Is this idea cool, silly or annoying?

[Chris]

My older brother (41) and I have played video games together constantly until I got married and moved out at age 21, first on the Atari 2600 and later on a Commodore 64, and of course in arcades wherever possible.  Now he lives and works on an apple farm in Wisconsin.  He has our old Atari 2600, and still plays it to this day.  Over the past couple of years I've given him a Commodore 64 plug and play and the Namco plug and play.

His true love, however, is Joust.  He likes a lot of other games from that period as well, but Joust is his one true passion.  For the past year or so I've mulled over the possibility of creating a plug and play style game for him, based around a small fanless system like a mini-ITX with TV out, that would play a couple dozen games from that period.  Two sticks, perhaps two buttons per stick.  What I've been stuck on is the design: whether to cram it all in a single CP like a true plug and play or create two mini-CP's that plug into a pseudo-console that plugs into the TV.

Well, today,m thinking of being kids and swapping cartridges on the Atari, I suddenly ot the idea of building a cartridge-based system.  Obviously, everything would be in the unit itself, so these would be pseudo-cartridges.  Essentially, the cartridge would just contain two contacts and a resistor (or four contacts and two resistors), going to the old-fashioned 15-pin game port.  I'd have to create or modify a front-end to look at the apparent position of this virtual joystick to start the correct game, and have a normally-closed microswitch wired to Esc to detect the removal of the "cartridge" to exit the game. It would take a little work, but shouldn't be impossible to create a couple dozen "cartridges" with late-70's style labels and artwork, to make his own personal console system.

The question is: Would having a console like this, putting in "Atari" cartridges to play real acrade games on the TV, be a fun nostalgic way to package a MAME setup?  Or would having to track down and insert a cartridge to play a game just be an annoyance that would get old fast?  I guess another way to put it is if this system had an override switch on the back that would switch it to a standard joystick-controlled menu system, which would you use to select games?

Just looking for thoughts or opinions as to whether this idea is cool, fun, silly, or stupid.  Thanks!

--Chris

[screaming]

For your brother it sounds perfect!

[crashwg]

I'm going to go with silly. 

It's funny that we're in a day and age where people are getting larger hard drives for thier XBOX and large cartriges for their GBA so there is no switching disks or carts and you're thinking about adding that as a "feature" where it's not required...

Just my opinion though.  To each his own I guess, but if I got a gift like that I'd be all like "now what in the hell would you add something like that for?" 

[unclet]

I dont get it .... why not build you brother a standup (or bartop) arcade cabinet with all the games on it ... including Mame(with JOust) and Atari 2600 and other emulators?

[TOK]

Another vote for silly. Sounds like he'd love a MAME bartop in the Multi-Williams style though!
Check them out in Project Announcments, I think there are quite a few.

[NoOne=NBA=]

I would create a central box unit, and then have separate plug-in controllers for different games.
For Joust, you could use actual Joust sticks, and have two buttons (for Joust 2), all with "real" Joust artwork.

[SithMaster]

i think itd be a cool idea.  but it depends on him, if he thinks it would be nostalgic then id go for it but maybe have the carts contain more than one game.  try to keep the complexity down in case someone younger wants to play and get stumped by the whole whats a cart thing.

[Kremmit]

Sounds cool to me. 

Can't help noticing that it's the younger members that think it's silly, while the old farts that remember the 2600 dig it.

[SithMaster]

Whats your definition of young?

[NickG]

Me and my bro once considered designing a cartridge matrix rack in which all our cartridges could be placed, then we would press in the cartridge of the game we wanted to play and any other cartridge would pop out and only the chosen cartridge would contact the backplane then the console would power on.  This sort of physical interface seems absurd presently because we have such nice emulation and gui options, but it would still have that uber-geekiness that seems to be kitsch lately.  Yeah, so I'm one of the people that might get a little jealous if you really construct your idea, but I wouldn't want to hunt down the cartridges.

[Kremmit]

Whats your definition of young?

Old enough to remember how cool it was to trade in your single-game Pong on a new machine that could play different games just by swapping a cartridge.

[Chris]

I dont get it .... why not build you brother a standup (or bartop) arcade cabinet with all the games on it ... including Mame(with JOust) and Atari 2600 and other emulators?

He just doesn't have that kind of space, even for a bar-top.  (Yeah, it sounds silly, but trust me on this one. )

[SithMaster]

Old enough to remember how cool it was to trade in your single-game Pong on a new machine that could play different games just by swapping a cartridge.

Ahhhh.  I ask because im only 19 but i think its an interesting idea.  And i consider myself a youngling.  Maybe a padawan.

[TOK]

Sounds cool to me. 

Can't help noticing that it's the younger members that think it's silly, while the old farts that remember the 2600 dig it.

Thanks for saying I'm young, but I'm an old fart who owned a 2600, and I thought it was silly. 

To me, the cartridge system is a gimmick that actually gets in the way of functionality. He's got a 2600 already if he still feels like swapping cartridges. I also think once he plays the real Joust ROM in MAME, that 2600 is going to be sitting unused.

[javeryh]

Sounds cool to me. 

Can't help noticing that it's the younger members that think it's silly, while the old farts that remember the 2600 dig it.

Thanks for saying I'm young, but I'm an old fart who owned a 2600, and I thought it was silly. 

To me, the cartridge system is a gimmick that actually gets in the way of functionality. He's got a 2600 already if he still feels like swapping cartridges. I also think once he plays the real Joust ROM in MAME, that 2600 is going to be sitting unused.

I agree.  I'm somewhat old (32) and I wouldn't want the hassle of swapping games.  A MAME machine in whatever form you choose (stand-up, cocktail, bartop, mini, etc.) seems like a better solution.

[Encryptor]

I think it's a cool idea myself. I remember my older brother and his best friend at the time spending hours playing Star Raiders on the Atari 2600. So I went on Ebay and bought him a 2600 with a few games and also got him the Star Raiders cartridge. I'm going to give them to him for Christmas. I think he'll enjoy it and it will bring back a lot of fond memories.

Encryptor

[Witchboard]

I had a similar thought in the past, but what I had planned was making a single player self contained box, then another one using a hacked USB joypad where you can just plug the second controller into the first for instant two player action.