FPGA Based Videogame System

[Andromeda Stardust]

I'm assuming the Mega SG is being made in china. With it having the same price point as the SNT, I wonder if they took into account the 25% tariffs that go into effect at the beginning of next year.

 

i've paid already, so analogue will have to eat it. any new orders after jan 1st, customer eats it.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Yeah, I think initially it would mainly sell to die hard Neo-Geo fans who have originals carts or one of those expensive flashcarts, but if JB happened sales would skyrocket.

 

no way in hell i would preorder a neo without a confirmed jb. if carts for it are 500 bux, 4get it...

[Andromeda Stardust]

I had no idea that the Sega CD had gone up like that. Is it something that people are going back to?

 

moving parts, dry caps, laser rot, blown regulator chip. if its broke, 99% of people will throw it away rather than attempt a repair. if less than 1% of oem consoles still work, supply and demand ensures nobody can afford one.

[SegaSnatcher]

UpperGrafx/UperGrafx is a plug and play DVI/HDMI adapter for the PC Engine. If you think that means it’s converting RGB... NOPE! Direct digital-to-digital, Hi-Def NES-style. Kind of expensive but they keep adding functionality so it rivals the Super SD System 3 (flash card, ODE, dumper, etc).

Wait you can tap digital video signals from that expansion port?

[Andromeda Stardust]

I have a suggestion for @Kevtris.

I have already a SuperNT and it's great, but there's something about the MegaDrive that should be taken into acount regarding graphics: a LOT of games in the system (some of the best games in the system, in fact) relied on the "magical" mix of dithering + composite video artifacts to create "fake" (but great-looking) transparency effects and new colors. Compare composite vs RGB if it sounds strange to you.

For a graphical example:

 

 

Here's a long list of graphical examples:

 

http://www.chrismcovell.com/gotRGB/rgb_compare2.html

 

More examples:

 

-Look at Sonic 1 piston-like traps in Marble Zone, for example.

-Look at Sonic 1 waterfalls in Green Hill (try to stand behind one).

-Earthwork Jim backgrounds. Also Ristar background. Look how colorful these games are in composite mode!

-Aladdin's shadow in Aladdin, and all kind of effects in that game

and a loooooog list.

In other words: graphic artists relied on the effects of dithering + composite on a lot of games for the system.

So, could these artifacts be simulated along with scanlines (as an option of course)?

 

Blargg's excelent NTSC implementation for SEGA consoles is truly flawless!

https://github.com/libretro/Genesis-Plus-GX/tree/master/core/ntsc

 

Maybe there are other un-dithering solutions to keep these effects and not having to resort to NTSC simulation, but I don't think it's easy.

 

a menu setting can turn this on and off. i actually like the vertical jailbar look playing kirby dl3 on super nt with blending turned off. i recommend 720p 3x4 or 1080p 5x6 for playing dl3 on a super nt. 720p1280 3x4 on a genesis will fill the screen, so square pixels will create a proper aspect for the 320x240 resolution of the genesis or sms.

[Andromeda Stardust]

They will market it towards all of the above. AES cart owners, MVS cart owners (via cart adapter), people with flashcarts, people with no carts at all (jailbreak). A $200 Neo-Geo AES, which when jaikbroken can play every released Neo-Geo rom, will be huge. Trust me.

 

Maybe the Neo A-M (or whatever it's called) can also have a core/cart adapter for Neo-Geo Pocket Color carts. Maybe it will have a core + USB attachment for an external CDROM drive which can play Neo-Geo CDs.

 

I was lucky to have owned a Neo-Geo Gold System (AES) since it's release here in the US in 1990. I paid for it with my own savings, but my parents bought me a game, and didn't flip out when I asked permission to use the CC to buy a $550 console and a $170 game.. So I agreed to open it all on Xmas day, which was only a few days later than the delivery day.

 

The Neo-Geo is the absolute pinnacle of 16-bit 2D animation and it's fans crave high quality display and audio. An FPGA/HDMI solution would be perfect.

