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Author Topic: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines  (Read 8768 times)

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leapinlew

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Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« on: June 25, 2020, 08:53:56 pm »
My arcade currently consists of 5 arcade machines, and I'd like to find a solid state solution for 3 of them - basically so I can power it off without worrying about screwing up the computer



Galaga - Currently running a PC with Mala as the frontend. I'm considering putting a 60-n-1 board. I don't love the interface of the 60-n-a and curious what other options are out there. I saw the Arcade$D, and it's a little too pricey for me.
Mame machine - this is the mame machine in the middle. Is there a Pandoras Box type solution that allows a trackball? This plays about 50 games, but a few of them are trackball games.
Star Wars - this is running a PC. It only plays a few games - Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back and Paperboy. I'm not sure what solutions I have to use a Pi, or if there is another option. It's an original Star Wars Yoke and a Ram Controls USB adapter

The Gorf is running a Pi and boots directly into Gorf. This one is fine as is.
The Defender (not pictured) is waiting for the graphics to arrive. It's running a 19-n-1 with all games besides Defender removed. It's fine as is too.

wp34

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #1 on: June 25, 2020, 11:14:06 pm »
I'm a big fan of the BitKit.  It has a lot of 2 and 4-way games that are fun.  The online scoreboard is a nice challenge as well.  The cost ($149) is very reasonable for what you get and new games are still being added to it.  Galaga has even been hinted at.  No trackball games though.

For your Star Wars cabinet have you thought about leaving a PC in it but adding more playable games?  LeChuck seemed to have a nice selection of games running with his yoke.

Howard_Casto

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #2 on: June 26, 2020, 01:06:34 am »
If you have windows setup properly a tap of the power button on the pc can be used to safely shut down.... so long as you back out of mame first.  I have a 3.5mm stereo jack installed on all my mame pcs that is wired into the power switch so I can run a removeable power button to just inside the coin door.  I don't have any problems shutting down that way.... it's inside the coin door so guests can't get to it. 

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #3 on: June 26, 2020, 09:03:25 am »
Not sure if I'm allowed to post links to other forums here, but do a search on UKVAC for Chunksin images download. He's done embedded, read-only groovyMAME images for Windows 7 and pi. You can then play any groovyMAME game and switch your cabs off without going through a shutdown procedure.

wp34

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #4 on: June 26, 2020, 09:48:59 am »
I know it would be ridiculously expensive but I would have a hard time not talking myself in to converting that Star Wars back to original hardware.  The cabinet looks to be in great shape.

Another option would be to find someone how is parting out a Star Wars arcade 1UP and use that PCB.  It has a menu built-in but you would lose Paperboy.

Mike A

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #5 on: June 26, 2020, 09:50:08 am »
I know it would be ridiculously expensive but I would have a hard time not talking myself in to converting that Star Wars back to original hardware.  The cabinet looks to be in great shape.

I was going to say the same thing.

yotsuya

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #6 on: June 26, 2020, 04:32:43 pm »
I know it would be ridiculously expensive but I would have a hard time not talking myself in to converting that Star Wars back to original hardware.  The cabinet looks to be in great shape.

I was going to say the same thing.
I have the same Star Wars setup as Lew. There’s no way it would be economically feasible to do so.  Better off just buying a working Star Wars.
***Build what you dig, bro. Build what you dig.***

jennifer

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #7 on: June 26, 2020, 05:06:04 pm »
Depends how original you would go with it, there are significant advances in deflection since that was built...Although, still spendy and not a project for the faint of heart.

leapinlew

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #8 on: June 27, 2020, 12:20:33 am »
I have lots of young family members. The light switch on the wall in the pic operates the outlet that powers on/off all the games. I know that powering down a machine doesn't seem complicated for adults, but I've seen it fail too often with all the kids. I told my kids that they machines need to be powered down properly, and spent just a moment explaining how it worked, and I think it scared them off from playing. I get it, it's kind of a pain to have to power off all the machines.

