RetroN 77

[up2knowgood]

 

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention

Again, the paper trail helps that. Otherwise, you are relaying on abstracts to protect your work.

[up2knowgood]

 

Yes, you are wrong, and also ignorant of the specifics of the situation and of how copyright works.

 

Stella was released under the GPLv2 in 2001. At that point, it was copyrighted to the 'Stella Team', which consists of a few members, but most prominently me for the past 10 years or so.

 

I follow due diligence whenever a new Stella port pops up, making sure that it obeys the GPLv2. Most (all?) such people I interact with follow the licensing, and no problems come from it.

 

Your entire argument and stance in this thread reeks of entitlement (and there are a few others like you in every project I've ever been involved with). This project is one of the longest-running emulation projects in existence. And to certain others, I can assure you that the code I wrote (not borrowed) numbers in the tens of thousands of lines, as does the number of hours I've spent on it. We've followed all the rules for a GPL-derived work, and consistently released what I feel is a good product for the better part of two decades.

 

Look, I don't know if Hyperkin will follow the rules. Hopefully they will, and all of this is just a waste of discussion. But I repeat what I said many times; what we ask for is very simple and easy to achieve: Simply follow the rules of the licensing (GPLv2), and release whatever code that you've modified. If you don't want to do that, then don't borrow from Stella at all. I can't think of a more reasonable license and situation than what we have here. We simply ask for you to pass on changes, so that end-users can benefit just like you did.

 

It's not that I'm complaining about the code being used for profit, but that it's potentially going to be used in a way not compatible with the licensing. Don't like the licensing, don't use the product. Simple as that. Anyone that wants to bypass this simple requirement is IMO a leech, and not a useful part of this community. I'm hoping that Hyperkin won't be such an end-user, but I see that there are at least some users here that are.

Thank you, those are concrete facts no one else was giving me.

 

With that initial Copyright you have a very solid foundation, and I will admit I was wrong. You should have plenty of leverage against Hyperkin should it come down to that.

[dj_convoy]

It's all academic until we see the product. Hyperkin claims that they will be doing things above board and if they don't, we will rally like we always do to tell others.

[Keatah]

Will others listen and not buy? Before hyperkin makes their millions on the backs of others..?

[dj_convoy]

Millions?

[up2knowgood]

Will others listen and not buy? Before hyperkin makes their millions on the backs of others..?

All I want is a console that helps me play my cartridges on a newer TV. I am not a programmer or an electrical engineer, and have none of the skill sets required to build something like that. Hopefully this would do that if it ever came out. Is that so wrong? Seems like a few of you think it is.

[godslabrat]

Consider this; Hyperkin is known to... actually, is FAMOUS FOR... taking shortcuts. If they showed the prototype at CES 2017, there's no reason to think they couldn't have launched the R77 by now, if they were willing to simply slap stolen code onto android board. The delays make it plausible that they're taking time to do the right thing, and I say this a guy who really doesn't give Hyperkin much credit.

 

It's true that when the product ships, it will be too late to do anything... but by the same token, before it ships, we don't know enough to really call them out. I recognize that the situation sucks, but it is what it is. If Hyperkin is going the stolen code route, I hope it can bite them hard.

[Keatah]

All I want is a console that helps me play my cartridges on a newer TV. I am not a programmer or an electrical engineer, and have none of the skill sets required to build something like that. Hopefully this would do that if it ever came out. Is that so wrong? Seems like a few of you think it is.

 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting something to help you play your cartridges on a newer television. Absolutely nothing at all. Many thousands surely share that same desire.

 

Please do not twist around what we say. No one here ever said wanting to play cartridges on a newer television is wrong. No one. Please point out where we did.

 

I think it'd be great if Retron77 comes to market and adheres to licenses if using Stella.

[up2knowgood]

Consider this; Hyperkin is known to... actually, is FAMOUS FOR... taking shortcuts. If they showed the prototype at CES 2017, there's no reason to think they couldn't have launched the R77 by now, if they were willing to simply slap stolen code onto android board. The delays make it plausible that they're taking time to do the right thing, and I say this a guy who really doesn't give Hyperkin much credit.

 

It's true that when the product ships, it will be too late to do anything... but by the same token, before it ships, we don't know enough to really call them out. I recognize that the situation sucks, but it is what it is. If Hyperkin is going the stolen code route, I hope it can bite them hard.

WORKING prototype I might add.

[up2knowgood]

 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting something to help you play your cartridges on a newer television. Absolutely nothing at all. Many thousands surely share that same desire.

 

Please do not twist around what we say. No one here ever said wanting to play cartridges on a newer television is wrong. No one. Please point out where we did.

 

I think it'd be great if Retron77 comes to market and adheres to licenses if using Stella.

No one said it, no. But it did seem like a few would rather see it abandoned than even potentially see it use Stella emulation.

 

Honestly when it didn't come out in the holiday season like they said it would, it kind of felt like it had been argued out of existence after reading this thread.

