kevtris

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. I DO have a name for my system that I have been keeping under wraps kinda. It's the.... dun dun dunnnn Zimba 3000 My company name is "Zimba Labs" so this only makes sense I guess :-) There's a hilarious (to me) reason behind this name with a lot of history. I was tired of "retro this" and "retro that" and wanted something that didn't have "vision" "Game" "system" or "retro" in it since IMO it sounds kinda cheesy. So, I remembered what my friend Merc said on IRC about his "videogame system that plays anything" from Zimbabwae called the "Zimba 2000", and they were going to release their "Zimba 3000" soon. So I guess I'm the one that might release the Zimba 3000 after all. I can't do Playstation 3 though. Here's part of the log. This must've been around 2005. The full thing is here: http://www.atarihq.com/rgvc/rgvcu/2005/jmtatari1.txt <jmtatari1> I like the jaguar is that ok?<Mercster> ok<jmtatari1> what systems do you like?<Mercster> only the zimba 2000<Mercster> totally AWESOME system<jmtatari1> what is the zimba 2000? <Mercster> plays psx, n64, snes, nes, genesis, ALL atari, ps2, xbox, everything<Mercster> came out in zimbabwae (in africa)<Mercster> cost about $2k, but well worth it.<jmtatari1> emulation only?<Mercster> no, no emulation<Mercster> thats why it cost so much<Mercster> huge, too<Mercster> about the size of a 27" tv...<Mercster> I gotta get the Zimba 3000 when it comes out<Mercster> that fucker is going to be COOOOOOOL<Mercster> PS3, Xbox II, etc<Mercster> jm: you should pre-order the Zimba 3000<Mercster> is there a gamestop or the like near you?

As requested, I started a new topic and poll over in the Classic Game thread about my FPGA videogame doodad. The link is here for those interested: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242970-fpga-based-videogame-system/ re: my system playing games off SD cards and such, yes it does that now. That's how I have been testing it.

