Fascinating to see this. Here in the US we loved Mastertronic games, and was surprised to hear they cost only 1.99 pounds each. Oh how inflation threw that cost into the abyss. hehe
@RMCRetro. I worked on this system at Binary Design… converted our 8-bit Mastertronic game “180” to become “World Darts” and then converted the American stuff (Road Wars, Aaaargh etc.) to UK 8-bits. It was a massive mistake from the start and ultimately nearly killed Mastertronic. Virgin bailed them out. Happy to answer any questions.
Wow.. my dad got me and my brother one of these system cabs as a unique chrismas present back in 1992 (UK). I recall the awful bowling game, basketball, kung fu and xenon on it. To us we we not too happy with them but thankfully it was a jamma cab and dad got us some other classics game jamma boards such as gradius 3, shadow Dancer, moonwalker and hyper sports. problem was we had to drill and hack in a 3rd button in on the panel as it only had 2 on the cab and figure out how to hotwire it on the jamma connector. Good times. I had no idea until today how rare it was and I look forward to seeing how you get on with it.
I'd like to see a restored arcade cabinet showcasing all the recent Amiga ports of arcade games e.g. Rygar released in 2019 - I'd like it to be a project that rights the wrongs of Amiga gaming history like games that used "up" to jump or coded poorly. . I'd like to see an arcade cabinet that has fun modern coded versions of original old games - Something about an Amiga holding it's own with other real arcade royalty warms my soul.
For me as a young teenager in the late 1980s a huge part of the attraction of the arcades was that you could go there and see amazing graphics, sound, technology that was way superior to anything you could possibly get at home. I don't remember ever seeing an Arcadia System then, but being familiar with the Amiga I'd probably just have walked right past it. Because what's the point if you can play the exact same games on the Amiga 500 that you or one of your friends have at home, why would i pay to play Xenon. Maybe it would have turned out better if they had launched it with a couple of system exclusive, killer games.
13:50 I was there buying my A500 from Micro Anvika (near the top right of the map) for £400, and it still works. It was its 37th birthday 12 days ago (though I suppose it was made a few months earlier).
Neil - congrats on making it through the parental leave successfully! And it's great to see you back at work! Some day, it'd be great to see your daughter see the cave and react - what a cool thing her dad put together!
I have heard that this is not the only game machine that used an Amiga. American Laser Games also used Amiga computers to control a laserdisc player in their shooting games back in the day.
The thing I am concerned by is that they probably integrated some form of protection to prevent the ROMs from being dumped and used on a home commodore Amiga machine. I hope that Dallas clock chip internal RAM does not contain an decryption key or internal code as part of the protection. I have heard some arcade boards suicide after the battery in them dies as it erases the key to decrypt. Not all boards do this, but I have heard of some Sega, Capcom, Seibu, Nihon System, Orca, and others that had encryption keys stored in battery backed RAM or in battery backed memory inside the custom processor itself. I pray that Mastertronic / Arcadia did not use a suicide battery.
Great to see you on screen again Neil! Looking forward to thr project progressing, and I really hope I can make it back to the Cave some time next year.
Oh, I just love a trash to treasure. Great to have you back again Neil. Like yourself I have never seen this system anywhere in the wild back then in the UK that I have been too. I certainly do not remember it here in Northern Ireland, or on my many trips to England and Scotland back then. (I have never actually stayed in Wales, just driven through parts of it). Maybe that's where they were all along!
When I was a kid I remember seeing magazine ads about how the one megabyte Amiga version of magic Johnson's fast break was identical to the arcade and thinking that was probably not true. Same thing for the soccer game called goal. Turns out that was real because it was the same hardware😂
I seem to remember seeing at least one of these in an arcade abd ut was kujekt Xenon was what I played on it, having an amiga at home at the time, I think it was the oddity of playing an amiga game in the arcades!
Well the “Darts” card is almost certainly going to be what was known as World Darts over here, known for its vocalised introduction screen citing “Arcadia presents World Darts” which was a natural progression from 180 on the C64 which was published/distributed by… Mastertronic. All very much making sense.