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

 

It's not that I'm complaining about the code being used for profit, but that it's potentially going to be used in a way not compatible with the licensing. Don't like the licensing, don't use the product.

Is it reslly fair to tell the unsuspecting shopper not to spend his or her money on it? Hyperkin has shown before they don't give s shit, and until someone brings a class action lawsuit to fight for small gpl license violations, the courts don't give a shig either. However, they WILL care when a case of license infringement is brought to their attention. Until then, corporations will bully independant glp projects to their advantage.

Asking the gamer not to buy a product they planned on buying anyway is a fruitless endeavor. You must file for an injuction to block sales of the device, which the courts can grant pending status of a lawsuit. It is not my job to go against Hyperkin. That is your responsibility.

Furthermore, the issue of emulation in general is murky waters because most emulators require you to download copyrighted roms (homebrew development is the exception here) that you do not own. The dumper/emulator devices ensure that copyright is not violated by only retaining the virtusl copy ofthe game for as long as the system is powered on with a cart in the slot. So despite their shady violations of gpl license, they have also legitamized emulation because it is now possible to run copyrighted roms legally using an emulator. No more than one backup can exist at once, and it is stored on volatile ram that wipes clean when power is removed.

[up2knowgood]

Is it reslly fair to tell the unsuspecting shopper not to spend his or her money on it? Hyperkin has shown before they don't give s shit, and until someone brings a class action lawsuit to fight for small gpl license violations, the courts don't give a shig either. However, they WILL care when a case of license infringement is brought to their attention. Until then, corporations will bully independant glp projects to their advantage.

 

Asking the gamer not to buy a product they planned on buying anyway is a fruitless endeavor. You must file for an injuction to block sales of the device, which the courts can grant pending status of a lawsuit. It is not my job to go against Hyperkin. That is your responsibility.

 

Furthermore, the issue of emulation in general is murky waters because most emulators require you to download copyrighted roms (homebrew development is the exception here) that you do not own. The dumper/emulator devices ensure that copyright is not violated by only retaining the virtusl copy ofthe game for as long as the system is powered on with a cart in the slot. So despite their shady violations of gpl license, they have also legitamized emulation because it is now possible to run copyrighted roms legally using an emulator. No more than one backup can exist at once, and it is stored on volatile ram that wipes clean when power is removed.

Agreed.

[AndrewHyperkin]

Hi Everyone!

 

First of all, our apologies for the delay and silence on our part. It's been a long wait, and we truly appreciate your support, as well as all the suggestions and ideas. The final hardware has been finally approved and submitted to mass-production, so it's not going to be a long wait from now on.

 

We hope for the Retron 77 to be a good product; now it's time to answer your questions, and to say clearly what it is (and what it's not).

 

Second of all, yes - we indeed licensed a very early version of Stella, but as many people here on this thread mentioned, re-inventing the wheel would be simply pointless, same as reaching out to every single contributor. That is why the R77 is going to be released as an open-source system with its source codes available for the community. Certainly, it comes with a stable and fully functional core that you won't need to tinker with, but if tinkering is your game, then we encourage you to do so. It comes with a nice yet simple GUI.

 

We heard your thoughts on the amount of money that thing should cost, and of course we understand that it cannot be too much. We aim for this system to be affordable, and while I cannot tell you the MSRP just yet (it will soon be officially announced), we are being realistic and community-friendly. We know how much the Harmony cartridge alone costs, and we hope for this system to be not very far from that. Also, we expect to open pre-orders soon.

 

As we promised, it comes with all the necessary switches. So if you want to toggle difficulty for both players, game mode, color and black-and-white picture, screen aspect ratio, quick-save and quick-load your game - all that is readily available. There is also a glitch switch that was added just for fun (you can change its purpose if you are familiar with coding).

 

The system will ship with our new joystick controller which those of you who came to E3 last year had liked a lot. There will be an interesting extra feature for the left-handed people (or the right-handed people who want a challenge) - another Fire button. Certainly, other standard joysticks (like our Cirka controller for example) are also supported, as well as Genesis/MD gamepads. Standard paddle controllers are supported as well. On the top of that, we have another interesting controller that we expect to release at the same time or shortly after the system: it's a combo gamepad that has a little paddle built into it. We went through a lot of prototypes, including a few things suggested in this thread, and decided to go with this option. It has a toggle switch to enable left-handed mode as well.

 

Certainly, there are many obscure controllers out there, but the system will not support any other types of peripherals out of the box. Again, in an equation where cost and development time (already long enough) are the main variables, we believe this to be a reasonable compromise...

 

The system takes standard cartridges (all those we tested with my guests at last year's E3 and a few more types). Since it's an open-source system, we thought it would be a good idea to equip it with an SD card slot to make it easier for homebrew developers to get on board. That SD card will also conveniently contain the operating system (and Stella) for easy testing. We decided to drop Harmony support in favor of the SD card because supporting it requires some higher-end hardware, and we believe its homebrew functionality is basically replicated with the SD card.

