Pipercub

I want it to run cool without a fan.

While there are still allot of serious issues out there, future evaluation of the legal standing of the 3 transfers of hardware and proprietary information, by no less than 5 people in the chain, and of course the prototypes and all that this as actually taken a very curious turn for me. I got off the plane and saw all the latest on the SNESinaJAG and I suddenly had a new project. I love props and replicas of rare things, I mentioned I have a full sized T800 in my kitchen, an Apollo space suit in the racer area of the arcade, and various things along those lines. It became clear to me that I had to build a super accurate replica of the trade show prototype. Now this is a great irony as I was the original designer of the RVGS hardware, to be building a replica of the Nth version of it but why not? I just want to have that sitting in the collection so I took stock of what I had which was most of it and I ordered the rest in about an hour and soon enough I will present it here. So far the case is trimmed and the original artwork removed, SNES will be stripped next.

I swear, no BS at all, Mike REALLY believed in this when he first presented the idea to us of a cart based system. I have no doubt he really wanted to do exactly what he said, but this is astonishing. What is most concerning to me now is that there are two people on this team that I know and have high regard for, did nobody on the team lift the skirt and take a peek to see what the HW was, or are they all in on it? I am going to wait as this evolves because it is defies all logic. I mean really, a second fake prototype after last time? He must be in so deep he doesn't have any recourse, I can't even joke about this today.

I am making a public offer, I will sell back my shares in Game Gavel / Retro mag in echange for a Stunt Pilot arcade game delivered to my door.

We would totally have Chris and Mark on our show, you know we are Coleco fans. It was my first system instead of an Atari which I failed to really appreciate at the time, that it was closer to the NES in technology than it was to the 2600. It is unfotunate they didn't look into who they were doing business with closer.

WOW! Speaking of white knighting I am amazed at Socal's indignation as the sober and serious CEO outraged at such foolishness. I seem to recall a different Mike that participated gleefully in our troll fake auction of the ET Cart as promoted on GameGavel because he thought it might lead to promo for the site. They used out Shagged-U-Are Platypus but mispelled it and didn't throw us a link to the show, we grant permission but how about we not get stiffed for the plug, again.

I really mean what I am about to say, don't read anything into it. I like carts, in terms of futureproofing, durability, reliability, and accesability they are the best format thus far in the industry. I have talked about it many times on RetroGaming Roundup, no matter what rights revert or contracts end or liscensing deals go bust, and even the desire of the industry to charge again for the same old thing carts are fireproof against all that. Once sold there is nothing that any entity can do to reach into my collection and disable or inhibit those games, there is no server they can take offline and no ties home, I just get to play my games exactly as I always have. I also like fiddeling with things and I like collections of things; tools, unbuilt RC kits, rare car and aircraft parts, and I also have a thing for the whole package aspect. Sure I can play almost any game on MAME but the artwork and the combined effect of the original articles lined up appeals to me which is why I (like so many of us in this hobby) enjoy having rows of arcade cabs, carts, original boxes etc. It isn't the idea of carts that is making this deal sour.

I'm going to put my bet down. $150, one controller, one cart and FPGA, no SD.

Totally got ya, I was just mentioning he was a legit participant. With all the comings and goings and claims that this guy or that guy was the "original" or there from the beginning it can get confusing.

Phil Adam is a nice guy, he was actually on the very early Skype calls as well as Steve and a few other notable people. That was when the participants were educating Mike in how to turn his idea into an actual product.

Its funny, when Mike first brought this idea up to us his first question was what would it take to build a new console from a technical point of view, the second question he posed was "Do you think there is a market for it, will people buy it?" I told him I liked the idea and that I would buy one and all the carts, but then again I buy lots of crazy stuff like a life size T800 for my kitchen and we literally have no furniture on the first two levels of our house, it is all arcade games. And did I think there would be a viable market for it? Probably not I said. Certainly such a product would have to see deep support from the community, hard to do when you burn bridges and alienate your customer base. Will the FPGA matter to the general public? The price point is higher than impulse purchase territory, and I can't see retailers going for it for the very same reasons listed here in this thread.

