How has this not been posted yet? Retro VGS

[CPUWIZ]

[CGQuarterly]

And the answer is a non-dramatic and rather mellow no. I kinda wanted this to project to keep rolling, but it is our collective opinion it needs to stop here and now.

That does it. The RetroVGS is dead in the water.

[+Random Terrain]

And the answer is a non-dramatic and rather mellow no. I kinda wanted this to project to keep rolling, but it is our collective opinion it needs to stop here and now. Reformat. Reboot. And try again sometime next year. I'll maybe post a detailed postmortem of our deliberations & discussions for anyone that cares. I have to catch-up on this and other threads first. And the prize search search continues for next year's infamous tech smash'n'bash.

 

I don't care what you say. I think this project will become as huge as Vendoogle.com. Huge I tells ya!

[glazball]

Wishful thinking here - Kevtris, if you and Mike were to start fresh with you heading the hardware side of things, allowing Mike the other two to fit it into the case - is there any chance you two could still make a console? It just seems apparent that Mike's biggest mistake was not securing your help with an official business deal (hard to do without money).

 

If your boards had been shown with his hype when this crowdfunding campaign started, I'm pretty sure the goal would already be met. People want this console! It's obvious from the amount of traffic. If it's done right, it would be a beautiful thing.

Edited September 22, 2015 by glazball

[Flojomojo]

I've always thought this was a silly project -- "cartridge fetishism" sums it up nicely -- but I can't help but wonder if its creators are looking for a way out? Setting the funding bar so high while changing the scope, without so much as a prototype, certainly seems delusional.

 

Maybe they're banking on their belief that there are six thousand geeks who would each give them three hundred dollars, for maybe making their dream happen? Maybe Mr Kennedy has been to too many swap meets and retro fests and has lost track of how few retro gamers with cash to burn there really are?

 

As kevtris said, this project has always been more about what the developers wanted than what actual gamers or customers would want to buy.

 

I've only followed this story a little bit, because its stupidity makes me mad (all cartridges! Last forever! No patching! Sixty dollars for a limited selection of 5yo indie games! Wired controllers! Shiny renders of everything!). I'm so very glad to see that I'm not alone in seeing that the emperor has no clothes.

[StopDrop&Retro]

I think Mike has bigger business problems than Kevtris would ever be able to fix. I expect Kevtris, unhindered by a team with more "experience" than sense, will do just fine.

 

I'm sorry to say it but there is something that's just wrong with the way Mike's brain works. It's one of the most fascinating parts of this whole saga. Looking at his other business ventures is fascinating when you're trying to figure out what motivates him and causes him to see dollar signs in his head. I know most ideas that turn big are rarely original, they're usually just an imitation of an obscure thing someone else is doing, then you just make an improvement that no one else thought of and it blows up on the market. But Mike seems to think that rather than copy something fresh, you should pick through our cultural garbage. Really, who looks at disused Atari Jaguar cases and thinks "wooooow! I could make my own console! I'll make millions!!" Who looks at gaming magazines and thinks "NOW is the right time to get on this train!"

 

I can't blame him for lacking ambition though. But the funny thing is... the FPGA tech in this console could have been his gold at the end of the rainbow! I try to keep up with tech but this project introduced me to FPGA tech and it's some sci-fi shit! It's an obscure piece of tech with amazing possibilities that no one has been able to mass market. He could have made it his own but some critical mismanagement blunders on his part is now making that look impossible. But the funniest fuckin' thing is that now Kevtris has taken the baton and he might turn it into his own huge success! I'm not shitting you, if Kevtris ever sells stock I'm going to buy it. Mark my words- if Kevtris plays his cards right, he might never have to worry about money for the rest of his life. It's crazy, it was Mike's big chance and he totally fuckin' blew it, he only has himself to blame.

Edited September 22, 2015 by StopDrop&Retro

[jaybird3rd]

Wishful thinking here - Kevtris, if you and Mike were to start fresh with you heading the hardware side of things, allowing Mike the other two to fit it into the case - is there any chance you two could still make a console? It just seems apparent that Mike's biggest mistake was not securing your help with an official business deal (hard to do without money).

If your boards had been shown with his hype when this crowdfunding campaign started, I'm pretty sure the goal would already be met. People want this console! It's obvious from the amount of traffic. If it's done right, it would be a beautiful thing.

