elmer

Good for you! The condescension was in response to weeks of your overly-simplistic views of the world ... but you're 150% within your rights to disagree and fight back. I wish that we could actually sit down over a beer and have a constructive discussion over our differences. Really ... I'm not here to get this thread closed-down. But folks ... there is more to the world than fraking advertising-revenues! DerekRumpler and Jibbajaba and shawnphase may be the modern reality that us old-farts created ... but I still hope for better.

Honeychild ... I don't define the "me" culture in that way. You do it well-enough by yourself. If you want to be paid for you "commentary" ... then make it "interesting" and "worthwhile" ... otherwise "sorry". Gentlemen, I'm sorry if this punctures your "bubbles" ... but there's a huge difference between "commentary" and "creativity". Like a lot of old-farts here ... people make YouTube videos celebrating the memories of the products that I helped to create. That's in the past ... and really, that wasn't the motivation of any of us old-folks back-in-the-day. I'm not asking anyone to "give-away" the results of any "creative" endeavour. I've made money for being in the game industry, and have absolutely no problem with anyone else doing so. Just actually get-off-your-ass and really contribute something significant ... then I'll be happy to pay you. Flap-your-lips about how "significant" your "insignificant" thoughts are ... then "nope".

Sorry Dude, but I've seen your posts here, and I've seen your posts on PCENGINEFX, and I've actually looked at a couple of your videos on YouTube. The big conclusion ... I don't owe you a living wage from your "side-business" of a YouTube Channel. Nor do I owe John Lester (Gamester81) or Pat and Ian (Completely Unnecessary Podcast). You're trying to say "interesting" things in order to sell my eyeballs to your advertisers ... I (OTOH) don't monetize my posts, nor do I particularly care if anyone reads them. I'm having a "conversation", not trying to make a "buck". I thought that was the point of a public "forum". I'm also giving away hundred/thousands of hours of my work in doing fan-translations and in trying to open-up obscure old computers/consoles to new folks ... because that interests me ... and not because I'm trying to "monetize" some fraking brief moment of "fame". But that's just me. I'm "old", and I believe that some things are worth preserving, but I just don't fraking understand the "me" culture.

And as an crusty old ex-pat Brit, I have absolutely zero interest in the the Atari 2600, the ColecoVision, or the NES. They had no significant presence in the UK except as rare grey-imports. The myriad of different home-computer systems in the UK, and the ability for anyone-with-an-interest to program them, led to a huge talent-pool of highly-skilled programmers that were then recruited by American companies for developing games for the 4th generation (and later) consoles. So ... Retro Gamer is much more my cup-of-tea than Mike Kennedy's RETRO, or Carl's Retro Gaming. Different folks, different interests!

Does anyone else have visions of Chris Cardillo and Mike Kennedy doing Monty Python's Dead Parrot(head) sketch going through their mind? Perhaps it's just me ... but I bet that they could actually earn a lot of money for charity if they both agreed to do a YouTube video of that!

OK, so it turns out that I was only 90% right on the day of the KickStarter ... it took until today for the speculation to be 100% right!

Sounds like Coleco definitely aren't going to roll-over and play nice with Mike's feelings. So then the next question is, will Mike Kennedy ... Actually have the balls to send in whatever "prototype" he can scrape together from the local GoodWill? Just stay silent and let the deadline pass and lose "by default? Come up with some lame excuse about him being mugged by a little-old-lady on the way to the Post Office? Come up with some lame excuse about it all being the hardware guy's fault for lying to him?

I totally agree that this is an "exit" strategy. But I agree with "Lost Monkey" that River West are likely to say exact what he predicts. It would be a "face saver" for all parties, and allow them to back-the-heck-away without any possible legal blowback from Mike. If they out-and-out call him a fraud, then he might feel it necessary to sue ... and the River West guys actually have some money, so they'd be a target. Much easier to let everyone back away with as much dignity as they can muster and save on the legal fees. I believe that they're just making a good "business" decision now that they realize that Mike isn't going to make them any profit. They've probably been getting legal counsel about how to extract themselves from this mess. Just because you're all-fired-up and angry and ready to get out the tar-and-feathers doesn't mean that River West sees all of this in anything other than cold-hard-cash terms, and being seen to give Mike his 7 days rather than just banging down his door, pitchfork-in-hand, is just good legal weaseling.

Wouldn't it be hilarious if River West paid John Carlsen to take a look at the new "prototype" ... he's "independent" of the project now, and certainly knows the history.