 

This was an awesome Xmas.

 

i can assure you your xmas experience was not typical. as a child, i begged my parents every year at xmas for a nintendo (nes). i finally got one... in 2002. i was 21 when we found it sitting in the garage!

[Kismet]

 

Both Bleem and Connectix Virtual Game Station avoided that issue. VGS in particular reverse engineered the BIOS. I assume Bleem did too, but my knowledge of their history is a little fuzzier. And both were effectively beating Sony in court, minus that whole war chest thing.

 

 

They avoided that issue because they created a software emulator (Bleem), not a hardware simulator. It defeats the purpose of creating a hardware-accurate FPGA console if you're just going to have to create a compatible firmware. Such a console could in theory run the official firmware, but there's also like a dozen versions of the firmware. From a legal perspective, you can't simply decompile the BIOS, and then compile it again with the copy protection stripped out. Sony was literately resting on the "use of the Sony Logo" (which is why all consoles have a boot logo) as a reason to claim trademark infringement. Sony tried to get copyright claims on everything from the bios to screenshots of the Sony PSX games on the box art.

 

The same issue with the PSX BIOS also exists with the Sega CD BIOS. So in a sense, to create any hardware clone of either, someone has to write a 100% compatible bios that can be shipped, working, in these. There will never be a 100% compatible bios since it would have to emulate the copy protection as well. Hence the myriad of mod chip and game-genie hacks to get imports (and copies as an additional consequence) to work on it. Nobody needs to actually create a new optical drive, and by todays standards, 1x/2x cd-roms aren't going to be produced again. A 40X drive would have to be told to operate at 1X cd-audio mode to play a disc game as designed, and well, it just not a target that can be reached. There's a reason you don't see clone CD consoles.

 

IMO, it would be better for Analogue to reach out to anyone (including SEGA) who produced a CD game and ask if they could include it as a pack-in game on a SD-card, and let people do what they will after that.

[cacophony]

 

 

i've paid already, so analogue will have to eat it. any new orders after jan 1st, customer eats it.

 

 

I'd be quite surprised if Analogue were to raise the price of the Mega SG half way through the pre-order period.

[Andromeda Stardust]

They avoided that issue because they created a software emulator (Bleem), not a hardware simulator. It defeats the purpose of creating a hardware-accurate FPGA console if you're just going to have to create a compatible firmware. Such a console could in theory run the official firmware, but there's also like a dozen versions of the firmware. From a legal perspective, you can't simply decompile the BIOS, and then compile it again with the copy protection stripped out. Sony was literately resting on the "use of the Sony Logo" (which is why all consoles have a boot logo) as a reason to claim trademark infringement. Sony tried to get copyright claims on everything from the bios to screenshots of the Sony PSX games on the box art.

 

The same issue with the PSX BIOS also exists with the Sega CD BIOS. So in a sense, to create any hardware clone of either, someone has to write a 100% compatible bios that can be shipped, working, in these. There will never be a 100% compatible bios since it would have to emulate the copy protection as well. Hence the myriad of mod chip and game-genie hacks to get imports (and copies as an additional consequence) to work on it. Nobody needs to actually create a new optical drive, and by todays standards, 1x/2x cd-roms aren't going to be produced again. A 40X drive would have to be told to operate at 1X cd-audio mode to play a disc game as designed, and well, it just not a target that can be reached. There's a reason you don't see clone CD consoles.

 

IMO, it would be better for Analogue to reach out to anyone (including SEGA) who produced a CD game and ask if they could include it as a pack-in game on a SD-card, and let people do what they will after that.

Any 40+ speed drive can be made to run at 1x and used as a cd player. Even modern Bluray players play back cds. Why do you think many old drives have cd player controls on it?

