Let's Talk Megatouch (Because It's Dying!) - Krazy Ken's Tech Misadventures
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- Опубликовано: 25 июл 2024
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Let's talk about Megatouch-a once successful touchscreen video game line. Now that it's dying off, we must preserve these beautiful machines and share them with the world-wide web!
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The hard drive is easily imaged, but is license-locked to the key. The key is not easily copied. It is an iButton 1-wire key, sometimes they are used for building access control as well. Fortunately there isn't much that can go wrong with them, they don't have a battery or anything like that.
@@nevergonnagiveyouup4189 I second this
The pizza place in the town I grew up in had one of these you could play strip poker on. I'm guessing they didn't know how to properly set it up since there was absolutely nothing stopping kids from using it.
i want to say the bowling alley i went to used one of these with a custom software stack for bowling scores replays and such, also allowed you to turn the bumpers on and off at will
@@coyote_den actually I-button keys do have a battery. Therefore, once the battery inside dies, there’s no way to get a new key. Thankfully, someone has figured out how to hack the software to bypass the security key.
This was my dad’s company! His name was Peter Feuer and he passed away about 5 years ago. This company was his pride and joy and his employees loved him and working there. So awesome to see this video🥰
Pete was awesome!!
Whoever owns the rights to these games now should release them as an app for Android and iOS phones and tablets. Worth a few bucks just for the nostalgia.
sorry to hear he passed away. I joined the company after he had already left, but he was often spoken of fondly while I was there.
Honestly, your dad might have sparked the revolution of technology we have today. Touchscreen computer video games in a time where we were still trying to find that breakthrough with the technology world…Touchscreen everything. Hope your father is at rest, god bless such a man..
Wow
I used to be a service manager for an amusement company and serviced/refurbished these machines.
The software was updated on these bi-annually for content, and yearly for major version (Sapphire, Ruby, Gold, Titanium, etc..). To a point, major version upgrades were simply a software upgrade. You had a CD, and later, DVD rom drive with the update content. You would open the back door, connect a custom cable that was a molex power plug and 40 pin IDE to a centronics 50 pin connector that plugged in at the top edge of the motherboard mid-plate. The system would automatically boot and prompt you to continue, and afterwards, remind you to change the key on the IO board if changing major versions.
The OS, as you've seen is Linux, built from LFS (Linux From Scratch) and a 2.4 kernel right up to the end, even once these machines gained the ability to connect to the internet.. :/
When you did version updates, you were supposed to remove and replace the side decals, and also change the top paper marquee (which yours is missing the clear plastic holder for). The colors on this machine would be custom, and likely done during a refresh or repair. The sides were typically a light greenish marble kind of thing against a dark background, and black molding. We often repainted our machines and replaced the molding when the sides were damaged, typically black with a white or light blue trim.
After, I believe this, version, Sapphire, they updated the hardware. On this version, it's likely a Rise MP6 socket 7 processor with 32MB RAM and an AT power supply. The next hardware revision was a MicroATX Socket 370 with a Celeron 533Mhz typically, a USB IO board and ATX PSU. This was also when they started a form of DRM, aside from the 1-Wire security key. They had a check in one of the start binaries that would check the vendor/model string of the attached hard drive, if it didn't contain MERITIND.7 (I'm going off 10 year old memories), the system wouldn't fully boot. So... you had to buy your hard drives from Merit. And they charged somewhere around 5x the actual cost of the drive... We got around that by buying the same model of drives they used, and using a custom firmware update that we would apply to the drive after we received them from whatever vendor had them cheapest. We actually got a call from Merit questioning our sharp decline in parts purchases and asking to what they can attribute that... lol
The previous generation of these machines (Before hardware upgrades) actually used an IDE cdrom (Usually a 4x Mitsumi drive) and a DiskonChip 2000 DOM on the IO board that had a minimum MSDOS, cdrom driver, touch driver and a few other files that then launched the main game executable from cdrom. These things were famous for killing cdrom drives, as you've got an optical drive that runs essentially 12-24 hours a day, typically in smoky and dirty conditions. We were replacing cdrom drives on machines 4-6 times a year. I figured out how to replace the cdrom drive with a small hard drive that combined the files from the DiskOnChip flash rom and cdrom to make these games run from a hard drive. They lasted SOOOOO much longer in the field (years, vs months).
