xBox 1 - Control Pannel and second Game pad- 1 port

[sharpfork]

I'm not sure if you guys are interested in this kind of stuff.  Or, if I'm just reinventing the wheel years after this stuff has been well documented.

Anyway, I am really happy with the direction xBox 1 software development has gone and love having a Classic xBox at the heart of two cabinets.  It is hard to believe the old girl is still being developed for.  
I'm going to stay out of in depth software discussion here but figured there might be someone else interested in a pretty cool hardware hack that allows me to plug in a regular xBox controller or other xBox or USB peripherals into the pad I have hacked for my Cabinet control pannel.  The result is being able to use the xBox pads on console emus and xBox games as well as being able to use my remote for XBMC without having to get to the xBox to swap plugs.

Youtube walk through.


This is the page that shows you the solder points for adding USB cables to the memory card slots:
http://www.geocities.co.jp/Stylish/2048/xboxusb/howto.html  It is so cool that the xBox pads are USB hub too.  I'll test a driving wheel and light gun if I can get my hands on some.

[ark_ader]

Wow looks like a real mess.

Why didn't you just go out and buy an X arcade interface board?

They are on sale at the moment for $29.00.

It would have saved you hours of soldering. You can use the other two ports on the xbox for additional controllers, you didn't have to piggy back anything.

I have two interface boards for the xbox via a switch, which would have saved you digging around at the back on your cab if you opted for this. 

I have seen controller hacks before, but that is horrendous.  Maybe you should have asked around before embarking.

Maybe the video is good for what not to do, in this case.

Thanks for sharing...

[sharpfork]

ark_ader - I really appreciate your taking the time to respond to my post and guiding me in the right direction.  
I now see the error in my ways.

Wow looks like a real mess.

Yes, it is a mess.  It works perfectly for my prototype CP that will be taken apart in a couple of weeks.

Why didn't you just go out and buy an X arcade interface board?

They are on sale at the moment for $29.00.

Actually, they are on sale for $39.00, marked down from $49.00:
http://www.xgaming.com/store/arcade-parts-and-accessories/product/x-arcade-byo-arcade-usb-ps2/

The adaptor alone isn't going to do anything so lets tack on the $29.00 for the xBox adaptor:
http://www.xgaming.com/store/x-arcade-adapters/product/x-arcade-ps3-xbox-playstation-3-adapter/

The Console adaptor says "No Console Cable is included with this bundle" and links to this page so you might have another $14.99 on top of that:
http://www.xgaming.com/store/x-arcade-adapters/product/x-arcade-pc-cable/

Since the inside of a early build Control Pannel that will be dismantled later anyway must be pretty as a pony, you need the $9.99 wiring harness as well:
http://www.xgaming.com/store/arcade-parts-and-accessories/product/x-arcade-wiring-harness/

So why didn't I just spend $29.00 $92.98 + shipping on an xArcade encoder?  Well, I didn't do that because I'd buy an iPac and xbox converter from Andy at ultimarc instead of questionable stuff from xarcade.  
And guess what, I have that very setup from ulitmarc.  I'm soldering every kind of xbox controller I can get my hands on to try to figure out the least expensive way to do this for other people.  I have an S, and Duke, and cheepo gamestop controller, an even cheaper DealExtreme controller, and a DDR pad working.  I don't need any of them.  That is another reason I am doing it so pretty, I'm going to tear it all out in a couple of weeks when I move on to testing the iPac and the Dual Strike solderless solutions.

It would have saved you hours of soldering.

I like to solder and tinker.  I wanted to solve a technical problem for folks who want to play console games in a cabinet and do it inexpensively and I did just that.

You can use the other two ports on the xbox for additional controllers, you didn't have to piggy back anything.

Really?  I wish I would have thought of that.  I have those two empty ports and I soldered the piggy back on for no reason...  
Or, I have a cabinet that makes it difficult to reach back in there and I want to make it easy for my kids as I stated in the video.  It also gives me the ability to use a remote with XBMC on my cabinet which I'm sure would work fine if I put the IR receiver inside my cabinet.  Also no games or emus have problems with trying to use P3 and P4 for p1 and p2, none at all.  What was I thinking?!

I have two interface boards for the xbox via a switch, which would have saved you digging around at the back on your cab if you opted for this.

Cool, please send me a link for where I can buy them. (I'm serious)
Finding stuff like that for the now 10 year old xBox is usually super easy!  And never mind the fact that my solution was a couple of spare parts laying around.  I always like to spend money when I don't need to.

