We 3D Printed the First Ever Arcade! Computer Space from 1971

is it possible to 3D print a full-sized historic arcade machine we asked this question on our sister Channel arcade archive last month and Richard got to work on designing Printing and constructing a replica of the first commercially available arcade video game computer space from 1971 it was an impressive build certainly the largest 3D print I've ever seen but there's much to do to finish it today and we've got new techniques to test out techniques that we've been told are impossible to do sounds like a challenge to me if you haven't seen part one then follow the link in the video description to see the design process the tools that are used all the way through to the big reveal as Rich has been doing this in secret and then he surprised us with [Music] it look at that so let's finish it up today and see if we can make it look and play like the original computer space and create ourselves a one Wonder ful exhibit so that visitors can try out some video game history for themselves hello cave drawers and indeed arcadians we are here for computer space part two and that may confuse you if you're watching on my channel because part one happened over on the arcade archive Channel our sister Channel because this really is a project that traverses the whole Mill doesn't it and the whole retro Collective absolutely joined here by Richard again from hea limited and um you've given a lot of your time to this project haven't you yeah it's been a bit of a labor of love but I've totally enjoyed it from start to finish so yeah it's been really good yeah thank you Richard for everything you've done and thank you as well to hea for loneliness Richard um if you don't know about hea they're just about to celebrate their 40th year in the industry and also are focusing recently on retro products aren't you yes we are yeah producing Retro Gaming product systems uh and all sorts of different accessories yeah so check out their shop for things like the control dock uh multistem cases what else have you got on there Aon consulate which is good yeah how could I forget that so go and check that out but now we're going to focus in on computer space part two and there's a huge amount of work and it will be finished by the end of today's episode you're going to see it in all its glory and it is an incredible sight to see and now we go into removing the blue Tac because there was blue Tac involved at the end of part one making this a solid build and taking this to completion so we join Richard in the workshop I'm going to need a nice solid wooden base for these 3D printed sections to be glued and screwed onto then I can build all the other sections on top then get onto the sanding filling and smoothing of the outside surface the original computer space cabinet was quite organic and fluid with its lines as well as its construction by using the fiberglass frame the wooden base and the wooden back all of the fiberglass is lapped over onto those wooden sections so I'm going to use this in a similar way with the 3D printing sections keeping the edges quite rough and cut to flow the edges of the machine and then try and lap that in with some resin um to try and blend it into the base and the back of the [Music] wood I'm just going to add a little bit more grip adhesive on the inside to seal the first 3D printed section to the base that's going to need at least 48 hours to dry then we can move on to the next [Music] layers so you're putting the first section on here Richard you've drilled the first section to the base and then the next layer that goes on top of that how are you securing that layer to the first layer so I'm using um instant bond adhesive which does actually allow you to move the the layers around and that's really quite useful um for registration just making sure you've got them all lined up and stacked on top of each other so you do have to let them dry each layer because otherwise they will slide around a bit um but the base is very important to get a nice solid base so that's wood yeah and then we find you on the inside here um what are you doing here you've got GS and filler going in yeah that's really just to strengthen up all of the layers Cu uh a lot of strength went into each layer section um but I'm just strengthening the inside layers with fiberglass tape that you would use in Plastering um and then I will apply more filler to the whole cabet from top to bottom and the goal is to cover the whole thing in filler yeah yes yeah you got a nice solid surface then that's all the same so anything you put on it is going to react in the same way so yeah it's good and it means you don't have to do so much sanding cuz filler is very easy to sand pla 3D printed plastic is definitely not easy to sand and now around the back of the cabinet there's some woodwork going on so moved on from pla what are you doing here so I'm cutting out the back um the back door really and the fiberglass original cabinet actually lapped around that door um and then the door was cut into that back section it was just cut with a jigsaw so virtually every computer space that you see is a little bit wonky um so I did it with a J jigsaw as well can't get it wrong it's absolutely right yeah each one is unique and then you've got a monitor shelf going in and you've even used a particular hinge on the door why why have you chosen these ones yes um they used basic gate hinges so all the computer spaces just have small black gate hinges so I I tried to measure up and get the same same size and uh used exactly as per the original