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Games Entertainment Hardware

Do-It-Yourself-Game-Console 237

Posted by CmdrTaco from the but-i-just-wanna-play-doa dept.
DrCarbonite writes "Andre' LaMothe is releasing a brand new game console, the XGAMESTATION which may fulfill the fantasies of Slashdot readers everywhere. 16-bit Motorola CPU with a graphics architecture "similar to the Commodore 64, Atari 800, and Apple II". Its an electronics kit being marketed as a game system that wants to be hacked/modded/rebuilt. It supports homebrew everything-- joystick adapters, displays, software, roms, the whole nine yards."
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Do-It-Yourself-Game-Console More

Do-It-Yourself-Game-Console

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  • Slashdot dreams (Score:5, Funny)

    by RealBeanDip ( 26604 ) on Sunday August 10, 2003 @10:09AM (#6659293)
    "a brand new game console, the XGAMESTATION which may fulfill the fantasies of Slashdot readers everywhere"

    Does it come with a girlfriend?

  • Modding? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dylan2000 ( 592069 ) on Sunday August 10, 2003 @10:12AM (#6659302) Homepage
    I thought the whole point of hacking and modding was making the hardware do something it wasn't designed to do.

    And this is cool because lots of people have these machines and can recognise the hack.

    A machine which is designed to be hacked and modded, that almost nobody will buy (compared to ps2/Gamecube/Xbox)?
    Excuse me while I go and 'mod' my Amiga 500...

    • Re:Modding? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by xyvimur ( 268026 ) <koo3ahziNO@SPAMhulboj.org> on Sunday August 10, 2003 @10:55AM (#6659458) Homepage
      ``And this is cool because lots of people have these machines and can recognise the hack.''
      I agree, but... Think about new generation growing up - some of them of course will get some of modern consoles (ps2 etc). Some part of them will have an idea to do something not conventional with it (hack). But probably not - most of them will become games addict etc.
      And for example if such young person will get a piece of electronics (that look really cool - like electronics stuff) he may feel the spirit and do something, then noone says that he will not switch to hacking xbox'es and other stuff!
  • ...which may fulfill the fantasies of Slashdot readers everywhere. 16-bit Motorola CPU with a graphics architecture "similar to the Commodore 64, Atari 800, and Apple II" ...as long as your fantasy isn't to run GTA3: Vice City.

  • Finally.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by levik ( 52444 ) on Sunday August 10, 2003 @10:13AM (#6659307) Homepage
    A nice, hackable, homebrew-friendly system with a game library slightly bigger than the Mac.

  • Fantasies? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Chicane-UK ( 455253 ) <chicane-uk@@@ntlworld...com> on Sunday August 10, 2003 @10:14AM (#6659311) Homepage
    16-bit Motorola CPU with a graphics architecture "similar to the Commodore 64, Atari 800, and Apple II"

    Heh.. obviously the majority of Slashdot readers don't have particularly high expectations for games consoles then ;)

    If you think the Commodore 64 was good, you guys are REALLY gonna be bowled over by the Nintendo NES! And hey, they take the in-game graphics off Sega Megadrive games and put em STRAIGHT into the movies ;)

    Sorry - just a bit of sarcasm for the afternoon :)

    • Hey, hey, hey... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Sunday August 10, 2003 @10:49AM (#6659439) Homepage
      Heh.. obviously the majority of Slashdot readers don't have particularly high expectations for games consoles then ;)

      There are plenty of awesome games that were nowhere to be found on the NES. Many, in fact, were exclusive to home computer systems, or the non-Nintendo consoles (!) of that era.

      Where was Robotron 2084 for the NES? The original Boulder Dash (Apple II had it in 1981, NES didn't get it until 1990)? Ballblazer? Night Mission Pinball? Galaxian? Swashbuckler? Battlezone? Sargon III (way before NES had chess)? Joust (not until 1988)? Hard Hat Mack? Defender? Montezuma's Revenge? Miner 2049er?

