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Do not forget that there are still lots of ways to get all the parallel I/O pins you want on a tablet... run a USB link to an Arduino.

No sense much trying to do a lot of numerical heavy lifting with an Arduino. It simply does not have the horsepower or memory for it. It can act as an intermediary between a tablet which has all sorts of horsepower, and a platform controlling motors and reading sensors.

If the application is quite menial ( say datalogging ), an Arduino can handle it quite nicely on its own when coupled with appropriate storage blocks - but in and of itself, just maintaining a FAT filesystem alone would be difficult for an Arduino, yet a piece of cake for a Raspberry Pi.

I am presently building with an Arduino platform and note I am taking a significant amount of its resources just to deal with two rotary quadrature encoders and two LCD displays.

I am aiming for absolute simplicity. I need lots of low speed I/O and bit-banging special protocols more than anything else ( and I can get it via Arduino's I2C bus ). I will continue with this, but if there is any significant numerical analysis or display, its going to have to partner with something else to do the heavy stuff.

As it is, I intend to use a Parallax Propeller chip if I exceed Arduino's capacity, as most of my needs are menial bit-banging protocols to interface old technologies to newer stuff - and I want it all done in parallel so I do not have interrupt, timing and latency issues. The Propeller chip has eight cores, running in parallel, so each core can be tasked with an individual menial thingie ( UART, SPI, I2C, video, audio, DMX lighting, whatever ), and they will run in parallel without contention or timing issues from waiting for the program counter to be handed to them.

Andre LaMothe has developed a "Chameleon" board combining an Arduino with a Propeller chip if you want to explore this avenue.

A Raspberry Pi would do everything. But then, sometimes a hand calculator comes in handy when you don't want to launch a fullbore compiler to evaluate some mathematical thingie you dream up.

I see a Raspberry Pi ideal for those places you would normally put a full-fledged tablet in... say an interactive kiosk with full display and TCP/IP networking. It has the horsepower to do darned near anything. And lots of hardware I/O as a bonus, where the Arduino solution involves channeling everything from the tablet through the USB bus or network link ( YellowJacket, DiamondBack, or similarly equipped Arduino ).

I guess one of the things I would like to see most is some sort of interface which would adapt to any LCD display out there and let me drive it with the Raspberry Pi output, as there always seems to be some defunct LCD display somewhere that I could repurpose.

Maybe something down the lines of this

^^^ Yes.

For those who don't know what a FPGA is, think of it as being like an ephemeral homebrew ASIC. It's the integrated circuit equivalent of a Star Trek "replicator". FPGAs are usually too expensive to use as compoents in finished commercial projects (at least, mass-market ones), but for prototyping, they're the greatest thing that's ever existed.

Let me put it this way -- Freescale might have discontinued the last of their "real" m68k CPUs and non-Coldfire MCUs, but thanks to the magic of FPGAs, you can synthesize your own whenever you want to ( http://opencores.org/project,tg68 ). With a little tweaking, you can synth a hypothetical 50mhz 68000 that can address 4 gigs of ram, use DDR, and execute "move SR, <ea>" without going down in flames.

With FPGAs, you can make an Amiga, turn it into a Commodore 64, resynth it as an Atari ST with two SID chips hypothetically grafted on, then repurpose it to overlay your own bitmap data on top of HDCP-protected HDMI content (as long as you know how to use Google well enough to find a copy of the leaked HDCP master key).

However, I'd recommend the Xgamestation Mach64 CPLD kit as a first step, instead ( http://www.xgamestation.com/view_product.php?id=40 ). It comes with everything you need, includes a good manual that's well-written and easy to understand, and works flawlessly under Vista & Win7 (including 64-bit) as long as the computer has a real (non-USB) parallel port. AFAIK, it's the ONLY dev board that's targeted towards users who understand programming and have some background in electronics, but nevertheless have some huge gaps in their background knowledge that an EE wouldn't have.

Note: I'm not affiliated with them. Just a really happy and satisfied customer :-)

http://www.xgamestation.com/

http://www.ladyada.net/make/fuzebox/

even with multiple arduinos, there's only so much you can do.

What about Arduino plus a propellor? http://www.xgamestation.com/view_product.php?id=51

Looks fun - wish there was more time to the day to play with these things...

Another option for retro-gaming hardware is Andre LaMothe's XGameStation line of DIY kits.

