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Programming Entertainment Games Hardware IT Technology

Video Game SDK in Hardware 40

Posted by Zonk 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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Video Game SDK in Hardware More

Video Game SDK in Hardware

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  • Alex Who? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Vaevictis666 ( 680137 ) on Thursday October 21, 2004 @01:07PM (#10589019)
    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.
  • 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.

    • Re:$200? (Score:3, Informative)

      by pavon ( 30274 )
      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:$200? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by torpor ( 458 )
        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 th

      • Re:$200? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by ivan256 ( 17499 ) *
        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

        • Less fun, maybe. But after my bad experience putting together this 8051 kit [pjrc.com] 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.

          • 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).

  • Windows-only IDE (Score:4, Insightful)

    by byolinux ( 535260 ) * on Thursday October 21, 2004 @01:35PM (#10589485) Journal
    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.

  • Phantom (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    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 [hardocp.com]
  • but with less information content...

    Andre Lamothe Launches XGameStation [slashdot.org]

  • Might Be A Nice Teaching Tool (Score:5, Insightful)

    by blueZhift ( 652272 ) on Thursday October 21, 2004 @02:49PM (#10590599) Homepage Journal
    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 [wikipedia.org] 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.

  • Pretty decent. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pragma_x ( 644215 ) on Thursday October 21, 2004 @03:33PM (#10591076) Journal
    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.

    • Re:Pretty decent. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by CodeWanker ( 534624 )
      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...
      • 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 [assembly.org] next summer?

      • Re:Pretty decent. (Score:3, Interesting)

        by alienw ( 585907 )
        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.
        • 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.
          • 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 h
        • 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
    • 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.
    • 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)
    • 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
  • Does it run linux ? BSD ? Plan 9 ? Is it compatiable with the above ?
  • I'm smart, but I'm way too dumb to figure out how to use that.

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