By all accounts, the RVGS hardware guy is poison, so having Kevtris in charge of the hardware is probably the way it should have been from the start. But after the way he was treated, and after the smear campaign that the RVGS guys have waged against him since he spoke up about them, I don't know why he should want Mike's involvement, and frankly, I don't think he needs it. As Jibbajaba says, Mike has burned through 90% of whatever good will he has acquired with the community, so his involvement would be a net negative at this point. About all he could bring to Kevtris's project is more marketing hype, but I think most people following this project have already seen more than enough of that. Competence and the ability to produce demonstrable results are the most effective selling points, and judging by the reaction he has been getting here and elsewhere, Kevtris is doing just fine on his own.

[Memblers]

* You and you jag mold are like a mule with a spinning wheel. Damned if anyone knows how he got it, and damned if he knows how to use it. (sorry Simpsons). Fortunately, today making a plastic injection mold isn't so brutally expensive. My friend got a brand new NES cartridge shell mold made a few months ago. The process was fast, the parts are awesome and the cost was insanely cheap. It was cheap enough that I could float the cost without resorting to Kickstarter/IGG. For a Jag sized mold, the costs are a lot higher, but since my system will be quite small I don't have all that extra cost housing air and unicorns. My friend already got a crapload of cart cases made with the mold and is starting to sell them over on the nesdev forum. If you need boards/cart shells for your homebrew that's the place to go.

 

 

 

Sorry I couldn't resist spamming this thread, but if anyone wants details on the NES stuff mentioned, here is a link (w/ pics): http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=12716

In short: It will be used to release new games, and after I source decent NES cables for the USB adapter, a complete devkit for it will be available for hopefully around $30.

 

I've seen many of kevtris' projects in person, and observing the development of this FPGA console has been fascinating, it's a lot of work and research over many years. Even back when the FPGA chip alone was probably $100 and it only ran NES, I've been trying to convince him to sell the thing somehow. Ideally, with his vision of how it should work. This project seems vague, but seemingly not incompatible with that. That's what's really disappointing with this project, it'd be a great use for those cores, but it seems bizarre to be at the stage of funding production, and not only is there no prototype, but the system specifications are part of the stretch goal. What the hell..? Nothing that's not be said already, but that's my reaction.

[jaybird3rd]

So, now that it's about midnight CST, let's see how they've been doing after the first full business day of the campaign.

 

According to my notes, at this time yesterday they were at 172 backers and $60041.00 raised. By my count, they've added 21 backers and $7609 (plus one anonymous pledge) over the last 24 hours, but their totals are currently standing at only 186 backers and $66188.00 raised. Am I missing something, or does that indicate that they lost seven backers and $1462 somewhere along the line yesterday? If so, that's more than enough to eat up that $1040 pledge from Garry Kitchen.

 

In any case, today's business hasn't made a significant dent: they're still at 3% of their goal with a projection of 52%, and the graph is almost completely flat.

[Keatah]

The "extensive industry experience" feels like a 747 with too many D-checks & updates.

 

I'm wary of anyone touting how far back their experience goes when it comes to marketing and producing video games these days. Kinda the same thing happened with David Crane's jungle thing, didn't it?

 

I think kevtris' material is good, but can he and will he market it? It's a niche within a niche. And I do not believe he should expand and polish it to the level of a commercial console. Because if you do, then you got cartridge complaints, developer issues, release titles, controllers, more QA.. And a wider audience which wants the kitchen sink.

 

I personally believe it should sold as a bare board. Market it like the KIM-1 or other early single board computers.

 

I will cross post this in the other thread.

[StopDrop&Retro]

KIM-1??!!?

 

 

I can't fap to that!!!

 

 

Seriously though, I hope he goes for something that looks nice, but simple. Like the 1chipMSX

 

[Andromeda Stardust]

I will reply to the Retro VGS comments here, because 1) I don't have FB, and 2) they will just delete my replies.

 

 

* This is only partially true. $10K was for the stuff like RCA Studio 2, and Channel F. I was looking for $50K or so for things like NES and 2600.

 

* I got blown off 2 weeks ago on our meeting to discuss cores, because the system was most likely not going to have an FPGA in it any more. I can quote what you told me on 9/8/15 if that helps:

 

 

Once the IGG thing basically proved the FPGA was going to be a pie-in-the-sky add-on, I knew I had been made redundant. I figured at this point it was just going to be like a Retron 5 and bundle emulators and cart dumpers at the best.

 

* The $200-250 price I quoted is A COMPLETE SYSTEM and not the bare board. This is a board, case, and power supply. Pack-in games are not required (though I could throw in a homebrew NES title maybe). Controllers would probably be extra, but since I accept USB controllers, you can plug literally any HID and use it. This means controllers, keyboards, and mice. Obviously it'd be kinda hard to play a 2600 game with a mouse, but I'm more thinking for FPGA computer projects and not just games.