Looks like they now have a "Chameleon" line of kits, in both 8- and 16-bit flavors, which are similar to Arduino or BASIC Stamp systems.

I have not personally used these, but they appear to be pretty cool.

Enjoy.

- -
Pete

Another option for retro-gaming hardware is Andre LaMothe's XGameStation line of DIY kits.

Looks like they now have a "Chameleon" line of kits, in both 8- and 16-bit flavors, which are similar to Arduino or BASIC Stamp systems.

I have not personally used these, but they appear to be pretty cool.

Enjoy.

- -
Pete

Mod parent up +insightful.

I've been programming for over 25 years, most of that at the firmware/driver level in C. I went on a hardware quest (for my own edification) about a year ago, and I did an independent study course for credit at my local university. My focus was on Verilog (because that's what's used within my company), and it was truly a different beast than programming! I definitely had to train myself to think differently to accomplish that.

There are many good boards suggested by others in this thread. I used three boards myself. The first board I used was http://www.xgamestation.com/view_product.php?id=40 - containing a Lattice Semiconductor CPLD. The board was a good starter because it was designed for education, and included a lab manual of quite a few projects. Potential downside: the lab manual and tools it comes with are not based on either Verilog or VHDL, but rather ABEL. I did everything in Verilog instead, and still used the lab manual as a source of exercises. The Mach64 board is fairly inexpensive.


I also used a board from http://www.opalkelly.com/ -- this product is a little pricey as an educational device. Their hardware contains Xilinx parts. What I liked most about it though is its USB interface -- first, you can use their tool to download your hardware description without being required to flash the board (where many other boards require you to flash the image to exercise it). Second, and more interesting to me -- Opal Kelly's boards include virtual device libraries, letting you attach hardware to USB-carried channels for data I/O and triggering to a remote application. They include a library to allow you to write a remote application to support the other end of this. I don't know if they support Linux though -- everything I did on the PC end was under Windows.


Finally, a reasonably priced board is http://www.embeddedarm.com/products/board-detail.php?product=TS-7300. This board is not centered around its FPGA, instead it's an ARM9 based CPU board. The board includes full embedded Linux support and all the typical devices you would expect to find, and it has a user-accessible Altera FPGA on board. Their linux distribution includes a tool to send a FPGA bitstream over to the device, letting you quickly test a new hardware description (like the Opal Kelly board, without programming flash). Potential downside here... the manufacturer includes a bitstream image that is used by default, which enables (among other things) its VGA port and a second Ethernet interface - and their open source Verilog for this device doesn't include those, so you sacrifice some of the board to define your own hardware. You don't sacrifice anything you can't use the board without though (there's another Ethernet port; there's a few serial ports, etc., which don't require the FPGA).


Good luck!

Pandora handheld
GPX2
X game station

Pandora looks to be the best though.

Someone said earlier: "Programmers are neither abstractly creative nor socially comfortable by default"

I really have qualms with this. Software is not like other discplines. The real fact of the matter is most programmers are poor in math and computer science AND many programmers didn't have early hardware to tinker with.

Andre lamothe was so frustrated by coders lack of understanding of hardware, math and algorithms he started his own site.

http://www.xgamestation.com/index.php

IMHO I would have killed for a site like this when I was younger, in the 'pre-internet' days when I was still in highschool. Personally our real problem is that kids are not guided where they need to be and everyone thinks they 'know' what a software engineer needs to know when they don't.

It also doesn't help that many technically inclined kids are ostracized because they happen to be interested in sciency or electronicy things. Not to mention some coders surely need some social skills classes as well as weight loss classes (to boost their social skills confidence).

Personally if I were running a business I would pay bonus's to coders that went to toastmasters, etc and improved their interpersonal communication skills. Businesses just have to start demanding and REWARDING this from their workforce if they want to see it. The problem is business's treat coders/programmers like unskilled laborers to be used and abused for the lowest wages possible. Is it any wonder that no one really wants to improve given the sorry situation in software development?

The best coders I've ever met were tinkerers. They sat there and tinkered with shit for hours plugging away exploring their curiousity. They had an overwhelming desire to master their discipline, and many were also mathematically inclined.

Electronics, math and coding have a lot in common, there are deep relationships between electronics, coding and math. The problem is you will not find most or all the skills to run a business well monolithically in one person, since the education system is set up so poorly.