and then finally you created more internal support presumably that's for the monitor shelf to go on those bits of wood that are going in there that's right actually in the when I was designing the model I actually put sections in so I knew I was going to use one and a half um inch box section wood to actually have uh pieces that went up onto a shelf and then all the weight would be pushed down onto that uh uh wooden base so there's not not too much weight going on to the pla again I think that was a question in that people put in the comments in the first video um that they were worried about the weight of onto the pla it's actually very strong but adding that extra sections just ensures you're not going to get any compression at all also a couple of comments concerned about the heat from the monitor was that a concern to you oh absolutely not pla is really really good with that and it's actually covered inside and out um and it really won't get very hot at all inside um the deflection temperature of pla is is pretty good so yeah you're not going to have any problems with that at all there's a lot more to do now to the cabinet to get it ready for painting but we'll come back to the prep of the cabinet because this is a really interesting bit for me this is something that they said couldn't be done isn't it Richard yeah I I um I did quite a bit of research uh with resin experts and there's a lot of them on YouTube so there's some really good people doing great things with resin um reached out to a few people to ask how do you do this how do you do this on boats how do you do this on uh walls how do you do this on kitchen cabinets all sorts of things and the general device especially when you're trying to add something like glitter or any other finishes is that um yeah it has to be flat really cuz a resin wants to self level and also fall off so it fall off any edges so everyone said don't do it on a vertical surface it will all just fall off I really wanted to try resin because the original machine was coated in resin when it was in the mold so the gel coat had resin and glitter sometimes it just had a resin and a color coat uh not all of them were glittered the yellow one wasn't for example neither neither was the white after talking to a lot of people the general opinion was that Co trying to coat this in resin with either spraying it or painting it isn't really that viable so everyone says don't do it it's going to be a bad idea um basically just to try and find out whether that valid and whether or not there's any chance of coating this in resin whether it's in three sections one two three maybe four at the top or whether we can just put it up like that coat the whole thing in resin um I've got a few little test samples that I've worked out over here to try and give me some options so the first sample I've got here all of these little printouts have got filler on apart from this one this is just bare pla but they've all got filler on that I've used on the actual machine so basically in the same uh condition that this little miniature model is in this one I've sealed with uh PVA which is clear PVA and that's just water and PVA so it's very thin down so all it's done is sealed that's bare pla this one's Crystal Clear um matte finish varnish clear coat from rum and I use this on all 3D printed models I want to try and protect so I've used this for years and years and I know it works really well so we've got that this one's the bare just filler only cuz I want to see what what happens whether the resin sinks in whether there's um uh issues with it that it it there isn't enough on the surface or whether it stops it running off cuz I'm going to move all of these to the vertical position uh put them put all the resins on on the horizontal move them to vertical and then just see what happens we've got spray putty here this is fantastic so this is great for any rough surfaces that you want to be able to fill fills all the tiny little gaps and allows you to sand down so I've used this loads of 3D printed Parts my go-to primer is actually zinc primer zinc primer is absolutely fantastic so I've done loads of 3D printed models with zinc primer and you can actually polish this you get a polished finish all I've done to on this one is just spray it on so just want to see what happens this is a new one for me I've not used this one before restum again direct plastic it's really nice and bright white so I love the finish that you've got from a white um undercoat surface we've got some standard uh undercoat paint on here and then just for comparisons I've gone for a fluorescent blue which is the arcade archive colors a glossy red which is pretty hideous but I wanted to see what a different colored backdrop would do to the glitter and finish of the resin we've got a gesso and a silver just at the end and then I've got a couple more other test samples that I'm actually going to keep flat so I'm going to keep these two flat this one was a crazy black um filler that I've used has actually got glitter on already so I'm just going to put some resin over that this one's just the same as as this one just filler only and these two have just got white undercoat so I'm going to keep these flat just as a comparison to what happens when you put them vertical or when you keep them flat got some Glitters to try out so we've got Pure White and we've also got Diamond laser which has got a really nice um sort of uh pearlescent type effect on it those two colors that I'm going to mix together to produce what looks very gray there but hopefully when that's actually mixed