Fort Apocalypse

This is closest I've come so far. Looks good! http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS6372429785.html

I think the reason it hasn't been made is that no one has had the balls to do it. I'm sure you'll make it work! I'll keep looking into the emulation side of things, also. Be sure to take pictures and notes as you create your console and maybe start up a topic (link to it from this one) where you can show your progress. I'm really interested in seeing it!

Note: I also asked on Tom's Hardware here then here.

Note: I also asked on Tom's Hardware here then here.

Note: spawned another related topic to get feedback on best hardware to use for emulation and whether booting into Mess would be acceptable.

Please see topic: "Designing a classic gaming console" for reference. Am curious if anyone could suggest cheap (hopefully small, but doesn't have to be) hardware for running a Mess emulator (in Linux I guess?) off of a memory card/flash memory with 2 USB inputs, and whether you think booting into Mess would be a good idea. Not thinking about selling this particular setup- just trying to figure out a proof of concept.

Some thoughts: * Would it be possible to design a cartridge connector that could accept several different kinds of cartridges? * Would it be possible to reuse some of the buttons and switches so they did different things depending on which console you were using, and then maybe you could have cheap LCD displays for each that you could show a different description such as "reset" for the 2600 over the switch/button depending on which console you switched to? * Not sure how to make it look clean if you have a variety of joysticks and controllers attached. Maybe have a drawer underneath that contains the controllers?

That unfortunately is way too much IMO. I would think the retail price target should be under $80 USD for mass retail, and at most under $120 USD when it first comes out for limited distribution. Does that sound about right? Obviously you'd sell a ton of them at under $50 USD, but I just don't see it ever being able to go under that easily. Basically it will be a computer with emulators on it to be able to come in at that price, because coming out with the real hardware to run as many systems as it would need to would be prohibitively expensive, although what TC is putting together sounds awesome.

I think that is a great idea! You should definitely do this.

Sounds like a plan! I think an open-source device plan for this would be insanely awesome. However, in order to take advantage of the many emulators already written, you'd want to run it in either Windows or Linux, I'd think?

Although I'd like to agree, MAME has been in development a good number of years now. I wouldn't want to try to rewrite it from scratch. I would think that it depends on the emulator. If you write it yourself, then I would guess that you are allowed to sell it, as long as it isn't hurting anyone. If it is someone else's emulator (like MAME, Stella, etc.), then it depends on the license that they've set up, at least if you're talking about what's legal in the U.S. Of course other countries' laws can be more permissive or less enforced.

It would seem that it would be legal as long as the intent of the system was to play games to be purchased for the device. The goal would be to work deals with those that own the games (ROMs, disks, etc.), if there is anyone to represent them, so that they are reimbursed in a practical but fair manner. I've also been thinking that if the organization making and selling this device was a non-profit (like as a possible subsidiary of the Computer History Museum), then the classic gaming console may not fall under the definition of a commercial product. Then you may be able to package emulators with non-commercial licenses with the device or as add-on cards. Potentially the for-profit company could make the devices and the non-profit could sell the add-on cards with the emulators. Even people working for non-profits can make decent salaries, so it wouldn't be a non-starter.

The http://www.xgamestation.com/ definitely looks sweet and I'd love to get my hands on one to play around with it. I definitely recommend to anyone that hasn't checked it out to take a look at it. Really cool. However, the xgamestation products are really geared towards hobbyists, and to reach the greatest number of people, the product would have to require the same amount of setup that a Wii would. In other words, you should be able to just plug it in, put in a game (or set of games), and turn it on, you choose a game, and you're ready to play. A classic gaming console would need to: * Have at least 2 joystick inputs. I think that USB would be best because that allows for the greatest number of different devices from Atari 2600/400/800 style joysticks via stelladaptor, an Apple II joystick (via Apple-to-PC adaptor or custom adapter, to commodore 64 joysticks, etc. (some of those require gameport to USB adapters). * Have some sort of way to expand the game library. One way to do this would be via cartridge support. I think that a memory card reader would be fine, with some sort of plastic casing. That way you could sell the cartridges alongside the console. The cards would contain the roms, bins, dsks, sound files, overlays, cabinet pictures, screenshots etc. on them and then work out agreements with whoever owns the rights to those games so they get a piece of the pie, even if it's a small piece, because of the massive numbers of games and low amounts of money involved. But maybe the games would be subscription based as well and you would download games via USB instead of using cartridges. * Be self-contained and already setup for classicgaming. That pretty much rules out the current xgamestation products unfortunately. * Be upgradeable. Could upgrade via USB. Maybe through a subscription, to help with the ongoing funding.