      I still have my Apple II Plus, and am able to play all of the above.
      • The original Boulder Dash (Apple II had it in 1981

        Nope. Boulder Dash was first released in 1983 for the Atari 800, then ported to other systems. So it wasn't available for the Apple II in 1981.
      • I still haven't seen the original Zork series for console play. Bummer, IMO they are the best games ever made. I really like playing my lil text adventure games. :)

    • Right show me any of those with full documentation, all the necessary gear, tutorials and current support for $99 in one package.

      Price taken from the FAQ

      Oh you can't? Geez, I am suprised. :)

      I would have agreed with you perhaps if they weren't upfront, unlike any of the consoles you mention about what hardware is inside. It is clearly mentioned that the cpu is a 16 bit 25 mhz ancient motorola. Anyone with a brain can see this is barely going to compete with the gameboy (the original) it comes with more

    • Re:Fantasies? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by AndroidCat ( 229562 )
      similar to the Commodore 64, Atari 800, and Apple II

      It gets closer than that. It's got a socket for an additional 65816 CPU (high-speed, 16-bit 6502 CPU), although the 68HCS12 @ 25 MHz could probably emulate a 6502 well enough.

      Run your old favourites... if you really wanted to.

    • This system isn't to run amazing graphics that will put other systems to shame. It's also not here to show off it's computing muscle. What is it for then? It's to LEARN! The book tells you how to build a game system from the bottom up. Sure, you can go out and buy a cheap DreamCast and make games for it but that isn't what XGameStation is about. To quote what Alex Varanese who is helping Andre out with this:

      The difference is that the Dreamcast won't come with a book that teaches you digital enginee

    • Re:Fantasies? (Score:2, Informative)

      by LocalH ( 28506 )
      • If you think the Commodore 64 was good, you guys are REALLY gonna be bowled over by the Nintendo NES!

      Of course the C64 was good. Way better graphics capabilities than the NES. Don't think so? I beg to differ. [demodungeon.com] Especially check out the Crest demos. Digital Magic has some of the best graphics to date on the C64, and it's all stock, no hardware mods.

      Can the NES display graphics outside the 'normal' screen? Can the NES stretch a sprite vertically up to the entire length of the screen? Sure, the C64's multic

    • Actually the graphic system is just similar to all these. He borrows the best parts of many early consoles and throws them all together. The actual graphics capabilities, according to the site, will be 50% to 200% better than an SNES. That's not too shabby for $99

  • It's about time! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Mostly Harmless ( 48610 ) <mike_pete@nospAM.yahoo.com> on Sunday August 10, 2003 @10:20AM (#6659329) Homepage
    I can't wait for the new XGameStation category to show up on sourceforge/freshmeat/download.com. Maybe now it the time for companies like RedHat to come out with their own gaming accessories. They'll just have to be careful, though... SCO will probably find a way to sue them, too.

  • Andre LaMothe (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dodell ( 83471 ) <dodellNO@SPAMsitetronics.com> on Sunday August 10, 2003 @10:20AM (#6659332) Homepage
    I remember buying one of those silly "Teach Yourself Game Programming in 21 Days" books by this guy. I was like 12 at the time, and barely knew what QBasic was. I didn't care, I just wanted to make games because it sounded cool.

    To my dismay, I didn't understand the C code. I recently opened the pages of this book and read it. It was surprisingly coherent and well written (and up-to-date for its time).

    This sounds like a pretty neat thing and sounds like another plug for Andre to get another book deal, even if there's an eBook included (or it could be because someone wanted to play frogger and thought it'd be cool to get Andre's name on the console).

    How does one transfer the software to the cartrige though? I don't see a programmer included in the hardware details on the about page, nor do I see that the console can be used to program the card.

    This will be fun, though. As I'm only 19, I'm not old enough to remember the bringing out of the Atari 2600 (and other similar systems), but I have played games on it. I hope this brings out the games of "yesteryear" and encourages developers to write some cool games.

    Any inside specs on the prices yet?

  • Good idea... kinda. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LilMikey ( 615759 ) on Sunday August 10, 2003 @10:24AM (#6659343) Homepage
    This sounds great and all and just about anything LaMothe does turns to gold in the eyes of video game developers but it seems to me that the technology is just too old to be interesting for the hacking community.