The cash settlement collection would be used at the weekly/bi-weekly money collection. Typically locations would work on a split of profits from machines, like 70/30, 60/40, the larger number always being to the company placing the machines there. That screen, would, without having to break out the calculator, give the current collection period's payout to the location owner. There will also be a menu option somewhere in there to set the gross cash split percentage, that would be displayed on that cash settlement collection screen.
You can still find the software updates on eBay sometimes. You just need the update DVD and the key (nice to have the side sticker as well, but good luck finding them...). You don't need the custom 'update cable', you can just connect the DVD drive directly to the second IDE port, on master or CS and it will auto-boot the update DVD when it's in the drive and the machine is booted from power-off.
One more thing, keep these machines as cool as possible. If your fans are slowing down, or fail, replace them ASAP. The monitors in these machines (typically a Wells Gardner or Tatung open frame VGA) love to cook themselves when the fans fail, or someone leaves the connector for the rear 3 fans unplugged after service... Those monitors will be difficult to find, and typically difficult to repair, but you CAN replace them with an LCD and a compatible resistive touchscreen. I'd also recommend either removing the metal plate over the fans, or installing a slightly longer threaded rod to give more space between the fans and plate, improving airflow.
A real trip down memory lane...
This was very cool to read. I've never heard or seen of these machines, they're so unique for what they are. I've seen olive garden use something like this with tablets but I doubt they are as awesome as these. It sucks that there isn't much info about the company or even stories on these. Thank you for sharing your experience, definitely worth the read.
amazing details here! loved you bypassing their DRM loool
amazing detail, thanks!
What kind of touchscreen tech does this thing use?
@@kFY514 It’s just a single point resistive type touchscreen, driven by a 3M Microtouch or ELO RS232 interface controller.
Every Wetherspoons pub in the UK seems to have one of these tucked away in a corner somewhere. Unfortunately playing one would involve going into a Wetherspoons so any attempt at emulation would be very useful!
Emulating one of these machines would actually be fairly feasible. In my time working on these, I managed to get as far as figuring out how to patch out some of the security checks (The motherboard BIOS string comparator, touch controller device ID matching, some rudimentary work on the security keys themselves)
I also had the Megatouch ION software (Later generation hardware and physical cabinet) running on an entirely different motherboard with the USB I/O board connected to it, booting and playing. My home Megatouch frankenmachine ran on some generic MSI Athlon 64 motherboard, a VGA CRT monitor with a built in 3M MicroTouch RS232 compatible touchscreen and a generic IDE hard drive without the Merit "Blessing string". The Athlon 64 is a hardware platform the Megatouch software was never targeted to.
Someone good with binary reversing, and access to a working machine, could likely have all of the security checks patched out inside of a few days..
They're all just slots and casino games now! Very disappointed although it stops me spending all my money playing them
Man this was a walk down memory lane. Back in the day I had a roommate who was so addicted to the Mega Touch at our local bar, that he was seriously considering buying his own.
We had a ton of these over here in the UK, especially Pub Quiz, and ones based on the game show, The Crystal Maze.
Larry, you pop up in the weirdest places.
"Fact Hunt: Five erotic games hidden in other games"
Most bars I have been to didn't have merit units, they usually had touch screen slot machines.
I've watched a few episodes of The Crystal Maze and even have the DOOM mod version on my laptop! 😅😂
Too bad we never got that show here in the States, it seems like it was a LOT of fun to watch! 😍😅😁
@@christopheralthouse6378 Oh the reboot Crystal Maze has a US version, it was presented by the Adam Ruins Everything guy and aired on Nickelodeon.
I can picture you as a kid playing with the gaming unit in a bar, with a candy cigarette in your hand and yelling at the bartender to give you another glass of apple juice. 🤣
It's like you were there!
@@ComputerClan 🤣
These were primarily sold to amusement operators, who placed them in bars etc alongside jukeboxes and other games like pinball. That is why the cash accounting shows a split as most ops split revenue with the bar owner. Most likely that unit was upgraded to sapphire as merit usually had a new version every year.
I still remember when these were in McDonalds as “Touch2Play”, in my location they were in a purple chassis that had a bunch of McDonaldLand characters together and understandably it didn’t contain any of the more risqué games.
