Data East my Arcade Mini playing neo geo games :P

[WD_GASTER2]

anybody got one of these? it seems adb is fully functional and you can load your own apps with this.

I got a rough port of my generations dash (i still need to polish it) to load neo.emu and play windjammers from there

 

[1NOOB]

idk about that one but i would touch their product after seing that https://oldmachinery.blogspot.com/2018/06/data-east-hits-8-bit-gaming-my-arcade.html at walmart , for 20$ , the boxart are arcade version but the games are all nes version .

 

[WD_GASTER2]

this one is the "10 mini" i got this one out of boredom at a local target. these go for 89 though.

 

[WD_GASTER2]

update for 1 week later. the chipset on this thing is really capable. sorry for the 360p video youtube decided to crunch this real badly.

 

[PSX_Specter]

@WD_GASTER2 , I have one of these on order. Hope to compare notes soon. Any luck getting USB ethernet or wireless dongle working?

 

[WD_GASTER2]

well... what i ended up discovering on this was the following:

there is 2 variants of this (board revisions) one plays super nice with usb external devices and the other one reboots (kernel panic?) the moment you plug in a usb device. i never managed to find the revision that plays nicely with usb devices in the wild but they do exist. I am currently in a major project restoring a batch of 20 sega saturns (they need to be retrobrited and drives restored) once i am done with that i will be back on working on this littly bugger. (they are nice once h4x3d btw... i keep one of them running neo geo games in attract mode in a loop in the background as decoration in one of my rooms)
let me know once you get it and lets see if we can do some more progress on it.

 

[PSX_Specter]

well... what i ended up discovering on this was the following:

there is 2 variants of this (board revisions) one plays super nice with usb external devices and the other one reboots (kernel panic?) the moment you plug in a usb device. i never managed to find the revision that plays nicely with usb devices in the wild but they do exist. I am currently in a major project restoring a batch of 20 sega saturns (they need to be retrobrited and drives restored) once i am done with that i will be back on working on this littly bugger. (they are nice once h4x3d btw... i keep one of them running neo geo games in attract mode in a loop in the background as decoration in one of my rooms)
let me know once you get it and lets see if we can do some more progress on it.

Got mine today. Mine is the easily hacked version. Made a hole in the back and hot glued the OTG cable to it. Made the wires for the internal speaker longer for better access. So far I have a small four port USB hub working, USB ethernet adapter, USB keyboard and mouse, and a USB 2.0 8GB flash drive. The keyboard and ethernet adapter don't play well together but everything else does. Taking a break from a long day of messing with it and kicking back watching some sling tv on my data east arcade mini

 

[WD_GASTER2]

thats real nice. may i ask if you bought it from an online retailer? i would like to have one that plays nice with usb devices.

 

[PSX_Specter]

thats real nice. may i ask if you bought it from an online retailer? i would like to have one that plays nice with usb devices.

It came from ebay. I wasn't even aware of the different models when I ordered it. Just got lucky.
Edit #1- Just ordered another one from ebay, let's see what version I get this time.
Looks like Retroarch runs ok if you use an external USB controller. Playstation runs fairly well. I seem to get better performance with MAME4Droid than Retroarch emulating arcade games.
@WD_GASTER2 You're an android guy... can you see what if any WIFI drivers come installed on it? Or can you tell me where to look?
Edit #2= I now realize that the device is not rooted, and apologize for my android illiterate request
I guess figuring out what WIFI adapter if any works is going to be a treat unless there's a way to root it.
If anyone suffers from audio crackling with MAME4Droid, there is hope. In settings, go to advanced- sound engine. From there, choose audio engine. Then select Audio Track high latency (safe). Go back to advanced, and choose main thread priority. Set it to high. Small, old games like donkey kong that run quite well but kill your ears with the popping and cracking will benefit immensely from this.

 

[PSX_Specter]

My second unit arrived today. It appears to also be the more easily hacked revision. I guess one should stay away from the ones they sell at Target? Can anyone else chime in with their experiences? Where did you buy yours? Was it hack-able via the internal micro USB? Did it have a decal on the power button, or just the two red lights? If yours was one of the units hack-able via the internal USB, what emulators and software have you had the best results with? What peripherals have you found to be working via USB?

 

[WD_GASTER2]

My second unit arrived today. It appears to also be the more easily hacked revision. I guess one should stay away from the ones they sell at Target? Can anyone else chime in with their experiences? Where did you buy yours? Was it hack-able via the internal micro USB? Did it have a decal on the power button, or just the two red lights? If yours was one of the units hack-able via the internal USB, what emulators and software have you had the best results with? What peripherals have you found to be working via USB?

i bought mine at Target. as for wifi i wonder what are the differences between the target model and the others. could you pm me a link to the ebay seller you got yours from. i understand that there is no warranty i will get one of the nice models, but i am willing to take a risk. if i get one of those i could actually see what could be done to root it. the one that i have does is nice but usb peripherals would be great.

 

[PSX_Specter]

I agree, you need one. I bought both of them from two individuals that each only had one for sale The exact formula I used to get mine was to look for one that was $65 US and shipped to me by the weekend Maybe you could check around second hand stores for one that doesn't have the decal with coin doors? Both of the ebay units I bought were pictured in the box and I had no view of the power button, so it was a complete lottery.

Edit- The onboard audio amp in unit #1 has spewed forth it's magic smoke. Headphone output still works, so I am currently working on fitting a stereo amp and small speakers from some usb powered pc speakers via the board side of the headphone jack. Will probably have to upgrade my power supply to keep everything happy, we'll see how it goes. Volume Booster app works wonders to bring the headphone output up to a reasonable level (It is pretty quiet by default) . I wouldn't use the Volume Booster app with the onboard audio though, as it dies easily enough without any outside help.
I wonder if pressing the reset button on the main board along with vol + and vol - while powering on invokes recovery mode? Not brave enough to try it myself.

Edit 2- @WD_GASTER2 I pm'd you a link to a great candidate.

 

[PSX_Specter]

The amp install resulted in a noisy mess that only sounded decent at full volume. Something to do with sharing the same power supply as the 10" arcade and ground loop. Many posts around the web of people having the same issue with raspberry pi projects. For it's transgressions, this unit will be gutted and have a raspberry pi 2 installed... and will probably still need the audio amp to be powered separately. Probably a fixable issue. Small price to pay for that sweet, sweet emulationstation menu (and KODI!).
Volume+ and Volume- on power up does invoke the recovery menu. I couldn't make much happen in there, though.
@WD_GASTER2 , did you manage to find a unit that plays nice with USB devices?

 

[WD_GASTER2]

never did sadly. when time came around for me to buy the one you linked me to on ebay (had to wait til payday) it was sold out :S

 

[WD_GASTER2]

got my new model. Thanks man. what ethernet adapter did you use? working on wifi as well at this time.

 

[WD_GASTER2]

Boom! wifi working over a vonets now to make it fit all internally!

 

[WD_GASTER2]

and just like that I can now ftp into it! this is raspberry pi levels awesome

 

[PSX_Specter]

I also ended up using a vonets for wifi. The power supply that comes with the unit is pretty strong. Using it to power the raspberry pi 2 and 3.5" screen I transplanted into my defective one. That went off without a hitch. The controls are much more manageable, and I can run Daphne.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M2VGO8I/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 that's the usb ethernet adapter I'm using.

 

[fixingmytoys]

time to go hunting again, any clues to which unit is the good one

 

[PSX_Specter]

time to go hunting again, any clues to which unit is the good one

Look for one with Lock N Chase on the bottom right corner of the back of the box.