    Now in the realm of education... low powered, fairly simplistic systems like these are used for things such as early electronic engineering courses, introductory assembly programming courses and the like. It would be nice for students to be able to do something cool in these courses besides light up LEDs and flip switches attached to an ancient Motorola 68k. If only the academic community didn't shun anything with 'game' in the title and the site actually had information besides "please call later" in the Education section.

    • Re:Good idea... kinda. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If only the academic community didn't shun anything with 'game' in the title

      Just a few years ago The Main project for the electronic Design Lab at McGill was to build a mouse-controlled Multi-level Pacman on a old Svga monitor out of a fpga board (Hardware design fashion, no software here).

      Probably the coolest Lab I've seen... So it is not as if every school run away from these

      (Unfortunately, when I took the course they where in a change of system process so we ended-up implementing a rather boring 'si

  • 16-bit? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Mohammed Al-Sahaf ( 665285 ) on Sunday August 10, 2003 @10:26AM (#6659350)
    While this sounds like a really nice idea, a 16-bit processor sounds a bit underpowered, especially seeing as 32-bit chips are hella cheap nowadays.

  • Better CPU? (Score:4, Funny)

    by dfn5 ( 524972 ) on Sunday August 10, 2003 @10:28AM (#6659360) Journal
    It supports homebrew everything-- joystick adapters, displays, software, roms...

    How about a new cpu? Because the one that comes with it is a piece of crap.

  • I found this link with more information (Score:4, Funny)

    by Rhinobird ( 151521 ) on Sunday August 10, 2003 @10:28AM (#6659362) Homepage
    I found a link with more information...Here [slashdot.org]

    It's to a site call "slashdot" I wonder if anybody else has heard of it?

    It's kind of old, the date on the page says it was written August 7th 2003.

  • Just think! (Score:3, Funny)

    by KingDaveRa ( 620784 ) on Sunday August 10, 2003 @10:32AM (#6659377) Homepage
    Just wait until somebody builds a Beowolf cluster with them

  • Do-It-Yourself-Mobile-Phone (Score:3, Interesting)

    by KaLoSoFt ( 696839 ) on Sunday August 10, 2003 @10:33AM (#6659379)
    It's one of my dreams - having a do-it-yourself-mobile-phone. Packaged with full GPL-ed source code CD, data cable and IDE for developing it's software. A have-it-as-you-want-it phone. You like Nokia menu? Build it yourslef. Like command line interface - bash is your choice :) A an intelligent and open device made for geeks. Has anyone seen something like it? :)
    • Soldering would be a bitch:> anyways the better phones are starting to allow custom software for phone related stuff too, like series60 phones that use symbian as os. Heh, I'm writing from one(nokia 3650),the code ain't gpl though, but dev kit is free($)

  • from 6812 XGS3 to Altera FPGA? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Perhaps Andre doesn't quite understand how logic synthesis differs from procedural coding. He hasn't even prototyped the FPGA version as far as one can see on the site, and his XGS schematics are unreadable.

    If your fantasies run in this direction (as mine do) you'd be much better off buying a Xilinx/XESS prototyping board [xess.com]. They're available now, they work great with free toolchains, and they're a lot less expensive than anything Andre will bring to market in the next two to three years. Plus you can rea

  • 68000? (Score:3, Informative)

    by usotsuki ( 530037 ) on Sunday August 10, 2003 @10:37AM (#6659392) Homepage
    Didn't RTFA, but "16-bit Motorola" CPU sounds like a reference to the 68000.

    68000 isn't really a 16-bit processor, any more than the 80386SX is. It's a 32-bit CPU internally.

    And let's face it, the Apple ]['s video hardware was teh sux (I had to write emulation for that b*stard, and MY code was a fscking nightmare), so I don't see why anyone would want to emulate it (it was basically a braindead monochrome CGA, and faked color). C64 tho I can see, a little better.

    -uso.
    • The web site says that they are using a Motorola 68HCS12. This is a descendant of the 8-bit Motorola 6800, optimized for microcontroller applications. Think of it as a fast 8-bit processor with lots of integrated gadgets.
    • Definitely should have RTFA...Motorola has made MANY different CPU architectures, several of which were 16-bit.

