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PiTrex is now available for developers


gtoal

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Hello everyone!

   The PiTrex cartridge which adds an Raspberry Pi to the Vectrex is now ready to release to developers!

   PiTrex is a cartridge for the Vectrex aimed at being a host system for vector arcade emulation as well as hosting new games in high-level languages.

   The idea for this project first surfaced in mid 2018 and we had our hardware by early 2019.  At that point it was still an R&D project, and we were not yet sure if we could even draw vectors successfully... but after a while we did... and found that the real-time interrupts that go on all the time on linux were interfering with drawing and that the display was always glitchy.  At that point we thought we had to drop the idea of running under Linux, and we spent most of 2019 and much of early 2020 working on a bare-metal standalone environment for running vector programs on the Pi. It wasn't until mid 2020 that we finally found a way to draw from Linux without glitches! Since then we have been full speed ahead getting this initial release ready to share with developers.

We will be supporting both bare-metal and linux-hosted environments.  Bare metal does boot straight into a game quickly and is unlikely to suffer SD corruption if just switched off without a clean shutdown - it's a good environment for someone selling a game for example.  But we expect the majority of development to be done under linux initially - much better library support and features like audio and networking.

If you haven't heard of the PiTrex over those last couple of years - it is primarily for new games written in C (for now) and emulation.  The emulated games that we have so far are basically at proof-of-concept stage - they mostly all need some tweaking to integrate the Vectrex joystick and buttons to drive them - one of the tasks we're hoping will be sped up by the addition of more developers.  (at our best so far we've been a 3-man team, but it has all been unpaid spare-time work by people with day jobs)

So that's where we are now.  It's not a ready-to-play system, but the basics that a software author may need to develop games or languages like Logo or Forth are in place.  We have a mailing list which is how we'll communicate with you, and would like you to sign up for it when you place the order for the PiTrex PCB at https://www.ombertech.com/pitrexdev.php

For now the PiTrex will only be supplied as an uncased cartridge board,  We do supply a custom case you can 3D print, and we'll discuss future case options on the mailing list once you're all signed up.  You'll need to get a Pi Zero from one of several suppliers.  We strongly recommend getting a Pi Zero WH for simplicity - saving $10 by getting the most basic Pi Zero could be a mistake that will cost much more than $10 to rectify later unless you're already an electronics enthusiast with soldering skills and various headers to hand!

We're committed to making as many boards as are wanted in the long term, so if you are only interested in playing games on the PiTrex or feel you need to grab one now in case they sell out - please don't! Leave the initial batch for developers so we can start getting some serious new content on the machines.  We have about 40 tested boards and that should be enough for developers to get started.  If we have some spare after the devs have had a chance to get one, and you're willing to live with the restrictions of alpha-level software, we could let some of any remaining boards go in a few weeks time.

 

Edited by gtoal
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Wow, fantastic news. Well done.

 

Don't have time to develop, I'll get back to that in retirement, so I'll watch this space with interest to see what all the great devs come up with.

 

One questions, can Star Wars arcade run on it and can I then hook my real yoke up? I've seen it done on VecFever, but didn't have the £1400+ to get one of those!

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10 minutes ago, uczmeg said:

Wow, fantastic news. Well done.

 

Don't have time to develop, I'll get back to that in retirement, so I'll watch this space with interest to see what all the great devs come up with.

 

One questions, can Star Wars arcade run on it and can I then hook my real yoke up? I've seen it done on VecFever, but didn't have the £1400+ to get one of those!

too early to answer that. depends on whether you can drive a big display from a Vectrex and whether that specific emulation can be made to run fast enough - it's not one of the ones we've handled yet.

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10 minutes ago, gtoal said:

too early to answer that. depends on whether you can drive a big display from a Vectrex and whether that specific emulation can be made to run fast enough - it's not one of the ones we've handled yet.

 

I still meant on the Vectrex display, I was able to source a yoke not the whole thing. (and have no where I'd be allowed to put a cabinet even if I could afford it).

 

Like this on the vecfever (who needs Squadrons in VR when you can have a UV Vectrex!)...

 

 

Edited by uczmeg
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6 minutes ago, uczmeg said:

 

I still meant on the Vectrex display, I was able to source a yoke not the whole thing. (and have no where I'd be allowed to put a cabinet even if I could afford it).

