15 Consoles in 1 (With potential for 18)

[Goldberg]

No Ben Heck design, but the lad has done well. I like his controller options.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04...etro_consoles/

Most fans of old-skool videogame hardware rely on emulators for their retro gaming kicks. But not some fellow going by the handle Bacteria. Three years ago, he decided he needed 15 original games consoles in his living room and that he wanted them all in a single box.

Game cube: the console offering a feast of formats

The result - Project Unity, a veritable cabinet of a console packed with: the innards of 15 machines, together capable of supporting 18 formats; plus a single, standard-definition output; one PSU to run them all; and a combo controller.
The rather boxy unit - which weighs the best part of 20kg, and was styled to fit into the guy’s AV shelving rather than for its looks - includes the internals from an Amstrad GX4000, an Atari 7800, a Colecovision, a Mattel Intellivision, a NeoGeo MV5, Nintendo’s NES, SNES, 64, Gamecube and Game Boy Advance, Sega’s Master System, Megadrive, Saturn and Dreamcast, a Sony PlayStation 2, and a TurboGrafx-16.

Shame about the knick-knacks: Unity in situ

The controller features all the buttons, joysticks and such required by the various consoles. Rather than emulate the original controllers, our man used a stack of NES cartridges to hold the controller circuit boards, one for each system and interfacing to the Unity controller through the original Nintendo cartridge edge connector. Game-specific keyboard overlays further tailor the Unity to controller to each original title.
The games themselves go into Rom and disc slots built into the front of the machine below a massive 18-option format-selection slider.

Unity's über-controller and system-specific cartridges

Only one console gets powered up at a time, to keep the power requirements manageable and to minimise console-to-console interference, but Unity’s 6A combo PSU, built from a pair of Gamecube AC adaptors, is capable of feeding whichever unit is selected. A rack of transformers and regulators ensures each console gets the right voltage, anywhere from -5 to +15.
Running one console at a time eliminated problems encountered getting the gadgets to share a single video output, in Unity’s case a Scart cable. Active air cooling stops the whole shebang overheating.

Interior design

And, 3,500 hours after he started work, Unity is now done. Mr Bacteria reckons Unity cost him the best part of £700 to make, and it certainly takes up a lot less space than 15 separate consoles, controllers and AC adaptors.
For a demo of Unity in operation, take a peek at Baccy’s YouTube video. ®

[raelmadrid]

looks like a fire hazard

[Goldberg]

It certainly does. I see no vents...

[Mystical_2K]

wow thats impressive but a massive headache!

[si-amigo]

impressive feat of wiring etc, but looks shit, the pad looks really uncomfortable and with the amount of work he's put into it he could have just bought the machines and put them in the places of his 1970s ornaments and bric-a-brac.

[Goldberg]

Looks like an Atari Jaguar Pad with extra bits, he also has fat hands which means it is probably even worse for him.

[Goldberg]

I had questions about memory cards etc, but on his site he explains this www.made-by-bacteria.com
He has either hard wired them into the Controller unit or to the motherboard of the console.

This could be a downfall, however the biggest for me is that it only accepts one controller and no chance of adding other devices like a light gun etc..
Tried to look at his forum to find the answers, but I cannot find a search function..

[Goldberg]

Registered but the search function is shite.

[si-amigo]

Its not going to be much of a downfall for him as I'm sure he can fix pretty much anything that goes wrong with it, if it ever went into production it would be an issue, but the chances of it being available to the public are close to zero I would think.

[Goldberg]

Agree, this owuld never make it mainstream. The closest is the Retron 5, but that is emulation http://www.joystiq.com/2013/04/04/re...n-old-and-new/

[WRATH OF BOD]

thats fantastic want one

[{{909}}]

he's done a good job getting a single tv output, he must know his shit in that regard.

For me, if you are going for the 'real' feeling of the old consoles, you have to use the original pads though, not that monstrosity he's made. When I fired up my snes last, it was the clunk of the power switch and the squishy start button etc that took me back to my childhood.

[si-amigo]

exactly. He's cocked it up big style making that pad. It wouldn't have took up much space sticking all the respectable controller ports next to one another.

If you are going to play them using some random, ugly pad, you may as well be playing them with a usb pad on a pc emulator and have the luxury of save states.

The pads are where the nostalgia lies IMO, thats why I have original consoles of all the old consoles I want, with official pads.

[Goldberg]

Yep, he goes on about it in his video about how emulation is not the same as playing on the hardware.. He could have come up with a better solution.