To make life easy for everyone, I have edited this first post to include all the important things about my FPGA videogame system (the Zimba 3000, called the Z3K from here on) and the Analogue Nt mini since it is using my cores that will also appear on the Z3K. What is the Zimba 3000? The Zimba 3000 is the name of my FPGA videogame system. It will support various 8 bit and 16 bit videogame and computer systems. Right now, I am in the design and development stage on it. I am going to be slammed with contract work in a month or two (as of March 2017) so it will be a little while before I can complete development of it, but work is not going to totally stop. See below for my original post to this thread that explains it more in-depth. Analogue Nt mini As most of you know by now, I designed the PCB and wrote the software in the Analogue Nt mini. This is an FPGA NES/Famicom with HDMI and RGB/composite/s-video/component out. I have since released "jailbroken" firmware that allows you to run ALL of my FPGA cores to date. These are mostly 8-bit cores right now but it is possible I can do some light 16 bit cores in the future. It currently supports the following: NES/Famicom Sega Master System Game Gear Colecovision Gameboy Gameboy Color Atari 2600 Atari 7800 Supervision Gamate Game King Channel F Arcadia 2001 Creativision Adventure Vision Videobrain Odyssey^2 RCA Studio 2 The following are in the process of being ported: Intellivision SPC Player Unfortunately the mandelbrot zoomer cannot be ported due to a lack of multipliers. Download the Latest Jailbroken Firmware Here: http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/ntm_firmware_verJB2.0.zip Related links for the Nt DF Retro Hardware did a good overview of how to perform the jailbreak: https://youtu.be/BR5MZh-AYVs?t=1025 Analogue Support Page: https://support.analogue.co/hc/en-us Overview of FPGA Video Game System Cores I have a text file here that describes the current systems implemented: http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/systems_V110.txt How to Jailbreak the Nt mini 1. Format your SD card FAT32 2. Unzip the firmware file onto the card, keeping the directories contained within 3. Load your desired ROMs into the proper directories (i.e. NES games go in /NES/) 4. Plug the SD card into the Nt mini 5. Power on the Nt mini and wait 3 minutes while the update occurs (led will flash red) 6. You will know this worked because the menu (default DOWN+SELECT) now sports skulls and crossbones Upgrading the already Jailbroken Nt mini Firmware 1. Replace the entire /SYSTEM/ directory and its contents (the cores live here) 2. Add the new directories 3. Replace the firmware .bin in the root directory with the new one 4. You need to add the BIOS files for the various systems as indicated by the text file in the /BIOS/ directory 5. Plug the SD card into the Nt mini 6. Power on the Nt mini and wait 3 minutes while the update occurs (led will flash red) Core File Menu Controls Up/Down: Selects a file. Left/Right: Page through files, 16 at a time. B: Can be set to take you to the top/bottom of a file list, do nothing, or go back 1 level in the directory structure. Y: Run the game. Start: Enter the settings menu. This is slightly different from the main menu. There is now as "core" settings menu. Everything core specific will be found here. Select: Exit the menu. You will be asked to confirm. If you confirm, it returns to the core select menu. If you do not wish to exit, it returns to the currently running game. Backing up your NES & Famicom Cartridges with copyNES Mini 1. Insert the game in question into the cartridge slot. 2. Select 'Run Cartridge' to make sure it works and is making good contact. 3. Re-enter the menu and select "Copynes mini". 4. Select the mapper that your game uses. See here for a decent list of game vs. mapper: http://tuxnes.sourceforge.net/nesmapper.txt. 5. Hit Y (or A if using the original NES controller) to start the backup. Note that it might take awhile (30 seconds) to determine the size of the ROMs on the cartridge.After the game is backed up, you can enter a filename using up/down./left/right. If no name is entered, it will save it with a filename determined by the sumcheck of the ROM. 6. Press Y (or A if using the original NES controller) to save the backup ROM. Jailbreak Firmware Releases & Notes as of 3/31/2017 JB V2.0 http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242970-fpga-based-videogame-system/?p=3731480 Download: http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/ntm_firmware_verJB2.0.zip Added the Adventurevision core. Added the Videobrain core. Added the Studio 2 core. JB v1.9 http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242970-fpga-based-videogame-system/?p=3726104 Download: http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/ntm_firmware_verJB1.9.zip Added the Osyssey^2 core. JB v1.8 http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242970-fpga-based-videogame-system/?p=3721674 Download: http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/ntm_firmware_verJB1.8.zip Fixed DC offset on the audio, causing certain monitors to produce no sound ever, or until a game was started and certain SFX played, etc Fixed the crackling/static issue that appears on games such as solstice Minor fix to audio scaler that probably wasn't audible, but was wrong anyways Fixed the "wigglin' scalers" issue. This was a debug I left in. oops Moved mapper 124 on the NES core to the second NES core due to running out of room Added ability to change highlight text colour in the menus. I cannot add it to NES composite s/vid due to space (but it works on other cores) Added "low lag" controller reading to all cores. (the controller is polled right before vblank to minimize lag) Rebuilt all cores to implement that above fixes/changes Added Famicom Network HVC-051 controller to Coleco core Added Famicom Network HVC-051 controller to Arcadia 2001 core JB v1.7 http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242970-fpga-based-videogame-system/?p=3720849 Download:http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/ntm_firmware_verJB1.7.zip Arcadia 2001 core added Channel F core added Added the Creativision core added Fixed the 7800 composite/s-vid outputs to produce proper carrier JB v1.6 http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242970-fpga-based-videogame-system/?p=3716454 Download: http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/ntm_firmware_verJB1.6.zip Fixed saving video width setting JB v1.5 http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242970-fpga-based-videogame-system/?p=3715370 Download: http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/ntm_firmware_verJB1.5.zip Atari 7800 core added Each core will now save 1080p height selection (4x, 4.5x, 5x) Each core will now save its X width and offset Added a new scaler for 7800 since it is 320 pixels wide Retooled scaling calculations to accommodate systems wider than 256 pixels JB v1.4 http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242970-fpga-based-videogame-system/?p=3710033 Download: http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/ntm_firmware_verJB1.4.zip Game King core added Gamate core added Supervision core added JB v1.3 http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242970-fpga-based-videogame-system/page-59?do=findComment&comment=3704550 Download: http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/ntm_firmware_verJB1.3.zip Atari 2600 core added Fixed NES Mapper 163 so pokemon yellow now works Fixed NES audio pitch sweep JB v1.2 http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242970-fpga-based-videogame-system/page-52?do=findComment&comment=3698659 Download: http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/ntm_firmware_verJB1.2.zip Gameboy core added Gameboy Color core added JB v1.1 http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242970-fpga-based-videogame-system/page-46?do=findComment&comment=3693821 