And my nearest location has 4 of those, in a beige casing, and I think all of them are bricked, because the battery keys have died
Skee Ball and Feeding Frosty were my favourites
I think there was one at the dentistry or whatever that my sister used to go to.
@@Dumb_Killjoy my favorites were Vinci Ball, Luxor, Ink Rally, Tricky Fish, Stunt Squirrel, Super Boxxi, Mini Golf, Feeding Frosty, Conquest and Rack 'em (Me and my Dad played that one together a lot).
@@LegoWormNoah101 Simalarly, my dad and I played Skee ball a lot :)
Now that I look back at it, Megatouch was so ahead of it’s time. A touchscreen video game… this was literally scratching the surface of what we have today. I remember being a kid in early 2000’s & always playing these with a root beer & beef jerkey at the bar my dad used to go to, times were much easier back then.
Now imagine going to a bar in 1994 and seeing the first Megatouch Video on the counter.
I've never heard of these things, never really spent time in any bars, BUT....
The local kids hospital had a ton of these machines in various waiting rooms. Obviously you didn't have to pay, and they were LCD based. I had NO idea where these machines came from, I knew they ran linux (seeing one boot), but it's only now, seeing the UI for the unit you have, that I realize they are basically the same machines, only with more kids games (and I'm assuming no erotic mode...).
Unfortunately COVID seemed to have caused these machines to be mostly removed.
One of them I interacted with actually ran ubuntu
Was it at ST Jude Hospital? They had a ton of those all around the place & they were the best! but the last time I played them was in 2020 & I hope to god they didn’t remove them because I would cry, I used to have a ton of high scores on bowling, 8ball & Luxor, I miss those machines
Those were probably made by either Touch2Play or Kidzpace
My guess on the cash settlement menu: machines where on lease, so the bar owner would share the revenue with the leasing company, and that was what is being displayed.
I used to work for a vending and game company. I was the repair technician and worked on several versions of this and the touch screen jukebox machines. I loved working on those. I didn't know the company history since I left the field. Thank you for this. Have a good day.
1:13 *Hold up*
AND it’s made by *MEGATOUCH* that’s definitely not a coincidence.
That caught me off guard for a sec lol
I mean, you have to start with some fourplay
no it's made by Merit Industries
You should probably dump the security key. It has a non replaceable battery that will expire
thats easier said than done and almost pointless since you can get keyless versions...im sure someone leaked the crown version i made.
Don't worry, the key won't fail. See David Criswell's video on it. I have a Force 2003 that is still going strong with the original hard drive and security key.
@@mjb6991 yes, eventually they will. But since I already cracked latest for this series lol who cares. Also cracked 2014 years before anyone
@@thomasandrews9355 They will, just not guaranteed in 10 years
@@thomasandrews9355 I actually need the crown one, I have a legit kit I don't want dying on me lol
OH GOD THESE THINGS.
My aunt worked at a bar when I was little. I spent so much time at that place playing these machines. The bartender actually gave me money out of the register so I could play for free.
Such good times, and I seriously wish I could have one of these. I was born in '93 so these things are basically as old as I am.
You played PUCK SHOT! One of my favorites next to the basketball one and the one where you match the colors to drop the monsters in the graves.
I actually have reverse engineered quite a bit of the megatouch software. i have a copy of megatouch crown that is keyless if you want it. there is a Dallas security key that will eventually fail.
It would be cool for there to be an official emulator or support for MAME. Before all the hardware units die.
I would love to play around with that thing, if you wouldn't mind shooting it my way!
I would love that. How can I get a copy?
wow I have not seen one of these since the 90s. at my local mechanic shop there was a small arcade, with a cocktail table Ms. Pac-Man, Pole Position, and a couple pinball machines. the shop didnt clean the room with any of the machines. and eventually the lights were just never fixed. and they stopped letting people in the arcade.
Oh my, bringing back all those times I went to the bar to meet people and ended up pouring quarters into one of those and getting snippy at people for trying to talk to me.
I love megatouch. My dad used to work as a video arcade distributor and this would be on free play in the lobby with other pinball and arcade games. Anytime I see one of these, I have to play. It's part of my childhood.
How much would a 1994 model be worth if it still works and has all its original parts?
