Hasta La Gadget!

I know it’s a total luxury item that I have no business spending my hard-earned money on, but I’ve always wanted an arcade cabinet that I could load up with MAME and all of my favorite arcade games. But up until now, most of the cabinets out there were a little too tacky for me to actually have in my home. Now that I’ve seen these Retro Space arcade cabinets, I’ve got no excuse – except the money, of course.

These awesome retro-modern arcade cabinets come from designer Martijn Koch in The Netherlands. They each have a gorgeous 27-inch 1920×1200 LCD screen in the middle, as well as two arcade-grade Sanwa 8-way joysticks, real arcade buttons for each player, as well as a 6cm Sanwa arcade trackball and a single analog joystick for those games that support one.

Or if you’re a fan of games Arkanoid and Tempest like me, you’ll opt for the version with the Ultimarc SpinTrac spinner instead of the analog stick. Yes, please.

The cabinet has also got a pair of Canton speakers and a stereo T-amp. Keep in mind that this cabinet doesn’t include a computer – though they’ll be happy to custom fit it with a Mac Mini or Raspberry Pi for an added cost.

Prices range from €2,099 (~$2822 USD) for a slightly distressed yellow unit shown here to €2,499 (~$3360 USD) for the lovely anthracite grey model, so this definitely isn’t a cheap system. Never mind the fact that it may be cost-prohibitive to ship one of these outside of Europe.

I know Christmas is 11-1/2 months away, but I’m putting this on my list now.

How awesome is it that we live in a world with huge functional NES controllers? And those are just the ones we know about! Then there’s this one made by Baron Julius von Brunk, which is a bit geekier because it’s almost entirely made from LEGO.

The Baron connected the bricky buttons and the d-pad to small push buttons, which are in turn connected the circuit board of a NES controller. He built spring-loaded modules using Technic pieces to prevent the big LEGO buttons from getting stuck on the small push buttons.

The Baron likes to play his NES games on the PC, so also he connected his LEGO controller to a USB converter.

Head to Baron Julius’ blog for more details on his epic hack.

[via Nowhereelse]

I have fond memories of the original Atari 2600. It was my first gaming platform. Not sure how many hours I sat playing games with it, but it led to a lifelong love of video games. If I had the talent, I would make a cake in honor of this console. But I don’t have to, because The Pink Cake Box already made an Atari 2600 cake for one man’s 40th birthday party.


Rafael’s wife had this cake made for him and that makes her one super awesome wife. What we have here is an edible console, joysticks and two cartridges. The cartridges are Pacman and Vanguard, which I must imagine taste much better than E.T. or Pepsi Invaders.

Check out the video of the cake above. It makes me want to play this old console again. Also makes me hungry.

Sure, this isn’t the only Atari 2600 cake ever made, but it could be the best one yet.

[via Between the Pages via Neatorama]

If you can believe it, it’s been over 11 years since the original Xbox game console launched. It’s difficult to imagine a time when Microsoft didn’t have one of the top gaming consoles on the market, but prior to 2001, it was all Sony, Sega and Nintendo. Now, if you’ve got a whole lot of cash kicking around, you can own a piece of gaming  history, with this amazing collection of goodies from the original Xbox launch in November 2001.

Having been employed at Microsoft from 1997 to 2006 as part of the Xbox launch team, Howard Philips (who also worked at Nintendo during its heyday) has decided to sell off his Xbox launch collection over on eBay.

The collection includes one of the translucent green Xbox Launch Team consoles and a pair of matching green controllers. Just 60 of these were ever made, so they’re very rare. In addition, there’s an awesome, possibly one-of-a-kind sculpture of the original “X” prototype console, made out of machined and polished metal with a light-up Xbox logo. It measures about 18″x18″x18″ and weighs in at a whopping 25 pounds – which, when you think about it – doesn’t sound much heavier than the production Xbox console.

There’s also some cool internal Microsoft collectibles in the auction, including a commemorative launch plaque, and the first ever official Xbox Certification Submission Disc – the orinal master disc of NHL Hitz – the very first Xbox game to go into certification, back in July 2001.

If you’re lucky (or rich) enough to purchase this collection, you’ll also get a full set of Xbox collectors cards from E3 2001, an original, unused Xbox Live Subscription card from the launch of the service, an original Xbox trade show badge, baseball cap and windbreaker, as well as a bunch of other Xbox stickers, buttons, pens and a notebook from the launch in 2001.

So what’s the price for all of this console history? Well, the starting bid for the auction is set at $5000(USD), and so far there aren’t any bids. The auction ends at 12:39pm PST on January 2, 2013, so there’s not much time left either.

If you’ve got a love for gaming, and really deep pockets, you can check out the entire auction here.

[via GameSniped]

A few months ago we saw how a smart guy figured out how to make small 3D printed records that could be played on a toy turntable. Instructables employee Amanda Ghassaei has trumped that hack: she figured out how to 3D printed records that can be played on any turntable, just like an ordinary vinyl record.

Whereas the audio on the 3D printed toy records had to be input note by note on a custom software, Amanda was able to write a program that automated the process in a very precise manner: “It works by importing raw audio data, performing some calculations to generate the geometry of a record, and eventually exporting this geometry straight to the STL file format (used by all 3D printers).” Sadly, even the high-end Object Connex 500 printers at the Instructables office were unable to encode the geometry at a resolution high enough to create a high quality record. But the fact that even this is now possible is still nothing less than mind-blowing.

Wow. 3D printing hardware’s only going to improve in time, so I’m sure Amanda can eventually recreate professional grade records should she pursue it. Once again we’re seeing people using current technology to go back to a more physical and tactile interaction with gadgets. 3D printing is the bee’s 3D printed knees. Check out the links below for more details on Amanda’s project.

[via Instructables & Amanda Ghassaei via I Heart Chaos]