      Third-generation Motorola 68HCS12 16-bit processor @ 25 MHz.

      FPGA with graphics processing unit.

      Socket for additional 65816 CPU (high-speed, 16-bit 6502 CPU).
      • Are you kidding? Does anyone actually RTFA before posting (j/k!)

        As for 65816 being a "high-speed" 16-bit 6502, heh, if you call 2.8 MHz "high-speed"...then again, there are 14 MHz 65816s. Of course there were only two well known systems using 65816s...maybe 3, I'm not sure if the TurboGrafx used a 65802...the Apple IIgs and the Super NES. And it's really a bag on the side of the 65C02.

        An ideal gaming system would probably be 68060 based *ducks*, and would have a true-color bitmapped display with a "for

    • Re:68000? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Detritus ( 11846 )
      The MC68000 internally used 16-bit data paths and three 16-bit ALUs. It did not have a 32-bit ALU. Motorola's original documentation called it a "16/32-bit Microprocessor". The MC68020 was the first true 32-bit member of the 68K family.
      • The 68020 was also the first commercial 32 bit microprocessor. Other items of note in computing history: The first RISC chip was IBM's 801, the first commercialized RISC chip was from ARM. IBM had the second commercial RISC offering, ROMP, which later evolved into POWER.

        Just thought I'd throw some of that crap in here.

        The 68000 executes 16 bit code. Last I looked it had a 24 bit address space, that's pretty cool. Nonetheless it is not a 32 bit processor, as you say.

        68010 is a slightly optimized 68010

        • Re:68000? (Score:2, Informative)

          by jpop32 ( 596022 )
          If I may, just to clarify...

          The 68000 executes 16 bit code. Last I looked it had a 24 bit address space, that's pretty cool. Nonetheless it is not a 32 bit processor, as you say.

          68k had 24bit adress space, 16 bit pathways to the outside, and 8/16/32bit operations on the inside. All instrucions that operated on data had a size qualifier (add.b, add.w, add.l), so it could do 32 bit operations, but had to fetch 32 bit data in two reads if it came from the outside. Not so if operating on 16 internal, 32 bi

  • I just don't see it. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Roblem ( 605718 ) on Sunday August 10, 2003 @10:39AM (#6659400) Homepage
    It is really hard to figure what niche this is made to fill. If you are desperate to develop on a platform from the 80s can't you just develop for MAME and avoid yet another box on your shelf? If you want to muck about in clunky hardware there are plenty of places that will sell you the original 80s hardware and cartages. And speaking of cartages why is this thing using them and not going for a cheap CD-Rom drive for storing games. If the price point is way low it may take off a bit, but I just don't see it.

  • Just in time for christmas (Score:5, Funny)

    by PetoskeyGuy ( 648788 ) on Sunday August 10, 2003 @10:49AM (#6659440)
    Confused parents and grand parents will pick up the XGameStation for their kids. Wow, I thought the X thing was $200, but this one was half off! Little Jimmy will be thrilled!

  • Why not just get a GP32? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gpinzone ( 531794 ) on Sunday August 10, 2003 @10:51AM (#6659444) Homepage Journal
    It's more powerful and there's lots of emulators already ported to it.

    Here's a link from Google to one reseller. [play-asia.com]

  • Vector Graphics (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jpatters ( 883 ) on Sunday August 10, 2003 @10:51AM (#6659445)
    If they actually release the vector graphics module that is described on the webpage, I will definately buy one.

  • This is not meant to be an PS2 contentder (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Sunday August 10, 2003 @10:53AM (#6659455) Journal
    Or even for that matter an amiga contender.

    Unless I completely misread the article it is like those kits you can buy to make youre own radio. Sure for the same money you can usually buy an already finished ones. That is not the point!

    Sure you can do this with existing platforms like the C64 mentioned but you will then have to do an awfull lot of research youreself. Here you get in one package everything you need to learn and thinker with a computer.

    Oh and for those wining about the power of the processor, do you perhaps think this could have something to do with A: price B: power C: Documentation D: Cooling? How about all of the above?

