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Building Consoles For Fun
tierra writes "Indiviuals writing their own games is one thing, but try building your own console. Russ Christensen, and his team put together in class, dive into the fun of using an old Nintendo system to house their customized XSA-50 Board. They also uses a XSA Extender to hook their personal console up to a monitor instead of a TV. They programmed Tetris and Space Invaders for their console using a system they call CASM."
If you're going to make the games yourself, and the console yourself - dammit, build the TV yourself too, you lazy bastard!
"Moderate drinking can help prevent amputated limbs" -- Abigail Zuger, NYTimes, 12/31/02
IN SOVIET RUSSIA ... YOU have to build everything yourself
For the love of God, what does he think he's doing?
From what I've read, the X-box is nothing more than a PIII PC with some mods to make it "different".
After reading this, I'm wondering when someone will either (a) mod a PC to play X-Box discs, or (b) build their own X-Box out of PC parts and mod chips.
If this has already been done, please post links.
[Connection closed by foreign host]
Wow, I wish I had the kind of classes that would let me build stuff like this in them....but noooo, all we could do is sit there, read the books, and take the tests. Never actually applying the knowledge that we just learned.......
--CypherDragon
In Soviet Russia, Super Mario builds the Nintendo that builds you!
In America, Bill Gates builds the X-BOX but no one cares...
...take the little Cappuciono PC and fill it with top notch hardware, place nice USB ports on the front, make a memory card slot on the front to hold 128 meg chips for game saves, then market it as a "PC game console".
They programmed Tetris and Space Invaders for their console using a system they call CASM.
In Soviet Russia, Alexey Pajitnov invented Tetris.
In the United States of America, The Tetris Company will sue you if your game's name is too similar to "Tetris".
Will I retire or break 10K?
take the little Cappuciono PC and fill it with top notch hardware
But will you be able to get it down to $150 to compete with the Nintendo GameCube?
Will I retire or break 10K?
[flame off][humor on]
"Our professor allowed us to take a different approach, using an ICDS Enhanced Hot Water Drill, a cage full of GM hamsters and some pantyhose we have created our own version of the worlds very first Wheel. We carved it straight of a rock wall! We call it Wheel Revolution. The wheel was a revolution, and it revolves, so we're getting double-usage out of the name. Bob is able to put his hands on the axis of the wheel while Pete holds his ankles and runs. We'll be holding a public demo for a few days so stop on over and try it out!"
" Our engineering professor liked the idea of us really getting back to the basics."
Operator, give me the number for 911!
Looks more like Galaga to me. If you're going to use trademarked titles, why not use the right ones?
Impressive! But just how is it different from an off-the-shelf chip soldered onto an off-the-shelf board with some extra coding on your part?
I'm sure you'll see "XBOX Emulators" for PCs, but don't expect one to actually run games well for about 2 years.
I can't wait to see what he makes next. I think it may be round.
From what I've read, the X-box is nothing more than a PIII PC with some mods to make it "different".
...
Some very serious mods to make it different. For starters, it has little to no OS overhead, it's memory structure is unified and more efficient than a PC's and it doesn't waste memory managing memory since all of it's ram is dedicated to the single application (game) that is running.
If this has already been done, please post links.
Just do a search for XBox emulation. It hasn't been done, and the primary reason is that the XBox game discs are written in reverse order from regular DVDs. This gives the advantage of speeding up read access because the data is read from the outside in, but also it prevents piracy.
There are a whole slew of other reasons why the XBos isn't just a PC, and why a PC can't really just magically be turned into an Xbox without some serious software trickery. I once thought it would be possible, but after looking into it I realized it's going to be a little harder than anybody initially thought.
Now -- what I -- WOULD -- love to see is a project very closely resembling the Indreama, put together by someone who really knows a whole lot about video game consoles, and willing to take a risk on a different business model than has traditionally been used by the video game industry.
Hmm. Maybe I should post my ideas in my journal....
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Microsoft thought it would be easy sticking a computer inside of a big box and labeling it a game console. The only thing they "had to do" was to strip down Windows 2000 to suit it.
How about a Lin-Box? Stick a lot of expensive hardware in it, strip the kernel, and lose money selling it, too! Wait, I see why this hasn't been done yet..