Download: http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/ntm_firmware_verJB1.1.zip Added SMS and GG save RAM saving functionality Fixed SMS/GG save RAM functionality File browser will not display .SAV files in the sms/gg/coleco cores Retooled the button options and made a new unified "Menu Button Mapping" entry Fixed the B button setting so it works now Fixed LED issue on core swap Made LED default to white and changed menus to reflect this. If you want it fixed you select a pattern speed of 0 now Removed GG bezel graphics JB v1.0 http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242970-fpga-based-videogame-system/page-45?do=findComment&comment=3693098 Download: http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/ntm_firmware_verJB1.0.zip SG-1000 core added (place your games under /SMS for this) Sega Master System core added (with FM support) Game Gear core added Colecovision core added Fixed MMC5 square channels 2x too high in pitch Fixed Holy Diver mapper mirroring (be sure to set NES2.0 submapper to 3) Fixed Crime Busters mapper Fixed "Hang on boot" for v0.9 JB v0.9 http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242970-fpga-based-videogame-system/page-42?do=findComment&comment=3687219 Download: http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/ntm_firmware_verJB0.9.zip NES core added (support for over 200 NES mappers) Original post Welll, some people seemed interested in my FPGA Videogame doodad that I presented in the RVGS thread and it was suggested I make a post about it, how it works, and what it does. I still don't have immediate plans for selling it, but if there's enough interest, that could change. I will attempt to explain what it is, how it works, and what a sellable version of it would entail, so let's go! First off, nearly ANYTHING is possible. The main problem is going to be how much money people will be willing to pay, and how long they will want to wait for it to be finished. A target price of around $250 is probably going to be a reasonable value, but ideally I'd love to be able to do it for $200ish. What I have right now: At this point in time, I have 17 system cores complete, and pretty much ready to go. This means that the core is done and runs all the games I can throw at it flawlessly. I have spent a lot of time debugging and testing these cores to make sure they are the highest possible quality and completeness. Yes, I spent the time to run every single game available to me on them- many many many times to make sure any changes I made didn't break something. To obtain the absolute highest level of quality and compatibility, I have made special test fixtures, hardware, and test ROMs for every system, and used my 200 channel logic analyzer to inspect exactly what goes on to get exact cycle accuracy on everything. Developing a new 8 bit level core takes around 1-3 months of work depending on how complicated it is. Sometimes it was even faster than this, and sometimes longer. I figure I could get SNES or Genesis going in a 4-6 month time frame and maybe a few more months to debug it to a decent level of operation. There have been several hardware prototypes created up to this point to develop and test my cores and other related things, and I now have full command of the HDMI interface at 1080p/60fps. I have moved onto HDMI now as my interface of choice due to the high quality of today's flat panel monitors and TVs. Analog is still possible, and I can support this too. I still think that some kind of add-on for analog will be the best way to go instead of integrated it into the system due to the cost of the video DACs ($4-5 each) and the connectors ($1 or more each in some cases). By leaving off analog, I can save probably $40-50 by eliminating all the chips and hardware for them. The other option is simply to get rid of analog all together and not support it at all. Would many people be sad to see analog go? Personally I wouldn't, but this is not really my decision- I want to make something the USERS would like. Right now, I am playing games by loading ROMs in through a computer interface for debug, but ideally they would be loaded off of SD cards. I like the idea of cartridge adapters, but the problem with them is making the plastic enclosure for it. Making the adapters themselves is fairly straight forward and easy, and the games would literally be running off the cartridge itself- it would NOT be just another Retron 5 that just dumps the game and plays it- it would actually RUN the actual cart so Powerpaks/Everdrives/etc would still work. Ideally if you can stuff it into an existing system and have it work, I want it to work for sure on my adapters too. I don't know how much these adapters would cost. They would each consist of a cartridge connector, a system connector, and probably level translation logic and maybe a few other minor things. Figure a $20-30 parts cost. So maybe a $40-50 retailish range. Adding more than 1 cartridge port to the adapter would save money, and maybe be a $5-10 cost adder vs. singles. I have been using PCIe connectors because they are cheap, durable, and extremely commodity, which means there's 10 or 20 companies making them. This will stop it going obsolete any time soon, and keeps the price in the basement. All good things for this. The current "high end" board I have designed and manufactured looks like this: (3D render) (main board + analog board, front view) (main board + analog board, back view) There's no less than TWO FPGAs on this board- one was meant to do all the system simulation/emulation, and the other was meant to handle video scaling, SD card access, etc. I ended up not stuffing the boards because I learned a lot about HDMI during the HDMI NES adapter project, and wanted to apply what I learned. This will basically lead to lower costs and more functionality vs. what I have already created on this existing board. All the parts are bought and sitting here in a box, along with solder stencils, etc. but I think holding off and redesigning the board is the best option. I may still stuff parts of the board for testing, however. Right now, my idea to package this thing was to use the laser cutter I have at work and make acrylic laser cut packaging instead of a professional injection mold, but if 1000ish people were on board, I could most likely go for a proper job injection mold to house it. System specs that a proposed system would have: * SD card for storing ROMs/save games/FPGA configurations * Quad RAM busses to allow up to neogeo level systems * Enhanced video scaling (see my HDMI NES project for a taste of my HDMI capabilities) * 49K logic element FPGA * Quad USB ports for controllers/mice/etc Most likely HID only * HDMI video/audio, 1080p and 48KHz audio standard * Port to allow plugging in cartridge adapters * Maybe one or two built in ports for i.e. NES or SNES or similar * 256Mbytes of RAM The existing board has all of the above except cart ports, and a few more things like ethernet which I would strip off. Here's a youtube playlist showing off most of my FPGA videogame cores to date: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzIL4C5OsJVtsCIy482JxhbFNLXMYLKdH And a list: * Sega Master System * Game Gear * Colecovision * NES/Famicom * Atari 2600 * Atari 7800 * Intellivision * Odyssey^2 * Adventure Vision * Supervision * RCA Studio 2 * Fairchild Channel F * Videobrain * Arcadia 2001 * Creativision * Gameboy * Gameboy Color (not 100% yet, still debugging. runs 99% of games so far) nonvideogame things: * SPC player (SNES music) * Mandelbrot realtime zoom/pan/julia None of the cores are bare bones, either. The 2600 core for example supports Pitfall 2, Atarivox, Supercharger demo unit, Supercharger proper, and all mappers. The Intv and Odyssey^2 ones have the speech add-ons, and the NES core supports all expansion audio chips and all mappers. And that's about it. If there's any questions lemme know and I will try to answer 'em.

