Now This is the Droid We're Looking For

Brian De Vitis is GOD!
ALL HAIL GOD!
I bask in his holy presence

Lol, is that a game cube on top of R2's head?

@Gonazar: Nope, it's a dreamcast :D

"The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine." -- Nikola Tesla

"Gonazar09/22/09 at 1:16 pm
Lol, is that a game cube on top of R2's head?"
Its Actualy a Sega Dreamcast.
P.S. i want that r2d2 unit LOL

1) I note a terrible abscence of the Arkanoid controler for the NES.

2) It appears he still has the same cord issue that I have: the old school controlers. I have all my systems on a stack of narrow shelves next to the TV, and wiring them into the unit is not that difficult (with the use of combining unit). He, as I, likely has to have a basket full of controlers with cabled neatly wound from which to hunt, pull, unwind, and plug in anytime he needs to hit Hippo Man in the jaw.

3) Thus, I would be much more impressed with a means to render all those controlers wireless, or have them all connected to a wireless hub, or, dare I say it, the HOLY GRAIL of a single universal wireless controler!

4) Also, either hard driving ones library of games, so that there was no more blowing, sliding, and praying the screen comes up would be nice.

5) Isn't this just a sad nostalgic statement for all us man-boys raised in the 80s?

Awesome! I'm ecstatic to see the controllers for the Atari 7800 coming out of Artoo... ah the heady days of "Xevious", "Dig Dug" and "Pole Position 2"! Glad to know I'm not the only one who still plays this dinosaur of a system!

Brian de Vits, i have started a new religion called "BrianDeVitisism". in all of our prayers at the end we say "og great Brian De Vitis! We wish to have your droid!
in other words, I... WANT... THAT... DROID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I meant to say "Brian De Vitis" and "oh great Brian De Vitis. sorry =D.

YESSSSSSSS Very nice, how much???

www.freebord.com/ride <-- Snowboard the Streets!

Impressive. Most impressive. But now I want to know his steps to how he did this, so I can break mine out of storage and overhaul it myself....

I am extremely amazed with the response to my R2 unit. Thank you everyone for the enthusiasm.

To respond to Starwars_nut1011:

I have progress pictures since day one of the project. I plan on making a website for R2, but with school it may (hint: will) take more than a month to have it up and running. But it will come!

The website will be very comprehensive on how I built it. All of the major challenges and how I solved them will be covered.

To respond to Oakspar77777's comments:

1) I also don't have a power glove, I have a lot of stuff missing from my collection

2) The systems all feed to the projector through a custom built switch box that can hold up to 14 consoles and can still feed each console individually to an external TV. Along with the wire mess I wanted to make a portable unit, granted a huge R2 is not very portable as it turns out :). All of my controllers are stored neatly on a shelf where I can easily grab any controller without searching, I highly recommend using a small shelf.

3) I thought wireless controllers would be cool too, I agree with you, but that is crazy expensive so I chose not to go that route. I also chose not to do the universal controller because I like to experience old games as they were meant to be: with the original hardware.

4) Blowing on old cartridges is half of the experience! I suppose this kind of fits in with the universal controller explanation above.

5)...I wouldn't say it's sad :)

If anyone else has questions or criticisms I would be more than glad to explain myself here until I get the website up and going.

I look forward to seeing them, when you post it. But how did you do the legs? My cooler came with those flimsy plastic side legs and rollers on the bottom...

Starwars_nut1011:

This is really hard to describe without pictures but here is my attempt:

I used the flimsy legs as patterns to make wood cutouts.

To get a smooth finish I coated the wood in a thin layer of plastic and I used a two part epoxy putty to fill in gaps, then I sanded and painted them. The covers on the legs are the original flimsy legs. That only applies to the upper part of the back two legs.

For the bottom of the back two legs I only kept the parallelogram part with the nice design on it, the rest I tossed. I then just used plastic sheet cutouts to build my own version of the bottom part and I glued the detailed parallelogram part on.

R2 roles around on skate trucks/wheels in the back and a caster wheel on the middle leg so he can turn easily.

The middle leg was completely fabricated by me using wood for the inner structure.

In order to build a better middle leg I cut our the caster wheel bottom of the cooler and I riveted in a section of an A&W shelf that happened to be the same diameter as R2. This gave me a more secure workable bottom.

I also used lots of metal 90 degree angle braces and wood glue to ensure that the wood joints would not break.

I used a ton of reference pictures online to try and get dimensions/general details correct.

I hope that works for now, when I have the pictures up on a website it will be much more clear I hope. :)

@Brian De Vitis - I am willing to pay TOP DOLLAR for this. I want it. I NEED IT! PM me and name your price.

Sorry merovich, R2D2 is not for sale nor will he ever be. R2 is priceless to me.

Wow very impressive!! Any heating problems?

evalentin32:

Thank you for the compliment!

I have not had any heat problems yet. I have a ten inch fan designed for a grocery store dairy cooler that blows a lot of air into R2 and its really quiet. You can see it in the second picture in the bottom right overlapping the back leg.

All of the systems still have their original heat dissipation hardware.

How sick would it be if it had a projector in it.

it does if you would have read it it says he built one in.

I'd buy that if there were more.

sweet! i will attempt this :)

As a certain somebody from the movie would put it if he saw this:

Impressive! Most impressive.

You have built your own R2 video-game system, your skills are complete.

that... is... AWESOME. If I could do that,that would be sweet. Brian De Vitis, to you i am merely dust in the wind