Welcome back! Good to see you again. Never heard of the machine but I sure do like the name Arcadia, they should have stuck with that. Can't wait to see it running
A local arcade had one of these in the early 90's the only game I remember from it was Sidewinder. The same arcade had a lot of old and unusual stuff, a Battlezone machine, an original Space Invaders, a Pengo machine and some others. The owner seemed to like having a row of classics and oddball machines in his arcade even if they didn't always make a lot of money.
Great video of a great system. Can't wait to see the next episode. For the cabinet, can it be an idea to make a cabinet as the original but in transparent perspex? Since it is such a special system, it deserves to be seen as well as played. And as a true Amiga and hardware nerd, it would be great to be able to play it as originally intended as well as being able to see the inner workings of the machine. Possibly also with some mirrors inside to give a better view of the boards/coin door and the back of the control panel depending on how the boards are mounted. It would also require some well designed lightning to display the boards inside. Made right, it would make a great show-piece in the museum. Just a thought.
I have memories of an arcade machine in a pizza takeaway I used to go to now and again as a kid. Rare treat when visiting mum and dad's friends. It stood out in my memory for having an uncanny resemblance to my Amiga I had back then. I am going to assume that coin op was one of these. It's long gone now! There's a huge touch screen menu there today. No where near as good.
Never saw the system but I do remember reading about it and have some of the games as they were also released on disk, Roadwars, Xenon and Space Ranger.
Great video once again! You've been sorely missed. I'd like to make a comment, or should that be cabinet 😂 The second cabinet with the dodgy looking picture looked awesome to me, would be great to see that made.
Nice to have you back! As far as "which cab to make": I'd go for the UK prototype, for being both eye-catching and (hopefully) having a smaller footprint.
Bloody hell, I used to watch Cybernet when I was a kid back in the late 90s. Shame it was on in the early hours, I always had to tape it and watch it the next day
I heard on the internet that there was a canceled arcade system based on the amiga hardware but it turns out it actually was released , must be this one
Very interesting Amiga arcade machine. Leaderboard Golf sounds most interesting to me as I have the standard version for Amiga 500, hoping also that maybe Out Run could be in one of those chips. Drawing pics with Deluxe Paint on arcade machine would be funny to see :D
As an American, I agree with you that the cabinet is hideous. I think I vaguely remember seeing one of them somewhere, but can't remember where or when.
Welcome back, sir! An absolutely herculean effort to produce something as good as this whilst suffering the wonderful storm of parenthood and indeed other huge life changes! It’s absolutely as good as the very best of your other videos and a very interesting and rare find to showcase too! Well done to you and your family!
13:50 look how big the Amstrad stand was Make the preview one (if it's the left one) and put a perspex front on the bottom with a light so people can see it but it's still in a machine
I remember how chuffed I was upon learning that the Amiga was poweful enough to go toe to toe with games in the arcade upon reading an article about Arcadia.. Then I actually played Aargh and one of the others, and they were decidedly budget quality Amiga games through and through
I'm glad you're doing this series. I stumbled upon this system in MAME a while back, saw that it was Amiga based and was curious about the history. Waiting to see if you find out any info on how well the systems did, because from what I remember the software library leaves a lot to be desired. I'm guessing it did poorly in the States, but maybe it did better in the UK?
I've been looking for source code to help with reverse engineering Sidewinder for years. It's just a great game, one if the Amiga's best shoot-em-ups. Thanks for this great video, looking forward to part 2.
For posterity, I'd love to see some effort made into cloning the PCBs of this system that aren't the Amiga 500. Is there a possibility of making either the gerbers and/or new unpopulated PCBs available to those who want to build their own Arcadia SSS (like me!) if any cloning work is done? I've cloned a few things myself, btw.
Fascinating. Growing up in Turkey we had ton of bootleg arcades from Asia with generic cabinets. I only saw one Amiga-based arcade and it was Silk Worm. I later learned that they hacked the game to make it start with right mouse button which was connected to the coin mechanism. Everything else was pretty much the same. I think some Amiga games can make pretty good arcades, but they would be a bit outdated in 1990 NeoGeo coming out.
Given that the hardware itself is of interest, then if you can't find a real cabinet I think a transparent perspex cabinet with whatever original parts attached to it would be very cool. It'd give people an idea of what the original cabinet would have been like while also showing off the innards.