Yeah their HW guy knew more than me. He thought that videogame systems of the era outputted 480i/30fps video and that the RVGS was ONLY going to output 480i on all the interfaces (RGB, NTSC, S-vid, HDMI(!)). I had to tell 'em that videogame systems all outputted 240p/60fps. That's the point I knew the project was in deep stuff. :-/ I have only been making FPGA videogame systems for 11 years, so I don't have much experience I guess.

There was never any deal made, and I received no money. Just that I'd get paid if it got funded. Nothing was written down at all anywhere. The total lack of direction on the hardware end, the total discounting of every single thing I told them they could do to make the hardware better and more importantly cheaper fell on deaf ears. Fast forward 4 months later, and the hardware STILL isn't any closer to being done. Every time I talked to them, they had added some new expensive piece of hardware that they didn't need, and the goal of an affordable system kept creeping farther and farther into the distance. I really tried hard to give the best suggestions for how to fix up the hardware to make it cheaper/better, but the HW guy kept rebuffing me at every point so I stopped trying. As a ferinstance: I tried to convince them that if they wanted to have that plethora of analog video options, they should use the FPGA to generate the composite and s-video outputs digitally. This would save them the expensive RGB to NTSC converter chip and associated resistors/caps/inductor (About $5-10). On my second proto FPGA system, I pressed my single RGB DAC into quadruple duty. It outputs RGB like you'd expect, but it can also output component, s-video, and composite as well. Of course you only get one of these at a time (RGB, or component, or s-vid+composite) but most people don't connect their system up to multiple TVs at the same time. The component, s-vid, and composite are digitally generated in the FPGA, and simply output to the same DAC. This method is 100% FREE and as a bonus I get NTSC, PAL, and if you're feeling frisky, SECAM. I also used this hardware to generate "exact NES" output video- it has the exact same timing and voltage levels a real NES does, so the composite generated this way looks 100% identical to a real NES. I did A/B comparison on a CRT and you can't tell which is which. Even the overscan looks identical. That's the power of the FPGA. The BOM (bill of materials) kept going up and up and I questioned who this system was really being designed for- the game player or the people designing it. The final nail in the coffin was when a skype meeting was set up on 9/8/15 for the next day at 6PM. I set up my skype at 6PM, said I was ready, and got a reply about how they are going to hold off for now, because they were debating if the FPGA would still make it into the system. This caught me as extremely unprofessional- I set aside time for this meeting the previous day, only to get rebuffed at the time of. At this point I figured I was pretty much done with the project, because no FPGA would make it into the system, thus rendering me and my cores redundant. I would like to see it succeed still, but seemingly without them being any closer to done on the hardware today as it was 5 months ago (and probably less so- with all the newly added chips and parts). I kept seeing the BOM rise like a bottle rocket only to explode with a loud report at the top of its travel. There had to be some massive fat trimming but alas it didn't happen, except probably cutting out the thing that made it different- the FPGA. I suspect we still don't have hard specs because hard specs still don't exist. It's all just magic hand waving about how since it's got an ARM, games that run on other ARM platforms should be a "Breeze" to port to it. An ARM's an ARM, right? Without the FPGA, it's just an Ouya that takes carts, so kind of like a Retron 5. The comparison is apt because it's comparing one ARM based SOC to another ARM based SOC. The peripherals added to this core don't really add anything to the GAME PLAYER'S experience (which is the part that counts.... the experience). Spending all the time and BOM costs on silly things like "100 year flash ROMs" and "thick gold plated connectors" and "made in the USA" do absolutely nothing for the end user and player. These are simply things the dev team wants and not things the game player wants, and it inflates the cost greatly. Using regular single level cell commodity flash ROM is plenty good enough; it will be around 20-30 years from now. Even if the carts start to lose their memory, someone will be around to reflash it for you at a nominal price if the system had any kind of traction at all. I liken it to driving a car for "100 years" without taking it to a mechanic now and again for tuneups and repairs... you just can't do it. Everything needs little repairs now and again if you expect to keep using it for a very long time. Making an electronic product reliable is one thing- we do it all the time at work. Another ferinstance: At work, I design cryogenic controls. These run 24 hours a day, 7 days at week, for 20-30 YEARS. I have to design them to be as reliable as possible, yet not be stupidly expensive to make. These things have to work around liquid nitrogen, and peoples' lives can literally on the line. (no, they don't store bodies in LN2. hehe. more like blood and cells) I know a thing or two about high rel design I think. I get it done without busting the budget just fine. But we're talking about a GAME PLAYER here and not something more important. I think I figured it out. Making something that still works 30 years from now smacks me more as a way to "maintain your investment" in a collectable item, rather than something you want to use. I guess the great selection of colours goes along with the "collector" theme, as is the name of the company making Tiny Knight, "Collectorvision". So that's the long winded take. I will give a few more protips just since I'm feeling generous. Protip #1: DO NOT think about patenting the cartridge bus. Patents are stupid. I should know, I own a patent. It's expensive to get, and takes YEARS to get it. I doubt something as simple as a cartridge bus would be worthwhile to patent anyways; there's going to be so much prior art involved it's not funny. A patent isn't some kind of magical shield- all a patent does is literally give you a license to sue. That's it. Without money, you cannot defend your patent, rendering it worthless. Don Lancaster has some great tips on why you should avoid patents. Protip #2: You vastly underestimate how much time and money it will take to get this thing through certifications (i.e. CE, UL, CSA, whatever). I am a veteran of the certification racket. It took about 3-4 months and cost a lot of money. I don't think it needs to be certified anyways. Only the power supply has to; this is the reason you see lots of things that have an external power brick these days and not so many things have internal supplies any more. Some company makes these things and gets them through all the certifications for you. If your thing runs on low voltage, you can self-certify it. protip #3: Get the boards manufactured and assembled in China. Made in USA is nice, but it will literally cost 30-50% MORE money to get it made here, and the quality tends not to be as high as China. This is highly ironic to me. I wished getting stuff made in the USA was viable but for lots of things, sadly it isn't. One of my youtube vids I explained how I tried to get PC boards made in the USA and the misery I ran into.

The problem with making a 'low tech' game system is that those already exist. :-) NES, Colecovision, even SNES are all fairly "low tech" and with highly accessible documentation. The NES arena has the nesdev wiki which has pretty much every little tiny detail you'd want to know about that architecture and there's a HUGE homebrew scene going on right now, with 10-20 new games of varying quality being released on cart a year or more. I suspect SNES might start to get a bunch of activity in a few years as all the people who had one as a kid get a bit older and want to try their hand at making something for that system. Making a brand new system would be a ton of fun I think, but you got the problem of a lack of an entrenched base of software and example code for it. Still, I bet there would be a couple crazy people that would be eager to try writing stuff for it.

