Video Game SDK in Hardware

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Posted by Zonk on Thursday October 21, 2004 @04:45AM from the pong-in-60-minutes-just-add-nerd dept.

stm2 writes "Alex Varanese just released the XGameStation, a new homebrew video game system designed to teach its users how to build and program their own video game machines from the ground up. From their PR: "The expansive eBook, written by LaMothe himself, covers everything from introductory electronic theory all the way up to computer architecture, as well as a complete coverage of each of the XGS ME's subsystems. Imagine learning everything about how a video game console is built and programmed from scratch: designing and printing circuit boards, generating TV signals, external device interfacing, and much more.". They have two posters, as well."

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Does it have a chapter by BigChigger · 2004-10-21 04:58 · Score: 1

on DRM?

BC
ZSNES, I chose you! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-21 05:02 · Score: 0

Anyone know how this hardwre stacks up against a Super Nintendo? I bet a lot of emulation fans would love to program one of these to run old game ROM's.
1. Re:ZSNES, I chose you! by Vaevictis666 · 2004-10-21 05:22 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Anyone know how this hardwre stacks up against a Super Nintendo? I bet a lot of emulation fans would love to program one of these to run old game ROM's.
  I'm not sure about this Micro Edition, but the one they were planning back in the day was somewhere between NES and SNES in power. If you want to do SNES roms stick with a modded XBox. Nes emulation would likely be difficult (not to mention complicated with all the video modes) but I'm sure "classic" consoles like the Atari and ZX Spectrum could probably be emulated.
  Of course, the purpose is to give a good platform and supporting documentation so individual hobbyists can get a feel for what it was like to code for consoles in the NES era, when often it was one coder plus one artist (if not just one coder doing it all) working on a game, trying to get the absolute most out of the system.
2. Re:ZSNES, I chose you! by Richard · 2004-10-21 05:28 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Tough to tell how it stacks up - looks like the processing power blows away an SNES, but the graphics may be nowhere near as good.
  
  From http://www.xgamestation.com/faq.php#a10 :
  
  " Q:
  What can the XGameStation Micro Edition hardware do? How powerful is it?
  
  A:
  The raw processing power of the XGameStation Micro Edition is approximately 40x that of the Nintendo (NES) or 20X that of a Super Nintendo, 50x that of an Atari 800 and it's graphical capabilities are similar to the Atari 2600, that is a directly controlled raster stream allowing pixel level timing and color control via software loops."
  
  -Richard Campbell.
  
  --
  -Richard
3. Re:ZSNES, I chose you! by jfisherwa · 2004-10-21 08:02 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  This doesn't necessarily mean that the graphic capabilities are worse than the NES or SNES, but that the system includes no GPU or built-in modes for handling sprites and such.
  
  The direct pixel-level control via software basically dictates that the resolution/quality depends on your ability to correctly utilize the CPU according to your needs, which in no way implies that all of your games will look like the Atari 2600 at best.
  
  It's a very DIY solution, and not at all unlike what game developers of the 80's had to go through to squeeze the last ounce of performance out of those machines.
4. Re:ZSNES, I chose you! by bhtooefr · 2004-10-21 08:11 · Score: 1
  
  However, it's got expansion, so you could develop a GPU module for it...
5. Re:ZSNES, I chose you! by tepples · 2004-10-21 11:34 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  The direct pixel-level control via software basically dictates that the resolution/quality depends on your ability to correctly utilize the CPU according to your needs, which in no way implies that all of your games will look like the Atari 2600 at best.
  
  At 80 MHz and a typical horizontal resolution of 7.2 MHz (roughly 320 pixels per scanline), this leaves only 11 cycles per pixel. I'd like to see what kind of sprite compositing engine you can implement on a microcontroller in 11 cycles per pixel.
6. Re:ZSNES, I chose you! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-22 05:45 · Score: 0
  
  there are other ways of getting a feel for what making NES games was like...
  
  http://bobrost.com/nes/
Alex Who? by Vaevictis666 · 2004-10-21 05:07 · Score: 2, Interesting

Who is this Alex Varanese person? I've been watching the XGS since back when it was due out for XMas last year, and I thought it was mostly just LaMothe behind it... Book, Hardware, Site, and all.
1. Re:Alex Who? by DigitalBubblebath · 2004-10-21 11:56 · Score: 1
  