I have seen controller hacks before, but that is horrendous.  Maybe you should have asked around before embarking.

Maybe I would have gotten great advice like you gave me!  I could have just spent $29.00 $92.98 + shipping and kept having to open up my cabinet to play console emulation games on game pads.

Maybe the video is good for what not to do, in this case.
Thanks for sharing...

Thanks again for the encouraging words and awesome advice.  

The combination of supportive tone and genius technical answers really made my day!  Other people might have provided grossly inaccurate pricing, complained about my temporary wiring job, or just not taken the time to understand the problem I solved.

[ark_ader]

ark_ader - I really appreciate your taking the time to respond to my post and guiding me in the right direction.  
I now see the error in my ways.

Wow looks like a real mess.

Yes, it is a mess.  It works perfectly for my prototype CP that will be taken apart in a couple of weeks.

Why didn't you just go out and buy an X arcade interface board?

They are on sale at the moment for $29.00.

Actually, they are on sale for $39.00, marked down from $49.00:
http://www.xgaming.com/store/arcade-parts-and-accessories/product/x-arcade-byo-arcade-usb-ps2/

The adaptor alone isn't going to do anything so lets tack on the $29.00 for the xBox adaptor:
http://www.xgaming.com/store/x-arcade-adapters/product/x-arcade-ps3-xbox-playstation-3-adapter/

The Console adaptor says "No Console Cable is included with this bundle" and links to this page so you might have another $14.99 on top of that:
http://www.xgaming.com/store/x-arcade-adapters/product/x-arcade-pc-cable/

Since the inside of a early build Control Pannel that will be dismantled later anyway must be pretty as a pony, you need the $9.99 wiring harness as well:
http://www.xgaming.com/store/arcade-parts-and-accessories/product/x-arcade-wiring-harness/

So why didn't I just spend $29.00 $92.98 + shipping on an xArcade encoder?  Well, I didn't do that because I'd buy an iPac and xbox converter from Andy at ultimarc instead of questionable stuff from xarcade.  
And guess what, I have that very setup from ulitmarc.  I'm soldering every kind of xbox controller I can get my hands on to try to figure out the least expensive way to do this for other people.  I have an S, and Duke, and cheepo gamestop controller, an even cheaper DealExtreme controller, and a DDR pad working.  I don't need any of them.  That is another reason I am doing it so pretty, I'm going to tear it all out in a couple of weeks when I move on to testing the iPac and the Dual Strike solderless solutions.

It would have saved you hours of soldering.

I like to solder and tinker.  I wanted to solve a technical problem for folks who want to play console games in a cabinet and do it inexpensively and I did just that.

You can use the other two ports on the xbox for additional controllers, you didn't have to piggy back anything.

Really?  I wish I would have thought of that.  I have those two empty ports and I soldered the piggy back on for no reason...  
Or, I have a cabinet that makes it difficult to reach back in there and I want to make it easy for my kids as I stated in the video.  It also gives me the ability to use a remote with XBMC on my cabinet which I'm sure would work fine if I put the IR receiver inside my cabinet.  Also no games or emus have problems with trying to use P3 and P4 for p1 and p2, none at all.  What was I thinking?!

I have two interface boards for the xbox via a switch, which would have saved you digging around at the back on your cab if you opted for this.

Cool, please send me a link for where I can buy them. (I'm serious)
Finding stuff like that for the now 10 year old xBox is usually super easy!  And never mind the fact that my solution was a couple of spare parts laying around.  I always like to spend money when I don't need to.

I have seen controller hacks before, but that is horrendous.  Maybe you should have asked around before embarking.

Maybe I would have gotten great advice like you gave me!  I could have just spent $29.00 $92.98 + shipping and kept having to open up my cabinet to play console emulation games on game pads.

Maybe the video is good for what not to do, in this case.
Thanks for sharing...

Thanks again for the encouraging words and awesome advice.  

The combination of supportive tone and genius technical answers really made my day!  Other people might have provided grossly inaccurate pricing, complained about my temporary wiring job, or just not taken the time to understand the problem I solved.

Glad I could help.

The X Arcade encoder was $29.99 but you could be right with the $39.99.  The interface board is $29.00 but that includes a PS3 interface too when you want to upgrade. But this hobby is expensive.

Next time you opt into a controller mess like the one you did before, give me a shout and I will help find an alternative for you.

ark_ader - I really appreciate your taking the time to respond to my post and guiding me in the right direction.  I now see the error in my ways.