My dentist office growing up had a big Megatouch unit attached to the wall in the waiting area, I always forget about it until I see one again. They’ll always have a special place in my memory, lots of time spent playing a breakout clone and various match puzzle games. I miss the puzzle game with like Frankenstein and other monsters in it.
Zombie Cats?
@@LegoWormNoah101 Monster Madness
We had a Megatouch at Disney Quest, where I worked. They put one in the breakroom and we put it to the test.
Lmao, " playing them at the bar, don't worry my parents were there". Yes, drinking and driving home with you in the car... how times have changed. I remember the same thing.
I used to go to a bar that had a quiz night we enjoyed. I would have my pint at the start of the quiz, then dinner, and finish with a soft drink or coffee. By the time the quiz was over I was as sober as a priest on Sunday.
Unfortunately times haven’t changed, this is still common
I use to play this thing as a teen....was super addictive to 11-Ball.
I work in the same industry (software engineer for Arachnid 360, Galaxy dartboard series); we had a Megatouch at our office but it was an older model; looked the same but ran ROM-DOS (an embedded royalty-free MS-DOS clone) instead of Linux. In any case regarding the financials, the "split" is the amount of money the location (bar, restaurant, etc.) gets vs the amount that the owner of the machine (usually an "operator" who has agreements with the locations) gets. Common splits are 50/50, 60/40, etc. In our software we don't actually do the percent split, just track the amount of money to be split, and let the collector / operator do the split, for various probably nefarious reasons. At least in our systems, some money (like team fees for a league) isn't split because it isn't spent on "games played on the machine", where most money (games played) is split. The collector writes down the values (last collection date, amount of money, split) and then splits the amount in the "split" portion with the location, and takes the rest, then resets the counters.
I remember when my bowling alley had a Megatouch... A lot of quarters were spent...
There was also that one time where one of the McDonalds' Playplaces I visited had Megatouches (set on freeplay of course) with several Megatouch ports of 3rd party games (Luxor was on there iirc)...
Safe to say Megatouch formed many childhood memories
The game ConQuest reminds me of Argo Games' "Hexxagon". Instead of two pieces each at start, you got three. Red v Blue, the same.
That's similar to what we had in Europe but it was called "PhotoPlay" and was built by a company in Germany, these things were taken away from bars around 2010 (at least here in Italy). I used to play tons of games on them back when I was a kid.
Also, it used PTS-DOS (a russian MS-DOS ripoff)
Wasn't MS-DOS based off of DR-DOS so unless it WAS an ms-dos ripoff, then PTS-DOS must be a ripoff of DR-DOS
I'm so glad I found your channel. You've been showing so many things that I loved as a little kid. So much nostalgia with this video. I remember going to restaurants, sitting up at the bar, and playing air hockey. That's all I would play. It's so cool to see the stuff that you wouldn't see when just playing on it at a bar. Thanks for this video.
This brings back memories... I used to play these with my dad back when I was younger.
Played these in the bowling alley back home in high school a lot. They were….so weird. Couldn’t remember the name of it! Thank you for sharing!
I worked on a few of these back in the day for my old boss it was a 486 😂 I was blown away at how antiquated it was he had some naughty games in it lmao I backed up the ISO ;)
@Computer Clan
My grandfather was one of two who started Merit Industries in the 70’s we still have a few machines around here and they’re incredible also to be in the family of such incredible innovation!
Man, this device is so technological, I can't believe the touchscreens were back on the old days... Ken, thanks for showing us these weird but interesting devices for years straight!
Touchscreens are quite old. And if you're amazed touchscreens have been around so long, you should check out light pens...
Touchscreens existed since the 70s. in the 80s it was consumer technology. Acorn BBC Micro from 1983 had support for touchscreens.
My goodness, I loved these things! My favorite game was the Puck Shot one, and I totally remember the knife in the puck “cheap shot” thing and perked up when you mentioned the sound effect for it as well when it was hit too, lol
I remember these being in pizza parlors, seafood restaurants, etc. when I was a kid and I always played them. Hearing all the "BONG" noises and stuff every time you hit a menu button brought back a lot of nostalgia lol. I think a few places around here still have them, but they've mostly been replaced with more typical arcade machines (There's a Namco Greatest Hits one that I see a lot), which are better games but there's something special about these weird touchscreen games you only saw in restaurants and bars.