UK Cabinet is my vote - having the machine working as originally intended would be incredible ; you've already made the unique Lemmings Arcade Machine, a unique Amiga Arcade Machine right along side it seems fitting :) I'm mixed about how best to Skin the Cabinet - I think the Super Select System logo recreated large would be most correct and on that Blue Background would seem right. Perhaps a little creativity from your Team to add a little more fluorish to the design (especially that dreary Control Panel) - perhaps the Robot and Sexy Girl playing on the side. Excited to see the next stage!
You can open those Dallas RTC Battery chips with hot air and add a fresh battery or just rescue the other bits and Necroware has a PCB. (or there is a mod but the newer hot air method seems safer imo)
Since there doesn't seem to be a specific arcade cabinet, I'd suggest making a generic shaped one with transparent plastic and put it in that. It would be able to show people how arcade units work without having to open doors and shine a light inside, and it would just look cool to have a completely clear cabinet.
Since the parts you have came from that original american one I think that's the best to go for, even if it's hideous. It's a part of the charm in my opinion.
![CHILE vs. BRASIL [1-2] | RESUMEN | ELIMINATORIAS SUDAMERICANAS | FECHA 9](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/5ObJt_71AYc/mqdefault.jpg)
Thank you for watching. If you'd like to support The Cave head to patreon.com/rmcretro and join the Official Cave Dwellers.
Neil
Fascinating to see this. Here in the US we loved Mastertronic games, and was surprised to hear they cost only 1.99 pounds each. Oh how inflation threw that cost into the abyss. hehe
@RMCRetro. I worked on this system at Binary Design… converted our 8-bit Mastertronic game “180” to become “World Darts” and then converted the American stuff (Road Wars, Aaaargh etc.) to UK 8-bits. It was a massive mistake from the start and ultimately nearly killed Mastertronic. Virgin bailed them out. Happy to answer any questions.
Hi Nick, I’d love to have a chat yes please! Can you please email neil@rmcretro.com
Great to see you back on RUclips again!
Thank you it's good to be back
Great that you continue with this half documentary / half restoration videos. They are great!
welcome back Neil,now patiently waiting for the second part to this restoration video,dont keep us waiting to long 🙂
Love a Trash to Treasure and an interesting in-depth history lesson. It's great that you are documenting and preserving this history for all of us.
Wow.. my dad got me and my brother one of these system cabs as a unique chrismas present back in 1992 (UK). I recall the awful bowling game, basketball, kung fu and xenon on it. To us we we not too happy with them but thankfully it was a jamma cab and dad got us some other classics game jamma boards such as gradius 3, shadow Dancer, moonwalker and hyper sports. problem was we had to drill and hack in a 3rd button in on the panel as it only had 2 on the cab and figure out how to hotwire it on the jamma connector. Good times. I had no idea until today how rare it was and I look forward to seeing how you get on with it.
Wow what a present!
That’s incredible!
Hang on, I need to grab a coffee first and then I’ll settle in for a watch.
Get one for me too please
@@RMCRetro and one for me, please. Just a splash of milk and one sugar, thanks. I've got some biscuits, if that helps. 🙂
Sir this is a Pizza Hut
Get me one too please 2 sugar and milk
I'd like to see a restored arcade cabinet showcasing all the recent Amiga ports of arcade games e.g. Rygar released in 2019 - I'd like it to be a project that rights the wrongs of Amiga gaming history like games that used "up" to jump or coded poorly. . I'd like to see an arcade cabinet that has fun modern coded versions of original old games - Something about an Amiga holding it's own with other real arcade royalty warms my soul.
Brilliant idea!!!
For me as a young teenager in the late 1980s a huge part of the attraction of the arcades was that you could go there and see amazing graphics, sound, technology that was way superior to anything you could possibly get at home. I don't remember ever seeing an Arcadia System then, but being familiar with the Amiga I'd probably just have walked right past it. Because what's the point if you can play the exact same games on the Amiga 500 that you or one of your friends have at home, why would i pay to play Xenon. Maybe it would have turned out better if they had launched it with a couple of system exclusive, killer games.
I felt the same way about the NES based arcade cabinets the few times I saw them.
Welcome back, Neil! Glad to see you out of the gate with some never before seen Amiga content too!
Cheers John!