Looking into the Chunksin image options. The Star Wars cabinet is in great shape. It was in good shape when I got it, and all I needed to do was order a full set of artwork, lol. I guess the 60-n-1 life it'll be for the Galaga cabinet.

Thanks guys. Appreciate the suggestions.

Mike A

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #9 on: June 27, 2020, 08:51:26 am »
My MAME PC exits MAME and goes into shutdown when you push the power button I have mounted on the top of the cab. It is just a power down setting in winXP.

leapinlew

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #10 on: June 27, 2020, 09:27:30 am »
My MAME PC exits MAME and goes into shutdown when you push the power button I have mounted on the top of the cab. It is just a power down setting in winXP.

Mine shutdown once you exit the front end. Same difference really.

This is totally a first world problem. I've come to like the x-n-1 boards as I have less issues with them doing computery type things. Mine are all disconnected from the network, but for some reason my Hyperspin box was running super slow the other day. Somehow, one of the kids got a game running and exited back to hyperspin and the game was still running in the background. Galaga and Star Wars got gunked up too. If I could set it up so my kids could come down, flip on the light switch to play a few games, and then flip it off when they are done - I think it would make the cabinets more usable.

I can live with it as it is, but just exploring options as I don't use the x-n-1's a lot and definitely haven't looked around in the last few years. I wasn't sure if there was a better successor to the 60-n-1. Was there a Pandoras type box that allowed a trackball? Is there something I can do with Star Wars?

Osirus23

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #11 on: June 27, 2020, 10:16:08 am »
Hmm, you could get some cheap UPS batteries for the machines that connect with USB to the PCs and configure their software to shutdown the machines whenever it switches to battery power. This way, when they kill power with the lights the PCs will stay running and immediately do a proper shutdown.

Howard_Casto

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #12 on: June 27, 2020, 02:36:11 pm »
That would work BUT cheap and UPS don't go hand in hand.  Probably about the best you can do is $60 per cabinet.  I know what I'd do.... I'd put a lock box around the switch that turns all of your cabinets on and off.  Nobody should be touching that but you.  Don't think like a family member... think like an operator because that's essentially what you are. 

leapinlew

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #13 on: June 27, 2020, 05:55:26 pm »
That would work BUT cheap and UPS don't go hand in hand.  Probably about the best you can do is $60 per cabinet.  I know what I'd do.... I'd put a lock box around the switch that turns all of your cabinets on and off.  Nobody should be touching that but you.  Don't think like a family member... think like an operator because that's essentially what you are.

If I'm going to think like that, I'd just put it on a smart outlet and remotely power it on and off as needed. :) I definitely don't want to be the only one who knows how to turn them on. That sounds like pain.

Just trying to make the game power on/power off cycle a little more user friendly.

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #14 on: July 01, 2020, 12:38:34 am »
Alexa, Turn on my arcade..

Powers on my Golden Tee 2019 - Dedicated
Powers on my Trackball Pedestal - PC
Powers on my Mister Pedestal
Powers on my Jrok Multiwilliams as a dedicated Robotron
Powers on my Virtual Pinball Cabinet - PC
Powers on my Xbox One setup as a Driving Cabinet

Alexa, Turn off my arcade

It really is that simple..

I do have SSD's as the Boot Drive on my Cabinets with a PC and have had no issues with corruption ( I can not believe I just said that )

Far as an all n 1 machine.. The more I play around with my Mister, the happier I get..

Mike A

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #15 on: July 01, 2020, 06:18:02 am »
Yeah. And Amazon pinky swears that they don't record anything until you say "Alexa".
We have had enough of our privacy stripped away. I wouldn't give Amazon a live mic in my home.

Howard_Casto

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #16 on: July 01, 2020, 03:27:29 pm »
Eh I've got alexa and google... they are great.  I say maybe five words out loud a day so they can listen all they want.  That being said you just zeosstud might want to elaborate HOW he's got it set up.... Alexa doesn't work automatically you'll need hardware and/or software solutions. 