 

Also there is a maximum rpm a disc can be safely read at. No drive currently available can safely exceed this rpm rate. So the "48x" rating only apllies to the end of the disc where it spins slower normally. The drive will start burning/ripping at around 6x or so and increase until it hits the end of the disc. If you listen to the pitch of the hum, it doesn't change much.

 

I have some old 1-2x cdrw media from the late 90s. I wonder how it handles in my "modern" 8-48x drive? By modern, I mean that expensive Plextor SATA dvd +/- rw drive I purchased in 2005 (that wouldn't install WinXP from the disc without SATA floppy drivers) is still going strong after 13 years. Every drive I bought before or since bit the dust...

 

But yeah, if it has a headphone jack and plays CDs, you're golden.

[phoenixdownita]

<some speculative rant or another />

 

On second thought .... they already have all that they need.

I just checked the Genesis has a 64pin connector with a couple of GNDs and a couple of +5V, the SNES has 62 pins with couple of +5V and GND, the Famicom has 60 pins, the huCard 38 pins, Atari7800 32pins, ColecoVision 30 etc... etc... etc... so NG aside they are already covered on the cart slots, just need adapters.

 

Wrt the pad connectors something tells me they can re-purpose enough of the SegaCD slot pins in the MegaSg to connect pad adapters there for non 9pins .... voila', juts needs a new upper case to match whatever suits your fancy in terms of style (7800 or Coleco or whatev ....) and/or switchable thematic shells (they can even make them snap-on style), assuming the 9pin connector allows to reoroute 5V/GND as needed to compensate for Genny vs Atari vs GodKnowsWhoElseInventedA9PinsAlternativePinoutForSureTheGX4000ButThePadsAreCrap.

 

Now this is highly speculative and it depends on how many of the signals in both cart and cd slot are re-routable vs hardwired (the data and address bus for example if shared cut down a lot the possibilities, if instead "wired" to FPGA independent pins allow tons of reconfigurability).

[Kismet]

Any 40+ speed drive can be made to run at 1x and used as a cd player. Even modern Bluray players play back cds. Why do you think many old drives have cd player controls on it?

 

Also there is a maximum rpm a disc can be safely read at. No drive currently available can safely exceed this rpm rate. So the "48x" rating only apllies to the end of the disc where it spins slower normally. The drive will start burning/ripping at around 6x or so and increase until it hits the end of the disc. If you listen to the pitch of the hum, it doesn't change much.

 

I have some old 1-2x cdrw media from the late 90s. I wonder how it handles in my "modern" 8-48x drive? By modern, I mean that expensive Plextor SATA dvd +/- rw drive I purchased in 2005 (that wouldn't install WinXP from the disc without SATA floppy drivers) is still going strong after 13 years. Every drive I bought before or since bit the dust...

 

But yeah, if it has a headphone jack and plays CDs, you're golden.

 

Have you tried to use a software emulator with a CD drive? The drive constantly spins up to maximum speed to read a tiny bit of data and then spins back down to 1x for the cd-audio. That's not how the original console operated, thus increasing the seek time well beyond what the game wants. You can't control the read speed of the drive in any emulator to my knowledge. There are ways to override it though. Then you're up to drive firmware compatibility RNG.

 

Side note: My first generation DVD-ROM (1998 or so) was MPC-1 and thus not region locked, when I built the second machine with the blueray drive I put hacked firmware on the dvd-rom so I could still read the region-2 discs. Point is, that you aren't gauranteed that a drive will be able to read the PSX copy protection any more than you can guarantee it can read a recordable disc.

 

So building a FPGA Sega CD or PSX is kinda an exercise in futility since one would still have to source a drive that can read these discs and play from them, which none do with software emulators. The likely thing would be for the "FPGA" console to rip the game data track or the entire disc to a 1GB RAM module and only try to play the audio from the disc as a compatibility feature, or try to play it as a virtual cd (which is hard to do even in software emulators.) At least with PSX games there's not many that actually use the CD-audio, but the PCE, SegaCD, CDi, and 3DO all did, a lot to my knowledge.