    This could be a nice learning tool for those not already familiar with how computers work. Now all of it is going to depend on the following things.

    • Documentation, is it going be clear enough to read by anyone who has an intrest without offending those who already know a bit?
    • Price this is at least partly a toy, lets hope they choose for ancient tech to keep the price down.
    • Availabilty, if they can get this in to hobbyshops it could work.

    Nice to see someone dare to create a hacker learning tool. Pity most /. have their head so far up their ass they can't see the fun of a product like this.

  • Wouldn't a single board computer be better in almost every respect? Take a lower end mini-itx board, develop a wall plug silent power supply for it, and all you'd then have to make are compact flash adaptors and joystick adaptors.

    It would be
    • Cheaper
    • Faster
    • More modern
    • Compatible with PC games
    • Easily use CDs and DVDs to store games
    • Could be much more accessable to a broader range of people
    Sure, anyone can create a MAME machine from a PC, but no one has done so in a large scale manufacturing and marketting business.

    The only downside I see is that it will encourage people to use the same bloated tools they are using now, rather than encouraging them to at least take a cursory glance at assembly, and gain experience in writing their own device drivers.

    But then, most people won't want to touch either of those anyway (and they wouldn't have to on either platform).

    There are always going to be more game programmers than driver programmers.

    Besides, it'll give people an excuse to take a harder look at a few of the OS projects that are all assembly, or micro sized. Eventually someone will even come out with a cartidge that will play DVDs on these lower end systems, which doesn't happen now under windows because of the innefficiency of so many software and driver layers.

    Honestly, unless the entire development kit including book is under $60, then it simply isn't worth it except to those few who want to learn a particular 16 bit uProcessor code and tinker.

    Oh, and you three who will work to port NetBSD and Linux to it.

    -Adam

    • Wouldn't a single board computer be better in almost every respect? Take a lower end mini-itx board, develop a wall plug silent power supply for it, and all you'd then have to make are compact flash adaptors and joystick adaptors.

      [...]

      The only downside I see is that it will encourage people to use the same bloated tools they are using now, rather than encouraging them to at least take a cursory glance at assembly, and gain experience in writing their own device drivers.

      I think this is exactly the poi

      • Bad style to reply to myself. But the 68HCS12 is not a (fast) 8 bit microcontroller, but instead a (bit fast) 16 bit [motorola.com] microcontroller.

        • I've been looking through the S12CPUV2 Reference Manual (downloadable from Motorola's web site). The CPU architecture looks very much like an MC6800 with 16-bit extensions. It has two 8-bit accumulators (A & B) that can be paired into a 16-bit accumulator (D). It has two 16-bit index registers (X & Y), a 16-bit stack pointer, a 16-bit program counter, and an 8-bit condition code register. Most instructions can use A, B or D. It can do 16-bit arithmetic but some instructions, such as boolean logic, a
      • "I think this is exactly the point: have a computer with lots of ready-to-use-software, OS, libraries, and you don't learn nearly as much as if you need to write all those nifty things yourself. And let a beginner use somethink like OpenGL/DirectX8 and they won't understand simple basics like "How do I draw a 3D cube on a 2D display?""

        As a learning tool for testing low level theory I can see some value. However, they are targetting a very, very small niche market.

        I can't see this being successful (s
      • That's unfair to OpenGL (I can't speak for DirectX, I've never used it but I know it has its fans). Sure you could draw a cube on a screen using any random API, (BASIC?), and your first cube might appear quicker than if you tried using OpenGL, but getting your head around 3D graphics requires -work-, and OpenGL is a good way to get from a cube to something more because it is a well thought out abstraction. Incidentally, that's why I applaud nVIDIA against all the "everything must be available as source code

  • It's a neat idea... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by heironymouscoward ( 683461 ) <heironymouscoward@yah3.14oo.com minus pi> on Sunday August 10, 2003 @11:04AM (#6659485) Journal
    Certainly the walk-up-and-use simplicity of the C64 and other 8-bit BASIC systems has never quite been seen again. I'm also reasonably impressed that the web site is holding up under the traffic, and frankly the web site is so pretty that it makes me want to spend money on the thing, no matter what it does. Excellent job: someone has understood how to market to geeks.
    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.
    Give me a high-level audio and video API that does nice things from a simple interpreted language, something I can give to my kids to let them learn programming, and something that is easy to extend with bits and pieces of random hardware... that was the real magic of the 8-bit systems, and that does not quite seem to be all here yet.
    Or maybe I've just missed it somewhere.
  • They use some funky codec from Microsoft-land that apparently doesn't ship with Quicktime 6.0 for Mac OS X.