I think it's great that people are doing this. It is an important step in learning how to build much more complex systems, gaming or otherwise. But, it has already been done some 40 years ago. What's more, there weren't all these off the shelf chips that these guys used.
For those that are old enough to remember, I'm sure that you are already having fond memories of Pong. For those that are a bit younger, take a look at this.
IN SOVIET RUSSIA, you the up fucks shut!
God this joke is old and lame.
Stop posting it already, plz k thx.
Will it be fun? I dont know .... But I am damn sure it will be expensive.
>> Just do a search for XBox emulation. It hasn't been done, and the primary reason is that the XBox game discs are written in reverse order from regular DVDs. This gives the advantage of speeding up read access because the data is read from the outside in, but also it prevents piracy
This is not true, but is a common rumor based on some early speculation by PS2 fanboys mostly (ie; "Don't get an xbox - you cant mod it - its games ar backwards. It is TEH SUCK").
Likewise untrue is the rumor that GameCube discs spin 'backwards' (I have one, I watched it spin, and they spin CW like any other).
IIRC, It uses a tweaked version of the UDF filesystem, and a non-standard packet format which is embedded into the firmware of its DVD-reader. A PC-DVD reader 'could' theoretically read an XBOX disk, but it would require some heavy-duty rewrite of the drives firmware.
The unified memory architecture could hurt emulation of certain titles, but I'm convinced few if any will make any sort of use of it. Most XBOX games are just half-assed ports, or cross developed for other systems (including PC).
There's some work being done - an XBE (xbox executable) can be translated to an EXE and some rudimentary linkage to appropriate kernel functions is happening.
At the very least, the PC will soon be a cool testbed for xbox hacking, if not playing warezed copies of Halo.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
If you believe that, then you'll also believe that the Nintendo GameCube is nothing more than a PowerPC computer with some mods to make it "different".
A console is more than the sum of its parts. The PS2 uses Rambus memory. The Dreamcast used an SH4 (I think -- or was it SH3?) processor. Even the original NES used a standard Motorola processor. The XBox uses a Pentium 3. The GameCube uses a PowerPC. And so on. All of these consoles use standard, commodity hardware that has also been used in other computers and embedded hardware. Big deal.
1) Unified memory architecture.
2) Close to Win32, but not quite.
3) Liberal use of hashing and checksumming.
The XBE executable format is actually pretty interesting - it's similar to Win32's PE, but with many more flags and tables - for example, bitfields for what mediums are acceptable to run the game off of (DVD, hard drive, CD-RW, etc.) Each section and the relocation address tables have a SHA-1 hash taken of it, the header containing the section offsets and hashes of each is itself hashed, digitally signed using PKE, and then encrypted.
The hard drive also uses the ATA spec's password protection, although that's already been bypassed and the drive dumped. In any case, most people with homebrew code are using the neXgen or EvoX dashboards to run an FTP server on the XBox for uploading and downloading files to the HDD, so you don't have to muck about with IDE cables.
Most of the modchips out there right now work by tying the chip enable pin on the on-board BIOS to to ground, and emulating the BIOS directly on the LPC bus to allow execution of unsigned code and ignore mismatched media flags. (BTW, kudos to MSFT for complicating things with a floating ground... more than a few early modchips were responsible for fried PCs while doing in-circuit programming.)
This topic is on fire. While the embers cool on this wildly interesting and thought provoking story that has, in may ways, changed my life, take a look at some other related reading: Nintendo's corporate IP statement. Oodles of fun. Nintendo sues you, be it state side or Soviet Russia.
There actually isn't anything interesting there.
Basically, a group of college kids built a 5Mhz CPU in an FPGA and had it drive a VGA display. They also wired an input to a NES controller.
The only interesting aspect is that they were college kids, and that this might be a cool hack for the crowd that hangs around here.
Needed to test something with regard to how it handled a web posting. Figured I either use a lame "first post" or some luser's "In Soviet Russia" post. Thanks for keeping my search for something appropriate short.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
**Just do a search for XBox emulation. It hasn't been done, and the primary reason is that the XBox game discs are written in reverse order from regular DVDs. This gives the advantage of speeding up read access because the data is read from the outside in, but also it prevents piracy.
