up against the right hand wall of the Ataroid (the only place it could sit comfortably). Nothing for it, whipped out the soldering iron and zapped on alternative wiring:


I know - professional job huh? It works. Problem no. 2. IN their infinite wisdom, you have to press a button every time you re-connect power to make the hub functional. Thus going to have to build this into one of the buttons. Thinking I'm gonna combine it with the xbox360 wireless dongle on which you have to press a button to pair. Thus, needed some way to let user know USB hub functioning + had to extend the led on the board. Thus, had the do some incredibly close up soldering to a tiny on-board LED. As soon as they stuck, slapped on the hot glue. I'll come back to the button later (dead easy, comparatively):


Had to clear a few other case bumps with a dremmel to make way for components:


Also, sorted a method to mount the buttons, modifying the original Atari mounting method. Not for the squeamish - the main board has been dremmelled in half. I then glued bolts into the outer two pointy-uppey things, allowing you to 'hang' the board internally (originally it rested in position via the bottom):


I kept that huge Cap in for nostaglia. How 80s:


Dry run with all the components placed:


Next up, wiring and power....

[stigzler]

Power and fixing components...

I'm using a PicoPSU (http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/it.A/id.417/.f). This splits a 12V, 10A external switching PSU into a 5V + 12V line. The Odroid's quite sensitive, so needed a guaranteed steady 5V. Here it is in testing. You have to use the same trick you use on PC PSUs to fool it into thinking it's got the PC signal to start:


Sorted a tidier solution, the red wire on the right bridging to two pins:


Finally, fitted. Using a trimmed down female atx connecter hot-glued to the shell. The PicoPSU then sits in this nicely. Also, case mounted the power barrell:


The AV board also works off 5V, but I didn't want to use the 5V line, so also used a step-down component off the 12V line (plenty of amps spare from the other 12V component, being the USB3 hub):


Used standoffs to mount to the case:


Then mounted the Odroid via standoffs and startled to tackle mounting the AV box at the back. This one ticky, because it sat high in the case and had to fix to two different levels:


This led to some creative stand-offery:


Eventually leading to:


I'd left the 'psu' plugs on (one molex, which I used for the Odroid and one sata - spare 12 + 5V supply). Thus, custom power lead made for the Odroid:


State of play as the clocks go back:


No one would ever know with the lid on...


Its rear end:


One puzzling mystery for tomorrow. I need to trun the 2-way Atari switches into a 3-way one. The AV board has a switch to select 3 audio modes: HMDI/RCA plugs or 5.1 Optical. Hmmmm.....

[stigzler]

Making a custom header for removable components:

There are going to be LEDs attached to the top section and also I'm going to need to remove the Atari buttons pcb. Thus, needed to make a header to fix to the lower half and make some kind of connection system for these.

Plan to use parts salvaged from an old machine: usb header plug for the Atari switches and some old mobo connectors for other component lines.






Used the original pcb ground lines, but had to bridge one missing trace:


The final header and plug:


The final switch assembly:


Also, quick job shortening the usb wire for the xbox360 wireless receiver:



Oh, and the last job of this day way to blow up my Odroid. Which I did very successfully. Frazzled it via clumsy use of a multi-meter.

[zzc2]

Amazing 

[Titchgamer]

Ha awesome project! Nice work

[stigzler]

Wiring the breakout Board...

Whilst the XU4 rocks, sadly it uses a non-standard GPIO pitch size. I needed the standard 2.5mm, 40 pin GPIO for the text display, but also for other functions (like power-on and receiving the Atari Button States). You'd normally stack them vertically, but because of my fitting a quiet fan, this wasn't possible. Thus, had to make custom connectors for the board and fit into the shell. The first set of pins:
Cable required a twist:

Finicky soldering:

Test pin by bleeding pin:

Second header - had to make a custom plug from bits I had:

Using heat shrink to mask the soldering:

More finicky soldering:

Final plug, pre heat shrink:

Test run:

Board to case mounting (again on two levels - had to make custom standoffs):

Final fitting - as tight as a duck's arse:



Also mounted passport drive and USB3 Hub using velcro (worked best for height, as some plugs from the Odroid spilled over the top of these):




Remade my header board. It now has two rails running down the sides - one for ground and one for 5V. Also, doing it this way made for easier soldering - just push wire through hole + solder - no more soldering to the pin:


Test run - the Ataroid can now communicate! (Although it doesn't know how to speak yet)


Lastly, started the text display mount:






I then spectacularly messed up all my work on this bit! I need 2 LEDs showing to indicate that the USB Hub is on + the Wireless xbox360 receiver is synced + I tried to squeeze them into the opening rather than drill holes anywhere else in the case. Sadly - was just too much of a cram, meaning I have to do this bit all over again. Ah well..