  He's an all-round talented guy going by the name of Liquidex. He had a book previously...
2. Re:Alex Who? by DigitalBubblebath · 2004-10-21 12:02 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Er, that link would be here. Also I'm sure he was involved in XGS from the beginning.
$200? by ivan256 · 2004-10-21 05:33 · Score: 1

What if you just want the eBook and you don't care about the hardware or the other stuff that comes in the $199 package? $199 is a little pricy for an eBook. I didn't even pay that much for my Knuth set.
1. Re:$200? by pavon · 2004-10-21 06:49 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  The whole point of this kit is to learn by doing and the if you don't have the XGS, you can't do anything, so large sections of the book will be useless to you. There are other books that are better for learning abstract hardware architecture that are not tied to a specific platform like this one.
2. Re:$200? by torpor · 2004-10-21 08:08 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Yeah, no kidding.
  
  The book is a great read, but whats more fun is looking back in a year at the little pile of junk in the corner, with its 240 game titles, and realizing 'holy shit, i wrote all those'.
  
  This is exotic hardware, and while it isn't necessarily 'powerful' in the same sense as some PC archictures (you know, where there are millions of programmers to compete with), the fact remains that the neverending attempt at defeating Moores Law resonating through PC-land is a sure-fire way of losing all the fun in life.
  
  This little box, with its tight fittings, is something fun to do something fun with. To be continued ...
  
  --
  ; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
3. Re:$200? by ivan256 · 2004-10-21 08:44 · Score: 1, Interesting
  
  Yeah, but I want to do the hardware building part, most likely with my own little tweaks and such. What fun is that if it comes with a ready made one?
  
  It looks like they made a great little home-brew machine with a simple two layer board that I could mill and drill on my home CNC and drill press, and an eBook explaining why they made the decisions they made so you'd have a head start on deciding which tweaks you could make.
  
  They bill this SDK as a "System Development Kit" instead of a "Software Development Kit", but then they go ahead and give you the system already developed and built. That's no fun.
4. Re:$200? by togofspookware · 2004-10-21 08:59 · Score: 1
  
  Less fun, maybe. But after my bad experience putting together this 8051 kit for my EE class (and having it not work, likely due to my lack of soldering sk1llz), I think I'll be buying my electronics pre-assembled for a while...
  
  But I do agree that they should give you the option of just buying the book.
  
  Anyway, I've got 4 gmail invites. Respond below if interested.
  
  --
  Duct tape, XML, democracy: Not doing the job? Use more.
5. Re:$200? by kiljoy001 · 2004-10-21 16:12 · Score: 1
  
  I hear you, soldering can be the most fustrating thing to do when trying to assemble electronics... not to mention buring one's self too lol! (I wouldn't mind a gmail account).
6. Re:$200? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-22 03:47 · Score: 0
  
  > (I wouldn't mind a gmail account).
  
  e-mail me: chumps_53705 at yahoo dot com
Windows-only IDE by byolinux · 2004-10-21 05:35 · Score: 3, Insightful

Bang goes most of the potential geeks, I'd reckon.

Shame, really. Seems rather cool, I'd buy one if it didn't mean giving up my freedom, just to use it.

--
Join the Free Software Foundation
1. Re:Windows-only IDE by slapout · 2004-10-21 05:50 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe they're trying to recuit new geeks :-)
  
  --
  Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Phantom by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-21 06:20 · Score: 1, Funny

I wonder if the system covers:

1) Starting up a website,generating hype, and bilking investors out of cash.

2) "creating" a fake console out of a shoebox or dumb pc case

3) Slagging third party websites and suing them.

4) Delaying the whole process so that your scam becomes freaking obvious. Cmon, go offshore with the cash already.

If it does, I'm in!

See http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NTEy
A repeat - 2 months to the day, by RocketJeff · 2004-10-21 06:41 · Score: 2, Interesting

but with less information content...
Andre Lamothe Launches XGameStation
Might Be A Nice Teaching Tool by blueZhift · 2004-10-21 06:49 · Score: 4, Insightful

The XGS might be a pretty good teaching tool. I could see building a community college or high school video game programming course around the platform. Another good way to promote the platform would be through development contests perhaps sponsored by the likes of Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. Of the three, Microsoft might be the most enthusiastic since the dev kit runs under Windows. Also MS would probably love to be able to identify and secure new talent quickly. I think Sony's Net Yaroze program actually did turn up a few gems.

