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Arcade1up NBA Jam - Hidden Ethernet Capability?!?!

RetroRalph·video·5m 39s·analyzed·Jun 19, 2020
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.016

TL;DR

Arcade1up NBA Jam supports hidden wired Ethernet via USB hub adapter.

Summary

Retro Ralph demonstrates that the Arcade1up NBA Jam cabinet can achieve wired Ethernet connectivity despite appearing to lack native support, by using a USB OTG hub and Ethernet adapter connected to the micro USB port. The feature is undocumented and unsupported by Arcade1up, but the proof-of-concept successfully enabled wired connection to their online leaderboard system.

Key Claims

  • The NBA Jam cabinet's micro USB port can be used with a USB OTG hub and Ethernet adapter to achieve wired connectivity

    high confidence · Retro Ralph successfully demonstrated the connection working in real-time, with the UI showing 'wired' option appearing after hub connection

  • This wired Ethernet capability is not officially advertised or supported by Arcade1up

    high confidence · Retro Ralph explicitly stated 'this is really promising but by no means is this something that's supported or even something that you know they're advertising as an option'

  • The wired connection allows full functionality with online features including leaderboards and multiplayer

    medium confidence · Successfully connected to online leaderboards and attempted multiplayer connection, though limited testing was performed

Notable Quotes

  • “So now I'm connected via wired connection. So I'm very shocked that this actually worked, but it does.”

    Retro Ralph@ 3:02 — Confirms the successful proof-of-concept after skepticism about the possibility

  • “this is really promising but by no means is this something that's supported or even something that you know they're advertising as an option. So this is one of those, you know, use at your own risk thing.”

    Retro Ralph@ 3:35 — Clear disclaimer that the feature is undocumented and unsupported

  • “if you were complaining about you're not having a wired option it looks like you indeed do”

    Retro Ralph@ 3:10 — Directly addresses customer frustration about lack of advertised Ethernet option

Entities

Retro RalphpersonArcade1upcompanyNBA JamgameJustinperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_strategy: Arcade1up NBA Jam contains undocumented capability to support wired Ethernet connectivity via USB adapter, potentially addressing customer complaints about wireless-only networking

    high · Successfully demonstrated wired connection appearing in UI and functioning with online features after USB hub connection

  • ?

    technology_signal: Use of USB OTG hub adapter as workaround for hardware port limitations, suggesting design flexibility in Arcade1up cabinets

    medium · Proof-of-concept successfully used standard USB hub and Ethernet adapter with micro USB port

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.017

0:00
Oh come on! This thing doesn't have Ethernet? Or does it? Alright guys, so you got your NBA Jam home and you're super excited and you built it and you're like, man, there is no wired Ethernet option, only wireless. So hit your live button for me for a minute. And when you go up to network setup, you'll see it has network type wireless. Now, if I go into the options, it just says none and wireless and cancel. So none clearly isn't an option. But if you read down here, it says, see whether you want to use a wired connection or a wireless connection. Now that got me thinking, could that micro USB port on the back be used for like a hub and you could connect other devices such as an Ethernet adapter. Now that got me wondering and I wanted to try it. So that's what we're going to do right now. We're going to see, can we have this say wired connection and utilize a wired Ethernet connection versus wireless? All right, so we're in the back of the machine and as you can see, there is no Ethernet option. You can see your Wi antenna right there So what I decided to do is take this cheapo hub that I have and I actually use this on my Mister It just a standard cheapo USB OTG hub and I plugging it into the micro USB slot right here It's going to take me a second to get it because it's hard to see from this angle.
1:37
There we go. Okay, so the hub is plugged in. Now keep in mind, do this all while the system is powered off. Now, I still don't have an Ethernet port, so how is this helping me? Well, now I can take this adapter, which is an Ethernet adapter, and it's got a USB on the other side. So I'm going to plug that into my hub.
1:58
And then the other end is going to go into my Ethernet port that's plugged directly into my router. Now, providing this works, we should see a wired option pop up in the user interface. All right, let's go check it out.
2:15
All right, my system is powered back up. I'm going to hit the live button again. Now look, all of a sudden I have a wired option that pops up in network setup. So I'm going to hit wired. It's going to ask me, do I want it to automatically reestablish this connection every time? And then I already, if you can notice the wired connection is actually there indicating that I no longer on wireless and I on a wired connection It does make me re my email and my public name but if it already in there it just saves it for you I going to say I want to be visible to everyone I want to say anyone can join my game and sure I can post on leaderboards
2:59
And I want everyone to see my leaderboards. Newest game first. So now I'm connected via wired connection. So I'm very shocked that this actually worked, but it does. so kind of interesting if you were complaining about you're not having a wired option it looks like you indeed do now keep in mind uh we'll do some final thoughts here in a second but there's several ways you can do this uh but this is just with parts i happen to have you know laying around from my mister and my laptop all right guys it's final thoughts time so what do i think about the possibility of connecting your nba jam cabinet via ethernet i think this is really promising but by no means is this something that's supported or even something that you know they're advertising as an option. So this is one of those, you know, use at your own risk thing. Now, I only did it with parts I had laying around, but it made me do some further research. And there are some things on Amazon. There's a couple parts where it's just micro USB to Ethernet. I will leave links in the description, but I'm going to put a gigantic caveat that I have absolutely no idea if those are going to work. I also didn't really have a chance to actually test anything. It did work. It did connect via Ethernet. I did connect to one player and that was it. I didn't actually, you know do a lot of research further than that So this is kind of more of a proof of concept of can I connect via wired ethernet and yes you can uh but I gonna have to do some subsequent videos on some testing I trying to get someone to that I can add to my favorites list so I can play I got rejected two times like why why'd someone reject my game I just want to play actually I should be working which is the reason why I didn't get a chance to test because I'm actually supposed to be working right now I gotta go actually so if you like this video please give us a thumbs up put your comments below is this like this is really unexpected and kind of cool so you know from the geek in me is like this is awesome so and i called up justin he's super excited so we're both like you know super excited but we like tech so it just is what it is uh i think i already said leave your comments below right yeah yeah well anyways if you enjoy the video you know give it a thumbs up leave your comments below please consider subscribing to the channel and don't forget to turn on the little notification bell so you can be informed of future videos that's it for now guys we will see you on the next one
5:34
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