Video Game SDK in Hardware

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."

Comments

Re:ZSNES, I chose you!

[Richard]

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.

Re:$200?

[pavon]

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.

Re:Alex Who?

[DigitalBubblebath]

Er, that link would be here. Also I'm sure he was involved in XGS from the beginning.