What handheld platform should homebrewers be developing for instead?

GP32 and the GP2x. They are korean handheld consoles running linux specifically developed for homebrew. There is an american version in development with keyboard and joysticks, but I can't seem to find any links online.

Alternatively, develop for the iPhone or Android. They're both perfect systems for home development.

As another alternative, the XGameStation is a game console they can develop on from soldering the chipsets to implementing the software. Or sign up for XNA and make Xbox 360 games.

As a side note, why is Homebrew DS suddenly something amazing to be protected, especially with the multitude of alternatives? One or two neat things have come out of it, but it pales compared to the amazing works that have come out of independent flash development in rescent years.

Check it out:

http://accu.org/

They also have a discussion list. I think it would be a good idea to see if anyones interested in a "wikibooks" project, i.e. people contribute small articles, and over-time the community edits it into something cohesive.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/WB:FB

When dealing with teaching, one should teach from the ground up. I've seen way too many programming books that assume previous knowledge and most are really bad. I like the zero-to-hero mentality, where you take someone knowing nothing all the way through. But when you write an article that assumes previous knowledge, you outline for others where they should go, what they should read if they are just starting. Too much knowledge is too fragmented, most peoples knowledge is highly fragmented, they need to know all the necessary concepts in order to further understand and use someones understanding, each link in the chain should ideally be easily linked to and found. Since when most people need to start at the beginning and work their way up, and frequently go back and forth for areas they are weak in.

I've been trying to find good 'self-teaching' resources for a while to take someone from absolutely zip understanding all the way through step-by-step, because much programming and programmers, unfortunately have started way too far up the abstraction chain and have little to zip understanding of what is going on.

Andre lamothe has some interesting things going on here, as he too was frustrated by 'dumb developers'

http://www.xgamestation.com/

But in the US we have the Hydra: Hydra Game Station

What a title...

I'll second that. Many of us learned on 8-bit home computers, where you could understand everything that was going on, and we made games. Brilliant self education.

The best way of doing that now is with the Hydra console. The hardware is completely documented and described at the beginner level in the book. And there is no OS or APIs to deal with, disguising what's really going on. You code straight to the bare metal.

What about one of Andre LaMothes console kits? They are more oriented to making your own gaming console but get right into electronic basics, you have to build the XGS yourself so you get practical experience and comes with a book (I think its called Black Art of console design). Check it out: http://www.xgamestation.com/ P

http://www.xgamestation.com/

This is a small single board system that is intended to teach electronics and video game programming. The system is designed to be simple enough that a learner can deeply understand every chip and function of the system yet fast and powerful enough to do interesting things. Capability wise this machine seems to act most like a highly overclocked Apple IIGS with a really good framebuffer.

They exist. They are not nearly as advanced as even the PS1 in most respects, but they exist.

The X Games Station was the first that I know of. Not terrifically powerful, but there, and designed by Andre LaMothe.

Then there is the recently released HYDRA (which I can't find the official link for) which is based on the Parallax Propeller chip which is like the Cell in that it has 8 SPEs so it's very multiprocessor but you can do all sorts of interesting things. Obviously, it's no where near as powerful though. This was also designed by Andre LaMothe.

Build it yourself game console.

Something I have thought about on occasion would be to develop a game-centric Linux LiveCD, ideally designed around a micro-atx form factor motherboard of some sort. Ultimately, your distribution web site would have a "recommended specification" for the "game console", specifying everything that is needed for the "console" to work flawlessly with your LiveCD distro (this would include motherboard type, RAM, CPU, graphics and sound chipsets, and "standard" joy/gamepad, among other items). You could also note that the LiveCD "may work on other machine specifications, but for best results use the reccommended specifications". The distro should contain all needed development tools for game development (I would suggest the standard tools, but also include Python, PyGame, and PyOpenGL for rapid prototyping) for the specification, plus sample code and maybe even an actual game, along with documentation, etc of course.

The idea being that your site would be the "standard" specification, and would act as partner/coordinator with others to develop actual incarnations of the "console" (maybe you also sell a "reference" console, built to your specs). Every year, you would re-certify/re-develop your specifications (as needed), to keep them "current" (it would be best if the specifications were developed to be middle or "trailing" edge to some aspects of the hardware, mainly graphics and gamepad, so that each version of the "console" has at least a 2-3 year lifecycle). Others developing their own hardware incarnations of the console spec could partner with you to get a "seal of approval" (this would cost something to certify, of course) as well as support. Developers could get their own support. Maybe tier these support packages (provide a free level, a low cost student/independent level, a professional level, and a corporate level).