That is so nice of you to say.  Gee thanks.  



Edit:

Here is the switchbox.  I have 4 interfaces going into the X arcade.  It is expensive, but if you want to add consoles into cabs it is the best option. Much better than hacking controllers.  That is so last decade.

[sharpfork]

Here is the switchbox.  I have 4 interfaces going into the X arcade.  It is expensive, but if you want to add consoles into cabs it is the best option.

That is a great solution if you are using the xarcade.  I'm not using an xarcade...
If you can send me the link for everything I need to make it work for $29.00, I'll buy one.

Much better than hacking controllers.  That is so last decade.

How exactly is it "much better" if I only plan on using an xBox1 in my cabinet?
Yes, the xbox 1 is so last decade.  It turned 10 on the 17th of Nov.

But this hobby is expensive.

It doesn't have to be if you learn to solder and do things for yourself.  I you aren't careful, you might learn something useful along the way.

BTW- can you sned me some links with pics of your cab.  Having a bunch of consoles and a PC in there sounds interesting.  I'd really like to see how is should be done.

[sharpfork]

He's a drunk ass clown, just ignore him. 

Seems to be lacking in the ability to detect sarcasm as well.
 

[ark_ader]

He's a drunk ass clown, just ignore him. 

Seems to be lacking in the ability to detect sarcasm as well.
 

Quite the opposite actually. 

[BobBorakovitz]

Nice project - I may use this in the future, do keep us all up to date on future improvements.  Don't worry about the people who don't see the use in it. 

[sharpfork]

Nice project - I may use this in the future, do keep us all up to date on future improvements.  Don't worry about the people who don't see the use in it. 

Thanks!
It works perfectly.  My kids can play arcade games then plug in controllers to play console games.  My cabinet has a 27" TV in it so it has a very authentic feel. CoinOps 3 ties together the various emu cores in a single UI spectacularly.  At 10 years old, I think the xBox is the best cost effective, easy to maintain, and easy to get working on a CRT cabinet "brain" there is.

SNES Kirby on the left.  MAME Karate Champ on the right.  Both running on CoinOPs 3 on xBox 1's.

[SNAAKE]

full is with roms and lite is without the roms.

[BobA]

So what is the Coinops 3 that is floating around with 35.3 GB 12788 files in 152 folders when extracted?

[dextercf]

Love the solder-pen warrior aproach!
Forget about that critisism, keep at it.
Actually, this inspires me to grab that Xbox i keep walking by in my workshop, and perhaps put it to good use..

[ark_ader]

So what is the Coinops 3 that is floating around with 35.3 GB 12788 files in 152 folders when extracted?

It is the best experience for your Xbox1.  The author is one very special person.  Practically nobody is coding for Xbox1 these days.

Hopefully Coinops4 will have XBMC built-in. 

[sharpfork]

So what is the Coinops 3 that is floating around with 35.3 GB 12788 files in 152 folders when extracted?

Mine weighs in at just over 55GB.  Both of my cabs have chip modded xboxes and 200+ gig drives.

CoinOps3 has great Tate support too.  I just got a plug-n-play trackball working so I'm all set. 
I'll post some videos in the forum as I prep my the guide I'm writing.  I'm finding I can get a nice 27" flat glass CRT TV with component in for $15 on Craigslist (got one free last week) and an Xbox with component cables for around $20.  This means a  decent cab can be made for about $300 if one is patient. 
All this and:

• you don't have to babysit the OS
• getting video to look really nice is super easy
• Coin OPS 3 comes setup with multiple emulators, video previews, and a nice simple unified front that is preconfigured- wife and kid friendly.
• there are hacky cheap solutions for control encoders (if you don't mind ark_ader mocking you)
• there are decently priced solderless/plug and play solutions for control encoders from Quality companies Like Ultimarc
• you get an pretty authentic feel using old stuff that not many people want (if you start with a gutted cab or sell the arcade part)
• xBox 1 games are fun too!

I've been collecting images if you are interested:
http://imgur.com/a/ps64D
http://imgur.com/a/qVooj

[Donkbaca]

Anyone post a link on how to mod an xbox1. To use coin ops?

[Nephasth]

Anyone post a link on how to mod an xbox1. To use coin ops?

+1

I've googled for it before, but have found nothing anywhere near as helpful as BYOAC is...