  • X Gamestation (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Daniel Maresca Jr ( 696847 ) on Sunday August 10, 2003 @11:36AM (#6659615) Homepage Journal
    I'm giving Andre full support on this idea and hardware. He seems to know what he is doing and judging by the details of this hardware, it is PERFECT for anyone wanting to program, design, and engineer their own game system, even a computer if they want. I'm going to be ordering at least 3 of these things and I will promote his product as long as it's around. I respect Andre's decision and I will stand up to my word and help him as much as I can. So please stop bashing his work, I doubt any of you have a clue what a 7474 TTL Flip Flop does anyway :-).

  • Lets clear this up: (Score:5, Interesting)

    by patrick lang ( 578665 ) on Sunday August 10, 2003 @11:38AM (#6659621)
    This is vaporware. Those pictures are 3d rendered, not photos.

    From their descriptions, this is just a simple board with an off-the-shelf Motorola 68HC12 microcontroller. These are used in many universities, such as UT Austin for embedded systems interfacing and programming courses. True, there are a fair amount of students out there that might be capable of writing games, but I don't see this creating a business demand. The graphics are handled by an Altera FPGA. This looks amazingly like some reference boards I've seen used by universities as well.

    Here's a good HC12 programming resource if you want to get an idea of HC12 features/programming:
    http://www.ece.utexas.edu/~ valvano/index.html
    • > This is vaporware. Those pictures are 3d rendered, not photos.

      Except for the actual photos. And the actual .AVI files showing some basic Asteroid vector gameplay on a scope. How did you get a +4 mod on that comment?

      But it is vaporware in the sense that it is not a production device, certainly. But it does exist.
  • This thing will be the rage in education fairly quickly. This thing ups the ante from 1970s tech and would be great for teaching how computer archetecture works. Plus, it will be fun to see what people create.

    I've often wondered why someone doesn't buy rights to the old Amiga or Atari ST and make an digital electronics trainer out of them...

  • Apple II graphics were different (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Junks Jerzey ( 54586 ) on Sunday August 10, 2003 @11:54AM (#6659678)
    similar to the Commodore 64, Atari 800, and Apple II

    The Apple II just had a big, dumb frame buffer, plus a static character mode. The C64 and Atari 800 had raster interrupts, redefinable characters, sprites, hardware collision detection of sprites, etc. The Atari 800 was even further out there, with direct hardware support things that needed ugly graphic hacks on the C64 (like mixing graphics modes in arbitrary ways and multiplexing sprites).

  • Should call it the Ego-Station (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Junks Jerzey ( 54586 ) on Sunday August 10, 2003 @12:02PM (#6659710)
    From the "About" page:

    Before 1994, the idea of walking into a bookstore and seeing entire shelves of books on real-time graphics and game programming was almost unheard of. The very techniques and sciences driving the games that were already making billions of dollars for the Ataris and Nintendos of the world were still well-guarded secrets. That all changed, however, with the release of Tricks of the Game Programming Gurus by computer scientist Andre' LaMothe, and within only a few years, an entirely new genre of technical books had seemingly taken over the world.

    Uh, I hate to mention it Andre, but this simply isn't true. There were dozens of books about graphics and game programming on 8-bit home computers. COMPUTE! had a whole line of them, for example. You could pick up at least two magazines for each make of computer that included source code listings for games written assembly language and making full use of the hardware. Heck, you could buy the hardware reference manual and even the full operating system source code from Atari. Even the source code to Atari DOS, with full commentary. was available in a $12 book. The source code to Chris Crawfords' award winning Eastern Front, widely considered one of the most advanced commercial games of its time, was also available for purchase. In a number of ways, things were more open and free back then.