into the resin and put on is going to be a really nice sparkly surface so that's the theory behind it all and um soon we'll find out whether or not that's going to work so I'm turn my scales on I need to add 12.5 G of resin part A you want to be as accurate as possible when doing this so it's useful to use the scales we can do the first test now so I'm basically going to just put on a little bit of resin onto my brush and get it on as thinly as possible really I just want this to just seal okay it's looking good and then we'll do the same on the reference test and this really is just to give us something to reference I did think about sprinkling the gliter on after putting the resin down so this would be more like a glue and then sprinkle the glitter over it but I'm really not sure how to do that on the massive machine um probably just end up having a ton of glitter in the arcade or wherever I do this so I think uh mixing it in with the resin is really the only viable option hopefully we will soon find out so that's actually gone on really well and it's soaked it's definitely soaked in I can feel it soaking in can see it soaking in well that's really interesting putting on the bare pla it sort of wants to slide around until it soaks in a little bit and then it gets a grip that's really interesting so it's very slidy and then it sort of obviously finds the surface imperfections in the pla printed PLA and then it just wants to sit there in all the grooves will will multiple coats be better thin coats that's probably the right way to do it probably got less chance of it all falling off onto the floor so I'm going to try and drag these up as much as I can really you can really feel the difference between the sealed version there and then the rough filler so depending on how well these look at the end and whether or not it stays on or whether it falls off um could mean either sealing the machine before putting this on or not maybe the unsealed will actually work out better looks good on the spray putty always knew that was obviously going to come through cuz it is to clear glitter it look quite nice there's a gray grayish background oh yeah I do like that that's interesting cuz zinc is my go-to finish for 3D prints that I want to just look really nice the white finish this is getting closer and closer to what I imagined we might end up with yeah I do wonder whether this all going to just fall off it's very thin very runny oh it looks great on the blue actually wow look at that yeah I like the blue okay Moment of Truth put this one out and see what happens we'll leave that one flat and we'll see whether or not all that runs [Music] off it's 24 hours later and we now have the results of our resin test with the glitter so as you can see all of the white samples didn't really come out as I hoped I think these two this is quite a bright gloss white finish and this one was a white undercoat finish but they all look a little bit dirty and um really just not very happy with them so I think white really is looking like a nonstarter all of these different white samples just don't look great the spray Putty was interesting but we did have some uh resin sliding down we've got a couple of little drips there the zinc primer was also fairly good what was a real surprise was the blue and the red and I really only put those on there as an experiment just to see almost as a sort of a control to see how how bad they would look but actually they look really good so I'm really intrigued as to why we've got such a nice finish on those two and every other finish really doesn't look that great I'm starting to worry that um our white um glitter is actually not doing a very good job I think actually what it's doing is it's thickening up the resin and and causing it to be quite a rough surface finish so I don't think it's actually doing anything for the uh aesthetic appearance and the luster that we're trying to get from sort of a nice sparkly glitter finish and I think actually our Diamond uh laser glitter is working very well so I think that's doing all the heavy work on these ones and actually everything else just probably just clogs up you can really see on the zinc primer one where it's just quite cloggy and just bumpy and I think all that's done is maybe this is just um P flakes or I don't think it's glass but I think it's p flakes but I think all it's doing is absorbing into the resin and just making it thick um but this was a success this test uh people said you can't really put resin on a vertical surface cuz it'll all just run off well actually these two there's not even any drips on this and this is quite nice it's got a a very clear uh surface on there so I think we can prove that actually we might be able to do this cabinet if we lay it down this way and actually put the resin on and allow it to basically fall off those were never going to be viable options that's too bright blue and that's too firet truck red so they they're not really nice options but I have come up with a midnight blue which might be a nice option so I think that's the next one I'm going to try and see whether or not we can do that's just a matte finish but once it's got the resin on it will be shinier [Music] [Music] so how long did these experiments take this whole process took around four or five days um so I was really pleased to have cracked the color and hopefully the formula to allow me to apply this to the cabinet I decided that's the formula blue glitter a little bit of tint I tried it with diamond in as well and so we have blue and we have blue and diamond glitter I decided on