Since this is a "speculation" thread, I think that it's not unreasonable to start speculating on "WTF happened"! Here's my guess ... I suspect that River West got cold feet about the negative publicity and the potential damage to the Coleco brand, especially after the "fraud" at the Toy Fair, and they yanked the Coleco license away from Mike a few days ago. The "fraud" gives them perfect reason to do so, and to totally come out smelling-of-roses as the guys that protected a beloved American brand from the charlatan that had fooled them into letting him almost ruin it. That might also explain how Triverse seems to have some inside knowledge of today's disaster, even though he's carefully not said anything. Just total speculation ... but that was what this thread was set up for.

I have difficulty imagining how this could possibly have been handled worse than this "just silence". I can't think of any way to even attempt to come back from this except for Mike saying "I was hit by a truck and was in a coma." ... at which point I'd ask to see the hospital bill.

The "fans" are getting restless ... even the idiot that doesn't realize that he can already learn his "old school game programming" on REAL systems for free with emulators like Mednafen, and then see his stuff running on a REAL system with an EverDrive.

And everyone is here to do the Rocky Horror Picture Show audience-participation style callbacks to Mike if he does it.

Very cool! An FPGA SNES with a 128MByte worth of built-in games would probably appeal to a lot of the folks that hang around here. I hate to think what the final cost would be ... and "is working on" is a very, very long way from "has finished" ... but definitely great info, thanks! Personally ... I'd much rather have whatever Kevtris comes up with, or stick with the evolving open-system guys like MiST.

Hahaha! I've got plenty of real PC Engine hardware variants for when I need to see something on "original hardware", and have Mednafen for programming on. No need to pay even more for an expensive emulator-in-a-box!

Heeeyyyy!!! Don't forget us "PC Engine" folks, or I'll have to go into a corner and cry!

That sounds like exactly what people are going to be saying if the Coleco Chameleon manages to get funded, and if they ever manage to ship a single actual console out to their "backers".

Short Answer: Very, very unlikely. Long Answer: Possibly, if they got a big enough discount on whichever Cyclone V chip they wanted to use. That would either have to be a huge-volume discount (not going to happen), or a sweetheart-deal from Intel (Altera's new owner) in order to promote/raise-interest in the whole FPGA scene (also not going to happen). Now, they might be more likely to get a sweetheart deal from the new-kid on the scene ... Gowin Semiconductor in China, and its GW2A FPGA. But really, all this speculation is pointless because none of this FPGA talk makes any sense at all, especially when they could just use a $9 C.H.I.P. board instead and run software emulators.

Ahhh ... but the Cyclone V doesn't just "do" HDMI. AFAIK, you've either got to do what Kevtris did, and do a lot of research-and-testing, and then also do some extremely clever programming, and you might also need the more-expensive Cyclone V GX with the built-in high-speed transceiver ... or you buy a separate HDMI transceiver chip, something like ... http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=English&CategoryNo=66&No=582 VGA output is so much easier!

I've been "unreliably informed" that Mike's actual plan is to take all the "outsourced-development" funds in the KickStarter budget, and invest them in buying a shipping-container full of Lucky Charms to take to Ireland to persuade the Leprechauns to finish off the hardware and software design. My "source" could be wrong on this ... but it sure sounds like a good idea to me!

Like most of what Mike says, his poor language skills (or great political skills), make the wording vague-enough to be interpreted in a number of different ways. Original: We will be making a formal response soon to this explaining that it was not just a SNES stuffed into our shell. Meaning 1: We will be making a formal response soon to this, explaining that it was not just "a SNES stuffed into our shell". Meaning 2: We will be making a formal response soon to this, explaining that it was not only a SNES that was stuffed into our shell. Original: The excitement should still be high for the first fully architected FPGA gaming console we've created. Meaning 1: The excitement should still be high for our creation of the "first fully architected FPGA gaming console". Meaning 2: The excitement should still be high for our-first fully architected FPGA gaming console. (Since he's conveniently dismissing projects like the FPGA-Arcade, the MiST, the OneChipMSX, the Zemmix Neo, etc.)

"Enemies of Carlotta"? Sorry, there's just no way to take this whole thing seriously anymore, especially on a Friday, and after a few beers.

I can only ask "Is it safe?" (cue the high-pictched sound of the drill)

Thank you! That's the funniest parody on this whole thing since the wonderful Nostalgia S.H.I.T.

But ... but ... but ... didn't those English fools realize just how much money they could have saved by just buying the Lynx or GameBoy molds?