Nice to see you back. Hope it was a nice time with your now bigger family 😊
Welcome back, Neil. The murder gloves have been waiting =)
13:50 I was there buying my A500 from Micro Anvika (near the top right of the map) for £400, and it still works. It was its 37th birthday 12 days ago (though I suppose it was made a few months earlier).
Welcome back, Neil! I hope all is going well with the family.
What a fascinating machine you've stumbled on! can't wait to see how this series goes!
Neil - congrats on making it through the parental leave successfully! And it's great to see you back at work! Some day, it'd be great to see your daughter see the cave and react - what a cool thing her dad put together!
I heard back in the 80s that some arcade machines were “amiga powered”. But this is fascinating that it’s literally a stock a500 at its core.
I have heard that this is not the only game machine that used an Amiga. American Laser Games also used Amiga computers to control a laserdisc player in their shooting games back in the day.
I never until now, but I am not surprised at all. It was a great idea.
The thing I am concerned by is that they probably integrated some form of protection to prevent the ROMs from being dumped and used on a home commodore Amiga machine.
I hope that Dallas clock chip internal RAM does not contain an decryption key or internal code as part of the protection. I have heard some arcade boards suicide after the battery in them dies as it erases the key to decrypt. Not all boards do this, but I have heard of some Sega, Capcom, Seibu, Nihon System, Orca, and others that had encryption keys stored in battery backed RAM or in battery backed memory inside the custom processor itself. I pray that Mastertronic / Arcadia did not use a suicide battery.
@@stphinkle the arcadia games have been dumped, and I don't think there was any protection...
@@stphinkle There's also Up Scope, a 1986 game from Grand Products that used Amiga hardware.
Trash to Treasure! You are playing my song, especially Amiga based. Thank you so much and hope you and related are well.
Glad your saving these rare arcade machines one cabinet at a time.
Welcome back Neil. I remember hearing so much about this machine around the time Xenon was released in - dear lord - 1988, but never saw one before.
Good to have you back!
I love ❤️ this guy's channel so much 😊
Great to see you on screen again Neil! Looking forward to thr project progressing, and I really hope I can make it back to the Cave some time next year.
The image of that cpc464 upright - that was how I had to load games - using gravity to help the tape run along the tape head...
Had an old cassette player that I had to turn upside down so that my Dragon 32 would load :-)
Fascinating stuff I’m here for the journey not just the destination
So good to have you back Neil, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the notification and a trash to treasure series as well, amazing 😅
So glad you ended up with it. It belongs in a museum 😊.
Thank you Stephen
Oh, I just love a trash to treasure. Great to have you back again Neil. Like yourself I have never seen this system anywhere in the wild back then in the UK that I have been too. I certainly do not remember it here in Northern Ireland, or on my many trips to England and Scotland back then. (I have never actually stayed in Wales, just driven through parts of it). Maybe that's where they were all along!
Welcome back.👍 Commodore Amiga Arcade Machine, look great in Barline Arcade Cabinet
When I was a kid I remember seeing magazine ads about how the one megabyte Amiga version of magic Johnson's fast break was identical to the arcade and thinking that was probably not true. Same thing for the soccer game called goal. Turns out that was real because it was the same hardware😂
I seem to remember seeing at least one of these in an arcade abd ut was kujekt Xenon was what I played on it, having an amiga at home at the time, I think it was the oddity of playing an amiga game in the arcades!
Well the “Darts” card is almost certainly going to be what was known as World Darts over here, known for its vocalised introduction screen citing “Arcadia presents World Darts” which was a natural progression from 180 on the C64 which was published/distributed by… Mastertronic. All very much making sense.
And it would appear both games were developed by Binary Design.
Welcome back! Good to see you again. Never heard of the machine but I sure do like the name Arcadia, they should have stuck with that. Can't wait to see it running
Home computer based arcade machines are always fascinating. The arcade version of Rise of the Robots by Bell Fruit comes to mind specifically.
Welcome back chief.
Hello from the cabinets :D Great to see you back!
I remember reading about it in Dator Magazinet, a swedish computer magazine, the article had pictures of AAARGH! and talked about the arcade hardware.
The US cabinet looks like something a UK ex-pat would imagine a US arcade machine would look like without ever having seen one.
I think that’s a fair description!