This is taking longer than expected...

[emphatic]

Lovely work. 

[stigzler]

Take two on the text display bezel. This time, using the buggered 1st go as a template:

Scored layout onto rear surface + cut out LED holes with graded bit and Text display opening before cutting to size:

With LED bezels:

Original plan was secure with nuts and then dremmel down, as height of the LED containers hit the back of the display:


However, learned that the nuts also hit the display casing, so just superglue them (and the nuts proved handy to get them down to small height):

The superglued the bezel to the case (looks dead messy here - but not as bad irl):

The finished look:


Things are starting to get tight for space + clashing. I  discovered that the display GPIO pins with the plug (at end of ribbon in pic) hit the buttons cross-piece. Thus had to cut out a recess. it was tricky to know where to cut, as you had to be 'inside' the case to see the clash points. Blu Tac to the rescue (I swear - blu-tac has to be in the top 5 for all things hack related - so versatile!). Closed the case and got an impression of the edges of the plug:

Pass me the dremmell again! Sadly, had to lose the Atari logo on the pcb :

Had also lost some ground continuity, so another bridge wire required:

Gave it a test with everything stuffed in and... it closes!

Powered her up + ouch! My eyes - the LED's were blinding!

At this point got sidetracked. I needed to breadboard a solution, and always needed a bench power supply. So, I quickly knocked together one from an old PSU:

This allowed me to experiment with different resistors to get the brightness right. Here is the unit wired with one full power and the other dimmed:

So, I needed a little breakout board to house the resisters. I designed it for 3 in case I add another in the future (this pic when was designing it for 2):



Also made custom connectors from odds n sods:

The inside's getting busy now:

Modified the main case header to include Ground and 5v header pins for testing/expansion/ Also added the LED wires:

A nice fluke. When the ribbon cable is connected, it kinda acts as a hinge, letting you open the  hood:


So, with lots of fixtures complete, I decided to release the ataroid into the wild to see how it looked. It headed stright for a television:



I might yet put a switch on the back of the unit to disable the LEDs - not sure yet.

Still quite a bit to do, including fitting more rear ports (USB3 + RJ45) + dreading hitting linux, wiring pi + GPIO to get the software keys working. :/

[stigzler]

Fitting the rear sockets. Very pleased - these XLR type connectors used with the graded hole bit provide a very nice, neat finish:



Discovered the joys (sarcasm) of dupont connectors - these things suck - need to find an alternative:


Had to redo (again) the header board - the strip board used originally was providing some wierd voltages - I'm thinking the tracks were fusing or something:



Wiring the display, which also has input/output headers which connect to the odroid through ribbon cable:


Then moved on to fit a couple of tiny (2cm) fans to help with cooling:




Fitted. Blutac temporary until right screws arrive. Sadly - they're super-noisy when running - have to find some queiter ones - anyone know of any?:


Changed my mind on velcro mounting the usb hub to the Passport drive - both getting really hot - needed airflow, so used standoffs instead:


Using GameStation turbo image for odroid. Busy setting this up now. As ever, the software side taking a bit more time, patience and energy than anticipated...

[stigzler]

Job Done.

Oh, and thanks Dropbox. You guys really are top banana. No, really. You're soo brilliant and all the tech world really wants to have your babies at the moment. (you absolute ---Deutsche Frankfurters---)

First Post updated with final pics/vid. Click here.

[PL1]

All my posts below are knackered now, because DropBox (Est 2007) are a bunch of D**ks, dropping everyone's public links + thus breaking their images.

. . . and this is why we encourage people to host their build images on BYOAC, especially the critical ones.
I wonder how many other build threads have been messed up by this Dropbox change. 


Scott

[stigzler]

Well. Benefit of hindsight, Scott. Now got all my http images stored on my own server - no longer subject to the whims of others. tbh, when I started down this path 5 years ago, I thought that dropbox would be reliable, as it's kinda their raison d'etre. But I guess greed even gets to the gud 'uns.

Now, if I could write a chrome script to convert CrapBox links to my server links via right-click context menu, that might solve a problem or two...

And if anyone's experienced the same problem and have their own server, try this:

WHoSEBox

[stigzler]

Sorted out some build pics from my google drive, if of any interest:

https://sites.google.com/view/magoarcade/hardware/ataroid?authuser=0