Oh - that kind of yoke.  I thought you meant the windings round the tube.

I don't think there are enough free GPIO pins to wire something like that directly, but we should be able to support non-standard peripherals through USB.

This is exactly the sort of experiment we're hoping some extra developers will try out with this release.

 

G

Edited by gtoal
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My board arrived in the mail today, thank you.  I still need to order and get a Pi Zero, so it will be a couple of weeks before I get fully started (which is probably good as I am finishing off another game at the moment).

Just saying excited to start looking at this, get into another platform and see if some of my existing games as concepts could be used on this.

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  • 8 months later...

I bought one from the recent regular (non-dev) batch and this thing is amazing.  I've calibrated my Vectrex consoles before, but the PiTrex calibration settings make it look better ever.  This brings new life to the Vectrex, not just for devs but for any Vectrex owner.  I can't recommend it enough.  The Vectrex library was already great, but being able to play some of the original vector arcade titles on the Vectrex is pretty amazing.

 

Thanks to all of the developers that made the PiTrex possible. 

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13 hours ago, akator said:

I bought one from the recent regular (non-dev) batch and this thing is amazing.  I've calibrated my Vectrex consoles before, but the PiTrex calibration settings make it look better ever.  This brings new life to the Vectrex, not just for devs but for any Vectrex owner.  I can't recommend it enough.  The Vectrex library was already great, but being able to play some of the original vector arcade titles on the Vectrex is pretty amazing.

 

Thanks to all of the developers that made the PiTrex possible. 

 

Excellent, I hadn't realised consumer versions were now available.

 

A quick look around and the work Malban is doing is incredible. Seeing versions of Star Wars and Elite gave me a warm (vector) glow. :)

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  • 3 months later...
I bought one from the recent regular (non-dev) batch and this thing is amazing.  I've calibrated my Vectrex consoles before, but the PiTrex calibration settings make it look better ever.  This brings new life to the Vectrex, not just for devs but for any Vectrex owner.  I can't recommend it enough.  The Vectrex library was already great, but being able to play some of the original vector arcade titles on the Vectrex is pretty amazing.
 
Thanks to all of the developers that made the PiTrex possible. 

Where do you purchase the non dev versions?
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1 hour ago, adamchevy said:


Where do you purchase the non dev versions?

https://www.ombertech.com/pitrex.php

To clear up some confusion, there's no dev/non-dev versions - there's only ever been one hardware version.

It's just that initially we encouraged gamers to let developers buy the first batch of 50 or so, but after that batch they were available to everyone, and I believe we've sold over 500 to date.  They're in stock most of the time.  The main difference between the initial release and now is that the software available has improved a lot, and Malban has produced a release that's relatively easy for non-programmers to install and use.

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Be warned PiTrex is still very much an alpha/beta project and if you think you are just going to pop it in and play arcade games you will be VERY disappointed. If you have no other multicart and want to play the original GCE games and a few Malban homebrews it's fine. If you want to tinker with it and have the programming skills to do stuff, it's there.
It's priced fairly enough so anyone can afford one if they are already a vectrex owner.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I ended up getting one of these and have it setup now. The standalone binary versions are the ones to play for the games they have them for like Battlezone, Asteroids, Tailgunner, Black Widow,etc. Otherwise all the other games like Star Wars are in the AAE emulator. The only game that works pretty well and has some sound is the Battlezone standalone binary, otherwise none of the games have any sound. I didn't realize how far ahead of this the VecFever emulation was on everything, seems all those games have sound and run way better. Why the VecFever guy forced Malban and Graham to reinvent the wheel instead of just producing enough copies of VecFever, will forever be a mystery to me. I had figured that he may have shared code with them and that PiTrex and VecFever would be at a similar level of emulating arcade games. I didn't realize just how far ahead of Pitrex the Vecfever emulation really is. It's still nice to finally be able to play some vector arcade games on my Vectrex. Just would be nice if Thomas would let others play in his club too someday.