Edited October 22, 2018 by Kismet

[Andromeda Stardust]

Save it for the NT micro. NES slot, FC adapter, two controller ports, ext jack, HDMI out. Use the same FPGA as the Mega_SG / Super_NT for maximum flexibility.

 

NES has top pin count at 72 pins. Two VCC, two ground, the ext audio hookup (which can be reused for multiple consoles) and the rest programmable i/o including the unused data pins.

 

You can do a lot with that as a base. Cartridge adapters come with controller ports, or use the Ext in the back.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Have you tried to use a software emulator with a CD drive? The drive constantly spins up to maximum speed to read a tiny bit of data and then spins back down to 1x for the cd-audio. That's not how the original console operated, thus increasing the seek time well beyond what the game wants. You can't control the read speed of the drive in any emulator to my knowledge. There are ways to override it though. Then you're up to drive firmware compatibility RNG.

 

Side note: My first generation DVD-ROM (1998 or so) was MPC-1 and thus not region locked, when I built the second machine with the blueray drive I put hacked firmware on the dvd-rom so I could still read the region-2 discs. Point is, that you aren't gauranteed that a drive will be able to read the PSX copy protection any more than you can guarantee it can read a recordable disc.

 

So building a FPGA Sega CD or PSX is kinda an exercise in futility since one would still have to source a drive that can read these discs and play from them, which none do with software emulators. The likely thing would be for the "FPGA" console to rip the game data track or the entire disc to a 1GB RAM module and only try to play the audio from the disc as a compatibility feature, or try to play it as a virtual cd (which is hard to do even in software emulators.) At least with PSX games there's not many that actually use the CD-audio, but the PCE, SegaCD, CDi, and 3DO all did, a lot to my knowledge.

Again, if the drive is physically capable to play a redbook cd audio track at 1x, it is physically capable to "play" a data track at 1x. Modified firmware is no issue if the company engineering the fpga device buys bulk cd drives of the same make and model, then modifies the firmware to set max speed to 1x or 2x and remove read errors for non-standard book types.

 

However the elephant in the living room here is not the cd drive or the added cost and ckmplexity it adds to the system. It is that ALL CD SYSTEMS HAVE COPYRIGHTED BIOS!!! Even PCe, though the saving grace for pce is the bios being stored on a hucard.

 

So you have to get illegal bios file and jailbroken firmware to play cds even with a drive. At that point, you may as well bypass the drive interface and run the iso straight off the sd card...

[Kaide]

Also there is a maximum rpm a disc can be safely read at. No drive currently available can safely exceed this rpm rate. So the "48x" rating only apllies to the end of the disc where it spins slower normally. The drive will start burning/ripping at around 6x or so and increase until it hits the end of the disc. If you listen to the pitch of the hum, it doesn't change much.

 

And of course, when you can use CAV mode, there are advantages to laying out the disc from the outer edge inward (OG XBox).

 

They avoided that issue because they created a software emulator (Bleem), not a hardware simulator. It defeats the purpose of creating a hardware-accurate FPGA console if you're just going to have to create a compatible firmware. Such a console could in theory run the official firmware, but there's also like a dozen versions of the firmware. From a legal perspective, you can't simply decompile the BIOS, and then compile it again with the copy protection stripped out. Sony was literately resting on the "use of the Sony Logo" (which is why all consoles have a boot logo) as a reason to claim trademark infringement. Sony tried to get copyright claims on everything from the bios to screenshots of the Sony PSX games on the box art.

 

The same issue with the PSX BIOS also exists with the Sega CD BIOS. So in a sense, to create any hardware clone of either, someone has to write a 100% compatible bios that can be shipped, working, in these. There will never be a 100% compatible bios since it would have to emulate the copy protection as well. Hence the myriad of mod chip and game-genie hacks to get imports (and copies as an additional consequence) to work on it. Nobody needs to actually create a new optical drive, and by todays standards, 1x/2x cd-roms aren't going to be produced again. A 40X drive would have to be told to operate at 1X cd-audio mode to play a disc game as designed, and well, it just not a target that can be reached. There's a reason you don't see clone CD consoles.