**
xbox games are 'easy' to get from the net already.
it's not like everyone uses stuff from liksang to play imports.. so the data is readable all right.
as for the os overhead.. that's just the os. linux runs on this puppy without _that_ much tinkering away from regular pc, the memory architechture afaik isn't 'magically special','unified' or anything like that.. sure the barebones os might lack decent memory management but.. it's ms anyways.
bottom line is that it should be easier than dc, psx, ps2 or gc. and no need to waste cycles on emulating a different cpu.
though, it might be easier to do vmware of sorts of the hw and run it os data dumped from genuine xbox.. might take year(s) to happen but it will happen.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
How exactly does CASM differ from C? I don't see any ASM type code in there, it just looks like C. I realize that it isn't quite C, but hmmm... I'm interested in more details about the compiler/processor.
I came up with the idea awhile back for a group independent study project. The idea was to build a portable console, building everything from scratch. The console would have the same proportions as your tv screen, and have buttons in the same configuration as the SNES controller.
The best part is that the portable console would run nes and snes and gameboy rom files. This wouldn't be a project to market, but something to learn the intricacies of low-level programming. It would also be a fun toy for boring lectures.
Unfortunately the group I assembled to build the device voted it down and we ended up building something completely useless...
Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!
Anybody else surprised by the fact that it took 9000 lines of code. Having done similar projects in VHDL, it should take less than 1000. Looking at their code, I understand why. They did not use any of the more complex VHDL features. No generics or loops. The entire project was just poorly thought through.
Cool idea though.
Actually, being written in Reverse Order does not automatically mean that the drive "Spins in reverse".
It is true that the data is written from the outside in. This is done for the said reasons of giving the XBox a speed advantage.
The Gamecube doesn't need such advantages since the proprietary DVD based mini-disc of the Gamecube has a fairly fast seek time AND transfer rate. Of the three systems (I have all three) the Gamecube load times are the fastest by a considerable amount.
As for the XBox's unified memory architecture, it's not something games have to "make use of". It's just the way the system works. I'll agree, a huge percentage of XBox games are shovelware from either the PC or the PS2, but I promise you that Halo on a PC of equal system specs to that of an Xbox is going to run like shit even if it's a PC specific port.
I'm aware of the work being done in XBox emulation, and I follow it very closely. That's why I know it's been harder than anybody initially thought. I never claimed it was impossible or that it wouldn't be done. It will, however, take more than just a little bit of software trickery.
Whether or not the DVD's can be force-read off of a standard PC DVD rom drive through direct hardware hitting is yet to be determined, but things aren't looking good.
On a side note, it is nice to see XBox controllers finally being used on the PC. See this link if interested.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
They're still building the originals...
--"The perfect example of the man of action is the suicide." - William Carlos Williams
No, it does not read discs backwards, inside out, or back to front. Here is how a disc is layed out.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Remember back in the day when Sun was trying to push their JavaStation box? It was suppose to run a JavaOS on an Intel processor. It wasn't all that successfull.
Well, the lab I used to work at let some of the undergraduates take home the stacks of spare JavaStations we had laying around. =) The theory was that if you could install Linux and Quake on the OS, you would have a fully functioning console box, open sourced, that could run Quake. For those of you who are interested in mass producing console boxes, here are the lessons learned:
1. You need to be able to store the console operating system on an image server.
2. You need a serial port connector, or a LapLink connector, or a BOOTP enabled network card in the console box.
3. You need to install your OS on a testing machine, and strip down all of the extra functionallity (notepad, emacs, vi, and everything else). This is the process of optimizing your open source operating system. Set up the console box as you would a normal gaming system.
4. Take an image of the machine with some product, such as Altiris LabExpert.
5. Push the basic OS onto new machines, as needed.
6. Write documentation, develop games, etc.
7. Get a CD burner and burn games onto the CDs.
8. Package machines and CDs (seperately, probably).
9. Sell machines at cost plus a markup for time and effort.
10. Attempt to do a few things well and specialize.
The graphics: impressive.
The nintendo for a case: most impressive.
The fact that they use the word 'foo' in the tetris source code: pure credibility
It's hard to tell the cool to chill, my favorite hotel room has a view to an ill.
Being written closer to the outter edges of a disc is an old trick even some PC games do. It's done normally by padding the innermost portion of the disc with empty contents, and then writing the real (relevent) content in files closer to the outside.
It is not new, and it is not special.
