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Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?


phoenixdownita

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I wonder how many times one must get burnt on backing projects before they decide not to do it again? 2x? 3x?

Even when it's just 1x, there are enough new people to crowdfunding that are looking at it with innocent hopeful eyes.

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"we're light years ahead of them!" when referring to their 3D renders and wooden conceptual controllers. This is why he invested so much into 3D renders, his idea was to mimic the OUYA pitch as much as possible. But of course that plan was doomed to fail because he didn't realize OUYA launched before those prototyping requirements were in effect (and they had shown a working prototype in the pitch video anyways).

 

 

Mikes Logic is like: "Oh, so this number here won the lottery? Let me write it down and I will Play this number myself. I'm so smart."

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Dave Nunez of Rabbit Engineering (previously on AA: 3D-printed mini-consoles and Building a Rabbit 2600 & NES Clone Console) does a post-mortem on the Chameleon from a more technical standpoint. He's pretty forgiving of Kennedy--essentially suggesting the SNES2 and DVR card were either rookie mistakes or panicking--but that's only a brief point. Also a nice mention of Kevtris being treated like a vendor when he should have been the technical go-to guy to alleviate concerns:

 

 

 

He doesn't refer to it in this video, but he is also designing a modular Raspberry pi console. The plan is to have a prototype for the Seattle Retro Gaming Expo in Sept. A brief description of what he means by "modular":

 

Previously we had shared that the M series is a modular concept that consists of a computing core which you could attach to several Sleeves, such as desktop arcade, traditional TV side console, portable, etc. to fit your gaming needs and control how much you spend on the system.

 

 

 

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But of course that plan was doomed to fail because he didn't realize OUYA launched before those prototyping requirements were in effect (and they had shown a working prototype in the pitch video anyways).

I'm an extreme OUYA fan girl but I still don't see any evidence of a working prototype in this video:

 

 

I see a board that isn't in any of my OUYA's with Julie pointing at/touching it a couple of times for some reason(She isn't a hardware gal), the only working controller shown being a wired third party controller that has the wire going into something hidden behind the TV with the only OUYA controllers being wood, drawings, and mock ups, Android game play including a game that never ran on OUYA(Minecraft) that could be running on anything, and a storefront that could also be running on anything, shows some games in the storefront that were never on it, and that version of the storefront was never on my OUYA's. However, I can tell that Julie was telling the truth because she speaks out of the opposite side of her mouth than Mike does.

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The Jag shell itself wasn't the problem: as Kevtris said earlier, all they would have had to do was make the expensive multi-layer board containing the cartridge slot and the SoC as small as possible, and move the port connectors and power switch and LED onto a secondary two-layer board, joined to the main board with a ribbon cable. The Flashback consoles already use a similar design; the enclosures for those systems are mostly empty. Whatever its flaws, at least the OUYA started with a set of existing, well-understood components, both hardware and software, which could be integrated in a way that made sense from a technical AND business standpoint. The RVGS/Chameleon never had a clear vision of what should go INSIDE the shell, certainly nothing as well-defined as what the OUYA had; it was mostly just Mike's hopes and dreams.

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They reference an Android development board, and the Tegra 3 spec was set from the start and discussed openly. That meets the burden of "prototype" for me. One difference between OUYA and CC is that Mike was SO hung up on everything fitting in that dumb Jaguar shell.

I don't know. A develpment board and Tegra 3 seems too "off the shelf" without anything added to be a prototype to me. By that standard Mike could claim a known FPGA as a prototype. To me, a working prototype would be a more than the sum of its parts kind of thing by mixing off the self parts to create something new and then show that something working. In other words, I wouldn't consider something a prototype if someone said,"It will use a Raspberry Pi. We know that works. Therefore, we have a working prototype." because they would have to show what new thing they are offering with a Raspberry Pi and that the combination of it all works. Things created by other people can't be a prototype to the thing you are creating.

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Dave Nunez of Rabbit Engineering does a post-mortem on the Chameleon from a more technical standpoint. He's pretty forgiving of Kennedy--essentially suggesting the SNES2 and DVR card were either rookie mistakes or panicking--but that's only a brief point. Also a nice mention of Kevtris being treated like a vendor when he should have been the technical go-to guy to alleviate concerns:

Thanks for that, it was interesting to watch.

 

I thought that a lot of his points were absolutely valid, particularly when it comes to getting developers to support a new console.

 

But overall, I thought that he was far-too-generous to Mike-and-the-team in even dignifying what they "accomplished" with a serious post-mortem.

 

IMHO, he put more thought and logic into that 30-minute video than Mike-and-the-team put into their year of trying to get other-folks to bankroll their next vacation.

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The Jag shell itself wasn't the problem ...

 

I never said the Jag shell was the (main) problem. It does, however, seem to be what Mike Kennedy was most interested in showing. If his development board didn't fit in that case, he didn't want to show it. If it ever existed at all. Like you say, there was nothing inside but hopes and dreams, which is why they never showed anything. But they sure wanted to bring back that ugly case and slap a rainbow sticker on it!