 

* You and you jag mold are like a mule with a spinning wheel. Damned if anyone knows how he got it, and damned if he knows how to use it. (sorry Simpsons). Fortunately, today making a plastic injection mold isn't so brutally expensive. My friend got a brand new NES cartridge shell mold made a few months ago. The process was fast, the parts are awesome and the cost was insanely cheap. It was cheap enough that I could float the cost without resorting to Kickstarter/IGG. For a Jag sized mold, the costs are a lot higher, but since my system will be quite small I don't have all that extra cost housing air and unicorns. My friend already got a crapload of cart cases made with the mold and is starting to sell them over on the nesdev forum. If you need boards/cart shells for your homebrew that's the place to go.

 

* So far, my board infinitely more than yours does. It's hard to divide by zero and come up with any other answer.

 

 

* I have done my homework. I have over 100 products under my belt between my home stuff, freelance stuff, and work. Some of them involved a plastic injection molded enclosure. I have been through the entire certification process (for a medical device no less). I own a patent. I think I have a tiny tiny bit of knowledge when it comes down to how to design and see a product through to production and shipping.

 

* I can add an ARM CPU to my design. At this time I just don't WANT to. The ARM CPU doesn't add anything that I wish to have in my "vision" for the system. The good news is if I wanted an ARM based videogame system I can just MAKE one on the friggin' FPGA directly! Granted it won't run as fast as a dedicated "hard" CPU core would, but we're talking about games here and not the Android OS.

 

* You must've missed the part about my FPGA board and its plethora of outputs. I already have 100% finished working video in the following formats (today, right now. I can show them off)

 

1) HDMI at 1080p/60fps, 1080p/50fps, 720p/60fps, 720/,50fps, 480p/60fps, and 576p/50fps.

2) RGB at 31KHz (VGA rate) or any of the HDMI rates

3) RGB at 15KHz (NTSC or PAL rates)

4) Component at any of these rates

5) Composite in PAL and NTSC and "direct system output" which emulates the target system's video EXACTLY. both voltage levels and timing wise.

6) S-video in PAL and NTSC

 

All of these outputs are 100% digitally generated inside the FPGA for absolute maximum quality.

 

Audio's currently 16 bits, 48KHz. I can output anything else though like 192KHz/24 bit. Internally right now my audio is 18 bit stereo.

 

 

* Interesting that you hated the word "emulate" when I was in discussions and you were using the term "simulate". The difference between my board and any other emulator is the time and effort I put in to achieve the maximum quality of the end result. Anyone can throw together a R Pi and make an emulator box. I'm selling higher quality outputs (video/audio), absolutely zero lag (even on HDMI), and higher accuracy. My FPGA 2600 has higher accuracy on a few things vs. Stella even. I also am going for breadth and width. I support the Supercharger Demo Unit. I don't see that elsewhere (granted, it's not that big of a deal but I am going for as much inclusiveness as possible). I support Atarivox- there's a friggin PIC18F core I wrote specifically to simulate this add-on. The supercharger demo unit took a new 6800 CPU core as well. So the 2600 has actually no less than three CPUs in it.

 

* So far your system hasn't been documented at all. So comparing what you want to do with anything else is impossible.

 

 

Yep. I will just drive down to the Core Store and... oh wait. I'm pretty much the only game in town if you want finished cores with any kind of standard interface between them and all the testing and development work I put in on this.

 

I will give another ferinstance here for fun. If anyone is curious how much trouble I went to for Gameboy, here we go:

 

Unlike most other videogame systems, a gameboy's video is not "continuous". A CRT won't wait for pixels, but the LCD on the Gameboy does. This little detail caused huge headaches because each scanline renders for a different amount of time based on what's present on the scanline. The X scroll, Y scroll, window position, even sprites (position AND count) all interact together to change how long it takes. And games rely on this too. Some games will fail or show glitchy graphics if this isn't exactly emulated.

 

To crack this particularly tough nut, I had to resort to a brute-force approach. This involved taking a gameboy apart, and rebuilding it on perf board so that I could attach some equipment and monitor what exactly happens.

 

The first step was to make the doctored Gameboy:

Here's a close up of the wiring:

 

Next, it was hooked into the mothership (my logic analyzer) with a billion probe wires to every point on the GB chip:

Then I can use my logic analyzer (an HP 16700B) to trace out EXACTLY what the chip is doing in black and white when certain "interesting" things happen like the sprite DMA:

 

After all this mess, I piped the perfboard gameboy's LCD signals into some FPGA pins and made a quick and dirty CRT interface so I could play the GB games on my PVM:

Finally, after writing some test code that runs on both the GB and my FPGA and communicates through the link port, I had my FPGA GB video signals exactly matching the

real GB's video signals:

 

So after all this mess, I finished my GB core and got cycle accuracy. Now imagine doing this for all the systems I have added, and you get some small idea of the trouble I have gone through in my quest for accuracy.

