Consoles that have never had homebrew?

[superbee]

Thomas Jentzsch Posted Today, 2:41 PM

IMO KTAA is the best homebrew for the system so far.

 

I totally agree! KTAA rocks!

 

Recently me and a good net friend finished a new O2 homebrew. Its called Route66. Here some images:

 

 

http://geocities.yahoo.com.br/heatseekerbr/desert.GIF

http://geocities.yahoo.com.br/heatseekerbr/mountain.GIF

http://geocities.yahoo.com.br/heatseekerbr/noite.GIF

http://geocities.yahoo.com.br/heatseekerbr/snow.GIF

http://geocities.yahoo.com.br/heatseekerbr/vai.GIF

 

It´s a racing shooter game.

[raindog]

Those graphics make me think you could do (a simplistic) Bump'n'Jump as well.... if I could figure out how to make the gigantic player sprite used when you jump

[superbee]

Well, when I started it I really percepts a good Bump´n´Jump but it was my first game and I decided for a more simples thing. Anyway, I think BNJ is possible (who knows one day)

[Impaler_26]

superbee Posted Yesterday, 11:07 PM

Recently me and a good net friend finished a new O2 homebrew. Its called Route66. Here some images:

 

 

http://geocities.yahoo.com.br/heatseekerbr/desert.GIF

http://geocities.yahoo.com.br/heatseekerbr/mountain.GIF

http://geocities.yahoo.com.br/heatseekerbr/noite.GIF

http://geocities.yahoo.com.br/heatseekerbr/snow.GIF

http://geocities.yahoo.com.br/heatseekerbr/vai.GIF

 

It´s a racing shooter game.

Those pics look good! Does it play like Spy Hunter? It would be nice if you could upload the Rom so we could play the game.

 

Damn... maybe i shouldn't have sold my Videopac

[Rev. Rob]

Might as well start a second list with the Odyssey called "Consoles that will never have homebrew", since it doesn't have a CPU or RAM and the "cartridges" are just little circuit boards with jumpers in them to select different built-in games.

 

 

Odyssey homebrew is something that I am actually seriously working on.

[Kurt_Woloch]

I might be wrong, but I don't think any of them saw any real releases so far, just emulator stuff. The NES is pretty close though and I think you'll find people that will make you NES cartridges if you want too.

 

I think at least one homebrew NES game did see a commercial release... though maybe an unexpected one. I've read about different "Famiclones" now on the market (based on the NES-on-a-chip), each having a selection of various games in their ROM, and one game mentioned was "Somari" (basically Mario playing in the levels of Sonic the Hedgehog), which, as far as I know, is a homebrew game.

 

About the different mappers... well, this might be a problem, but somehow the famiclone producers also made it to include all the games so they all can be played by the NOAC. Which poses the question which mappers are supported by a NOAC or how those games switch banks... I can't say anthing about it, not being a NES expert. Anyway, without bankswitching (that is, without a "mapper" per se), you seem to be able to have 32K of PRG and 8K of CHR ROM, which isn't bad for a start, I think... I can think of many possible homebrew games which could work within this limit.

[mos6507]

Astrocade got "homebrew" games back in the day but nothing in the modern era. I'd like to see someone try something since the machine has more raw horsepower than the 2600. It just doesn't have the installed userbase. There have been some nibbles but no real commitment to do one yet. Try the Bally Alley Yahoo group for more info.

 

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ballyalley/

[superbee]

Those pics look good! Does it play like Spy Hunter? It would be nice if you could upload the Rom so we could play the game.

 

Damn... maybe i shouldn't have sold my Videopac

 

Thanks. The objctive of this game is kill seven mafias car on each level: mountain, night, desert and snow.

Since the game was made by me and René the rom be soon avaible on the Rene´s site:

http://www.geocities.com/rene_g7400/index.html

Edited June 22, 2007 by superbee

[Segataritensoftii]

Watara Supervision yes, but next to none.

Game King None that I'm aware of, but there were a couple emulators for it. One for DS and another (much more complete) one for the PC. The only site with full documentation on specs and hacking for the system went offline months ago.

 

Edit: bripro.com is now back up! You can check out their section on Game King development here.

Edited October 19, 2008 by Segataritensoftii

[Quadhorn]

Seems unlikely, though not impossible, that someone will do a Microvision homebrew as well, seeing as how the cartridge itself contains the CPU. But I guess CPUs are a lot cheaper and homebrew-accessible nowadays. It'd be funny to throw a Geode or something in there and make a full 3D game on that 16x16 bilevel display.

With that thought in mind, is there any technical data available for this beauty? Measurements? I've had a look around, but can't find anything.

 

A Geode is impractical (obviously, ), but in-system-programmable flash-based PICs or 8051s are easy enough to come by - it could yet have a flash-cartridge...

[fsuinnc]

Great topic.

How about the APF Mp1000? There might be some basic programs for the

imagination machine but I haven't heard of any true homrbrews for the basic console.

 

Planet Lander for the O2 is another excellent game. Pong on the O2 is really cool if you have not seen it. It plays a basic paddle type games when you do not have the voice module and when you add the voice module it game changes completly and simulates an original Odyssey (sort of). It's pretty cool.

 

Is "Route 66" going to be made available on a cart?

[superbee]

Is "Route 66" going to be made available on a cart?

 

Try to contact Richard

http://www.videopac.org/shop/

[raindog]

A Geode is impractical (obviously, ), but in-system-programmable flash-based PICs or 8051s are easy enough to come by - it could yet have a flash-cartridge...

 

A Geode system would be kinda big and suck those dual 9-volt batteries like a Charms Blow Pop, but you get the idea. A 5 dollar ARM chip would be way, way overkill for such a project. A PIC should be fine for doing the kind of stuff the original MB programmers did, I guess, but I still think it'd be funny to have something like a first person shooter in 16x16 pixels.