    • MOD THAT PARENT UP (Score:3, Insightful)

      by tjstork ( 137384 )

      Oh those old Compute Magazines were GREAT.

      They talked quite in depth about how the hardware worked for the Atari and Commodore 64 computers and Vic 20, etc. They published short games for each, which was obviously the source code and people used to TYPE THEM IN.

      And if that wasn't enough, there was INSIDE ATARI, which went through the sound, video and joystick hardware all in depth, how to hook the vertical blanking interrupt, how to change the color registers on a horizontal blank interrupt. There was a
    • You're absolutely correct. This was true for the Apple II, Commodore 64/128, TI 99/4A, Tandy CoCo, and all the old greats. In fact, the game libraries started quite small for many of the systems, and writing programs was the POINT of getting a computer.

      I still have fondness/hatred for the memory of painstakingly typing in pages and pages of machine code from a magazine, using the Apple II's built in Monitor. Machine code, in hex, not assembly. And it didn't work! Argh!

      Remember those adventure books where
  • The way I see it, if this thing costs fifty bucks then it is a way cool toy, but if it costs two hundred it's just not worth it.

    By the way, I am the proud owner of an actual Super ELF SBC from 1977 with a 1802 CPU and two whole K of RAM. It's also an ultimate hacker toy, but it's so useful and I played with it so often that I finally had it framed so I can at least enjoy looking at it.

  • Good as a hardware project... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Junks Jerzey ( 54586 ) on Sunday August 10, 2003 @12:46PM (#6659940)
    ...less interesting on the software side. You can already do development using MAME, various 8-bit computer emulators, and the Game Boy (and the GBA).

    But the primary advantage of this system is to understand how the hardware works. That's something you rarely ever see. Even back in the 8-bit days, almost no one really understood machines like the Apple II and Atari 800 on a hardware level. For example, no one ever attempted to redesign Atari's ANTIC chip, because that info just wasn't available. This hasn't changed at all over the last 20 years. FPGAs are cheap and widespread, but not the info about designing graphics hardware.

    Back to the software. If you're into game design, and you design and implement a game for MAME (say, on the Williams' 6808-based hardware), then that game is runnable on any PC or Mac right away. Not so with this new system.

    Overall, LaMothe has always been very much into writing and teaching about game programming, but he's always completely avoided game design. He develops and writes about lackluster knockoffs of existing games, and offers little to advance the medium. In it's own way, for teaching purposes, that's a good thing. But the last thing we need is everyone to build this new system, then start writing versions of Tetris and Asteroids and old Commodore 64 games for it. If you want to move forward in design, you can do it for existing "hardware."

  • Can we make up our minds? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JayBlalock ( 635935 ) on Sunday August 10, 2003 @12:56PM (#6659989)
    Every time a "retro" gaming article posts, there're hundreds of posts lamenting the passage of the "golden age" of video games, when it wasn't about blowing $20 million photo-rendering a Japanese villiage, and when solitary geniuses could write the next greatest game ever made without corporate backing. Then this comes out, and everyone immediately starts complaining about the system speed and tech specs.

    From their FAQ:"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."

    Now, assuming that this isn't advertising doublespeak (I'm curious if that means it can handle Mode-7 equivilent equivilent graphics and what the exact specs on the output are), doesn't that sound reasonable? If this is a box for hobbyists and amateur enthusiasts, can you really conceive of much more power being necessary? Once you get past the SNES era, you start REALLY needing lots of people to use the console effectively. And for (according to the site) less than $100 for the entire package?

    This sounds like a great idea, and if the geeks embrace it could be one of the hot toys for gamers who want to get away from the Microsoft-Sony-Nintendo trifecta. But ultimately that's going to decide it, how much the people embrace the system. It sounds like the specs are fine for those of us with fond memories of Bionic Commando and Sonic the Hedgehog. The question is whether anyone will pick up on this and make it worth having.

  • coin-op support (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AtariDatacenter ( 31657 ) on Sunday August 10, 2003 @01:54PM (#6660239)
    I hope the decide to give this some decent coin-op support, or maybe a good coin-op module. It is a bit primitive, but there could certainly be some interesting things done with it. Be it commercial games, or 'customized games for people', or your homebrew arcade cabinet kind of thing.

