Tiny arcade machine is tiny

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By Matt Mets
Posted 2009/09/12 @ 8:05 am
Category Electronics, Fun & Games

Sam Seide made this nicely constructed mini arcade machine for his son, using a 12-in-1 arcade joystick and the screen from a broken DVD player.

You might remember Sam from his interactive punch-out dummy project.

(thanks, Kipkay!)

In the Maker Shed

Calculator Kit from Spikenzie Labs

Telegraph Decoder Kit by Spikenzie Labs

Tux Case for Raspberry Pi

Make: Getting Started with Soldering Kit

12 Responses to Tiny arcade machine is tiny

samseide on September 12th, 2009 at 4:31 pm said:

ha! Thanks for putting our video up here again! I always feel so honored to be shown up here with all the other great makers. Inspires me to continue doing other projects!

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Chris on September 13th, 2009 at 2:15 am said:

Really nice build! I’m surprised the 12 in 1 thing has such a nice interface for choosing the games, I need to find one as good as that.

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MMel on September 14th, 2009 at 6:50 am said:

Did your portable DVD player have a video in?

I’ve got a portable DVD player that I would like to use the screen but I have no video in?

How did you accomplish passing the video to the screen?

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samseide on September 14th, 2009 at 8:10 am said:

yes the dvd player had video in. Most do, that I’ve noticed. It uses a headphone jack instead of the normal RCA connector so you have to cut the ends off the video game rca cords and solder the wires to a male headphone plug’s wires.

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Mark Lyon on September 16th, 2009 at 5:28 am said:

Hi Sam,

Fantastic job!

What hardware, OS (Win/Lin distro), and emulator are you using?

Do you have any DIY instructable for it?

At least a list of components?

Thanks!

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- Matt Mets on September 16th, 2009 at 7:56 am said:
  
  I don’t think he is using a PC for this- it’s actually one of those little game systems that come built into a joystick, which you then connect to your TV. From what I can tell, he took apart the joystick, and fitted it into case along with the screen from an old portable DVD player.
  
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samseide on September 16th, 2009 at 3:46 pm said:

here’s a link to the plug n play game I started with initially.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=11061008

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DJ on October 7th, 2009 at 8:18 am said:

That is an amazing job you did with the miniature replication of a Pac-Man unit! As I have no technical skills, would you be willing to build another and sell? I would love to have this as part of my collection…

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- Sam Seide on November 11th, 2009 at 10:00 am said:
  
  I’m making a couple more right now that should be done this week. I was thinking of putting them up on etsy to see if people really are interested in buying them. Hardest part is finding dvd players inexpensively to use for screens. Thought about just selling just the arcade shells only without the electronics as well as that would be easier for me than finding the guts of these machines.
  
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  DJ Brody on November 16th, 2009 at 11:55 pm said:
  
  I’ll be first in line to buy when you complete these. Do you plan on making an announcement or should we plan to regularly check etsy? Thx.
  
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  Sam Seide on November 20th, 2009 at 8:33 am said:
  
  Check on here, whenever I finish em up I will post a link to the etsy store! I know how much time it takes to build these, and the material costs involved, but I’m still unsure what is a price point that most would consider reasonable for these.
  
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  samseide on February 7th, 2010 at 2:54 pm said:
  
  I finally got around to putting an auction up for one of these tiny arcade machines. Here’s the link:
  
  http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150412331063&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT
  
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