 

 

What is the menu system in the NT Mini and Super NT but a form of custom software, similar to a BIOS? I would argue it doesn’t defeat the purpose at all to have to write your own BIOS, but it certainly adds work to the task. Copy protection in this era isn’t terribly sophisticated. Sega CD has no protection at all. It depended on the difficulty to copy the discs. PlayStation’s copy protection is also rudimentary, relying on data in a part of the disc that could not be written on a CD-R and nothing more. In the case of VGS at least, they implemented copy protection in their BIOS, and it was one reason why Sony’s legal arguments were so weak. Further, the BIOS in these early systems (except maybe the NeoGeo, I haven’t delved much into that one personally) was more of a bootloader. On the PS1 (and PS2, PS3 and PSP) the games came with specific versions of the hardware drivers and bootstrap code. This meant you could have dozens of BIOS versions for various reasons, without worrying so much about breaking compatibility with existing titles.

 

At the end of the day, a Sega CD clone could be made fairly easily, and the BIOS in it doesn’t need to be 100% identical to be useful. Precisely because so much control is handed off to the game itself once it loads. The catch is the effort to do it legally and have a market, you are also competing against used models that when I bought mine could be had for 70$ in good shape. As the used versions wear out, and parts are harder to come by for repairs, the economics start skewing towards some sort of clone of the drive.

 

And if your goal isn’t to play the original CDs, then you might go with a “CD Rom Emulator” backed by SD cards, to cut down on mechanical parts that will wear out. Hasn’t someone already done that? I could have sworn that mod exists. Maybe I’m thinking of a different console that got that mod.

 

Point is, that you aren't gauranteed that a drive will be able to read the PSX copy protection any more than you can guarantee it can read a recordable disc.

 

So building a FPGA Sega CD or PSX is kinda an exercise in futility since one would still have to source a drive that can read these discs and play from them, which none do with software emulators.

 

Two things:

1) If you are making custom hardware, you have a lot more control over the drive modes than you do as a user-land process running in Windows/*nix.

2) I suggest reading up on this stuff a bit more before making claims like the quoted. None of the quoted is accurate.

[Kismet]

Again, if the drive is physically capable to play cd audio at 1x, it is physically capable to "play" a data track at 1x. Modified firmware is no issue if the company engineering the fpga device buys bulk cd drives of the same make and model, then modifies the firmware to set max speed to 1x or 2x and remove read errors for non-standard book types.

 

Where are you going to procure cd-rom-only drives's from? Every drive that can play a DVD-ROM and BD-ROM has to pay licencing fees, that's $6.00 per drive for DVD units that can record discs, or $4.00 for those that don't.

 

The problem is, that there is literately no business case for making a console that can read discs of any type. But to not have the drive means making it entirely for piracy purposes. Hence the need for someone to actually license a game or two to justify not having any drive come with it.

[phoenixdownita]

...

NES has top pin count at 72 pins. Two VCC, two ground, the ext audio hookup (which can be reused for multiple consoles) and the rest programmable i/o including the unused data pins.

...

NES 72pins connector of which 4 are for the CIC and 10 for the Exp .... so yeah we are covered without the need for an actual 72pin connector

http://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/Cartridge_connector#Pinout_of_72-pin_NES_consoles_and_cartridges

[phoenixdownita]

 

....

The problem is, that there is literately no business case for making a console that can read discs of any type.

....

You go and tell that to PlayMaji, I dare you!!!!

https://www.polymega.com/

[pedroTFP]

 

Kevtris was interviewed on the MyLifeInGaming Youtube channel and said N64 was not in the cards. He did say Playstation was possible, but there is the issue of the BIOS on that machine. Not sure if there's a way around that copyright issue.