    BTW... that Asteroids looked decidedly low-resolution for vector. Like an equiv 640x480 resolution, verses a typical 1024x768 equiv vector resolution. Is there a hardware limitation in the vector DACs, or what is the story here?
    • It is vector without pixels so comparing it to pixel resolutions makes no sense.
      • It is vector without pixels so comparing it to pixel resolutions makes no sense.

        Not so, and here's why.

        At some point you have to convert from digital numbers to analog signals to generate the signals that deflect the electron beam. If your DACs are only 8 bit resolution, that means you can only produce 256 different voltage levels, effectively limiting you to 256 x 256 addressable places on the screen; end result is jaggy lines. You can do tricks with dithering but at the end of the day, you need the resol

    • Actually, the module they were showing was your standard run of the mill oscilloscope, so of course the screen is going to look tiny. The problem is, most TVs aren't going to display vector graphics very well, and PC monitors are possibly the only consumer grade displays sharp enough or capable of doing vector lines.

  • How much will this thing cost, and how much does it cost today to get a development board which is similar to this thing's specs? In particular I would like LCD control and a 32 bit processor.
  • "which may fulfill the fantasies of Slashdot readers everywhere. 16-bit Motorola CPU with a graphics architecture "similar to the Commodore 64, Atari 800, and Apple II"

    Doesn't this stike anybody as a tad underpowered to fullfill anybodies fantasies, let alone the average Slashdotter..?

    • Well, if you consider that the Z80 was used in various roles in video gaming and computers for almost 20 years, and that compared to the high end CPUs of today, then yest, it is underpowered. Does that mean it's useless? The jury is still out on that.

      Of course, that was one of the cooler things about hobbyist machine building/coding. Not how gee whiz bang the hardware was that you put into it, but how you could do amazing things with the most basic hardware.

      Think of it as a "Junkyard Wars" of DIY gaming.
  • I can't tell you how many of his books I've got on my shelf right now. Now he's whipping up fun hardware to play with too?

    Can sainthood be far behind?

  • If I know Andre LaMothe, then the submission and at least half of the supporting posts originated from inside his secret lair, wherever Xtreme Games LLC is located.
  • Half the morons here seem to think that it's a competitive commercial game console, designed to beat up Microsoft and Sony. It's not. So the graphics hardware isn't great. Big deal.

    It's here so that somebody can learn to program, or to play with hardware. I personally would like to see a repeat of the C64-style "walk up and code" system; kids today have little to no experience with programming and as such have resorted to just playing games and poking around in the warez translation of RPG Maker.
  • XGAMESTATION? As opposed to the XCube Station 2 [pvponline.com]?
  • ...of these.

    Well, somebody had to say it...


  • You can slap a 32-bit MCU with enough ram, flash and maybe a geforcefx go or ATI embedded chip to create a high performance handheld game device, and with some community effort even a simple software SDK for it.

    The real problem is standardizing ROMs so game companies could develop and sell for such a platform. It would be interesting if the free software community develops a handheld game ROM standard that runs on many manufacturers' handhelds. Any geek could select his chips (ati/nvidia/fujitsu) and hi
  • Sounds like the C-One [c64upgra.de] except on the C-One it has more 64 style ports and the graphics/sound hardware is also mutable as they exist in the FPGAs.

    It also sounds like it (XGamestation) is positioned as a 'razor' and will take the profit back by selling 'blades'....

    Either way, it sounds good (a configurable multi-game unit platform) but I'm more interested in the C-One myself.

  • Design case history: the Commodore 64 (Score:3, Informative)

    by runderwo ( 609077 ) <runderwoNO@SPAMmail.win.org> on Sunday August 10, 2003 @06:48PM (#6661659)
    There was an awesome article in the IEEE Spectrum years ago detailing the hurdles the C64 designers went through while building the machine. I scanned the article and placed the DjVu e-book here:

    http://retro.icequake.net/commodore_64_design_case _history [icequake.net]

    Hope this is of some interest to the sort of people who would be interested in the XGameStation.

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