which one to use when it dried and which did you decide on Richard when it dried yeah so I decided to go for the blue gritter and a little bit of diamond so it was about um 2/3 uh blue glitter and one3 diamond glitter because that gave a really nice shiny finish so Richard's picked the color he's picked the formula but we need a surface to apply this to but to find out if it's going to work or if it's just going to slop off of the cabinet as many have predicted will happen so it was all hands to the cabinet and we began sanding at breim the objective here then was to sand down the filler and get a smooth shape and everyone at the collective got involved for the final push here we got it pretty smooth uh but that Glitter it will actually help to distract from any imperfections won't it a little bit it will yes definitely it will fill in a little bit of those uh any tiny bumps and uh and cracks in there yeah uh and there it is after sanding uh and then Richard puts the first layer of paint on what kind of paint are you using here um actually just before the paint I did actually seal it so I decided yeah decided in my resin tests I decided that it needed a seal um so I just used a very thin uh um layer of sealant that's mixed with water so that just sealed the surface before I put the paint on and then what kind of paint was that it's actually the blue uh midnight blue was just emotion paint so that is literally just just standard emultion paint yeah okay [Music] again in different computer space cabinets you you see different holes and I think what happened is they were having some ventilation problems and a lot of the later computer space cabinets have three holes on each side above the uh serial number plaque so I decided why not do that on ours because a lot of them have got those holes and then like a rocket being transported to its Launchpad it leaves the workshop and it goes into the warmth of the arcade for the resin application because you want it fairly warm in there don't you for this application yeah 25° C so I did put it in there and leave it for a few hours just to a a climatize and there's the patient there on the operating table ready to go I'm just going to do the top do the sides do the other sides and hope it all stays on and doesn't run off so I decided to do it in 200 milliliters or two 200 g then how many layers were you planning on put on um it was it's all going to be just one layer but I did it in um three sections so I did one side uh the top and front and then the other side this was all in that uh laying down position and talks through the application are you using a makeup brush is that what I am yes I'm using a makeup brush and this was a a hint um given on YouTube uh by a couple of different people but um they were doing uh tumblers and it works really really well because it doesn't leave any hairs and it moves all the resin around lovely and you're using a process of almost dragging it up as you apply it AR that's right yeah you you you see sort of straight away that the the the glitter falls to the to the base and actually after a little bit of time you realize you're moving the resin around and the glitter is settled and staying put so it doesn't actually move around too much I was delighted I've got my full face mask on and I am smiling all the way through this process I I'm really really delighted with it it was just so much fun [Music] well you end with a big thumbs up there so you look like you're pretty happy with yourself and while it's drying let's now consider a vital part of the machine the control panel which Dan at retrofi has been helping us with and he'll just very quickly talk us through how he did [Music] that we could have just had the panel fabricated and printed using metal sheet but I really wanted to keep with the theme of the whole project and see how far we could go using the materials and technologies that we already have on hand this way it's far easier to experiment and see what works best for the control panel we didn't have any scans of an original so I'm having to recreate it from the best reference photos I can find online all of the graphics on the panel will be redrawn so it doesn't matter if it's not perfect for the main face I chose a brushed metal fo which is printed with the finished Graphics then laminated with polycarbonate before the shape and holes are cut from the material the laminate also dulls the brightness of the foil which gets us closer to the look of the original button labels are then printed onto a thick polyester design for backlighting once printed is then cut to shape and attached to the finished control panel just like the screen printed original and we're [Music] done I decided to use uh little Arduino uh mainly because it connects to the electronics that we're going to put into the cabinet um and I can put all of the LED lighting and do all the adjust I need inside that Arduino Dan also recreated the instructions for the game using an original plate as the source that was sent in cently donated by Richard chat so thank you for sending in that that in Richard and we did debate putting the original plate in the cabinet didn't we and I think we're going to make up a a plaque and a display next to it explaining what it is uh and then that original plate will be in that framed display rather than in the cabinet yeah that's right cuz we've got the original flyer and now with that original plaque it would be quite nice to put that in to explain the reason why we have the replica of the computer space and you can see Richard here testing that control panel with