[Quadhorn]

[...] but I still think it'd be funny to have something like a first person shooter in 16x16 pixels.

Still easily done; the PICs start at 1MHz+, same as the A2600's 6507, and we're talking about a 16x16 screen, not the ~40*30 A2600 playfield. Mini-handheld Skeleton?

[raindog]

Skeleton is impressive and is a fun game, but I see it as being more like a simplified Apple II era 3D dungeon crawl than a FPS. My lowest threshold for a FPS is probably something more along the lines of Nether or MOOD, both for the unmodified C64 (granted it's still only 1MHz, but it did have 64K of RAM....)

 

I guess looking at something like Wolf5K might be instructive too (speaking as someone who has no clue about raycasting), because I think it qualifies too, though I imagine it relies a lot upon the web browser's capabilities to do its thing and so can't really be considered low-end.

[Tom]

Dan Boris has at least cartridge pinouts for the microvision.

 

No idea what you're supposed to do with the LCD lines exactly, tho.

 

http://www.atarihq.com/danb/Microvision.shtml

[Quadhorn]

Dan Boris has at least cartridge pinouts for the microvision.

Aye, he's pointed us that way in a different thread. There's plenty of information and details on / links to patents. It's interesting to see that there were three different original versions...

 

Cheers, though.

[djmips]

PS1 - yes (I don't know of any, but there should be some by now)

PS2 - yes (I don't know of any, but there should be some by now)

As I recall, the PS1 has been made accessable for homebrews via modchips and disc swapping tricks. The PS2 requires a full-up mod chip, but homebrewers are able to use the Kalisto (KOS) library at a mimimum. (That's the same one that's used for Dreamcast homebrewing.) I'm fairly certain that they have more complete alternatives available as well. If the development tools exist, than homebrewing is already happening.

 

The PS1 & PS2 also had their own Linux kits published by Sony. So they were homebrewable that way as well.

 

The PS1 kit was called NET Yaroze and wasn't Linux based. Addtionally, there were/are several action replay cheat cart mods that allowed homebrewing without mod chips by reflashing with ROMS such as Caetla or EZORAY. They also allowed you to load the static library used for Yaroze and run/develop Yaroze apps as well.

 

A stock NET Yaroze box was a special PS1 that was black in colour and region free. It communicated with your PC via a serial cable and it required a special memory card 'dongle'.

 

Using these systems I've played many homebrew games for the PS1. Most of the games I'd seen were simple 2D games although some of the demos were more impressive and 3D. One notable Yaroze homebrew, Devil Dice, actually made the leap to a commercial release.

 

The first era of homebrewing on the PS1 has withered but I expect that another era will (or perhaps has already) arise.

[Memblers]

The problem with the NES isn't the lockout chip (since it's easily defeated or salvaged, and now cracked), it's the dual bus and plethora of mappers.

 

I haven't checked nesdev in a while, but "memblers industries" had a NES PCB ready. No clue about the specs/mappers it supported though. IIRC it came with a socket for the CIC, so you could either cannibalize some or require your customers to cut a certain pin somewhere inside the NES.

 

It's UNROM (mapper #2, up to 256kB ROM, 8kB RAM for graphics). I've still got a whole bunch of them, $5 for one if anyone wants to try it (be aware it's all surface-mount except for the ROM and CIC though).

 

And there was at least one NES homebrew release on cart, albeit a limited one:

http://nesworld.com/r_garage.htm

[cdoty]

NES - yes

SNES - yes (I don't know of any, but there should be some by now)

 

I might be wrong, but I don't think any of them saw any real releases so far, just emulator stuff. The NES is pretty close though and I think you'll find people that will make you NES cartridges if you want too.

 

Frog Feast was released on a Genesis and SNES cartridge.

 

And Sodoku is being released for the NES at CGE.

 

Frog Feast is also the first homebrew released on the Philips CD-I.

Edited July 27, 2007 by cdoty

[AtariRocks]

Amstrad GX4000

[Bruce Tomlin]

Amstrad GX4000

Well, yeah, sure, you would expect that from a system only released in Europe the UK, and which is referred to in Wikipedia as a "commercial failure". (a Z80 in 1990 is about as lame as the Arcadia 2001's 2650 in 1982)

Edited July 27, 2007 by Bruce Tomlin

[Wickeycolumbus]

in a back issue of nintendo power, it said that there are homebrews for the virtual boy that have a rumble feature (using an altered controler.)

[raindog]

Amstrad GX4000

Well, yeah, sure, you would expect that from a system only released in Europe the UK, and which is referred to in Wikipedia as a "commercial failure". (a Z80 in 1990 is about as lame as the Arcadia 2001's 2650 in 1982)

I don't think the GX4000 counts, any more than the Atari XEGS or C64GS (the latter having been released after the GX4000) would. (Or the Amiga CD32 for that matter, though that wasn't as lame, just released at a point where major retailers were just not going to sell a product by Commodore.)

[Bruce Tomlin]

I don't think the GX4000 counts, any more than the Atari XEGS or C64GS (the latter having been released after the GX4000) would. (Or the Amiga CD32 for that matter, though that wasn't as lame, just released at a point where major retailers were just not going to sell a product by Commodore.)

You have a good point there. I missed this little detail:

 

The GX4000 was actually a modified CPC6128+ computer. This allowed The GX4000 to be compatible with a majority of CPC+ computer line software.

Computer repackagings are automatically disqualified without sufficient changes from the original computer. The Xbox and 5200 were sufficiently changed that software had to be ported to go both ways between the consoles and their respective computer equivalents.