If a game has objects that flicker at 29Hz (rather than 30, because it runs 270 lines/frame) the only way that game is going to look right is if it's either shown on a 29Hz display or it's run 3% faster than it should be. All the processing power in the world isn't going to change that fact. Some people might prefer a flicker-free look, but it wouldn't be accurate emulation. Hmm, that's a good point. It wouldn't be exactly like the old games, but it's close enough that honestly I've never had much trouble running old games and thinking they ran too fast or slow for reasons of what Hz it displayed as at least. My thinking is that while you may have better emulation on real hardware, if you had a competition between the plug-n-plays that Jakks and others churned out vs. a console that has many more games that theoretically could play most classic games that were ever made via emulation that is so close (regardless of small speed differences in some cases or small flicker in others) to the real thing that the average person may not notice, it would seem that the classic gaming console would win out, and win big. So why would someone buy this console when they could just buy a computer to do similar or buy the original old console or arcade cabinet? Because the average joe regardless of whether they are computer-savvy or not doesn't want to spend the time/money/effort to buy those old consoles/cabinets/computers and set them up/fix them or even spend the time to get emulators setup if they would rather spend their time gardening, playing with kids, playing fantasy football, watching TV, etc. A relatively cheap classic gaming console would be huge. There are a wealth of games out there - way too many for Jakks or anyone else to sell in our lifetime when they only put out a few products a year with only 5 games each on them. Think of how many games people are missing out on, and the legacy that will be lost if no one acts now!

On the hardware-side I was thinking also that TiVo is a bit similar in that it is a *decently* cheap box that runs Linux. * TiVo hardware * TiVo Linux Will really need to do some more research to come up with a cheap, mostly small-form intel hardware that would be available today for a console prototype. If anyone has anymore ideas about what might be good that has at least two USB ports for joysticks (preferably four) and maybe a memory stick adapter.

Yeah that is definitely a good idea. I didn't realize that it could support USB in addition to the HDMI out, etc. Sweet! I was thinking for a prototype, something similar to gumstix. They'll even preflash the stuff with your custom image on it if you order 120+ at $0.70 per motherboard to flash it: http://gumstix.com/purchinfo.html#basics - but I'm guessing that someone out there might have a cheaper option already available. Some other small linux-based devices here.

To ensure the proper 'twich-factor', the time from code execution to display output should be small and relatively constant. Most emulation platforms will add a variable delay of up to a frame, if not more. It may be nice if a system includes a means to kludge NTSC games to PAL or vice versa, games running on their native video format should run at the exact native frame rate. Hopefully this will be solved with faster CPUs, video cards, right? But in the meantime would it be cool to have a classicgaming/retrogaming console with tons of games and types of emulation available, even if they are only 99.99% like the real thing?