 

I don't know. A develpment board and Tegra 3 seems too "off the shelf" without anything added to be a prototype to me. By that standard Mike could claim a known FPGA as a prototype. To me, a working prototype would be a more than the sum of its parts kind of thing by mixing off the self parts to create something new and then show that something working. In other words, I wouldn't consider something a prototype if someone said,"It will use a Raspberry Pi. We know that works. Therefore, we have a working prototype." because they would have to show what new thing they are offering with a Raspberry Pi and that the combination of it all works. Things created by other people can't be a prototype to the thing you are creating.

 

But he didn't. If Mike had shown software running on a known FPGA (Cyclone V was mentioned in one of the podcasts), that would have been sufficient proof of prototype for me. When they showed recycled and repurposed designs like the Jaguar case and the Wii U controller, it was easy to see that this wasn't a project that was going to create everything from scratch. I think that's OK, especially if you expect software developers to create games for the machine.

 

I'm quite generous and trusting with my Kickstarter backing, but I still wouldn't have given him any money. But it wouldn't have been an outright fraud like what we got. There are lots of respectable projects built around Raspberry Pi and other systems-on-a-chip with custom software and casings. The Chameleon project was ambitious but totally feasible.

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Its funny comparing Retro VGS with other FPGA Projects

 

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/retro-vgs#/
zkas98grmw9tnsa8y3ng.jpg

Only one rendering of the guts which look like a Star Destroyer, with only the output's make sense, and wanted 2 million then reduced to 200,000 for new Kickstarter which didn't happen

 

https://www.crowdsupply.com/krtkl/snickerdoodle

A Real Board and only had a $55,000 goal

 

dmnd8482_png_project-body.jpg

 

https://www.crowdsupply.com/numato-lab/opsis

$8,725 goal

io-ports_png_project-body.jpg

 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1106670630/mojo-digital-design-for-the-hobbyist

7,000 goal

9a81975fc8a9aabd1976fe3176aed526_origina

 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1812459948/minispartan6-a-powerful-fpga-board-and-easy-to-use

$7,500 goal

26cbf8ad838bf98fe9aebb5396fcbadc_origina

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1575992013/logi-fpga-development-board-for-raspberry-pi-beagl

$6,900 goal

d0d4fd00132efbe853cdd73ff1ea2db3_origina

Edited by enoofu
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I remember Craig from the old GameBoy hacking days. It's a drag that he got in over his head and the way people talk about Mike K seems very familiar.

I consider Craig way worse than Mike. Craig flat out knew Pandoras were not being shipped that first Christmas and he still kept taking orders and lying about it. He flat out stole several thousands of dollars and then just disappeared. Not to mention the phone controllers. I guess I got lucky and was only scammed on the Pandora. Several people bought both and received nothing.

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If Mike had shown software running on a known FPGA (Cyclone V was mentioned in one of the podcasts), that would have been sufficient proof of prototype for me.

What if he didn't show software running on it but just touched the Cyclone V a couple of times, shown mock ups of it, shown Intelivision games being played but not from what it was running on using a different controller than he was pitching wired behind a TV out of sight, shown people working in offices, had some interviews with people who think it is a good idea, etc.? In other words, a perfect copy of the OUYA video but the Colceo Chameleon in its place. Would you feel like you witnessed the running of a working prototype in such a video? To put the question another way, if OUYA didn't have a working prototype would it have been possible for them to produce the exact same pitch video that they did and would you feel like you had sufficient proof if Mike copied the video to make his own?

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What if he didn't show software running on it but just touched the Cyclone V a couple of times, shown mock ups of it, shown Intelivision games being played but not from what it was running on using a different controller than he was pitching wired behind a TV out of sight, shown people working in offices, had some interviews with people who think it is a good idea, etc.? In other words, a perfect copy of the OUYA video but the Colceo Chameleon in its place. Would you feel like you witnessed the running of a working prototype in such a video? To put the question another way, if OUYA didn't have a working prototype would it have been possible for them to produce the exact same pitch video that they did and would you feel like you had sufficient proof if Mike copied the video to make his own?

I assume you're joking or speaking rhetorically, but just in case (we are a literal bunch here), my answer would be ... of course not. Why? Because when Ouya was pitched, Android with a controller was already a decently established thing, as were alternative app stores. Ouya showed enough for their deliverable to be believable, and it shipped on time with a good amount of transparency all throughout the process. We knew the chipset, clock speed, RAM and storage size, and physical ports right from the start. I had a 2012 Nexus 7 with very similar specs and knew exactly what to expect. I knew that Android games would run on this Android device.

 

As for "Chameleon," Mike never nailed down the specifications to any level of detail, and couldn't give a straight answer to a simple question, at least not without his crew falling over themselves with contradictions. They never explained how the Intellivision or Colecovision games would run (emulation? Virtualization?) nor did they show the promised USB-style controllers. SNES games ran great on their demo box because it was a SNES. Q. E. D.

 

The differences between the two campaigns seem pretty stark to me. I don't understand the hate-on for Ouya and don't think it's remotely comparable.