Wonderful video! Thank you very much for all the love and care! Greetings from Greece!
A local arcade had one of these in the early 90's the only game I remember from it was Sidewinder. The same arcade had a lot of old and unusual stuff, a Battlezone machine, an original Space Invaders, a Pengo machine and some others. The owner seemed to like having a row of classics and oddball machines in his arcade even if they didn't always make a lot of money.
Great video of a great system.
Can't wait to see the next episode.
For the cabinet, can it be an idea to make a cabinet as the original but in transparent perspex?
Since it is such a special system, it deserves to be seen as well as played.
And as a true Amiga and hardware nerd, it would be great to be able to play it as originally intended as well as being able to see the inner workings of the machine. Possibly also with some mirrors inside to give a better view of the boards/coin door and the back of the control panel depending on how the boards are mounted. It would also require some well designed lightning to display the boards inside.
Made right, it would make a great show-piece in the museum.
Just a thought.
The third unnamed UK cabinet (which was shown first) looks very much like an Electrocoin Centi.
Fascinating. Looking forward to future videos on this system!
Welcome back!
I have memories of an arcade machine in a pizza takeaway I used to go to now and again as a kid. Rare treat when visiting mum and dad's friends.
It stood out in my memory for having an uncanny resemblance to my Amiga I had back then. I am going to assume that coin op was one of these.
It's long gone now! There's a huge touch screen menu there today. No where near as good.
Never saw the system but I do remember reading about it and have some of the games as they were also released on disk, Roadwars, Xenon and Space Ranger.
Cool! I recognized that Arcadia logo, because i played Sidewinder a LOT! Very curious to see it as an arcade game..
Custom cabinet sounds ideal with Perspex windows to show the internals off as a playable museum piece!
Great video once again! You've been sorely missed. I'd like to make a comment, or should that be cabinet 😂 The second cabinet with the dodgy looking picture looked awesome to me, would be great to see that made.
Highly interesting stuff.
Something like Speedball or Chaos Engine would work well on that thing too.
Nice to see more RMC stuff :)
Nice to have you back!
As far as "which cab to make": I'd go for the UK prototype, for being both eye-catching and (hopefully) having a smaller footprint.
A very warm welcome back Neil!
Amazing already. Thank you so much for enlightening my evening!
Good to see you again…. My vote is for the Monster cabinet 😉
This whole system past me by back in the day , don't remember ever seeing or hearing about
Look forward to part 2
Good to see you back, hope all's going well for your family.
Bloody hell, I used to watch Cybernet when I was a kid back in the late 90s. Shame it was on in the early hours, I always had to tape it and watch it the next day
Great to see you back Neil.
SUPER COOL. An AMIGA 500 version of a NEO GEO. Can't wait to see more of this.
Great to see an upload from you. As always incredibly entertaining.
I heard on the internet that there was a canceled arcade system based on the amiga hardware but it turns out it actually was released , must be this one
Cool project, USA cabinet I think matches the components best
Very interesting Amiga arcade machine. Leaderboard Golf sounds most interesting to me as I have the standard version for Amiga 500, hoping also that maybe Out Run could be in one of those chips.
Drawing pics with Deluxe Paint on arcade machine would be funny to see :D
😮An Amiga arcade machine? No way!!
12:42 Oh yeah, this thing looks like the kind of nondescript arcade cabinet you'd see in the background of an 80s or 90s sitcom.
As an American, I agree with you that the cabinet is hideous. I think I vaguely remember seeing one of them somewhere, but can't remember where or when.
Nice to c u back, I was always the poor kid growing up amazed by my friends amstrad 464 and would love to own one 1day
Nice to see you again Neil
Welcome back, sir! An absolutely herculean effort to produce something as good as this whilst suffering the wonderful storm of parenthood and indeed other huge life changes! It’s absolutely as good as the very best of your other videos and a very interesting and rare find to showcase too! Well done to you and your family!
Thanks for the hard work and this brilliant video
13:50 look how big the Amstrad stand was
Make the preview one (if it's the left one) and put a perspex front on the bottom with a light so people can see it but it's still in a machine
I remember how chuffed I was upon learning that the Amiga was poweful enough to go toe to toe with games in the arcade upon reading an article about Arcadia.. Then I actually played Aargh and one of the others, and they were decidedly budget quality Amiga games through and through
Cannot wait for the second part already!!