Starting first basically a basic plan could be: * Small footprint intel hardware running Linux with flash drive for quick startup, less noise, less chance of drive failure * Use something existing like http://www.mess.org/ and work on the UI to make it as easy to use as possible * Use memory card based cartridges and sell large sets of games for various platforms - the reason for going with this over downloading via internet, etc. would be price, and the reason to require cartidges would be to get around legal concerns (you'd have to license the games sold on the cartridges, but if someone wanted to they could hack up a cartridge to run their own homebrews/own games, but that wouldn't be officially supported, and you wouldn't gain the legal rights to run those games, assuming you needed the rights (if they weren't free)) * Talk to all the old folks that still have rights to the various games and make some deals. Shouldn't be too difficult seeing as how they aren't making anything now on most old games and it creates a legacy (and possible ongoing income, even if small) that they can hand down to their grandkids, great-grandkids, etc. * Prototype on your own, but manufacture it in China (along with almost everyone else) * Partner with existing game controller companies to include controllers for it - since would be pc compatable (USB) could also support wireless controllers/keyboards, etc. * Target Thinkgeek as distributor at first and go with higher price tag ($100-120) but revise design, etc. over time and come out with a cheaper, better v2.0 in $70-80 price range to sell via Target, Walmart, etc. * For v3.0 (after much development) aim for internet-enabled version that allows you to play online with your friends (wouldn't it be cool to play Atari 2600 combat in your house in the U.S. with a friend in England?) What do you think?

I thought it might be fun for whomever is interested to help come up with an idea/design for what would constitute a killer classic gaming console that would fall in the sweet spot of price and functionality. People came up with ideas like this in the "what do you want the FB3 to be" topic, but I think those ideas were usually more geared toward a strictly Atari FB console, so it was a little more constricted. I think it would be fun to actually think of all of the different aspects, so not just what games would be good or what features it would have (although those are obviously key things to consider), but things like: how would legal issues be hurdled (like with roms if using emulation)?, methods of distribution like using wider distribution (Target, Walmart, Best Buy, etc.) vs. other methods (speciality store like Thinkgeek, auction like eBay, selling it from its own site, selling it through home parties like Tupperware ), how much you'd think it would cost to make vs. what price to sell it for, best methods for design, prototyping, marketing, etc. or best way to recruit the right people or find the right manufacturers, distributors... basically the entire thought process. The goal of this is to come up with some good ideas that someone out there might be able to draw from to make some part of this a reality. It could even be one of you (or even me, but I don't have the time or financial situation to do more than talk about it unfortunately at the moment). All that said, here are some ground rules for the console, although rules are made to be broken or bent : 1) It would be a console to be used with a TV. It probably wouldn't be battery-powered, and probably not a portable. 2) It should allow for expansion of the game library. Some examples of this might be done would be via cartridges, discs of some sort, or it could have an internet connection, hook up to computer via USB/firewire, etc. 3) Preferably it should allow for many different types of classic games, including arcade games (including vector games), Atari, Intellivision, Genesis, NES, and also computer games (Atari, Apple, Commodore, old PC games, old Mac games, etc.). 4) Preferably it should also support keyboard games (via keyboard hookup of some sort) as an option. 5) To be most mass-marketable, it probably would need to be easy to use, which probably means a fairly consistent, mostly-simple interface.

Whew! That was a close one! Glad you're back!

Millions? I would say more like thousands Okay, maybe not millions, but the FB2 sold nearly a million as of last summer according to this interview with Curt. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/v...apist-Interview Yeah, I think it is safe to say millions, if you mean by that "people that really enjoyed playing Atari when they were young and still have fond memories of it, even if they have never visited AA and maybe never even bought a FB/FB2".

Ummm......is it just me, or is there something really phallic about this version? Dang, Marty. You caught me. If I try to slip a phallic symbol into an Atari death watch thread, does that make me a Atarinecrophiliac? Is there a 12-step for that?

Some Alba font ones might be neat

Not arguing, just trying to help. I'm all for this functionality to be included in bB if Fred has time. Sorry I couldn't help.

Well yeah, there's always that. It's how I do things now. But being able to use a function directly would mean writing less code and might also free up a variable since you wouldn't need one to capture the output of a function. But anyway, like I said, it's not a big deal if that feature isn't added to the next version of bB. If you want to free up a variable, you could use a temp variable for it. the on goto functionality has to look somewhere for the value returned by the function, so whether bB hides that fact by setting the temp variable for you only saves you a line of source and if you use temp variables, for other things it may make things more confusing. so as the revised example: function Test_Function temp1=rand+temp2 return temp1 end temp5 = Test_Function(3) on temp5 goto T1 T2 T3 T1 T2 T3