As I recall, the ColecoVision was made with completely off-the-shelf parts. Wouldn't be too difficult to re-build one of those things. It was probably one of the few video game consoles that you could actually rebuild from scratch.
I think. My memory is pretty hazy and I haven't openned mine up in years.
J
Way back when, I had the mixed blessing of working in sufficiently advanced enough laboratories, that I got certified as a systems engineer on Windows NT operating systems. So, I happen to be certified in this area of work, and know something about the process by which one makes console machines. Work I was doing included overhauling Windows to make thin client email stations at our university, which were actually quite similar to console gaming machines. One of the major differences is that thin clients email stations typically use network protocols and network file systems, whereas consoles use compact disk protocols and compact disk file systems. (Ethernet versus Sneakernet)
Anyhow, you have to realize that 'mod' is perhaps a poor choice of words in regards to how one would probably go about making a homebrew X-Box. I would suggest using the term 'lockdown'. In priciple, and in practice, the only thing that really needs to be done is the following:
1. Set up a gaming machine at home. Try using a pizza box or laptop.
2. Install drivers for your gaming controls. Control pads, voice recognition, video drivers, compact disk drivers, et al. Some good links to get started:
Sense8 - The WorldToolKit has the best device driver support that I've seen.
Immersion - Good starting point for haptics, game controllers, etc.
Voip-Calculator gets you started on voice over internet protocol.
Nero - gets you started on CD File System layouts.
Altiris - gets you started on image pushing.
3. Design your filesystem.
4. Get the basic configuration working such that it plays an off-the-shelf XBox game.
5. Make a backup image of your gaming station.
6. Delete all unnecessary files, remove all unnecessary subsystems. Lockdown the system until it does nothing other than run the game on the CD when you put it into the tray.
6. Make backup images of your station as needed.
7. When done, remove unnecessary hardware (floppy drive, keyboard, etc).
8. Push image from server onto new consoles with similar configuration as (7).
Now then, you may be asking 'Homebrew'? This sounds like a major operation! This is a going to cost a fortune! Well, yes and no. Yes, M$ is a for-profit company, which seeks to make money. Yes, if you went through this process, you could probably start-up a company which makes it's own console boxes which are XBox compatible. No, this isn't open-source and freeware technology. Yes, you could probably assemble a homebrew XBox by using these links, this process, a Windows 2000 operating system, and PC parts.
The benefit: You know enough to design games and accessories for the XBox market. Do something like make a stereoscopic VR hack of Halo, utilizing Immersion gloves, and CrystalEyes goggles. Submit the concept to M$, become a business partner, and sell immersive visualization systems to XBox consumers, or something.
Halo was orignally developed for the PC..then hijacked for Xbox.. I doubt the code requires xbox memory hacks.
I love projects like this. May just the fact that they succeeded inspire others to try the same thing.
On a tangent, this is the kind of thing that's been very possible for some time, but most people blindly assume that it's much too difficult. Similarly, writing a compiler for a high level language is a relatively easy project. You could do it in a semester course, or a month of spare time, but mention "writing a compiler" to the great majority of programmers, even those with lots of experience, and they run away in terror.
Personal chip design reached critical mass back around 1994.
Disk format is never really an issue. There is always someone out there that can figure out how to read the disc and rip the data from those discs. Once ripped the data can be used by anyone.
I've heard some people working on making XBox games work under Wine/Linux. As the XBox has a much smaller/stable subset of Windows OS this might be fairly easy to accomplish. I see some work being done on emulation under Windows also. Given the average time it takes to develop a good emulator it's really not taking that long to develop one for the Xbox.
I don't really see the point of emulating the XBox and I'd like to see an open sourced console that can run Linux-based games. I've thought of using a hdd-free Mini-ITX system for such a system. It wouldn't push the envelope but it'd be decently powerful while remaining affordable, low power, and cool. Could use USB-based joysticks with it and it supports both vga and tv output and has a built-in ethernet port.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
That's a lot of trouble to go to for Tetris (if I went to that much trouble, I'd rather play it with the lights of a building or something geekier like that :)
:]
In the mean time, I'll just use an emulator (see sig)
HALO was originally developed for the Mac, then MS bought Bungie.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
All your Soviet Russias belong to us
What? XBox isn't emulated? GameCube wins again...