Fortunately, the INTV and Colecovision are so old now that there's no license required. The rights holders don't own the rights to anything except the copyright on the ROMs themselves, and the imagery in them such as sprites/motifs/look and feel and other similar things. I doubt either company so much as even has a schematic any more for the system main board let alone anything more substantial hardware wise. This is good though since it leaves everything wide open for anyone to swoop in with their own "compatible" designs. I suspect everything up to PS1 level is free game. The only possible protection is patents, and those are good for a maximum of 18 years (20 now from date of filing). Since the SNES and Genesis are older than this (damn I feel old), it means these are free game too. The N64 would be about the top end of this limit when it comes to patent protection, Anything newer might still be under patent protection. Removing some of the original hardware constraints like sprite limits is doable and can help a bit I think. Bunnyboy's FPGA NES he is going to release can show extra sprites per scanline for example. On that HDMI Adapter I did for NES, I added some extra things for homebrewers to use- the programmer can turn on and off all the expansion hardware from the NES side, so if you want the FM synth of VRC7, you can turn it on. Or VRC6, N163, etc. I hope people use this feature on their homebrew titles for better sound.

After cancelling the last meeting with me a day after setting up and saying you weren't even sure it was going to have the FPGA on it any more, I figured I had been spec'd out of the project along with the FPGA since it was going to be too expensive. I wish you the best on the project, but I think the time allocated to design and build and program it is going to be too short. So far, no specs have been nailed down yet after this long. If you keep chasing rainbows (newer better faster chips, 3D, etc) you'll never get to the pot of gold. The first part of any of my projects is to nail down specs BEFORE I even think of launching Altium (PCB software). This includes researching and developing what chips I want to use, how much they cost, and what the advantages and disadvantages of each are. I think I spent 4 days on just power supplies alone. Not designing the board for it- just researching different options to find the cheapest/best one I could. I spent 8 hours researching just how to route the stupid differential clocks on my DDR memory. 8 hours for TWO routes. I wanted to make sure I was doing it right, because a failure on the clock means the RAM wouldn't work at all. Spent another day finding good DACs, and so on. I chose PCIe connectors for the analog board and expansion because they were durable and CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP! I think the 8x connector was under 2 dollars (that's the big one along the back). Once all the R&D was out of the way, then finally I started layout. I wanted to lay the board out without having to redo parts over and over because that makes it tough to get good component packing densities. I will give you a few design protips too to maximize your chances of success: * Put your high density parts (SOC, etc) onto as small of a board as you can if it's 6 or more layers. The smaller the better. Put all the noncritical hardware (controller port stuff, USB, power supplies, etc) on a 2 or 4 (less desirable) layer board that fills out the enclosure. This will save lots of money in board costs. Link the two with castellations (solder pads on the 2 layer board, edge "hole" doodads on the 6/8 layer one) or maybe flat flex ribbons. Former costs soldering time, latter cost is the connector which isn't that high these days. * Make your board rectangular and not trapezoidal, this will make routing and placement easier. * Narrow the board down some if possible to save material costs. The Y dimension is kind of fixed by the jag case, but X can probably be squeezed down. The limit will be screw bosses and cart port width. Don't worry, I have no plans to release any kind of FPGA videogame system at the moment. I still am not sure that people would float the costs.

A few more thoughts about some kind of new "retro" videogame system I thought I would throw out there: I was thinking the other day if you really wanted to make some kind of "new" retro videogame system, the best approach might be to start with a retro-style video interface, including sprites, background layers, and all the usual trappings of say the SNES, genesis, etc. but the twist is integrating a modern CPU such as an ARM with it. Think 256+ sprites per scanline, any size, 8 background layers with 'mode 7' style rotation/scaling, and with 32 channel 16 bit stereo digital audio. This would allow for retro-style games, done in a more original form but with a modern CPU to make coding it so much easier and faster. The sprite and background engines would be fairly decent, and more capable of either SNES or genesis, while still operating in a similar same manner. That would kind of "enforce" the look and feel of the games while giving it most of the modern day conveniences like fast CPUs and large storage capabilities and being able to write your code in i.e. C. The big problem with doing this though is the total 100% lack of games for it. Without enticing exclusive games that people would gotta have, it's a total nonstarter. No one is going to take hundreds to thousands of manhours writing games for such a system if it does not have an installed base. And it can't get an installed base without games. Frankly, MAKING the hardware is the super duper easy part. Writing the games to run on it... not so much. You pretty much have to give a developer buckets of money to write an exclusive game, because they might never see any more money once the initial payment is made if it doesn't take off. Just looking at games like Super Metroid (I'd consider this a "gotta have" type title), I can't imagine how many thousands and thousands of man hours this game took to write, and then thousands and thousands more hours of play testing and feedback it took. And this is a lowly SNES title that fit into 3 megabytes (24 megabits). Writing a modern game's code might be easier today, but it's not very easy shortcutting all the artwork that goes into the graphics and such if you want a top tier quality game. This is one problem I had with Tiny Knight- don't get me wrong, it might be a great fun game to play, but it sure is lacking on art direction department which just gives it that "unfinished indie game" vibe to me. I only mention this because the RVGS is using it as their "gotta have" top tier launch title. I had the idea many many times of coming up with this kind of "modern" system but the total lack of software support always stopped me from pursuing it. I would end up being the only person to write code for it. And a final "ferinstance", re: the difficulty of hardware vs. software, I think I spent about 2 weeks designing that HDMI adapter for the NES, and another 2-3 days to assemble it and bring it up (test all the hw), but the software end took another 6 months of on and off work. If I compressed all the software work into a consecutive block, I probably put 3 to 3.5 months into it of 5-8 hour nights. If I sell 800 units I will maybe break minimum wage on the hours put in after paying for the hardware and tools I bought for the project. if I'm lucky. The total project was about 8-9 months from initial discussion to final shipping product. Figure something like an RVGS would take 2-3 months of hardware design (planning, PCB design) and another month of hardware assembly and bringup. There'd be a lot of small sub systems to test, so bringup (getting the hardware to work) would take significantly longer. After all that, THEN the fun begins: writing your software. Going by my off the cuff estimate, the software end takes 8-10x longer than the hardware does, if not longer. So I don't think their 1 year estimate is at all attainable. (not to toot my own horn, but if you want to see the down and dirty progress of how that HDMI adapter was made, I have a series of videos I made on youtube showing pretty much all of it from initial design, initial prototypes, then a timelapse of me doing the complete layout on the redesigned board, up to final testing and shipping. my channel's name is "kevtris"). Sorry to throw some water on the fire but I think honesty and reality from someone who does this for a living (yah I do this kind of stuff at work too- just not with videogames) and has over 100 products under his belt is in order here.