On a similar track, I'd be interested in seeing if you can do something on those tablet/TV quiz games like Buffalo Wild Wings has (had? I haven't eaten inside one for a few years now thanks to COVID).
Whoa. In 2011, there was a Timezone arcade in my area that had a Megatouch Force 2008 standing/upright cabinet (albeit one that had its coin and note acceptors replaced with a Timezone Powercard reader), and I'd sometimes play it after school when I'd go to the local mall, as well as the IGS Global Touch (I couldn't remember what software version their cabinet ran) which was a competitor that another arcade in the area had. Anyway, their Force 2008 cabinet was later upgraded to the Force 2011 software, without changing the branding on the cabinet itself, just the software image, so of course, there were new games and I had to top up my Timezone Powercard a little more frequently.
(7:43) In the case of Timezone, they're a family-friendly arcade chain, so they would never enable access to 🔞 games.
(8:08) If I recall correctly, Timezone never used that feature, because they had their own digital signage screens at the counter that handles Powercard and prize stuff.
OMG, I remember using this at the local bowling alley every once and a while as a kid!
Once upon a time, I used to make a Megatouch knockoff with the assistance of a geeky carpenter. We also had a from-scratch Linux distro and a bunch of self-written games, but our touch screen was a lot more responsive and the graphics were much smoother thanks to hardware acceleration. They even phoned home to update leaderboards if you plugged in a phone or ethernet line. It was a fun side project and we sold 41 machines in the city, plus four in our own arcade.
HOOOLY MOLY, i used to play this thing all the time. my father worked in a bar and i played this late at night sometimes. thank you for remembering this nostalgia for me!
This reminds me of those old Dish Network cable TV games that you could play on your DVR in a way. Will there ever be a video explaining how that stuff worked (if possible)?
I faintly remember those. I'm wondering if someone still had there old cable box that had the game saved on it if they could still play it or preserve it somehow. I recently got a hard drive out of a Dish DVR that was from around 2007-2008 and plan to test the hard drive to see if any of these rare games are somehow on there.
Looking into it, the service was provided by a company called Visiware, that developed the games in a variety of formats such as Flash and Java. The games were likely downloaded using the modem in the box, since the ads mention that a phone line is required. I wouldn't be surprised if the games simply downloaded into RAM (the games seem to be a similar caliber to what you would get on a flip phone, or via a Flash games site on a computer), and thus were deleted when you exited.
Dude I also remember those built in DVR games faintly! Those I thought were SO COOL at the time!
As a former dish tech who started around 2008 we were required to show off these features to customers until about a year after I started then we stopped showing them. On the standard def units like 301/311/322 etc and dvrs 512/522/625 models all had these. Im 99% they were Java as they mentioned something about Sun Microsystems in the fine print on the manuals.
The software downloaded via the satellite signal. Yes they were only one-way signals unlike satellite internet but there are hidden channels that instead of mpeg-2 video it would be software being streamed on loop. So if you needed to access an app it would take a minute or two to load it was because it was waiting to receive all the chunks of the app you were requesting. Some apps required 2-way features that’s when the modem came into play. PPV type stuff and maybe some weird interactive things too.
Things weren’t much better in the HD models particularly in the ViP series sets. Things only got better when the hopper line of equipment was released and even that was a rough ride.
That in turn reminds me of StarHub TV games that could be played with the directional pad on the remote control! They had 'Tubeplay' and 'Playin' TV', but later discontinued it, likely due to a lack of subscribers since my family never subscribed and I was instead left to play the time-limited demos.
My favourite of the 'Playin' TV' games was the 'Carrot Mania' series, which I would only learn years later that they were 'Lode Runner' clones.
those sound effects... brings me back to my younger days going to the laundromat with my family, they almost always had one of these stand up machines there.
The real thing these were designed to do was be a gambling device. Easily converted to run fruit games with a winnings coupon printer.
While some locations used them as gambling devices, they were not designed to be.
Oh great, more strange tech I wish I had!
never seen one of these, likely because I don't go to bars at all, but for some reason it still hit me with a feeling like nostalgia.
Love this channel. Even if I'm not particularly interested in the subject at the beginning of the video, by the end I am invariably bloody fascinated.