The main problem I see right now is whether or not there is enough of a market for XGS to be profitable at all. The hardcore hobbyist development market already has a variety of kits for developing on the Dreamcast, modded Xboxes, and I think all of the earlier generation consoles and even handhelds. And the kits and tools come at little or no cost. The only things that generally cost money are mod chips and cables. So I don't think the XGS would be that attractive to anyone who is already in the homebrew game.

--
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Pretty decent. by pragma_x · 2004-10-21 07:33 · Score: 3, Interesting

A quick cruise of their product info tells it all.

- 80 Mhz processor
- Sound chip programmable like a C64 SID
- NTSC *and* PAL capable in the same module
- Atari Joystick ports *and* RS232 ports.
- Expansion Port / Cartridge Slot
- Built in Debugging Support
- 128K SRAM
- "4Kx12 WORD" onboard Flash Ram

For a learning kit this thing is fantastic. For the more adventurous hobbyist, its seriously lacking in features.

Still I was hoping for at least stereo sound, more ram and crude 3D capabilities; something more like a playstation instead of an NES. The price is right for all the stuff you get with it, you're stuck making tetris clones and rewriting MULE all afternoon.
1. Re:Pretty decent. by CodeWanker · 2004-10-21 07:37 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  On the other hand, what better way for a hobbyist game programmer to show his virtuosity than when under serious resource constraints? Venture R0X0R3D (IMHO) and you ought to be able to do something like that with this...
  
  --
  
  "Wow. Now THAT'S a lot of angry Indians." - Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer
2. Re:Pretty decent. by alienw · 2004-10-21 15:12 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  That's a bit of a waste of time, though. Why recreate something that was state of the art in 1970 today? Do people not think regular PCs impose enough constraints or something? If you want to write vintage games, what's wrong with a regular PC? This is only useful as a platform for learning hardware and a pretty mediocre one at that.
3. Re:Pretty decent. by kiljoy001 · 2004-10-21 16:21 · Score: 1
  
  It's more or less reliving an era than a teaching tool. However, like most things it's all up to you on how you want to use it. Some folks want to no only learn how to make games, but to see how they were made back then. And to be honest, this system is a bit more powerful than something out of 70's. Just vist the home page and snoop around a bit, I can think easily of some old school snes/genesis games that could be remade on that.
4. Re:Pretty decent. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-21 20:51 · Score: 0
  
  There is a great pleasure when you fully understand everything going under your running code.
  
  This is a pleasure I had back in the 80's when coding assembly games on Apple ][, TRS-80 or even, ST.
  
  This is totally lost with today's hardware.
  
  It is an art form.
  
  You probably can't understand that.
  
  But it doesn't mean it is useless.
5. Re:Pretty decent. by alienw · 2004-10-22 04:35 · Score: 1
  
  It's not that hard to fully understand how a modern program operates. It's just that you can actually create much richer abstractions with things like object-oriented programming. Instead of thinking in terms of the microprocessor (twiddling bits and shuffling registers), you can think in terms of the game world (monsters, treasures, whatever). This is also an art form, and a more sophisticated one at that.
  
  Of course, if you want to spend a year programming a shitty pong clone for hardware that is too l33t to have a framebuffer, more power to you. To me, it seems like boring, tedious, and counterproductive work with no payoff whatsoever.
6. Re:Pretty decent. by alienw · 2004-10-22 04:49 · Score: 1
  
  The thing is, this hardware does not have anything near the capabilities of even the NES. It has a ridiculously fast CPU but no hardware support for anything but sound. Which pretty much means you have to do just about everything (including generating the NTSC signal) in software. Pac-man is probably the most sophisticated game that could be programmed on this hardware.
  
