Intellivision Touch Screen Project
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I started setting up RetroPie with the Intellivision emulator and quickly found out how impossible it was to play (being over 50 I used to play the original one :). So I thought I'd make a touch screen system that could create virtual buttons and layouts, and work something close to the original controllers. Looking to gauge interest, as I most likely will open source the design and code, but it's a lot of work.
Thinking of mounting this flush to the surface of my cabinet. Still very early, but it's working well. Written in flutter, runs on a Raspberry PI Zero 2 (Ubuntu command line only - flutter handles the display) and can handle up to 16 buttons connected to a iPAC Ultimate (on player 3 and 4). Display is a 5" diagonal (800x480) capacitive touch screen. Working on circuit board now (and overlay image switching is done too - just not pictured).
Video:
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Here's some new updates! New interface, board complete and some navigation started. The goal is to make a main control panel with virtual buttons that can be customized to do whatever a user wants, then controller emulators for systems that are not easily used with "normal" arcade controllers (Intellivision, Colecovision, arcade games with unusual layouts/buttons, computer keyboard games, de-cluttering physical control board, etc...).
Finding that a 5" screen is too small, but a 7" screen might be about right. The cost of the parts is about $80 off Amazon. 16 pin outs that act as switches (optoisolators on board) connected to an iPac act like 16 physical switches.
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@retznutz I'm very interested in this! I have likewise wanted to make a cabinet version of intellivision controls. I thought about something like the stream deck (video buttons).
I was thinking of larger controls that fit the hands rather than the thumbs; one hand for the disc (3.5" disc?) and one hand for the buttons. How about the 5" screen, vertical, with the overlay 150% larger (four fingers across)? I had in mind the side buttons could be real buttons.
Staying tuned on this!
ws
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