It's funny. Laugh.
I've always to assemble a MegaTouch... those dopey trivia/photo hunt machines you see at bars and airports. I know the MegaTouch XL used commodity 486 hardware and appears to boot off a CD, but apparently there's a proprietary PROM and a "Dallas" security key that I know nothing about. Anyone ever get ahold of a MegaTouch CD and mess around with it?
please mod the parent up, that's the best homework excuse i've heard in years xD
go on please, just for me..
I just read through the Final Report pdf that is available on the site. Hopefully the report is not complete yet, because I found very obvious spelling mistakes in the first few pages. "garanteed" and "compontents" to name a couple... I'm no spelling guru, but I don't want these guys to lose precious marks from improper English. On the first or second page, one sentence ends with ",." Hopefully the authors are reading /. so they can fix it up before submitting it. Maybe I will email them.
And they have every right to.
Which is why when I refer to the tetramino game in the generic, I call it the tetramino game. In the same way, the game played on a Hasbro(R) SORRY!(R) board is called "slide pursuit", a variation of the earlier game "ludo" played on a Popomatic Trouble(R) board. I was in a way responding to the fact that this article called the game "Tetris(R)".
That's why smart inventors are very careful with what they name their inventions
Of course, Google makes it much easier nowadays to do a search for possible trademark collisions.
and are sure to get the trademark before going to market.
Actually, to get a trademark registration in the United States, you must have already used the mark in interstate commerce, or you must be able to prove a "good faith intent" (the details of which I do not know because I am not a lawyer) to use the mark in interstate commerce.
Will I retire or break 10K?
It is more difficult than you think, primarily because the XBOX uses a unified memory architecture (CPU and video memory share the same memory), which is quite different than the set up on PCs.
Yeah and so does every console. I once heard someone say the N64 was "practically unemulatable" because of the high bandwidth of the cpu to gpu and the RAMBUS memory. Well... Been there done that...
Since the system is MS's own design, I'm sure it is using standard DirectX calls. So you just have to intercept and re-route. The memory bottleneck won't be as bad as you think.
I'm sure you'll see "XBOX Emulators" for PCs, but don't expect one to actually run games well for about 2 years.
Now that does sound about right. Judging from most consoles, it takes about 3 years before a really good one comes out.
OK, I admire the guy's ambitition but that code is horrible! In an attempt to optimize multiplication by powers of two, he defines macros that perform the necessary number of add operations.
Even a newbie knows you do this with right shift!
#define MULT_2(value) ((value) > 1)
I suppose his method has the advantage of working with floating point...
I had a Javastation. I sold it earlier this year because I needed the money. Both Javastations (the ones known as MrCoffee, and the ones know as Krups) used Sparc processors.
The MrCoffee JavaStation (the one that looked like a Sun 611 drive case) was essentially a diskless SS5 in a smaller case, and a tweaked PROM.
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me.
I was under the impression that the Javastations used Intel processors, which is why they didn't run Solaris. You may very well be correct.
And perhaps the difficulty in running linux on it was that one had to compile a sparc linux. Which makes sense, because I didn't have an extra sparc workstation laying around to build the linux build on for the java station. And hence, I went onto other projects.
Thanks for the correction. It's been awhile since I worked on that project.
Thats true, but the xbox doesn't read inside out, which is what we're talking about.
And it's a less relevant kludge on a DVD, seek time is lower on the inner edge, and throughput blows CDs away no matter where on the disk you are.. (The old CAV 8x at the inside, 48x at the outside doesnt apply nearly as much)
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
First, there is Solaris for Intel.
Second, there was rumored to be an internal port of Solaris to the Javastation. It probably wouldn't have been hard.
Third, I'm told that if you want to run Java on a Javastation, you will get better performance by netbooting Linux and running your Java there that you would have on JavaOS. However, I still would have liked to have been able to get a copy of JavaOS to try. It sounded neat.
Anyway, by now there are precompiled Linux's for the Javastation floating around. I just never got around to finishing setting up my boot server (got BOOTP and something else running to boot the OS loader that allows more boot options, but never got the rest of the stuff installed on the server), then, as I said, I needed the cash.
I now have a Sun ELC that I'm trying to get netbooting. However, I'm being held up because I gave away what turned out to be my last spare tranceiver (I thought I had another spare around). Someday.