yeah I just posted the pics in the gallery because I was not sure how to attach them directly in the post otherwise. I typed out most of my post and tried to insert the images and it blew away all of my text, so I had to do it again. d'oh. In any event, there it be :-)

Well, After seeing their IGG page, and how the FPGA is gone? or significantly reduced from their system, I can't stay silent any longer. As many know, there was talk of various "cores" on the RVGS, and that I was going to be the dork supplying them. Anyways, I thought I would inject a little bit of sanity into the whole "FPGA videogame system" realm and show off what I have been able to do alone, and without any kind of outside funding. I started working on FPGA videogame cores and systems back in 2004, when I made my first prototype "FPGA videogame" board. Back then, I was enamored with DB9 controllers (genesis, 2600, etc). So as can be seen in this prototype, I have two DB9 ports, a DB15 (for NES/SNES controller adapters, and "expansion"), an SD card and several other things. Namely VGA, composite, s-video, audio, PS/2 keyboard and mouse (lol). This system worked, and is what I developed the FPGA NES and FPGA 2600 on. Then in 2010, I decided to update my project and designed and built a second prototype system. Since plastic enclosure design was expensive, I made it fit inside an NES cartridge shell, and the connectors would stick out the back, where the cartridge would otherwise normally fit into the NES system. This prototype was used to design the rest of my systems (17 to date). (bonus image of that board outputting DVI to a flatpanel, running Kirby's Adventure) With this board, I finished up A LOT of systems. All of these systems are DONE and 100% finished and tested, ready to be targeted ("ported") to nearly anything with an FPGA inside it: * NES * SMS * Game Gear * Colecovision * Atari 2600 * Atari 7800 * Gameboy * Gameboy Colour (has 1 or 2 tiny bugs left, but 99.9% of the games run) * Intellivision (with Intellivoice, computer add-on, etc) * Odyssey^2 (with The Voice add-on) * Creativision (with tape drive support) * Arcadia 2001 * Adventure Vision * Videobrain * RCA Studio 2 (lul) * Fairchild Channel F * Supervision (crappyish LCD handheld) and some non-game things like an SNES SPC music player with visualizer, and a realtime mandelbrot zoomer/explorer. Again, all the above are done and ready to go and currently work on my homemade dev board. Then in 2014, I decided to make my third FPGA Videogame board.. the "possibly sellable" version. This board was a huge step up from the last, and is on par with what the RVGS has and can do IMO. The interesting part is this board exists and I have designed it and wrote code for it. Amusingly I have not actually stuffed one of the boards, but I will explain why later. The board was manufactured, and I did buy all the parts however. First, here's my "3D render" of the board, fresh out of Altium (circuit board program). The goals for this board were these: * Make something I can sell! * Include ALL the outputs possible for video and audio, but only it people paid extra to keep costs down if you were only interested in HDMI * 4 USB controller ports * High speed SD card interface (4 bit mode, 50MHz) * menu buttons for the user so he does not need to dork with the controller * RGB status LED * Expansion port for cartridge adapters (the right side connector) * Be able to run all the current cores + SNES, Genesis, Neogeo, and possibly PS1 era systems. * 1080p/60fps video output * Ethernet port The board is 6 layers, and was my first board in Altium after I switched over in 2014. It was a lot of fun to design and it helped me to learn Altium. I got the boards made which cost around $600 (for 10 of them), and bought parts (another 400-500 bucks). There's no less than TWO Cyclone V FPGAs on here- Itchy is designed to be the "user interface" and video scaler/processor, and Scratchy is the "engine" that does all the core running and nothing else. Before I had a chance to stuff the boards, I worked on that HiDefNES NES to HDMI adapter which was finished a month or so ago and released. I am glad I did, because I learned a lot of stuff about HDMI and can now revise my board to save a lot of parts and cost that I don't need. So, there will be another cheaper rev of this board now. I already have the parts, so I just need to design a newer PCB. Here's two views of the finished boards. I bought the main 6 layer board and some of the 4 layer "analog" boards, and plugged them together for these pictures: And if you're REALLY curious what my board stackup looks like, including internal layers you can see that here: http://gerblook.org/pcb/JTtikCWit4ezouDz9p37Fn#top-copper Click the links at the left to view the different layers. I noticed in the IGG that they are allocating around $100K(!) for prototype development. This is an insane amount of money, considering I am in for around $1000-1200 on my latest "advanced" prototypes- around 1% of what they are seeking. No, I am not going to start asking for money, just thought it was interesting to point out. Total development time from concept to prototype PCBs+parts was around 2-3 months. This included the design time in Altium, learning Altium, and getting the boards manufactured. I figured if I was going to sell this thing, I was damn well going to have a working prototype of what I wanted to manufacture, and have the software fully working too. As for the cartridge adapters, I came up with this idea almost 2 years ago, and the evidence can be seen on my above prototype PCB. I anticipated selling adapters in "groups". i.e. a single adapter might contain 3 or 4 cartridge ports each. The main stopper of course is packaging them into some kind of enclosure (requiring expensive molding, but today it isn't TOO bad). Frankly the electronics on something like this isn't too hairy, it always comes down to how you are going to package it, and who's going to want to pay for it. hehe. Just thought I'd drop the bomb in here about how I have basically created what they are trying to create, but actually have gotten it manufactured and did it all on a shoestringish budget. (If anyone thinks this doodad would fly with a $200-250 price point, lemme know. The only reason I have not tried to sell it was because I thought it was too much money to get a lot of support on i.e. Kickstarter) If you want to know more info about anything lemme know. There's also video of each system running on my youtube channel "kevtris".