I aim to please! Thanks for watching. 😇
I'm not familiar with Megatouch but in Europe I remember "Photo-Play" cabinets being everywhere. Very similair specs and games,
I have a fully functional Mega Touch that has been a bear to keep running. I bought it off a friend whose bar was closing, they never came to collect it, so I gave him $170 for it, and I love that thing!!!
"I said we were going to dive into this gem... I did not plan that pun."
Unintended puns are the best kind 😛
My brother worked for Merit assembling their electronic dart boards before they shut down in the early 2000s. There is a Distillery/Restaurant in that building now.
A small arcade close to where I live had one of these things before it got cleaned out. I'm so glad you brought it up.
I remember seeing these in a few places,and ever since,ive tried looking for more information on these weird touch terminals. Thank you so much for reminding me of these.
I had access to one of these in a middle of nowhere convenience store for awhile in my youth, and quite frankly I loved the thing. Would love to get ahold of one eventually.
A pizza parlor I went to as a kid had a bunch of these, sad to hear they’re defunct. These are so cool!
I have a similar story for the maker of two of my arcade bartop machines. Produced by 'Computer Kinetics' in the 1970s, they are a blackjack machine, and Draw 5 poker. If you try to look up information on them though, all you'll ever find is a facebook page for a computer repair store with a dead website.
I played on a Megatouch Maxx in high school between DDR sessions. It was the early 2000's in the student union pool hall/arcade at SF State, "Rack 'n Cue". Lots of Photo Hunt, and occasionally the other games. Many years later one of them showed up at the Oakland MADE, with the erotic games enabled, and I sampled those. It was pretty tame, as these things go, or maybe I'm just desensitized.
Incredibly early to this one. Uploaded right when my lunch break started!
Edit: Oh my god! I remember using one of these at a restaurant when I was very little. The memories!
Awesome : D
oooh. this brings back so many memories! my first professional job was developing for this system.
Just found the channel--I remember when my favorite bar had one of these right where I always like to sit. He got rid of it after a little while...not very many people wanted to pour lots of cash in, and it was in the way (a very small bar). If it had been cheaper, I'd have spent a lot more time on it. I think the one I played the most was a trivia game--I'm pretty good at trivia (when I was stationed aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the late 80s, our team always won--until they changed the rules to make it much, much easier for the others to score. They gave us some nice plaques after our third win...heh).
Anyway, I'd love to have one of these machines, but I'm certain that I can't afford one that works.
wow what blast from the past. These were very popular in Spain, virtually every pub/bar had one (due to popularity, there were also many competitors).
I am so glad you posted this right when my brain thought of conquest and how i could possibly play it again
I remembered slim versions of these units being put into several McDonald’s restaurants in the PlayPlace area or others places in the late 00s/early 10s. The game library was also changed to contain no mature content. In fact I remember them there the most, which is why I didn’t realize these were usually money-operated machines. These units were typically branded as Touch2Play. Still it’s pretty cool to see one of these how they usually were, and memories were still brought back!
Everywhere I went with my Dad as a kid. These machines were just in a smokey bar and they only had poker or black jack set up. No other games available
Thanks for the video. It was interesting about some of the features that came with the system. I think there is a similar style game at my local pizza joint so it is interesting to see how these games were designed.
I didn’t recognize this at first but I think the restaurant that my grandfather either partially owned or just invested in had one of these that played speed solitaire.
yoooo, a video showing off tech i recognize and have used regularly? dope! granted, i only ever played monster madness but still.
Hands down some of the greatest touch screen games made even with the age of ipads! Great video!
oh yes, I remember these on the bar tops at several bars and bowling alleys as a kid. And yep, my parents would take me to the bars too as a kid, usually the supper clubs haha. I do remember the childrens hospital also having similar things to these but set on freeplay in the waiting area.
I remember playing this in the waiting are of our local shopping center while my mom was shopping ahh the good times thanks for reminding me
Oh lord, Four Score! I used to hate losing against the AI! Checkers was my go-to favourite as a kid. I still remember the smell of the bar (tea and pastizzi), and they even had a little crane machine for sweets. Really miss the 90s, but was fun to reminisce. Thanks for the trip down memory lane!
I legit just had to look these up a few weeks ago I couldn't remember what they were. I just remembered playing the monster match game at the bar with my mom as a kid, and hustling drunk people at pool. Lol brings back good memories for sure! Glad someone's saving these things!
