Albert Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 Curt Vendel, whom many of you know from his informative Atari History Museum website as well as helping to bring the Flashback 2 to the masses, has today launched a new venture: Awesome Arcades. Their first product is the Awecade AC-601 "Arcade Center", an upright arcade cabinet featuring arcade-quality engineering and over 80 arcade games, including classics from Atari, Midway, Exidy, and Williams. If you've been looking for a multi-game arcade cabinet for your home and haven't bought one yet, you'll want to give this offering a serious look. To learn more, please visit Awesome Arcades. If you decide to purchase a cabinet, please use the referral code AAGE06. Thanks!! ..Al Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 Congrats Curt! Best of luck on your new endeavor. Hope this turns out to be very successful Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lemmi Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 looks nice but i seem to have been playing everyone elses arcade games as a kid like star wars and popeye and DK DKjr and so on those are the games i want Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vdub_bobby Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 Looks like a nice product; price is $1800. Little out of my price range. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
belboz Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 Looks very nice. I would like more info on the site though. What are the specs of the system inside it? I see mention of a trackball and light gun, but no pictures of them or how they are connected. I would have thought the trackball would be on the control panel already. Got to have a trackball for marble madness and centipede,etc. Price seems pretty decent compared to other comparable systems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
128bytes Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 Good luck, Curt! Thank you so much for the Flashback 2 and those Awesome Joysticks! My secret business idea is to make a machine like yours, but make it about double the size of a Coleco tabletop arcade machine, using a backlit LCD screen, SD storage, and battery/AC power. Kind of like a MAME Gameboy in a mini-arcade cabinet. Feel free to use it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird3rd Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 Wow, you've been even busier than I thought, Curt! Looks like an interesting product, and I'll be keeping my eye on it. For now it's out of my price range, of course, but perhaps this will open the door for other things (such as a certain Atari 800-based TV-game product that a certain big company seems to have foolishly passed on! ) Seriously, congratulations and best of luck with this new endeavor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clint Thompson Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 Sweet! I wanna see some in-action pictures taken and as suggested above a better idea of whats on the inside! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 Hi Clint, Taking the advice from the posters for adding more HW info onto the site so I'll have the web content expanded under the tech specs section, but so you know: Biostar VIA Unichrome 2D/3D chipset Motherboard with modified firmware P4 Celeron 2ghz CPU AC97 Vinyl Audio chipset 256MB Memory 4GB IDE HD Embedded Arcade OS (EAOS) which uses some portions of Win98 and DirectX (so Win98 license is included) HD is encrypted and can only accept add-on game paks from like-encrypted USB thumbdrives with add-on paks installed and these add-on paks will not be ridiculously priced like others that cost $300-$500 which is just insane. I will be making a power-up to play video showing the 25 sec power up into menu sequence and showing the interface and loading of a few games and we'll get that added to the site in a few days. Gotta run, several orders came in already, so thanks everyone for the positive words... Curt Sweet! I wanna see some in-action pictures taken and as suggested above a better idea of whats on the inside! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keilbaca Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 Way to go Curt! Looks like you're gonna put Ultracade in their place, providing the same thing that looks better for a fraction of the cost. I hope everything works out for you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquid_sky Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 I must say that these are indeed quite awesome Curt.. you dont wanna know how much I drooled at the website. The price isnt bad at all and we know it is quality 110% coming from you.. and free shipping too! I just wish I didnt live in a little economy apartment and had room for one! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atwwong Posted June 27, 2006 Share Posted June 27, 2006 Best wishes Curt! You have brought so much to the classic gaming community and you're still full of surprises! Cheers, Tony Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted June 27, 2006 Share Posted June 27, 2006 Looks great! I like the cabinet styling, it makes my home-made MAME cab look like crap. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atarilovesyou Posted June 27, 2006 Share Posted June 27, 2006 Curt, can you or anybody comment on the quality of the games themselves?..I don't see how people would pony up the big bucks with such relatively little information on these machines. They do look awesome though! Are these games packs emulations? Are they MAME comparible? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted June 27, 2006 Author Share Posted June 27, 2006 If anyone purchases a cabinet, please put in the referral code AAGE06. Thanks! ..Al Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted June 27, 2006 Share Posted June 27, 2006 (edited) Looks nice! I might have to forget about a new widescreen tv and consider this.. Edited June 27, 2006 by Shannon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted June 27, 2006 Share Posted June 27, 2006 More details will be added to the site such as screenshots and some video of the system running, but to answer your question here - the Exidy games are using MAME as we received a license from Mamedev for its use for the Exidy games. The Atari and Midway games are using PC emulators by Digital Eclipse. Curt Curt, can you or anybody comment on the quality of the games themselves?..I don't see how people would pony up the big bucks with such relatively little information on these machines. They do look awesome though! Are these games packs emulations? Are they MAME comparible? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paolo Posted June 27, 2006 Share Posted June 27, 2006 WOW! Way to go, Curt! Please, keeep adding stuff into the website. As example: is there an option to get more than one gamepack? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DamonicFury Posted June 27, 2006 Share Posted June 27, 2006 First time I've ever seen original Exidy arcade games made available - great job getting those rights! If you were ever interested in making the "Exidy Excitement Pack" available as a seperate product for use on the PC, that would be fantastic! Best of luck with the new venture! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Helmet Posted June 27, 2006 Share Posted June 27, 2006 Looks great! I like the cabinet styling, it makes my home-made MAME cab look like crap. Tempest LOL. I was thinking the same thing about my old mame cabinet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atarilovesyou Posted June 27, 2006 Share Posted June 27, 2006 ....I wonder if this cabinet has fully programmable buttons, SO programmable in fact that you could employ BOTH sides of the stick's buttons to be used in multi button games, such as Asteroids (thrust, hyper, rotate). MAME cabs at home still have that advangtage, plus you can customize the joysticks depending on what you use. Still, if this cabinet can accept mods (ha, I can't believe I'm talking mods at this point) then you can even go as far as using it to play SF 2 type games (to represent the end of an era..)....all in all this thing looks great and I'm quite interested! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted June 27, 2006 Share Posted June 27, 2006 Exidy games! Holy poop! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted June 27, 2006 Share Posted June 27, 2006 The system does include the Awesome Control Panel utility on the included CDROM, the interface is fully programmable and reconfigurable, so you could reassign any input and any keyboard equivalent. The interface also has the ability to connect a trackball and/or spinner to it so if you find that you want to expand the capabiliities of the control panel, it has a lot of future-proofing built into it, each player can have up to 10 buttons. When playtesting and configuring the system, the control panel was tested out to explore maximizing the gaming experience, so for instance: Asteriods and Ast Dlx - the joystick rotates left right, fire button 1 is fire, #2 is thrust and #3 is hyperspace/shields. Lunar Lander - left joystick is rotate left/right, the right joystick is thrust and player 1 fire button 1 is abort. Then games like Black Widow, Battlezone, Robotron of course use both joysticks for movement and/or directional fire. Other interesting twists on games utilizing the controls to maximize gameplay shows in a game like Toobin where the four fire buttons are used for left/right forward/back and the joystick is used to throw. So the controls were really well utilized to make the gaming experience the best possible for gamers to enjoy. Curt ....I wonder if this cabinet has fully programmable buttons, SO programmable in fact that you could employ BOTH sides of the stick's buttons to be used in multi button games, such as Asteroids (thrust, hyper, rotate). MAME cabs at home still have that advangtage, plus you can customize the joysticks depending on what you use. Still, if this cabinet can accept mods (ha, I can't believe I'm talking mods at this point) then you can even go as far as using it to play SF 2 type games (to represent the end of an era..)....all in all this thing looks great and I'm quite interested! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laner Posted June 27, 2006 Share Posted June 27, 2006 Very very nice... certainly beats everything else in the same space in terms of price. I just don't think the wife would go for a full-sized cabinet in the house Maybe a cocktail table version? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted June 27, 2006 Share Posted June 27, 2006 Other formfactors are being explored, a cocktail is on the drawing board, but as with the upright, it needs to break the mold and be unique and stylish, giving gamers something to show off and be proud of, but that also fits in their gameroom and/or office decor. Curt Very very nice... certainly beats everything else in the same space in terms of price. I just don't think the wife would go for a full-sized cabinet in the house Maybe a cocktail table version? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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