[BobA]

Anyone post a link on how to mod an xbox1. To use coin ops?

xbox softmod thread

[Nephasth]

Thanks Bob!

[sharpfork]

Anyone post a link on how to mod an xbox1. To use coin ops?

I learned how to solder to do hard mods and I find it pretty easy at this point.  Soldering is a great skill in this hoby.

This is how I do it:

http://www.lunashops.com/goods.php?id=188

I think I'm going to try the hot swap method just to see how it works.

[dextercf]

I've made  up my mind, this I'm gonna do!
Drop this one in my IKEA hacked table..

[ark_ader]

Well, just a couple of notes.

The CoinOps3 Lite sitting on Usenet is -not- password protected and it's got a pretty good chunk of arcade games and videos, and quite a few good console games.  Why they didn't shave a couple hundred megs off it so it could fit on a DVDR... who knows... 

Sadly, no dice when burnt to a DVD-DL.

Much like my experience with previous versions of this on other Xboxes... it tends to crash if you dink around with the sorting too much, and when you select a game the screen completely freezes for a good 30 seconds at a minimum before the game starts.   Actual gameplay is fine.

Unless there's something about this version 3 emulator I just don't know about, I'd stick with the copy of CoinOps Epic that's floating around with screenshots and tons of arcade games @ ~3GB.

 

I just downloaded CoinOPS 3 Full.  It is about 36gb, basically a bed-time download.  I am in the process of upgrading my modded Xbox hard drive to a 400gb to finally have the ultimate Xbox with all my Xbox games and emulators.  I am also going to trial a theory of moving a modded xbox hard-drive to a soft mod.  I figure that if I copy the eeprom of the soft-modded xbox to the 120gb hard drive of the modded xbox and lock the drive, I should be able to use the locked drive in the the other soft-modded xbox if I perform the soft-mod again on top.  So I should not need to wipe the drive like you do with HDM.  I hope this works, as I do like to use up my supply of IDE drives.

I got my CoinOPS on direct download, so much easier than a torrent.  IF you are burning to DVD make sure you use Verbatim media and a burn speed of 4X or less.  Have patience if you are using a CDR as the Xbox will read the disk, it just takes it longer to load in.


PBJ:  Sounds like you are running CoinOPS from DVD.  You will get better functionality if you install it on the Hard Drive.  OR you might need to sort out the Tdata and Udata on the Xbox.

[dextercf]

I'm having trouble getting CoinOPS 3.
The torrent is stuck at 45.2GB, no movement (except upload) the last 24 hours..

Any other resource mentionable?

[ark_ader]

I'm having trouble getting CoinOPS 3.
The torrent is stuck at 45.2GB, no movement (except upload) the last 24 hours..

Any other resource mentionable?

No can do, or Saint will have my joysticks.  BP has a blog and forum, but no links as the XDK used is illegal.  Hypocrisy at its finest.

It took me a good part of the day to un-compress the files which now stands at 51gb and now its time to wiz it over to the xbox which should take until next week! 

I managed to use the old Xbox 160gb drive in the Softmod.  I used Xecuter's utility to move the soft-mod eeprom backup to the hard-mod drive.  Just re-soft-modded the xbox and it reads the drive and files just fine. 

I had a problem formatting the 400gb drive, but I used XBPartitioner after moving my C and E folders over to the new 400gb after prepping the drive with XBHDM.  It took ages to get the drive to format 389 odd gb to F (which failed) so I just formatted F to 139gb and put the rest (250gb) in G.  This is a hint for those lucky enough to have a spare IDE to put in the Xbox, as everything is now SATA.  I hear that using a later bios and formatting F to 389gb is not safe, as the Xbox can lose the partition (for some unknown reason).  400gb is hard to replace at 100/10 speeds. 

[Donkbaca]

So I am guessing its everything up to N64 and Dreamcast?

[SNAAKE]

were you really expecting a 700mhz/64mb ram machine to emulate dreamcast games lol?

even xbox360 cant emulate dc games  yet. they are working on it tho.



wish people released an UPDATE pack or something. you know..from coinops 2 to 3 so I dont have to get the entire collection again.

[Donkbaca]

MY P4 emulates most dreamcast games fine. 

[Donkbaca]

True, the main reason to have a dream cast is to play the arcade ports that don't run well in mame

[ark_ader]

The only file that did not get transferred was the readme file. lol

Everything is working famously.  You have to hand it to BP for all this coding wonder.

