Internet controlled Atari 2600 (on Twitch)

88mph

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Hi all,

I recently wired up an old Atari to an Arduino and an old PC I had lying around in order to create a 'Twitch Plays Atari' setup. (This was inspired by 'Twitch Plays Pokemon' if you're familiar with that.) Basically, Twitch viewers control the Atari through the built in chat while watching the stream. There is serious lag in a setup like this (7 seconds at least!) so only certain games are 'playable'. I've had to hack a few roms to make things work--Combat for instance has had its timer removed, Adventure only moves the dragons while *you* are moving, etc.. (And Space Invaders is just kind of there for laughs at the moment.)

If you want to check it out, here's the link on Twitch:

https://www.twitch.tv/twitchplays2600

I have the Atari hooked up to one of those multi-cartridge selectors (a 'Video Game Brain') that has been hacked for Arduino as well. (Chatters can vote for cartridges, but if you're the only one in, you win by default.) Here are some photos of the physical system as well as a screenshot:
 

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Thanks Luckyman. I just tossed in Armor Ambush (in place of Combat) today, and I plan on adding a few more recent homebrews to the mix soon.
 

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Armor Ambush was an M-Network game that basically had the mechanics of combat with randomized terrain, switchable tanks, etc.

I just upgraded my stream to include a 'Ready Player One' inspired scoreboard on a fun Pac -Man home brew.. I'm using an image matching scheme to pull scores from the video feed and award players points on the big board:
 

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