 

A few more ferinstances:

 

* Because the Videobrain is so stupidly rare and expensive, I came across some of the custom ASICs at a surplus place, found the schematic for it and made my own damn Videobrain on perfboard! This was then hooked into the logic analyzer and extensively probed.

 

* Arcadia 2001's were expensive and rare too, so I found a schematic, bought the weird CPU and video chips cheap and built a perf version of that as well, and hooked it into the LA (logic analyzer)

 

* Atari 2600 and 7800 were a bit easier, I just had to solder .1" headers to the chips and plug the logic analyzer in.

 

* Intv was similar- just soldered .1" headers on and plugged it in.

 

* Supervision- had to make an extensive debug setup with a UART cart and lots of .1" headers for the logic analyzer and oscilloscope (during audio debug)

 

* Complete cycle by cycle investigation of the Odyssey^2's video chip using custom hardware to single step it (Actually single HALF step it- it uses both clock edges) to get absolute accuracy

 

There's more but this is a small sampling of the trouble I go through in my quest for accuracy. I doubt you will find anyone who has gone to these lengths to ensure accuracy and compatibility. Good luck in your search for cores of this caliber.

Kevtris, you have got me sold on this. Build something awesome with your core knowledge and I will buy it day one!

 

 

 

What I assume is a jag super-fan bought some tooling and has some 'ideas' for a modern use for it, but that's about the extent of what I've seen for this project. (and 'ideas' does seem to still be a bit more plural than one would hope)

 

They might as well rebox those Jag molds and ship them to Kevtris. I'm sure he'll put them to good use.

[Andromeda Stardust]

To be revealed tonight, our decision to back to the tune of 30 consoles!

You can't be serious, can you?

 

And the answer is a non-dramatic and rather mellow no. I kinda wanted this to project to keep rolling, but it is our collective opinion it needs to stop here and now. Reformat. Reboot. And try again sometime next year. I'll maybe post a detailed postmortem of our deliberations & discussions for anyone that cares. I have to catch-up on this and other threads first. And the prize search search continues for next year's infamous tech smash'n'bash.

"Infamous Tech Smash'n'Bash" ? If this somehow involves taking sledge hammers to electronics items, I don't even want to know...

[Amstari]

but their totals are currently standing at only 186 backers

 

It has gone down to 185 backers now.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Thread over. For anybody not paying attention, the RetroVGS is the tractor-trailer stuck on the tracks...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuH1Ogdx4cg

[+CyranoJ]

I'm wary of anyone touting how far back their experience goes when it comes to marketing and producing video games these days.

 

And yet for the first 60 or so pages of this thread you acted like this was the second coming of Nolan. Drugs, don't do them.

Edited September 22, 2015 by CyranoJ

[Austin]

Thread over. For anybody not paying attention, the RetroVGS is the tractor-trailer stuck on the tracks...

 

[sh3-rg]

Thread over. For anybody not paying attention, the RetroVGS is the tractor-trailer stuck on the tracks...

 

So who are the two sat in the vehicle filming it, talking about GTFO and Is he dead or what? Is this what they call bystander apathy?

 

And who winds down the window to get a better look at the fumes? lolol, too many parallels!

[Mord]

.... I think I'll check back in a week or so to see how it evolved, hopefully I won't have to wade thru umpteen pages of posts.

 

[Atlantis]

It just seems apparent that Mike's biggest mistake was not securing your help with an official business deal (hard to do without money).

You can next to give Kevin money give him a great part of the entire success, if any. Stock holding so to speak.

[sh3-rg]

 

Can someone give a rough idea of what the "plugins" might entail? I'm not familiar with Game Maker or Unity and have less idea still how much effort/cost these might require. It isn't mentioned in the campaign AFAICT.

 

At our minimum goal amount, more than two-thirds of funds raised will be used to manufacture contributors rewards.

 

As stretch goals are reached, the proportion of funds used to manufacture contributors rewards grows larger.

The remaining portion (the small gray piece) will be used to complete developing our design into a highly-polished, marketable consumer product. This pays for everything from building and testing prototypes through the international regulatory certification process, including:

• Stipends (including benefits, payroll tax, etc.)only about half of normal wages, but enough to afford to do this full time (8-12% of minimum goal)
• Creating prototype circuit assembliesfrom where we are today through regulatory certification, including pre-release systems for developers of launch titles (5% of min. goal)
• Outsourcing software development (5% of min. goal)
• Testing and certifying regulatory compliance (4% of min. goal)
• Renting space and equipment for a small office and lab (4% of min. goal)
• Advertising (2% of min. goal)
• All other operating expenses (1% of min. goal)

Outsourcing software development 5% of min. goal, I suppose that's where this is covered?