I'm just sitting down to moving my entire xbox catalog to the free space on G, and I can tie them up to the CoinOPS menu.

It will take me over Christmas to play all my favorite games.

What will I do with my other Xbox with CoinOPS 2? 

[sharpfork]

I tore the Pcs our of my cabs whto I found coinops.  The Tate support is great too!

[sharpfork]

 

I'm still debating how I want to handle the boot ups.  The Ellipsis front end is very slick, and runs fine once you disable all the crap you will NEVER use (Weather, Pictures, Music).

How do you guys do yours?

I'm not going to make and boot up changes until Cypher, the XBMC + coinops fusion comes out.  If there is a decent tate mode, I'll use that on both my cabinets (all three as of last weekend) since I'd like to run XBMC in tate mode as a jukebox.  If there isn't a tate mode, I'm going to launch Coinops 3 on my tate cab directly on boot and XBMC or cypher on my horizontal cabs. 

I need to read up on getting rid the the Flubber thing and doing a more arcade like boot animation too.

[SNAAKE]

wish people released an UPDATE pack or something. you know..from coinops 2 to 3 so I dont have to get the entire collection again.

Eh, just even swap me for a RGH 360 and you're good to go.  

I could just..."obtain" things

its just annoying doing things over when I already have most of it.

[SNAAKE]

and that britneys pair(LOL?) guy need to start working on some xbox 360 stuff. emulators on the 360 is somewhat outdated. it plays everything I ever cared about but would be nice to have something like coinops. its....neat

[ark_ader]

Alright, zeroing in on my setup.  How do you guys handle games that require analog sticks?

Well you can if you had an X arcade. 

[ark_ader]

Well you can if you had an X arcade.  

All I see is a way to put it into Dualshock mode for Playstation.  I'm trying to figure out how to handle games that require the left analog stick for movement (eg Gauntlet Dark Legacy)


EDIT: Nevermind I RFTM and see what you're talking about.

You have analog and digital for the Dreamcast, PSX 1/2 (haven't tried with my new slim and the 2in1) Xbox & Xbox360 and the Gamecube on the X Arcade. 

It is fairly decent with titles like Fable, you can control different games.  That is why I went all polka dot with the OP and his hacks.  For a minimal amount (for me) you can get such a selection with one controller (now the interfaces are merged) that hacking joy pads is pointless.  But the guy likes burning his fingers, and he seems happy with buzz wire-central but only for one console.  I don't see it. 

[ark_ader]

Well, all I can say is keep your eyes open.  I just bought an X-arcade duo stick for $40 in like new condition from a dude less than 2 miles away with a Playstation 2 adapter.  Snagged an Xbox adapter for $20 elsewhere.  I know lots of people clown on X-Arcade around here, but I couldn't even touch that deal trying to do this myself.

Coincidentally, if anyone needs a Playstation 2 adapter.... I'm selling.   

Do you have a Xbox 360?

http://www.xgaming.com/store/x-arcade-adapters/product/x-arcade-xbox-360-adapter/

[sharpfork]

My X2VGA+ arrived today...  Once you get into the games, the image appears identical using the converter vs component cables.

Can you tell us a bit about why you are usng the x2vga+ if you get the same image oit of component?  Ive never used a vga converter and am genuinely curious.  I assume your cabinet has vga only and the component was for testing but you know what heppens when one assumes.

[sharpfork]

Since this has basically become the default CoinOps 3 thread, I want to post here that the developer of CoinOps is likely going to move to the 360 sooner or later.  I personally think he is close to being "done" with what can be done on the xBox 1 due to hardware limitations but would love to see a few loose end tied up before he shifts focus.  If you agree with me and want him to keep with xBox 1 for the short term, please register and vote here:

http://coinopsproject.freeforums.org/30-votes-by-new-year-to-keep-coinops-going-on-the-xbox-1-t179-10.html

I think it makes sense to move to the 360 after wrapping up a few things.

[SNAAKE]

this is godlike. 3077 UNIQUE console/arcade games with video previews. gave one of my xboxes to my older brother for his birthday gift and he said "best gift ever". hes 33 and probably "reliving" some serious childhood. saw him play "bad dudes". looked like an 80s game lol..

[ark_ader]

I was disappointed to hear about the trackball issues and it makes me glad I didn't spring for a tankstick.

What trackball issues?

[sharpfork]

I was disappointed to hear about the trackball issues and it makes me glad I didn't spring for a tankstick.

What trackball issues?

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=116696.0