All it would take would be to develop that first LiveCD - which shouldn't be that big of a deal at all, since there are plenty of them out there to model it off of. The LiveCD should be setup in such a way as to boot to a splashy screen (perhaps after a "title splash" screen) where the user can boot the LiveCD (ie, run the system off the LiveCD), install the LiveCD (as game console or dev console - prebuilt consoles would have this already done, of course), or update the install. If a game is included on the LiveCD, they should also be able to select and run it as well.

Ultimately, you would end up with an "open source Linux game development kit" - one with both hardware and software specifications, whereby someone could easily boot the game on their normal system (if it meets or comes close to the specs) to "try out", or if they wish to go further, they could install it to develop games with. Stipulate to "licensees" or whatnot that any of the game CDs developed must be like the LiveCD reference system, or at minimum have references back to your web site so that "budding game developers" can easily get set up to develop their own games with your system, however they see fit.

I really think this model could work - if I had the time I would try it myself - depending on what happens after this post (like, if nobody does it before me) I might still attempt it. It wouldn't cost anything more than time to develop the LiveCD. Once you had that, you could begin to tweak it to get it to work with a specification...

Because much of the complexity new developers run into is baggage from the Operating System and the Development Environment.

And YES Linux is just as guilty as Windows is these days.

I really wish they would make a console system that could be programmed out of the box.

http://www.xgamestation.com/

It's a hobbyist's toy, nothing more.

There isn't anything wrong that either. These days the manufacturers of consumers devices all go the extra mile to keep people from hacking their own kit. It will be nice to have some kit that invites you to play with it...even if that is all it is good for.

I had already been thinking of the GP32 and it's descendents as portable versions of the XGamestation. The only reason the hardware exists is to learn how consoles work at a very low level. I approve of more of that sort of thing. Not less.

http://www.xgamestation.com/

Of course, it is totally a hacker system, at a high price. You can't just buy games for it. But what is the fun of a retro console if you don't get your hands a little dirty to play it?

http://www.xgamestation.com/about_gamestation.php/

Great learning tool.

She's turning up a ton of hits on Google

Here she is at the XGamestation booth: http://www.xgamestation.com/view_media.php?id=109

Here's another article on her:

http://home.att.net/~rmestel/articles/on_road_ells worth.txt

This site was mentioned here a few months back. Basically a stripped down games console, which you can buy/build and then write games/whatever to run on the hardware. The software to program the thing is included. Programming it (using assembler) is very similar to coding for the old VCS console. Since there's no video RAM (unless you choose to add it to the hardware), your code directly controls the output as the raster scans across the screen - meaning you have to actually count the clock cycles in your code to ensure you don't end up with electric soup! I think it also has sound hardware, and there's nothing stopping you adding any other mods.

There are some demos available for download on the site, with full source etc. I don't work for them or anything, but I'm seriously thinking of buying one so I can dive into some retro-coding ;-)

Andre laMothe has managed to not spout shit endlessly and has produced a fantastic system called the xGameStation. it's aimed at a sligtly different market, sure, but he has managed to make a fantastic idea a reality, all without wasting billions of dollars.

Some of what you invision with your idea of a hacker/hobbyist friendly console seems to be covered by the XGameStation. Unfortunately, its price, at $199, is steep enough that it doesn't work so well as a casual impulse buy. Still, it's worth checking out.

Doom as it was? No - not in 4K. But there is a ray-caster for it already, which is what Doom used for its 3D engine. Check out the video here: http://www.xgamestation.com/view_media.php?path=pr oducts/xgs_me/xgs_me_demo_raycaster.wmv&title=XGam eStation%20Micro%20Edition&timestamp=&caption=Rayc aster+demo+by+Kieren+Johnstone.%0D

Check this out some time: XGameStation.

This may have been posted to Slashdot before, but it is worth bringing up again since its been at the "Pre-Orders Coming Soon!" stage to quite some time now.

This is Andre LaMothe's little project (little?), that when it comes to fruition will be a bad-assed tutorial on not only hacking together your own computer but all the neat programming that goes into getting it up and running as a fully functional console game system.