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #17 on: July 01, 2020, 05:28:48 pm »
The reason I'm still running a DOS machine and an Xbox machine is I can turn them off at the plug without hurting anything.

Hard to believe it's still an issue but say la vee.


Howard_Casto

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #18 on: July 01, 2020, 08:48:26 pm »
Well it's not... you just wire up a pushbutton to the power button on the pc...press the button and windows shuts down, but lew wants to complicate things by having a wall switch that cuts the power. 

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #19 on: July 01, 2020, 08:50:17 pm »
So he wants his arcade boxes to be like actual arcade boxes..... burn him?


leapinlew

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #20 on: July 02, 2020, 12:04:49 am »
Alexa, Turn on my arcade..

Powers on my Golden Tee 2019 - Dedicated
Powers on my Trackball Pedestal - PC
Powers on my Mister Pedestal
Powers on my Jrok Multiwilliams as a dedicated Robotron
Powers on my Virtual Pinball Cabinet - PC
Powers on my Xbox One setup as a Driving Cabinet

Alexa, Turn off my arcade

It really is that simple..

I do have SSD's as the Boot Drive on my Cabinets with a PC and have had no issues with corruption ( I can not believe I just said that )

Far as an all n 1 machine.. The more I play around with my Mister, the happier I get..

So, your Alexa powers down your machines properly? I’d assume it’s just cutting the power. If it’s cutting the power, that’s easy to do. I’m doing it now with a switch.

I’ve got a path forward. Going with the dreaded 60-n-1 for Galaga. Reimaging the pc’s and redeploying to ssd and going to just power off/on till they assplode.

Osirus23

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #21 on: July 02, 2020, 12:15:25 am »
Reimaging the pc’s and redeploying to ssd and going to just power off/on till they assplode.

This was going to be my next suggestion. Just turn the ---smurfs--- off and if problems ever come up just re-image the drives.

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #22 on: July 02, 2020, 12:38:36 am »
It for sure cuts off power.. Was pointing out I went the SSD route and have had no issues in a solid year or more, you have a good plan. Though I would prefer a Mister to a 60-n-1.. Best of luck with your upgrades.

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #23 on: July 02, 2020, 02:11:04 am »
So he wants his arcade boxes to be like actual arcade boxes..... burn him?

Well no.  Real machines each have individual switches on them so you turn them on and off one at a time as well.  I mean you can hook them all into a circuit I suppose but what's the point of doing that at home?  Why waste power turning on the games you aren't playing?

leapinlew

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #24 on: July 02, 2020, 03:14:47 pm »
So he wants his arcade boxes to be like actual arcade boxes..... burn him?

Well no.  Real machines each have individual switches on them so you turn them on and off one at a time as well.  I mean you can hook them all into a circuit I suppose but what's the point of doing that at home?  Why waste power turning on the games you aren't playing?

Or, why waste the effort to turn on each individual machine when you want them all on? Tomato Tomato, right?

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #25 on: July 02, 2020, 03:42:53 pm »
Because bitches like ambiance.


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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #26 on: July 03, 2020, 08:00:31 pm »
Love the ambience element myself, but I am 50 trying to be 15 so that makes sense.

Maybe for our next party I will have them all just running the whole time, but having to burn diesel to have electricity at my house makes me particular about usage currently (ha, ha, currently... get it?!)

I have always been nervous about powering down the RUSH 2049 cabinet though (my only real one at this point.)  I have always backed out to the service menu before I kill the power to it- mostly because I don't know what I can get away with and not damage the thing.

Both of my MAME machines run on SSDs but I still don't feel comfortable just turning them off without a proper Windows shutdown.

Would love a more elegant solution though.
Relax, all right? My old man is a television repairman, he's got this ultimate set of tools! I can fix it.

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #27 on: July 03, 2020, 08:13:22 pm »
So he wants his arcade boxes to be like actual arcade boxes..... burn him?