what thread is that? "cdmi" returned no search results except for this thread where you mentioned it.

There's no reason why an FPGA implementation can't "live forever". IMO it's even better since you're using a hardware description language (HDL) to make the systems; this is an "agnostic" (relatively) language that all brands and models of FPGAs can use. It is relatively easy to "port" say an FPGA 2600 from a Xilinx part to an Altera part, or make it run on different hardware with a few adjustments. Any reasonable FPGA design should be 100% "future proof" once the HDL is debugged, and it should be possible to port it from chip to chip forever more. The HDL code defines how the hardware itself works, and has little to do with software emulation; though the end result of an emulator and an FPGA can be the same as previously described. The FPGA is simply a much lower level implementation, and could theoretically exactly duplicate how the actual hardware functions, down to each signal and gate. As for "Good" 7800 emulation, I managed to make a great FPGA 7800 recently and timing seems to be pretty much spot on. All games run perfectly on it including the "difficult" titles. I know from some reverse engineering efforts, the timing of the DMA engine and duplicated that along with the other stuff and did some testing to make sure it matched up. I can't say for sure if it's absolutely 100% accurate, but it properly runs every single game I could find so there is that. I am not sure if people would want to buy FPGA game systems. It's easy to say that a PC emulator is free which is true, but you would not buy it only for that. You'd be paying for something that plugs into a TV or monitor and has an absolutely perfect emulation of the target system with a cohesive menu and controller choices with hardware upscaling and no input lag at all. This isn't so easy to do on a PC emulator, if it's even possible.

Well I'm selling off the rest of my classic game collection now. Now that all the games are sold (thanks to anyone on Atariage that bid on that stuff!) it's time to unload all my systems. I have listed my complete Colecovision collection with a custom A/V and power modded system I used to develop Kevtris, along with 66 carts and my personal copy! It's "Kev's Copy: 000/100" Also listed is an A/V modded Odyssey^2 with The Voice, A/V modded Atari 7800 (yes, it works with Ballblazer's audio!), modded Sears Video Arcade 2 with A/V also. There's a bunch of other random things like a Hero 2000 robot, NES, original Xbox that's nearly new, and other goodies. Thanks for lookin' eBay Seller: nintendomatic The ebay auction for Kevtris and the coleco stuff is not appearing in my item list, but it should in af ew hours. Until then, here's the direct link to that auction: eBay Auction -- Item Number: 200972110410