Thanks for stopping by! : D
A local Buffalo Wild Wings has a ton of these, but with newer software and games. They're at the booths and are mounted to the walls, so they're relatively thin. Every time I go there I end up playing it.
I have a megatouch force 2006 so this brings back memories
This making me think of the evelution of these touch screen machines from restaurants
I remember that this type of bar esque establishment that my dad would go to often had a Megatouch. It was all black and it was on a table near some kinda jukebox. The games i remember playing were DaVinci Ball (a sort of Breakout clone) and Feeding Frosty (a game kinda like Spore but with only 3 maturity levels and it was all pre made snowmen). Lots of fun. I think its still there in a storage room. Im p sure i saw it when i was back there once (it was kinda volunteer ran and my dad helped out there a lot)
I remember this in bars and I seen it on and running those games too and I don’t see them very much anymore I think I seen a unit like it at a local bar that I go to sometimes and I think it’s still working.
My local bowling ally used to have them when I was a kind omg it was so fun lol
I have a JVL Conquest - a similar type of machine from a competing manufacturer. Mine is one of the full-standing versions.
I should ask my local pizza joint if they're willing to sell it or give it away.
I should ask my McDonald's that same question, but I doubt it given they're all broken
@@LegoWormNoah101 Learn to fix 'em then and become an indie contractor for them. All that separates you from _authorized_ repair is knowledge.
@@bluephreakr how would I set them up at home? They're wall-mount machines, plus, I bet the Dallas keys have all expired, so the machines are unbootable.
@@bluephreakr they reached back claiming that sales is considered proprietary business information. No matter. The closest thing I can find would be an Ion RX
I remember these and honestly I had never thought about them seriously before this video.
Oh wow these used to be in every damn bar, I seen them here and there
so many fond memories from this thing. i am currently saving 1k or so to get an origional near new condition one a friend has in a shed thats been collecting dust for a decade doing nothing. it still boots just fine.
these are making a come back and people will pay to play these especially those who did for years and havent been able to for years like me Lol i spent so much time playing these megatouches as i grew up around the bar and grill my mom opened in 03 and it was my second home lol.
I've seen these pop up on Facebook Marketplace from time to time. Never was really interested in picking one up, but this video might have changed my mind.
oh man I remember seeing one of these (not sapphire model but something different since my memory is from before this reviewed model being released) in a restaurant. It disappeared years ago and even when I was there when it was present it cost money to play and my mom wasn't the most lax with the spending so I got to play like once
I remember these from my neighborhood bar when I was younger .
In a big playing house there was something similar to this (crt, touchscreen and games) and also a lot of kids were playing with it and kids also used to unplug the power cord because it was exposed. When it rebooted it always rebooted with Windows XP. When I went there again in 2020 (after a year) i was sad to see that it was gone.
This is awesome. I work at a video game arcade. It looks and works the same as how our games work
I remember my orthodontist having one of these when I was younger, my brother and I would always play with it it was so cool lol
My mom opened a sports bar and we had two of these on the bar. I was very young but fondly remember these. Especially when she'd open the back and give me free credits.
I remember playing on one of those and spending cup of coins for hours back in the days!
I lived nearby the hq for merit, it was a very small company, there's still a decent amount floating around in Bethlehem pa.
I had to pinch my self to see if I was dreaming I Love this video Ken! I thought I was the only one who loved these machines. I have some information to share about those machines I would love to discuss such as the Dallas Key, PCMCIA Port, and the special 3M touchscreen controllers. I'd love to meet your buddy who refurbishes them.
DM me on Twitter, or email me with the link in the description. I’d love to talk!
agreed. I have one of these Touch2Play machines. It's an LCD-based version that is essentially a gutted bar Megatouch machine that's been covered with a steel cage. I took it out of the cage to look at it and it's got the original monitor plastic, curvature, places for artwork, etc. I see all the same hardware in it, including a wifi-n USB dongle. I don't see a 'setup' button but I wish I could figure that part out. It has 6 buttons in the back, so I'm sure that's where the settings are entered, but how? Is there a manual somewhere for these? I'm missing a lot of the 'good' games like all the adult ones and several of the old favorites like monster madness and most of the card games. It has some kids games on it so maybe it came from a family-oriented place (but the fan smells like a bar). I have some of the ones I like including Card Bandits and Boxxi, but how do I get those missing ones?