I love old Sun gear. I have a 3/160, a 3/280, and a 3/80. Plus an IPX, SS Classic, and Ultra1. I used to have a SS2, but I gave it to someone more needing of it. I still want to get a SS10 with the ZX board, which was the setup of the first 3D workstation I ever used. Ahh, good times.
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me.
The N64 is STILL practically unemulatable. The N64 emulators out there don't actually emulate the hardware, for the most part, they simple have rewritten many of the API routines from Nintendo's dev tools to x86 code. That's why there's still no N64 "emulator" with anywhere near full compatibility with all games. Most play a few key games well, like Zelda, Mario, etc, but fail with the majority of 3rd party games. So why don't you try learning about what you're talking about before you talk, bitch?
Agreed on all accounts. I think I even have one of those precompiled linux for Javastation somewhere around my house. I, too, never got around to setting up my boot server. Got a BOOTP server setup and running for a computing cluster we installed at college, but never got it working at home. (I must admit that it's pretty cool to watch 100 workstations, fresh out of the shipping packages, go through a BOOTP launch for the first time. It's kind of like conducting an orchestra, but with video monitors.)
Honestly, Ultra1 is as far back as my memory goes. Got to set up a quad processor Ultra80, which was pretty darn cool. Sounds like you've been in the industry longer than I have.
ME: It is true that the data is written from the outside in.
STRATJAKT: but the xbox doesn't read inside out
Am I missing something here?
If it's NOT reading from the outer edges, and it's not reading form the inner edge, where DOES it read the data from? I've seen printed material that says it reads from the outer most edges for speed advantages. It may have been in err, I won't argue with that possibility.
Even the link you provided clearly says the TOC is written in such a way that it misleads the drive about the amount of data on the disc. If I remember correctly the Lead-In is on the inner most edge. The lead-in contains the Table of Contents which extends to 50 mm from center on a regular CD (as per the redbook spec). After the lead in, is the data area, but it doesn't have to extend immediately.
I have read both in print and online that the data area was stored outside of the area laid out by the TOC to make copying harder as it makes it appear as if there is less data on the disc than there really is.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
In Soviet Russia, something with regard to how it handled a web posting needs to test you...
As for the XBox's unified memory architecture, it's not something games have to "make use of". It's just the way the system works. I'll agree, a huge percentage of XBox games are shovelware from either the PC or the PS2, but I promise you that Halo on a PC of equal system specs to that of an Xbox is going to run like shit even if it's a PC specific port.
Woah. What? The unified memory architecture isn't a benefit of the XBox - it's a drawback - a limitation. The graphics chipset has to access main memory along with the processor. All other modern consoles have segmented memory.
Also, the GC also reads outside in. Main reason is for copy protection, not for speed.
I want to see the controller from Steel Battalion on the PC. It would be great with MW4. The regular XBox controllers are only so-so, IMHO.
Murphy was an optimist.
Let me remind you old folks with the Altair (still in the basement) about something. Computer Engineering is not just a hobby or a club which you are qualified to join if you built a computer from the transistors up (or trio-tubes as the case may be). It is a legitamate industry and profession, as you well know.
Russ may not have designed the IC with VLSI, but he and his team designed the ALU, Registers, Datapath, Control, Memory Interface, VGA controller, DAC (if he used one), and gamepad controller, not to mention writing their own assembly that would translate to IntelMCS format, oh...and the code itself. I am sure it took more than 2 weeks to do this. Besides how many of you started by building a transistor radio? That doesn't seem to be anything cool by today's standards. Are you afraid that us younguns' are gonna pass you by?
On a redeeming note, THANK YOU ancient ones! Were it not for your tenacity and ingenuity (some a result of quick fixes ie. 8086->8088) we young wippersnappers would not be where we are today. Were it not for your concrete and cement, we greenies would have to travel in muddy rut-filled roads!
By the way, for an outlined plan of what Russ did, check out this site Computer Design It may not be up much longer since the semester is over. Maybe you guys could get an XESS board and do it too, instead of stamping out the creativity in this poor undergraduate's mind! Oh yeah, nobody's going to pay you to do it either!
Quick, somebody write a MESS driver for this!
Omnes arx vestrum sunt adiuncta nobis.