Anyway, I can't wait to get my hands on one (not that my apartment floor is an ideal workspace to build one), so hopefully the more eyeballs that go to the site will perhaps play a small part in getting the very ambitious project out the door.

I guess, the book reviewed here will be a great way to gain a foothold on the skill necessary for the XGameStation.

You might be interested in the XGameStation. It's a console that you build (ahem, assemble) yourself based upon an open specification. The design is entirely open, though open as in visible not open as in FSF. Hardware hacking is encouraged. You could probably build one yourself with the parts without calling down the wrath of the developers, though avoiding fumbling about for individual fuse suppliers and making your own breadboard would be worth the 100 or so dollars they will probably charge.

Good stuff. I'm looking forward to picking one up when they feel it is ready.

...that isn't run by a bunch of jacka$$#$? Try the X Game Station. It's sufficiently obscure that it makes people think you're elite, and it's sufficiently vaporware that it will be a while before that's proven wrong.

JK. Actually, the developers post on their forums all of the time, and seem like normal nice guys not prone to knee-jerk reactions and faked photographs. It's also not really vaporware, as they have released an SDK and other things... it's just a bit late. (Money... Burning... Hole...) It's also a little underpowered as far as primary gaming machines go, but that's not what you buy an alternative console for anyway.

There are good alternative console developers out there. Even if the Phantom people are evil and the DIScovER people are ruthless jerks, some people are doing good things in the world of consoles.

He's got his own console type thing (it seems to be directed at developers, since it's of the "make it yourself" breed not seen in the last 20 years). Try the official site XGameStation

68000? Luxury :-) Here it is in 6502..

Take a look at Andre Lamothe's books. I know lots of programmers flame his books. However, I think his books are great for hobbiests. I think they're great for kids. I think this kid would love the Xgamestation. From what I have seen, Mr. LaMothe seems to geniunely want to help his readers.

I started to studying programing (C and a little ASM during the summer of my high school graduation) by reading his old Tips and Tricks of the Game Programming Gurus.

You might want to take a look at the Bebop to the Boolean Boogie as well.

Q: What can the XGameStation hardware do? How powerful is it?
A: The processing power of the XGameStation is approximately 10x that of the Super Nintendo (SNES), and it's graphical capabilities are approximately 50-200% more advanced than the SNES. Moreover, the graphics subsystem was specifically designed to draw upon the best parts of the Atari 800, Apple II, Super Nintendo, and Commodore 64, the systems that drove the computer and video game revolutions. Check out the full specs here.

Q: What can the XGameStation hardware do? How powerful is it?
A: The processing power of the XGameStation is approximately 10x that of the Super Nintendo (SNES), and it's graphical capabilities are approximately 50-200% more advanced than the SNES. Moreover, the graphics subsystem was specifically designed to draw upon the best parts of the Atari 800, Apple II, Super Nintendo, and Commodore 64, the systems that drove the computer and video game revolutions. Check out the full specs here.

You can tell how much they're against copyrights by how they steal Gamespot's layout without batting an eyelash.

its all about the XGameStation!! I cant wait till this thing comes out, give the market a good kick in the anti DMCA direction! It dosent matter how good the system is, as long as its being pushed to its limits!

But... where is the simple programming language? I mean, I could make a stupid game in 10 lines of C64 BASIC. I don't want to have to work in C/C++ to do this today, or I'd just stick to a PC.

- Derwen

The cost (according to the faq) is ~99 US dollars. It is to include all the hardware, the ebook with tons of documentation on the systems hardware and software capabilities, and a programmable cartridge. Basically everything you will need to make and play a game.

Well... this is kinda off topic... kinda not... so what the hell, im posting it!

Anyways, I see alot of people talking about the nostalga of the older game systems, and how the games themselves are what make a console great. If you truely believe that your going to love this!

alt="X game station">XGameStation

Its a build it yourself ( sorta... its actually pre-assembled) 16 bit console, that comes complete with instructions on how to build your own. Plus it ships with a full SDK, and a port GNU tool set. This thing could be fun as hell to play with... plus, its only 99$. I may just have to pick one of these up.

On a side note... its design / distributed by Andre LeMoth (sp?)... basically the biggest author of game programming books. Ive always thought the guy was a bit of a loon... but his books are/were pretty good, at least for beginners.

Enjoy.