the first layer of course dried and it looks great in there it's all lit up and there's a hint of of the uh the blue and the paint job around there but we're not finished yet with the pain in so pretty much all there was to do now was another layer of resin and then put it all together yeah I wanted to try the resin in with the cabinet vertical um because uh it pulled a little bit on some of the very steep sections so I wanted to try that um and that went very well but I did learn that you can't do resin in patches you do have to do it in the whole thing so it does Bunch up a little bit once you put it on the entire surface it just sort of self levels and comes to a natural um finish whereas if you try and do it in patches you do end up with a few sort of uh drips and blobs so would you say you're finished with the resin or did you just have to draw the line somewhere to are you come back to it I I am going to come back to it probably about a month or six weeks just after it's been used for some time um and probably put it back on its on its uh back and do another complete resin coat and that should make it like a boiled Suite it should look really good well I think it's probably time to to reveal it to you um there's a few last tiny little jobs that we had to do before we can do that including putting the electronics in which was a Mr multistem was yes using the composite output and going into a BVM uh broadcast monitor it was one of the BBC ones that we got so it's a really nice good quality monitor it is a color monitor but so it does mean you have the shadow mask there but actually still looks pretty good in black and white boat in the original computer space the cabinet the the TV is actually really short necked and it's very hard to get that so you'll notice that the bezel around the front is actually slightly uh shallower than in the real one so we had to do that to fit our um TV in similar problem with the spring two restoration just trying to Source black and white TV shallow black and white TV that's another restoration for another day let's finish this one up uh with some high-tech things such as a biscuit tin biscuit tin yeah yeah um it's really interesting that in the computer spaces they seem to use an old thinner tin uh which was just a metal tin that they could actually get out from from the front of that front panel um to actually get the coins out so I used a biscuit tin which is uh sympathetic and then around the back just to give you an example of Richard's attention to detail Dan made us a serial number plate to go on the back proudly displays the archive name and says that it's a replica but you've seen a a little detail on some computer spaces haven't youate they were all sort of fixed onto the back of that cabinet in various different ways but most of them have um brass nails and almost all of the ones I've seen have got a bent brass nail most have got two they sort of seem to get the top two in the bottom two they always bend so I really wanted to it f it had to fight hard my willingness to actually put faults into this machine but it needed them because it the way the cabinets are built so I did put some Bend Nails in even the bent Nails yeah adding that uh uh fiberglass and painting over the top of it looks just like a real computer space so it has no structural effect whatsoever but it just gives it that extra special look and then we could wheel it into the arcade archive proper H here Richard comes with it on the on the to he nearly smashing it into the wall as he turns the corner good as he didn't damage it and we decided to position it here right next to pong of course the first really successful arcade machine um commercially available arcade machine and well just look at it it's Richard you're you're happy with it I'm delighted I I it looks so good it's first time it's actually been that close to pong and I that was what I used to get all of my measurements from um so yeah seeing them so close together and 1971 1972 those two machines it really is the start of our arcade Journey with the lights low and the spotlights on it with glitter really does its job yeah it does like to say look like a a boiled Suite it looks so shiny um it looks incredible and there's a real experience to be had here by visitors in that it's actually a pretty horrible game to play you can see the gameplay footage here it I mean let's be slightly forgiving because it's 1971 y you know it really is a Pioneer but this is a game that feels when I say horrible I mean it feels unfair I think that's what I mean um it definitely does it um you find yourself getting killed by your own bullets and you find yourself spawning onto the screen just where an enemy is so then you get killed straight away and sometimes it kills you just because it wants to so it's very very unfair it feels a little bit like AST Destro you can see elements of that um of course it's based on the earlier is it space war that it's based on from the main frames before it with elements removed we won't go too much into the detail of how the game plays other than to say as an experience for someone coming to the arcade archive you get frustrated with it you understand why it wasn't commercially successful yes and then you step one cabinet uh to the left and you're playing pong head-to-head with your with your friend and I think that's where the laughter begins and the frustration LIF and you say this is why it was successful I understand that and that's a really important lesson that we can teach people we don't need a real computer space to do that we've got a replica