I’ve played these machines for years, they’re mostly found in hospitals or McDonald’s. St Jude hospital has them in a lot of waiting rooms & they’re ridiculous fun & the fans are loud! MegaBowling, 8/9Ball, SkeeBall, LookOut, Luxor, & many more are my favorite games! The UI brings back so much nostalgia & I love the skeuomorphic designs! I wonder if my high scores are still there because I have the number one best score on bowling in 2020, They have adverts on the side for the hospital & krazy kafe (the hospitals cafe which is coincidentally similar to krazy Ken Haha!) idk if ST Jude hospital still has them since I haven’t been in 2 years but they may have been removed for Covid sadly. I hope to go back & play these awesome machines again!!
Conquest & Mystery Phrase was my jam back in the day
Have a lot of memories with these games, they had a similar version of this game, except it was bigger like one of those big arcade games, instead of a version that would sit on a table/countertop at a lake resort we stayed at. My brother and I loved Chip Away among other games. I noticed there was no six star option in the menu. I never knew what it did, so I input random numbers to cause this cheesy sounding alarm to go off on the machine. Then if you view any high score in the option menu, you can crash the game lol. You can also type in a swear word on your high score name only for it to revert to "BAD BOY". Fun times!
Reminds me of these Photo Play devices that were pretty popular in Finland. I would kinda want to play one again.
I do loves me some LINUX! Ever heard of the MUZE? The Music ordering touchscreen kiosk found in cd and tape stores in the 90s? This thing reminded me of that. I am not into games so I do not know the megatouch but the tech would be nice to have for nostalgia. To find an actually stable and fully functional touch screen Linux distro setup from the early 90s? Yeah! I am all over that!
I knew these things had to have a computer inside. It was just too "sophisticated" a device not to. The fact that it's running Linux is a little surprising, I would have figured a derivative of MS DOS/IBM DOS or Windows 3.11 quite honestly.
I'm more interested in what's stored in that keyfob (which is the same type we use at our EU office as a security token to open doors) and whether it's an embedded Pentium II or Pentium III CPU. Serial and Parallel ports were phased out by the Core i5/i7 era but the presence of 2 USB implies it's likely got more than a Pentium 1 driving it.
Reverse engineering this would start at identifying the fob reader to read/obtain the serial data. That could then be used to write a "shim" kernel module that could take the place of the one used for the actual reader itself. That or a simple script/daemon that intercepts the check and returns "Good".
The owners wanted it to run for more than 4 hours without crashing, hence why they didn't use any Microsoft software.
The earliest generation of these Megatouch games actually did run MSDOS, and the software ran from a CDROM. They had/have a custom ISA I/O board that has a DiskOnChip2000 2 megabyte module that has a minimal DOS 6.22, IDE cdrom drivers, MSCDEX and touch drivers for DOS. The AUTOEXEC.BAT in flash just launched an executable on the CDROM at boot time (MT.EXE). After that generation, they jumped straight to Linux.
There is VERY little on the keys. It's more or less two unencrypted text strings. One is the software version the key is for, the other, a part number for the key. The rest was just FF.
The keys were set to be one time programmable, so once they were written, they were fused off so they couldn't be written again. The main s/w blob just does a simple string compare. If the returned data matches the data in the binary, it runs. The filesystem on the machine actually has/had some dev utils to read/write Dallas 1-Wire keys.
Depending on the hardware generation of the machine, they are anywhere from an AMD 486 DX4 100, Pentium MMX/Rise MP6, Socket 370 Celeron and Athlon/Athlon XP. I think there was one later generation, but I was out of that business after the Athlon gen.
To bypass the security checks, you wouldn't even need to write a shim kernel module. There is one big binary blob that launches the software that contains all or most of the security checks. I actually had some success patching out some of the checks, like the motherboard bios string check, HDD vendor/model string check and such..
oooh duuude!
Im from Russia, and we dont have thouse obviously, but ive played one on a vacation in Finland!
I was 12 i think, definitely spend more money than my mom intended ))
iu remember seeing a megatouch machine at a laudnrymat i had to go to before my moms place got a washer and dryer which was a tiny bit after my dad passing away in 2013