If that isn't knock off of the MCC 216 FPGA based system as a SOAC then I will eat my hat, pull the top half of the shell and there will be a single chip with a few ancillary parts. And I bet the designer banged this together on the cheap and is capable of much better work, it is just way to obvious.

A few come to mind: 1. Young EEE grad student tricked into thinking he is a co founder of a startup and the next big deal only to find he is written out of the company after creating the board. 2. Paul Wylie http://www.retrovgs.com/team.htmlHe has is EE and even if he took a management track he has the background to be able to build the board or manage it. 3. Mike called a mutual friend who developed a product through Atgames and got contacts, then offered them more than than the usual return for designing the board with address/clock/vcc etc. lines to a port Either way it is all likely leveraged by the 2nd most prevalent substance on the planet next to corn skimmed from waste treatment plants: Kennedy scheme stocks

A few choice comments from the viewers of that vid:

Socal has been flooding me with Serious Misunderstanding emails, trying to talk his way out of it, this is going to be an epic roller coaster ride.

I bought a nano cade during the kickstarter, it is really a 2005 Java cell phone in a box. I call it the Meh-cade.

Interesting news, Phil Adam is now back on the team, he was one of us that took part in the early meetings to explain to Socal how to turn his idea into a product.

My involvement in the project ended when I found out through socal that his "hardware team" was working on what was supposed to be my realm. They had never been told about prior work, it turned out that we knew each other and had a pretty good laugh about it, they were off the project shortly after. At one point another RVGS team member from the very beginning was working on a similar design to mine, I never saw his work and he never saw mine but he has never been anything but honest and we chatted some about our concepts, but I mention it in case yet another person pops up claiming he was working on a 6502 then PPC system. There were allot of fishing lines in the water early on. I retained the skype call logs, texts, and such as have others. My official standing in the project ended when socal needed new prospective future profit to offer and he created a new company and transferred the assets into it and began operating under that new company, there are allot of stakeholders in this thing at many layers. At this point I will hold onto my design because the work was done under the understanding it was part of the RVGS project and the standing of that is very questionable.

The original design was a Power PC derivative along the lines of a Super Genesis type of concept, Mike has erased that from history. The intent was not originally a high HP system with FPGAs and such. Design group #2 who remains nameless (we know each other, they are good guys but we were mutually shocked to find out socal had two different groups working) used a Beagle Bone Black and got much farther than designer #3 which of course was Carlson with allot of buzzwords installed on a dev board. So when there is talk about going back to the original design or designer, that means different things at different times. Using an FPGA as a console has already been done, and it is a good one too! Dirk launched this thing at CGE 2K10 and I picked one up there, I don't know why it isn't more well known than it is, pretty much does what one of the versions of the RVGS system was purported to do. The MCC 216 does C64 and Amiga 500 very well, I have played a bit with the other cores and they are generally good but I tend to think of it as a Commodore platform since those were the first two cores targeted, it comes with a legal copy of Amiga C64 forever as well.

The Chameleon is the past! The Iquana is yesterday! The SHAGGED-YOU-ARE PLATYPUS is next years old news! DETAILS HERE

The PLATYPUS utilizes 64 very powerful 1 bit Non Field Programmable Gate Arrays (NPGA) drawing 90 AMPS at peak load, due to funding constraints we are using a 60 AMP BULK POWER supply which should survive the 30 day warranty period. Please allow 12 inches clearance around the unit and forced cooling as needed.

PLATYPUS fund raising is underway, we have a bum with a cardboard sign at a MAJOR intersection soliciting funds now! In just a few days we will post the link to the pre-order site to buy this exciting new console. We expect a demo video in less than 60 days. Additional cooling and power infrastructure may be necessary in some cases.

RetroGaming Roundup is pleased to announce the launch of the SHAGED-U-ARE PLATYPUS, a true retro console taking you back to several days of old. This exciting new console features the ultimate in BULK POWER capable of supplying 60 Amps! And as a special surprise one of 12 remaining copies of CGE Adventures (cartridge not compatible with PLATYPUS console.)

Say what you will, but I have converted over to bulk power in the last few months.

Toy Fair prediction; It will move a window around a desktop while staying cool without a fan.