that immerses you and makes you feel that makes you feel the frustration but also appreciate how beautiful it is that it's the star in industry and then learn your next lesson from pong and then the next cabinet and then you work your way around the archives um that was really important to me and I think that's what you set out to do from the start was yeah definitely for from the first moment you walk up to it you have to put a coin in we've made it coin operated so you put the coin in you hear the coin fall into the biscuit in and then you start the game and you immediately hear the sound effects the booms you'll get you get killed straight away so you'll hear the big boom um and then you'll you'll fight with the controls because everything seems a bit backwards so left left and right is in the middle on your right hand side whereas every other arcade machine the joystick or the buttons for asteroids it was always always on the left so you have to fight yourself quite hard to use those action buttons on the left and the controls on the right so yeah I think they learned a lot from that and of course they learned that fiberglass cabinets probably just cost a bit too much money and took too long and the height of it I had to get myself a stool um because yeah it's perfect size for me a height um next to pong they're about the same height but then the monitor is at a different angle I had to stoop so I got myself a stool and uh was able to play it better that way um we have also shared this briefly with other people we had a patron day the week before you got the final resin layer on didn't you yes yeah and um we let them play it because the control panel was working the inits were working and it was quite astonishing the reaction to it you can see some people playing it here some of our official cave dwellers and arcadians including young Ruben who came along and was desperate to get on the camera so hi Reuben thank you for taking part in this video thanks so much and there was a queue out the door of the workshop of um people wanting to play a 50-year-old arcade game yeah it was and it was still cobbled together at that point we got everything up and running but it wasn't all completely finished the control panel was working but you could still come up put the coin in get that experience we had the music up really loud sound effects so everyone had a really good time just playing it and getting on to level two which was really nice just seeing those different levels something that made me really happy was Patrick in the comments last time on the first video actually released uh a scan that he did of computer space arcade cabinet um and we used that as to compare against the sculpt which was really nice so I actually found out that I did a reasonably good job of sculpting that and um a few there's a few differences though uh the control panels are little bit lower on the original so I think that was probably from The Parallax of me taking the shots and extruding them out maybe the camera where they took those shots were on a different angle uh but I got the sculpt pretty much pretty much spot on really on the side and the Height's right um little bit difference on the base so I think we STI out tiny bit tiny bit more but yeah it looks looks pretty good so thank you very much by the time you watch this they will be all uploaded to printables and you'll be able to use them as a single model or every one of the layers and every one of the sections so all those 89 sections if you really want to print one out you can do exactly what we've done you had some feedback asking about your design process and some people saying your choice of C packages in your tool chain looked perhaps overly complex do you have anything to say about that um not really no that was probably the fastest part of the entire process so doing the cad um I've thought about this for two years and we talked about doing scans of the of the build of the machine actually I should have just got on with it because that design that design flow of actually getting the pictures uh modeling them extruding them and then doing the mesh modeling to get a nice smooth surface was very very quick quick so that was actually the quickest part of this entire build so I think um I always recommend whatever CAD packages get you to your finished result so I've used probably a hundred different C packages over the time and um yeah whatever gets you there yeah got the job done well you can see all of that in part one and thank you again to Richard you've done an incredible job on this thank you good fate thank you to Richard thank you to hea um head to Retro collective. co.uk and you can click on shop and see uh many other things that Richard and hea design and uh them to your collection a few things to come soon aren't they yes definitely we we were right on the transition point of new technology that we were going to put into this machine but we're a little bit off yet but uh yeah couple of weeks time and we'll be having some new products out in the shop you can go to retrocollect live.co.uk you can see when we're open and uh come and enjoy computer space for yourself it really is quite an experience and thank you as always for taking the time to watch we hope to see you here soon [Music] I lost on level one I think get cool

Channel: RMC - The Cave

Views: 59,899

Keywords: nostalgia, computer history, tech history, 3d print, 3d printed arcade, computer space, Atari arcade cabinet, first arcade game, video game history

Id: 5OZiWNLp0p4

Length: 36min 4sec (2164 seconds)

Published: Thu May 09 2024