 

If you are a developer and you want your game to be included with the system (of course with proper credit given to you or your studio in the EULA file) - please reach out to our R&D team (developer@hyperkin.com) or me directly on Linkedin. Depending on how this goes, we might offer limited amount of devkits to a selected number of developers.

 

It supports hot-swapping cartridges (you won't have to power down the system to change your games). Save files are good for keeping high scores or getting to see just how crazy some games like Missile Command get past a seven-digit score.

 

So basically, we wanted this system to be a convenient way to play games off cartridges, with common controllers on an HD TV. It's homebrew- and community-friendly. It's not the ultimate all-in-one answer to just any request, yet it's a good way to put your games collection into some good use, and to preserve the legacy by introducing our kids to what we used to play back in the days.

 

With all that said, we at Hyperkin and me personally want to thank everyone on this thread. Your support has made this project possible.

 

Yours truly,

Dr. Andrew Steel

[Flojomojo]

Cool.

What's a "standard cartridge?"

[up2knowgood]

Cool.

What's a "standard cartridge?"

If he means only the 4k carts, this release will be very disappointing.

[Keatah]

Now that we know an older version of Stella is being used. Will it be worth it with all the incompatibilities and bugs?

[yanbu]

Thanks for the update on this @AndrewHyperkin! I'm personally looking forward to getting one, this sounds like a pretty cool system.

[Keatah]

Looks like the best and most versatile way to play VCS games is either Real Hardware or a PC-based rig running Stella.

 

Though PCs are becoming more and more outmoded in favor of smartphones as time goes on.

Edited May 8, 2018 by Keatah

[up2knowgood]

Looks like the best and most versatile way to play VCS games is either Real Hardware or a rig running Stella.

I, for one, think that means everyone who worked on Stella should be very proud of that fact.

[Keatah]

Second of all, yes - we indeed licensed a very early version of Stella, but as many people here on this thread mentioned, re-inventing the wheel would be simply pointless, same as reaching out to every single contributor. That is why the R77 is going to be released as an open-source system with its source codes available for the community. Certainly, it comes with a stable and fully functional core that you won't need to tinker with, but if tinkering is your game, then we encourage you to do so. It comes with a nice yet simple GUI.

 

So it won't play Draconian, Scramble, or Space Rocks. Ok.

 

But.. tinkering.. is it safe to assume later versions of Stella can be modded and recompiled to allow complete compatibility?

 

Will the system have the necessary power to run a later version?

 

 

The system takes standard cartridges (all those we tested with my guests at last year's E3 and a few more types). Since it's an open-source system, we thought it would be a good idea to equip it with an SD card slot to make it easier for homebrew developers to get on board. That SD card will also conveniently contain the operating system (and Stella) for easy testing. We decided to drop Harmony support in favor of the SD card because supporting it requires some higher-end hardware, and we believe its homebrew functionality is basically replicated with the SD card.

Not sure what "standard cartridges" means.

Not sure what "homebrew functionality" means.

 

Dropping Harmony support because of lack of higher-end hardware means no DPC+ cartridges. Whether DPC+ or other newer bankswitch schemes will work is still unclear. But I will guess and say no.

 

 

So basically, we wanted this system to be a convenient way to play games off cartridges, with common controllers on an HD TV. It's homebrew- and community-friendly. It's not the ultimate all-in-one answer to just any request, yet it's a good way to put your games collection into some good use, and to preserve the legacy by introducing our kids to what we used to play back in the days.

 

As long as we keep our expectations middle-of-the-road we shouldn't be disappointed. Serious gaming and a complete deluxe experience will require other solutions.

[AndrewHyperkin]

"Standard cartridges" means 4k/8k/16k games. There may be exceptions because our supply of cartridges is somewhat limited.

"Homebrew support" means the system will play .bin files placed on the SD card.

Keatah, quite the opposite. The older version of Stella will not be used. We are fully aware of its limitations; that's basically why in spite of paying for that earlier version, we decided to go open-source with this project, and use a more recent version, and to share the source codes with the community.

[godslabrat]

So... what I'm hearing is that it ships, in the box, fully compliant with the Stella license. I'm also hearing that improvements may be possible based on the hobbyist community, if not directly from Hyperkin.

 

Am I hearing this right? Because if so, that just assuaged 99.99% of my concerns about this Thing.

[+swlovinist]

I for one appreciate Hyperkin coming on this forum to clear some things up. Looking forward to seeing this product in person!

[Keatah]

Keatah, quite the opposite. The older version of Stella will not be used. We are fully aware of its limitations; that's basically why in spite of paying for that earlier version, we decided to go open-source with this project, and use a more recent version, and to share the source codes with the community.

 

 

Ahh yes of course. I read the post too fast. Sounds fine by me then!

[Keatah]

By the way, I'm not too concerned with the cost. Increasing or decreasing by $40 or so isn't going to make much of a difference. People that want this are going to get it. Period.