Black latex gloves and a sharp knife are giving off Dexter vibes 🙂
I'm glad you're doing this series. I stumbled upon this system in MAME a while back, saw that it was Amiga based and was curious about the history. Waiting to see if you find out any info on how well the systems did, because from what I remember the software library leaves a lot to be desired. I'm guessing it did poorly in the States, but maybe it did better in the UK?
Neil, you're amazing ❤
Amazing to have papa RMC back with a wonderful new series!
Glad to see you back :)
Very interesting system, lookin forward to de next video with the hardware side.
If I were managing limited museum space, I’d probably opt for whatever authentic cabinet style consumes the least floor area.
I've been looking for source code to help with reverse engineering Sidewinder for years. It's just a great game, one if the Amiga's best shoot-em-ups.
Thanks for this great video, looking forward to part 2.
I always wondered if it was possible to make/use a cartridge on the Amiga's expansion-connector...well apparently it can be done...sort of.
Great to see you back.
Again.
From a regular This Week In Retro watcher!
For posterity, I'd love to see some effort made into cloning the PCBs of this system that aren't the Amiga 500. Is there a possibility of making either the gerbers and/or new unpopulated PCBs available to those who want to build their own Arcadia SSS (like me!) if any cloning work is done?
I've cloned a few things myself, btw.
The Board Folk have expressed an interest and are welcome to do their thing
Fascinating. Growing up in Turkey we had ton of bootleg arcades from Asia with generic cabinets. I only saw one Amiga-based arcade and it was Silk Worm. I later learned that they hacked the game to make it start with right mouse button which was connected to the coin mechanism. Everything else was pretty much the same. I think some Amiga games can make pretty good arcades, but they would be a bit outdated in 1990 NeoGeo coming out.
That’s fun! Silkworm on the Amiga was the game that made me want one, it was so close to Arcade perfect
Wow, that Electrocoin MGX manual was scanned by me in 2015, I never realized that this is the rebranded Arcadia System!
Oh great! Thanks for doing that it’s an interesting read
Nice to see you back, great video for your return
Given that the hardware itself is of interest, then if you can't find a real cabinet I think a transparent perspex cabinet with whatever original parts attached to it would be very cool. It'd give people an idea of what the original cabinet would have been like while also showing off the innards.
UK Cabinet is my vote - having the machine working as originally intended would be incredible ; you've already made the unique Lemmings Arcade Machine, a unique Amiga Arcade Machine right along side it seems fitting :)
I'm mixed about how best to Skin the Cabinet - I think the Super Select System logo recreated large would be most correct and on that Blue Background would seem right. Perhaps a little creativity from your Team to add a little more fluorish to the design (especially that dreary Control Panel) - perhaps the Robot and Sexy Girl playing on the side.
Excited to see the next stage!
You can open those Dallas RTC Battery chips with hot air and add a fresh battery or just rescue the other bits and Necroware has a PCB.
(or there is a mod but the newer hot air method seems safer imo)
Welcome back Neil. Hope the family is well. The intromusic could do with an increase in volume imho. Thanks!
Xenon by the Bitmap Brothers originated on this system I seem to recall.
Wow, wonderful Retro Gaming Museum and 80,90 Software Shop Recreation! 😊
Thanks!
Since there doesn't seem to be a specific arcade cabinet, I'd suggest making a generic shaped one with transparent plastic and put it in that. It would be able to show people how arcade units work without having to open doors and shine a light inside, and it would just look cool to have a completely clear cabinet.
Same thought here. The museum needs at least one arcade system that shows how the systems were put together.
glad to have you back and oh heck yes ive always wanted to see a real one of these, great video!
i think you should make a cabinet but not the bulky US one lol
🎉 Here is to your old hobby and new responsibilities! It's good to see you're back.
Great to see you back! I was starting to get worried.
Since the parts you have came from that original american one I think that's the best to go for, even if it's hideous. It's a part of the charm in my opinion.
I like the look of that Barline cabinet, I'd go for that one if possible.
Yipppeeee Neil is back... Geeezzzz i missed you buddy.
Good to see you again, Neil !
I think you're going to have to go with the big, original cabinet. The bits you already have match it.