Well, for machines with the BIOS issue Analogue could sell a machine with no BIOS on saying you have to dump by yourself the BIOS from your own original machine, and then...

[phoenixdownita]

Well, for machines with the BIOS issue Analogue could sell a machine with no BIOS on saying you have to dump by yourself the BIOS from your own original machine, and then...

That's a non starter for 2 reasons.

1. it makes the HW no more a simple turnkey solution, you can no longer just put the CD/cart and turn it on and play, that's a big no-no.
2. it forces the user to download the BIOS which is still copyrighted and that is an even bigger no no for a commercially viable product (it can be an option or a JB feature but cannot be the default)

[Reaperman]

If we're still tracking analogue sale/order numbers, mine's

 

20038 Mega Sg

9344 super nt

3640 nt mini

 

Looks like orders are doubling each year. I wanted to wait a little longer for the preorder, but there was this fear of missing out on 'the good one'

 

Kevtris, Is this your full time gig, now?

You're putting out a system a year, which is a heck of a pace.

[kevtris]

If we're still tracking analogue sale/order numbers, mine's

 

20038 Mega Sg

9344 super nt

3640 nt mini

 

Looks like orders are doubling each year. I wanted to wait a little longer for the preorder, but there was this fear of missing out on 'the good one'

 

Kevtris, Is this your full time gig, now?

You're putting out a system a year, which is a heck of a pace.

I still got my day job but yeah Analogue's pretty much my full time thing at the moment. And yeah, it is a hell of a pace. haha.

[SegaSnatcher]

I still got my day job but yeah Analogue's pretty much my full time thing at the moment. And yeah, it is a hell of a pace. haha.

I hope Analogue remains your full time thing for the forseeable future lol.

[seastalker]

Kosmic Stardust - I know the tv tuner would be hard pressed to find a local analog signal in most countries. Get the "An 'Analogue' broadcast could still work" and LOCALIZED baby monitor reference? Also no typo - I know the Supergrafx but look a page or two back when I was schooled on the Uppergrafx being a thing and alternative to the Super SD System 3 whatever. All the same, if there is an all encompassing NEC device, a SGX-PC/TG if you will... it would really make sense to be a Supergrafx and all CD systems in one device. Basically a FPGA SuperGrafx and CD-rom drive in one. I only own a handful of games so don't care either way for original CD capacity. Just a NEC all in one that included SuperGrafx - only five games but at that stage, why NOT include SUPER-Grafx built in?

 

I noticed the focus less on Analogue's NES machine restock and hopefully it rings the bell of making the Super Nt soon to be an adapter/jailbreak firmware paradise like the sega system of ALL Nintendo systems up to a certain era. No need to serve two masters with the same FPGA- Super NT should be SNES, NES, famicom, disk system, and gameboy original if nothing else. THAT Super NT would sell like hotcakes and destroy retron and related clones forever.

 

Clearly they took a shot at Polymega. The failing pr of Ataribox is also ripe for plundering - a 2600/5200/7800 combo would be smart and hopefully LYNX. I don't know the FPGA limitations of Jaguar or Jaguar CD but a complete Atari system would really sell. Don't know how adding the A8 line would work without a keyboard. That would still neglect the ST so may be as well to stick to the Atari CONSOLE/HAND HELD line,

[Newsdee]

Guys, let them release the Mega Sg before speculating in future hardware

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

Where are you going to procure cd-rom-only drives's from? Every drive that can play a DVD-ROM and BD-ROM has to pay licencing fees, that's $6.00 per drive for DVD units that can record discs, or $4.00 for those that don't.

 

The problem is, that there is literately no business case for making a console that can read discs of any type. But to not have the drive means making it entirely for piracy purposes. Hence the need for someone to actually license a game or two to justify not having any drive come with it.

DVD patents are expired my friend.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/mpeg-2-patent-expiration-opens-door-for-royalty-free-use/

http://www.dvd-and-beyond.com/display-article.php?article=2126