 

Indigogo takes 5%, so total revenue at initial target is $1,950,000.00 less $97,500.00 IGG fee = $1,852,500.00

 

EDIT: Then there is payment processing:

 

3% plus 30 cents per transaction for credit card processing

3-5% for PayPal transactions

Going to use a guestimate of 4% for this, giving $74,100.00 payment processing fees, leaving $1,778,400.00

 

5% of that for the outsourced software is $88,920.00

 

This $88,920.00 would cover the cost of producing the RVGS FPGA core, further cores at the initial target (unclear in campaign), development suite for game producers, system-level software and these "plugins"?

 

Anyone in a position to comment on those figures?

 

Do the percentages for software, protos, compliance testing/certification and office rental all being similar portions seem realistic?

Edited September 22, 2015 by sh3-rg

[GroovyBee]

Can someone give a rough idea of what the "plugins" might entail? I'm not familiar with Game Maker or Unity and have less idea still how much effort/cost these might require. It isn't mentioned in the campaign AFAICT.

Unity requires OpenGLES 2.0 or later :-

 

https://unity3d.com/unity/system-requirements

 

That means porting Mesa3D to get OpenGL, as I've already pointed out previously. You'll also need a whole ton of other "lower level" stuff like stdlib, boost, media players and so on, otherwise Unity just won't build at all. Porting that whole lot is not just a "plug-in" as Mike seems to have trivialised it to.

 

Edit:

 

GameMaker Studio also requires OpenGL

Edited September 22, 2015 by GroovyBee

[AtariLeaf]

And the answer is a non-dramatic and rather mellow no. I kinda wanted this to project to keep rolling, but it is our collective opinion it needs to stop here and now. Reformat. Reboot. And try again sometime next year. I'll maybe post a detailed postmortem of our deliberations & discussions for anyone that cares. I have to catch-up on this and other threads first. And the prize search search continues for next year's infamous tech smash'n'bash.

 

I'm still waiting to hear your satanic curse/ritual story of destruction. You really should just publish your memoirs. Maybe you could crowdfund it.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Unity requires OpenGLES 2.0 or later :-

 

https://unity3d.com/unity/system-requirements

 

That means porting Mesa3D to get OpenGL, as I've already pointed out previously. You'll also need a whole ton of other "lower level" stuff like stdlib, boost, media players and so on, otherwise Unity just won't build at all. Porting that whole lot is not just a "plug-in" as Mike seems to have trivialised it to.

 

Edit:

 

GameMaker Studio also requires OpenGL

Isn't openGL open source? Linux has it so it must be. I really don't see what the big deal is. The GPU supports it so this should be easy to get on the RetroVGS. Just bundle whatever necessary plugins, drivers, etc on the cart with the game software.

 

EDIT: from the Wikipedia page:

 

Additionally to the APIs, Mesa also harbors most of the available free and open-source graphics device drivers.

Open source = easy peasy...

Edited September 22, 2015 by stardust4ever

[GroovyBee]

5% of that for the outsourced software is $88,920.00

This sounds like a ton of cash but at that price I expect that the dev kit software will be less than what Atari supplied for the jag IF (and its a big "if") they don't go about it the right way.

 

Out of that budget they'll need :-

• OpenGL(ES)/Mesa3D and/or SDL.
• stdlib and boost.
• A USB "on the go" compliant stack fir networking, joysticks, keyboards and USB drives.
• A Bluetooth stack to sit on USBs CDC layer for "wireless" controllers.
• TCP/IP stack for networking.
• FAT32 system for game/data saving/loading.
• Graphics management libraries e.g. png, bmp, jpeg, gif etc.
• Sound engine that handles MP3s, multi-channel wave files.
• Multi-thread handling kernel.

For tools :-

• C++/C compiler with a full set of header files.
• Decent host debugger like GDB (preferably with an IDE).
• A quick way to deploy to target e.g. USB drive.
• Profiler.

Sure, they could hire a couple of graduates for that price or outsource the lot to India/Russia/Ukraine etc. but thats a false economy.

 

Perhaps Mike and Co should take less stipend (preferably none) and pay for decent software development because that is the only thing that will make the system attractive to modern developers.

 

The only viable option in the timeframe and budget, is to port Linux to it. If they are going to do that they might as well put Android on it. Then you get a whole bunch of ready made stuff available on Day 1.