Well since everyone's talking about Atari 7800 mods, I decided to make one of my own. I took the other mod posted earlier by Puppetmark, with the 1 transistor amp and modified it slightly- namely changed the 75 ohm resistor to 68 ohms since I had it. The aim of these two mods is to make your 7800 infinitely more useful while retaining a "stock" appearance. There's no hot melt, glue, epoxy or electrical tape needed! The plastic 7800 enclosure is not cut or filed at all! There were several different purposes for the mods I performed: The A/V mod obviously adds A/V out and replaces the stock RF only output. The modulator's RCA jack is reused for video, and a second RCA jack is added where the channel select switch used to be for audio. The mod does indeed worth with Ballblazer and other POKEY games. The power mod performs two separate functions: The first is to replace the original proprietary power socket with a more standard "barrel" style plug. The original 7800 enclosure appears to be designed to accomodate these and they probably had them in mind before changing to someone proprietary. The other major feature of this power mod is reverse polarity protection. If somehow power is reversed (wrong adapter, etc) it will not fry the 7800! Here's a picture of the finished mod. There's no other changes to the outside appearance except on the back. For the A/V mod you will need: 1 68 ohm resistor 1 2.2K resistor 1 3.3K resistor 1 2SC945 transistor (this is an extremely common transistor found by the dozen in old VCRs and TVs or it can be ordered) 1 RCA jack 1 piece of 14 gauge house wiring (no insulation) 1 piece of hookup wire, I used 26 gauge PVC jacketed phone wire For the power mod you will need: 1 coaxial power socket for power (the kind that fits barrel plugs) 1 1N4001, 1N4003, etc. 1A diode 1 ferrite bead, no wire (optional) Tools used: Dremel 1/8" drill bit desoldering tool or braid soldering iron sharpie marker ------- Part 1: the AV mod! Step 1: remove the modulator! I removed it using a desoldering gun, but wick should work. Try not to damage it since we're going to re-use parts of it. You can cut the 4 pins coming off the modulator's PCB if you like, these are not being reused, only the metal shell. Step 2: Take the bottom off the modulator. It just pops off; make sure the solder is off the 4 metal pins on the box portion. Step 3: Remove the PCB. Desolder the little coil from the RCA jack. Next, wick off the solder holding the PCB to the box (2 places). Step 4: stick a wire through the hole indicated in the box, and solder the end to the inner contact of the RCA jack. Step 5: Snap the bottom back on the box and set it aside. Now it's time to remove the parts off the PCB we will not be using and replace them with new ones. Step 1: Remove Q1, L2, L3, C3, C4, C5, C9, R3, R4, S7 as indicated. I desoldered these my desoldering gun, but you could use wick. Try not to damage the holes since we will be reusing some of them. In a pinch you could cut the parts off and remove the leads one at a time. Step 2: Desolder ONE end of R5 and R6, then bend R6 over to the right so that the "free" end goes into the bottom hole of L3. Bend R5 over next to R6 and solder it to R5 on the L3 end. Step 3: Install a 2.2K resistor into C4. Install a 3.3K resistor into R4. Install a 68 ohm resistor (I used 1/2 watt, but 1/4 watt should be fine) from the top hole of C9 into the top hole of C5. DO NOT cut off the 68 ohm resistor lead that is poked through the top hole of C9. We're going to hook that up later. Install the transistor into Q1. Note that it goes "backwards" from the PCB markings. The flat side faces AWAY from the flat side shown on the silk screen (PCB marking). Next, solder the modulator back down and connect the wire coming out to the top pad of L2. Connect a wire from the top hole of the modulator's connections (near where it says "RF1" on the board) to the end of the two resistors going into the bottom hole of L3. Step 4: Here's where the end of the 68 ohm resistor gets connected. Bend it around as shown in a half circle and solder it to the end two part leads poking through in the row. This is ground (both are so I just soldered it to both). Step 5: solder a short jumper wire between the bottom holes of R3 and C9. Now we're going to install the RCA jack for the audio. I bought these ones from Electronic Goldmine (their part number is on the bag) back in 1996 or so, so I am not sure if they still have 'em. nearly any RCA jack will work. change hole locations in that case. Step 1: Put the RCA jack on the board for a test fit. I used the middle hole of the switch holes to put the signal pin of the RCA jack. This means I have to drill 3 holes to mount the jack. Step 2: I am using the two holes from the switch that are closest to the edge of the PCB for the RCA's mounting tabs, along with one I marked with a magic marker (the blue dot near where it says "S7"). Step 3: Using a 1/8" drill bit, I drilled three holes: the one I marked and the two from the switch. Step 4: Flip the PCB over and scrape the solder mask (green coating) off the the big fat ground trace that was drilled through. This will give the solder we're going to add a place to stick. Step 5: Push the RCA jack through the holes drilled. Step 6: Bend the tabs over to hold the jack in place. Step 7: Obtain some 14 gauge house wiring and strip it down to the bare copper. Bend the end in a hook like in the picture so that the middle of the bend touches the middle tab of the RCA jack, and the left end of the 'hook' touches the left tab of the RCA jack. Step 8: solder the left tab to the thick wire, then solder the wire to the middle tab and ground route, and finally cut it to length on the right and solder it to the right tab on the RCA. Use plenty of solder like I did. This last step ensures a very strong secure mounting, and the RCA jack will break before it will come off or damage the PCB. The RCA jack should project through the former channel select hole. So now your 7800 has a bitchin' A/V mod! ------------------- And if you are sick and tired of the crappy custom power socket on the 7800, here's how to fix that, too! Step 1: Remove J5 and FB2. Step 2: Obtain a coaxial power jack. This one takes 2.5mm barrel plugs which is very common. (think Genesis, TG-16, NES, etc). Step 3: Mark the holes we need to drill on the PCB by putting the jack on there and marking them with a marker. I used the middle mounting hole from the original 7800 jack as one of my mounts. Step 4: Using a 1/8" drill bit, drill the three holes (the two marked and the existing one). Step 5: Cut the trace on the top of the board as shown in the purple squares- This is Vin and we do not need it shorting out to our socket we're installing! Step 6: Install a 1N4001 (or 1N4002, 3, 4, etc) 1A diode where FB2 was, cathode (banded end) facing the large capacitor. I installed a ferrite bead on the anode lead but this isn't really necessary unless you have some. Step 7: Install the plug into the holes drilled and bend the tabs over on the back side of the board to hold it. Step 8: Using a knife or dremel, cut the ground route that goes to the original 2 pin power connector as shown in the box on the bottom right picture. This would short out our input voltage otherwise. Step 8: I soldered the positive tab from the connector (the one on the end nearest the 2 pin connector's holes) to the 2 pin connector's holes with a generous helping of solder. Step 9: Using the house wire, I soldered the remaining two tabs from the power connector to the ground route near by. This gives good mechanical support so it won't break off. Here's a bit better view, sorry it's kinda hard to see. The final step is soldering a jumper wire from the transistor on the left to the lead of the capacitor on the right. This replaces that route we cut under the power connector. That's it!

Probably die contamination if I had to guess. The game worked 10 years ago but failed some time in storage. I stored all the games in plastic totes with lids, in the closet so it wasn't in any temperature/humidity extremes. So the only thing I can think of is die contamination of some form or another. I guess it's possible the ROM was stressed somehow before I got it by a failing 2600 regulator or similar, or even static.