How about that "Erotic Mode" button?? 😳 (Don't worry, I still keep this episode within our normal semi-family-friendly rating…) Anyway! Enjoy the new episode! ❤️ Feel free to subscribe for more tech episodes every week! 🔔

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🥰

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...

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.

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. 🤣

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 should probably dump the security key. It has a non replaceable battery that will expire

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.

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 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.

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.

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'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.

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!

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!

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.

This brings back memories... I used to play these with my dad back when I was younger.

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.

We had a Megatouch at Disney Quest, where I worked. They put one in the breakroom and we put it to the test.

I use to play this thing as a teen....was super addictive to 11-Ball.

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)

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.

@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!

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 ;)

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

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

The game ConQuest reminds me of Argo Games' "Hexxagon". Instead of two pieces each at start, you got three. Red v Blue, the same.

"I said we were going to dive into this gem... I did not plan that pun." Unintended puns are the best kind 😛

The real thing these were designed to do was be a gambling device. Easily converted to run fruit games with a winnings coupon printer.

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)?

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 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!!!

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.

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.

OMG, I remember using this at the local bowling alley every once and a while as a kid!

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.

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.

Oh great, more strange tech I wish I had!

I'm not familiar with Megatouch but in Europe I remember "Photo-Play" cabinets being everywhere. Very similair specs and games,

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.

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!

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 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".

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.

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.

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.

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

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!

I am an ATM tech, and just want to let you know that the Settlement options are for the Armored Currier or Owner. Is for pickup and reset amount. When it's red like that, someone pulled the money out without resetting the settlement. Showing either theft, or laziness. That unit has the same bill acceptor as a vending machine.

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).

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 should ask my local pizza joint if they're willing to sell it or give it away.

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 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

My local bowling ally used to have them when I was a kind omg it was so fun lol

Hands down some of the greatest touch screen games made even with the age of ipads! Great video!

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 ))

This making me think of the evelution of these touch screen machines from restaurants

"Buy two beer, get three beer." Genius.

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.

Huh, I think I've played one (or was it the bootleg?) that comes with modern LCD displays rather than CRTs. It kinda bring back my memories, though it's vague. The UI is so memorable.

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.

Spent waaay too much time on one of these machines in a certain bar back in the day. Hopefully whoever owns the software these days will release it for iPad or something.

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!

When I was 10 me and a friend used to get paid under the table to sweep up a little bar in Anna Maria Island in Florida. We’d sit there with our egg rolls from next door and play these games before the bar opened.

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.

Seems like this ended up becoming the Ziosk/Presto tablets we see at restaurants.

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!

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 love playing these things whenever I go to a bar, if I was a bar owner in the 90s I would dedicate an entire wall to these and lower that timer and raise the price so people can play some of those longer games like golf .

yoooo, a video showing off tech i recognize and have used regularly? dope! granted, i only ever played monster madness but still.

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!!

it would make a stellar swivel desktop cpu!

Oh wow these used to be in every damn bar, I seen them here and there

btw - one thing to watch out for : swapping out the hard drive comes with some catches. depending on which version of the software is installed, some of them checked for specific serial number ranges of the disk. this was to both trip up counterfits (yep, they were cloned wholesale) and because the drives themselves had a custom firmware on them. These checks were time bombs, they would go off after a set amount of uptime and plays and other factors. meaning they can show up months or years after the drive is swapped.

I owned one a decade or so ago, and sold it....regretted it, and traded a spare NEO GEO cart for a Crown Edition. Doesn't get much play, but I'm keeping this one! :-)

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 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.

I remember these from my neighborhood bar when I was younger .

Remember playing these machines in the bars.

i have a found memory of getting way to drunk on a day drinking turned to night drinking session at the local bar in college. spent probably 20 bucks getting the entirety of the high scores on slap the monkey

I thought this was a weird fever dream I came up with as a kid. I remembered this thing existing like a week ago and none of my close friends knew wtf I was talking about. Glad to know I'm not crazy (I mean I am a little crazy but not as crazy)

I've seen those in bars and I always thought that they were for desperately board bar patrons. Then someone told me that they were actually gambling machines, and that made a bit more sense Now I see from this video that they aren't.

I have a megatouch force 2006 so this brings back memories

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)

Da Lench Mob? Well, there's a reference I didn't quite expect from this, even when this thing was new.

oooh. this brings back so many memories! my first professional job was developing for this system.

I was looking at them a couple weeks ago, people still want RIDICULOUS prices for them, relative to the power of the hardware inside. I appreciate that people are taking care of them, but they're a little outside my price range.

Kinda wild that Buzztime has outlasted Megatouch

Next episode can we have a normal Linux OS of the time on this with an SSD? Would be a cool video