  Something like the SNES platform would be a lot more interesting to a vintage game developer wannabe. The SNES had a slow CPU, but it had a lot more memory and very powerful graphics and sound hardware. The 2D graphics hardware on the SNES was substantially more complex than the 2D subsystem of a modern PC videocard. Something like this would be a lot more fun to develop for. Even a simple Mario clone for the xgamestation would be pushing its boundaries.
7. Re:Pretty decent. by merlin_jim · 2004-10-22 06:15 · Score: 1
  
  Not that there's anything wrong with rewriting MULE. Personally I'd love to see a slightly more open MMO game based on it. The only real addition to the model would be to have multiple town centers, and let the players do inter-center trading themselves (for whatever profit they can eke out)
  
  --
  I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
8. Re:Pretty decent. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-22 21:51 · Score: 0
  
  [about OO]
  > This is also an art form, and a more sophisticated one at that.
  
  Art forms don't replace each other (and sophistication have /nothing/ to do with the validity of an art form, thanks $DEITY).
  
  > It's just that you can actually create much richer abstractions with things like object-oriented programming.
  
  That's a totally different thing. You're saying you take pleasure at looking at abstraction in motion. Great. I do too.
  
  But it doesn't invalidate the fact that some people /aslo/ take pleasure at looking at a system they fully understand. For instance, I do (yep. I like both. And the best thing is when I look at a big abstraction that I undestand /fully/. Like running IB in Mac OS X).
  
  (And, btw, I am ashamed by the number of oo developer that don't grasp the fundamental difference between a virtual C++ member function and an ObjC method. This is what I meant when I implied that developers generally don't understand much, these days...)
  
  Btw, I you love OO abstraction, play with squeak. It is mind-blowing. And can be fully understood in a matter of weeks.
  
  As a post scriptum:
  
  > It's not that hard to fully understand how a modern program operates
  
  I disagree.
  
  Take a piece of code. Try to guess how many time it'll go in kernel mode. Take a modern program. Explain me what is occuring at launch time (I mean how are shared library found and loaded. Give me an estimate of how much disk-access are done. Not to optimize, but only to *know* how it work. To be able to wrap your mind around the sysetm when it starts.) How are cross-lib function calls implemented ? Can you guess how many soft-page faults are done during execution ?
  
  Of course, you'll argue those are details. My point is that if you pretend knowing *fully* how you program operate, you should know those details.
  
  Or you definition of 'fully' is more like 'roughly'...
9. Re:Pretty decent. by sydres · 2004-10-25 02:38 · Score: 1
  
  Well I don't know About 3d but I'd think about buying this if it had 256k sram and 1 or 2 megs of flash it does not cost that much after all, where you going to get a cartridge for this beast unless you brew your own anyhow
10. Re:Pretty decent. by sydres · 2004-10-25 02:42 · Score: 1
  
  do you whant to learn assembly on something as complex as a p4 or athlon though you could stick to the 386mode assembly plus modern game programming is mostly about writing an engine then created 3d graphics or I suppose 2d graphics
No... by Moth7 · 2004-10-21 07:49 · Score: 1

But it covers suing those who make "false" claims against you on that basis ;-)
Agreed. by pragma_x · 2004-10-21 07:50 · Score: 1

Ah yes... I was thinking that too. Especially when half the screenshots on their main page are all demo effects. ;)

I wonder if we're going to see an XGS category at Assembly next summer?
Re:Windows-only IDE: how about WINE? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-21 08:55 · Score: 0

I'm not sure how serious you are. I certainly prefer open-source, and I don't like the way MS abuses intellectual property laws, but dude, lighten up! Personally I'm going to write a game called Golden Handcuffs, oh wait that's what I'm living
But the real question is... by kiljoy001 · 2004-10-21 16:38 · Score: 1

Does it run linux ? BSD ? Plan 9 ? Is it compatiable with the above ?
You know, I'll be honest by Mechaniork · 2004-10-22 02:00 · Score: 1

I'm smart, but I'm way too dumb to figure out how to use that.

--
~~"How can you have a war on Terror? It's not even a noun!" -Jon Stewart~~
That would miss the point... by Millennium · 2004-10-22 02:37 · Score: 1

The point of the system is to be at a retro level of power, so that you are forced to learn to optimize and such. If the things you'd asked for had been implemented -particularly the RAM- it would have "spoiled" the developers.

That's the opinion of the makers of the system, at at any rate. Whether or not you agree with them is up to you, but I have to say I have a hard time disagreeing. As for saying this system is only good for Tetris clones and MULE, though, I think you're sorely mistaken.