Well no.  Real machines each have individual switches on them so you turn them on and off one at a time as well.  I mean you can hook them all into a circuit I suppose but what's the point of doing that at home?  Why waste power turning on the games you aren't playing?

Or, why waste the effort to turn on each individual machine when you want them all on? Tomato Tomato, right?

Well you have a problem.  Your problem is your kids can't/ don't want to/don't know how to power down your machines and you have a kill switch which allows them to turn them off improperly.  The simplest solution to a problem is always the best.... eliminate the kill switch and then it's impossible to turn them off improperly.  What you are telling me is you are too lazy to hit 5 switches to turn on all the machines or take the kill switch out of the user's hand... meaning you have to turn them all on and off.  Stop being lazy and fix the problem the easy way is all I'm saying.

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #28 on: July 04, 2020, 01:46:02 am »
I know it can happen, but I’ve built quite a few MAME cabs in the past decade and never had a hard drive corruption issue. I have 3 in my gameroom that I power on and off without any shutdown sequence regularly with no problem.

Like I said, I know it can happen, but I haven’t seen it. I’m considering converting them to SSD, so that might help with future issues.
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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #29 on: July 04, 2020, 04:05:44 am »
I know it can happen, but I’ve built quite a few MAME cabs in the past decade and never had a hard drive corruption issue. I have 3 in my gameroom that I power on and off without any shutdown sequence regularly with no problem.

Like I said, I know it can happen, but I haven’t seen it. I’m considering converting them to SSD, so that might help with future issues.

What OS do your systems run on?  I recall my old XP boxes were rather intolerant of anything but proper shutdown but I can't compare as I started this hobby after migrating wholly to Win10.

I have read that Win10 actually enters a save state closer to hibernate than shut down (when told to shut down) so not sure what it's approach is to non-traditional shutdown protocol.

Bobby

All systems in our house run on SSDs now.  Fast and no drama (but I still treat them all like old computers.)
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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #30 on: July 04, 2020, 08:50:21 am »
Like I said, I know it can happen, but I haven’t seen it. I’m considering converting them to SSD, so that might help with future issues.

Thinking like this is how 45 year old couples end up with surprise children named Chance.




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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #31 on: July 04, 2020, 10:01:06 am »
I know it can happen, but I’ve built quite a few MAME cabs in the past decade and never had a hard drive corruption issue. I have 3 in my gameroom that I power on and off without any shutdown sequence regularly with no problem.

Like I said, I know it can happen, but I haven’t seen it. I’m considering converting them to SSD, so that might help with future issues.

The power blinks off momentarily here quite often during the summer when we have thunderstorms. My main desktop is on a UPS but other PCs end up getting their power cut off frequently and none of them have had issues because of it.

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #32 on: July 04, 2020, 11:30:54 pm »
I know it can happen, but I’ve built quite a few MAME cabs in the past decade and never had a hard drive corruption issue. I have 3 in my gameroom that I power on and off without any shutdown sequence regularly with no problem.

Like I said, I know it can happen, but I haven’t seen it. I’m considering converting them to SSD, so that might help with future issues.

Color me jealous. I've had enough hard drive issues, that I always factor in redundancy\backup plans. Worse hard drive failure I ever had was when a NAS RAID 5 lost a drive and another drive died trying to rebuild the hot spare from parity. I put in the last backup which was to an external drive and it was dead too. *poof* all the data was gone.

Anyhow - go on with yo bad self. I may be building in some overkill, but I think it'll overall be better.

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #33 on: July 04, 2020, 11:44:51 pm »
So he wants his arcade boxes to be like actual arcade boxes..... burn him?

Well no.  Real machines each have individual switches on them so you turn them on and off one at a time as well.  I mean you can hook them all into a circuit I suppose but what's the point of doing that at home?  Why waste power turning on the games you aren't playing?

Or, why waste the effort to turn on each individual machine when you want them all on? Tomato Tomato, right?