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What if he didn't show software running on it but just touched the Cyclone V a couple of times, shown mock ups of it, shown Intelivision games being played but not from what it was running on using a different controller than he was pitching wired behind a TV out of sight, shown people working in offices, had some interviews with people who think it is a good idea, etc.? In other words, a perfect copy of the OUYA video but the Colceo Chameleon in its place. Would you feel like you witnessed the running of a working prototype in such a video? To put the question another way, if OUYA didn't have a working prototype would it have been possible for them to produce the exact same pitch video that they did and would you feel like you had sufficient proof if Mike copied the video to make his own?

 

But you're assuming that off the shelf dev board + off the shelf controller + choppy editing + early OS = no prototype and that's not how I read the OUYA pitch at all. It was perfectly fine for them to show their software running on a dev board and call it a prototype because they're not reinventing the wheel. Every Android box has been unashamed in admitting that you're getting cell phone technology plugged into your TV.

 

Do you see the difference? OUYA's pitch was more about their software than hardware, they were selling you the idea of a perfect app store for gaming. OUYA is not doing anything special so they don't get criticized for running their software on an off the shelf dev board. Mike's pitch is based on miracle hardware so when he can't show any of that he has nothing. He can't even meet OUYA's burden of proof, so he can't be "light years ahead."

 

It's also worth noting that Mike set a higher burden of proof for himself. I actually had this exact same argument with Mike himself right before the IndiGoGo launched. He told me:

Look, we aren't going to fool our backers into thinking we have a working proto when we don't. We can edit and cut a video together showing exactly what they are showing--which is nothing conslusive.

 

My, oh my, how people change.

 

 

 

 

 

W....T...F??!?!?!

 

Why the hell didn't Mike just go to these guys?!?!? He said early plans were to work with BeagleBone boards anyways!!

 

I also didn't know that someone had already strapped an FPGA board to a Pi. I remember proposing that earlier and everyone thought I was crazy. Not saying it would work like Kevtris's console but it's nice to know I wasn't completely crazy for once.

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...



...

W....T...F??!?!?!

 

Why the hell didn't Mike just go to these guys?!?!? He said early plans were to work with BeagleBone boards anyways!!

 

I also didn't know that someone had already strapped an FPGA board to a Pi. I remember proposing that earlier and everyone thought I was crazy. Not saying it would work like Kevtris's console but it's nice to know I wasn't completely crazy for once.

There this too:

http://www.xess.com/blog/raspberry-pi-xula/

and afaik no kickstarter either.

 

There are 2 XuLA2 boards, one based on the XC6SLX9 (9K LE) and one based on the XC6SLX25 (25K LE):

http://www.xess.com/store/fpga-boards/

[i bought the LX9 but haven't had the time to play with it yet]

 

The same guy also has a free book on learning FPGA:

http://www.xess.com/static/media/appnotes/FpgasNowWhatBook.pdf

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Yeah just above any of those board would work with a few little changes

for example

https://www.crowdsupply.com/krtkl/snickerdoodle

https://www.retrode.com/

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2016/03/this-30-300gb-hard-drive-was-designed-espeically-for-raspberry-pi/

+ A shell and probably a enclosure EM shielding

+ a few connectors

 

would probably did what they were claiming , but i serious doubt they could make it at a $150 price point + make all the cores in a presentable fashion for non console gamers

Edited by enoofu
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Omg ! After reading this thread for nearly a month I made it to the end! What a ride.

I would be happy with a Super Colecovision! With sequels to all my favorite games.

The Colecovision was my first next next generation system and I loved it to death.

Full backwards compatible is a must too. Someone please make it happen.

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Omg ! After reading this thread for nearly a month I made it to the end! What a ride.

I would be happy with a Super Colecovision! With sequels to all my favorite games.

The Colecovision was my first next next generation system and I loved it to death.

Full backwards compatible is a must too. Someone please make it happen.

 

A SUPER COLECOVISION??

 

I'd be the first in line! That would be Amazing!

 

Even if it were, say, as powerful as a SNES, but actually had forthcoming games like a sequel to Mr. Do!, a sequel to Zaxxon, and to Cosmic Avenger, and a Looping 2,...A new Frenzy, Maybe sequels to Omega Race, Wing War, Jumpman Jr. and Gateway to Apshai...

 

Man, I'd be all over that!

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A SUPER COLECOVISION??

 

I'd be the first in line! That would be Amazing!

 

Even if it were, say, as powerful as a SNES, but actually had forthcoming games like a sequel to Mr. Do!, a sequel to Zaxxon, and to Cosmic Avenger, and a Looping 2,...A new Frenzy, Maybe sequels to Omega Race, Wing War, Jumpman Jr. and Gateway to Apshai...

 

Man, I'd be all over that!

 

Maybe they could use an Xbox/PlayStation type of controller instead of a doorknob this time. :D

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Random Terrain, on 20 Mar 2016 - 11:08 PM, said:

 

Maybe they could use an Xbox/PlayStation type of controller instead of a doorknob this time. :D

 

Well, I think a doorknob is more functional!

 

If I designed it, I'd go with a Coleco styled controller but with a ball top joystick instead of the silver disc, and inside it would be controlled by micro switches like a Sanwa...But still have the keypad...

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