Well you have a problem.  Your problem is your kids can't/ don't want to/don't know how to power down your machines and you have a kill switch which allows them to turn them off improperly.  The simplest solution to a problem is always the best.... eliminate the kill switch and then it's impossible to turn them off improperly.  What you are telling me is you are too lazy to hit 5 switches to turn on all the machines or take the kill switch out of the user's hand... meaning you have to turn them all on and off.  Stop being lazy and fix the problem the easy way is all I'm saying.

I think the issue is you don't understand the problem, or I haven't framed it up properly.

I want the kids to play the machines and I want the machines to be approachable. Your solution is to either train them to do everything properly, or I'll have to be there for my kids and their friends to play the games. Right now, my kids are too young to deal with the power shut down order, but they aren't too young to understand Galaga or Ms. Pacman. So you see, I just want to give them a challenge over summer to beat one of my scores in Galaga while I'm at work, not have to stand over them while they play the game.

This is a front loaded effort. Once I'm done, my arcade will power on / power off with little effort. I don't see how that's a bad or lazy thing.

Ok, now that that's out of the way. You ok?

Osirus23

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #34 on: July 04, 2020, 11:57:32 pm »
Maligned as they are (in no small part by myself) Raspberry Pis would work for a setup like this. You can setup Raspian to run in readonly mode so no file corruption will occur when power is cut, and by design they turn on as soon as power is applied again.

* I know you aren't going to replace the hardware in these cabs with Pis. Just saying.

formula409

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #35 on: July 05, 2020, 01:22:46 pm »
I haven't actually tried this yet, but maybe it's worth looking into. You can essentially "freeze" the state of a system that it will reset to on each boot.


https://www.faronics.com/products/deep-freeze/standard



Another possibility that should be explored is using Windows 10 IoT edition. It has a write filter that's specifically supposed to protect against sudden power loss. I have no idea what the driver situation looks like there, though. Would GroovyMAME's drivers work on Windows 10 IoT? No idea.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/iot-core/secure-your-device/unifiedwritefilter
« Last Edit: July 05, 2020, 02:02:57 pm by formula409 »

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #36 on: July 05, 2020, 03:56:58 pm »

Another possibility that should be explored is using Windows 10 IoT edition. It has a write filter that's specifically supposed to protect against sudden power loss. I have no idea what the driver situation looks like there, though. Would GroovyMAME's drivers work on Windows 10 IoT? No idea.


No of course not. IoT Core is just a ---smurfy--- runtime for running a single UWP app. UWP is a pile of ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- that allows developers to do pretty much nothing.

formula409

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #37 on: July 05, 2020, 06:10:42 pm »
No, that's not what it is anymore. There's an IoT version of x64, and there do seem to be GPU drivers for it.

I'll experiment with it at some point.

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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #38 on: July 05, 2020, 06:50:58 pm »
Thanks for the continued suggestions!

In my quest to make things less authentic - I installed the 60-n-1 in Galaga and it was pretty painless. For the first time ever, I wired up all the Jamma buttons and got it right on the first try. I almost always reverse a direction. I'm using a WICO 4 way leaf switch and the dang leafs are so sensitive. I ordered some spares. Anyhow, configured it to play 24 games and removed all the improper screen orientation and improper controls and games I didn't like.

I modified Star Wars and removed Hyperspin and went back to Mala. I had to tighten up a few more settings in Windows, and it seems pretty good. I copied the Mame and Mala folder out to a USB stick and storing it inside the machine.

I'm working on the Omega cabinet now. It's a Hyperspin machine, and I'm trying to configure Daphne to run on the same wheel as Mame and then I'll do a copy of it's data too.

So far, they all power off and power with no complaining. More to come!


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Re: Suggestions for all-n-1 machines
« Reply #39 on: July 05, 2020, 07:02:48 pm »
I was gonna say... just splash out the $35 for a 60 in 1 and set them to boot to a single game.  In my city, a major retailer will deliver them in 2 hours.   :lol