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3 hours ago, Quetzalcoatl said:

I ended up getting one of these and have it setup now. The standalone binary versions are the ones to play for the games they have them for like Battlezone, Asteroids, Tailgunner, Black Widow,etc. Otherwise all the other games like Star Wars are in the AAE emulator. The only game that works pretty well and has some sound is the Battlezone standalone binary, otherwise none of the games have any sound. I didn't realize how far ahead of this the VecFever emulation was on everything, seems all those games have sound and run way better. Why the VecFever guy forced Malban and Graham to reinvent the wheel instead of just producing enough copies of VecFever, will forever be a mystery to me. I had figured that he may have shared code with them and that PiTrex and VecFever would be at a similar level of emulating arcade games. I didn't realize just how far ahead of Pitrex the Vecfever emulation really is. It's still nice to finally be able to play some vector arcade games on my Vectrex. Just would be nice if Thomas would let others play in his club too someday.

It's a little frustrating I agree, but we consider Thomas a friend and respect his choices about how he handles his hardware and software development.  The fact is Thomas is a better programmer than me and he also has the advantage of much more time available to devote to these things - but our attitude is that we'll catch up eventually and our source code _will_ be released online at sites such as github.  On the subject of sharing code though, it's actually the other way round - what happened was that before there were any working static binary translations for the Vectrex, I had made a translation to C of Tailgunner and I contacted Thomas who - after some enjoyable technical discussions - got it to run on his VecFever hardware.  I think the early releases of Tailgunner were still using my code, but it wasn't long after that, that Thomas wrote his own Cinematronics to C conversion program, and re-built Tailgunner using his own code.  He then followed that up by writing - from scratch! - converters for the 6502, z80 and 6809.  And that was the start of his amazing effort to convert nearly all of the vector games ever written to run on the VF.  A truly astounding piece of work that would take normal mortals like the rest of us many years to do.  However ... we *are* attempting to do just that, albeit slowly.  The current focus is getting the next CPU translator, which is the 6809, to work - and we're actually doing fairly well with that.  As well as allowing us to translate the 6809-based vector arcade games, I picked the 6809 as our next target because it will allow us to also port Vectrex games to other platforms relatively easily.  Work on the 6502 and z80 translators is also fairly advanced but as yet completely untested.  One at a time... though as each one starts to work it makes working on the others easier, since the translators have a lot in common.

 

The main bottleneck in porting games is actually just manpower. There's none of the games that are particularly difficult to configure, it's just that there are only two of us who even have any time to work on these, and we both have other projects to juggle as well as PiTrex games.  With the traditional emulators now working, the lack of static binary translations for other architectures is no longer the limiting factor - it's just time and inclination to configure inputs and tweak the displays and add sound samples.  If more programmers were interested in working on the PiTrex we could probably catch up to the standard that Thomas has set with the VecFever relatively quickly.

 

If Thomas hadn't done such an impressive job with the VF, we would have been pretty pleased with ourselves for putting out a cartridge with half a dozen games at a price that was competitive with a single native Vectrex game (or two).  But Thomas has set a high bar!  But this is a good thing, it gives us a big incentive to try harder, and I'm OK with taking a year or two to catch up because I think what we've produced already is something we can be proud of, given that it's an unpaid hobby project done in our spare time.

 

Graham

 

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I didn't mean to denigrate the work you and Malban have done on Pitrex. I'm very appreciative of all the time and effort you two have put into all your projects. I also do not regret my purchase of the Pitrex at all, I'm very glad to have it and to be able to finally try some arcade emulation on Vectrex. As for needing more programmers, I can't help in that regard unfortunately, I can help with testing although I'm sure you guys have enough people already telling you what isn't working properly, etc. One weird bug I've encountered is that sometimes the menu system seems to stop allowing me to move the cursor above a certain game in the AAE menu and other menus (sometimes can't move left or right past certain games in the standalone binaries lists, etc). Like all of a sudden I can't move up above Star Wars in the list, for example. Also I'm not sure what a soft reset is supposed to do (Using the Vectrex reset button), but all it does for me is get a black screen. So I have to power off and on the system to reset the Pitrex. Otherwise I really like the interface you guys have for the Pitrex, it's very easy to navigate. If you ever need a new version tested of anything with the Pitrex, feel free to message me or post on here. QA is my background so I'm quite good at it, just never got into programming or scripting.

Edited by Quetzalcoatl
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44 minutes ago, Quetzalcoatl said:

I didn't mean to denigrate the work you and Malban have done on Pitrex. I'm very appreciative of all the time and effort you two have put into all your projects. I also do not regret my purchase of the Pitrex at all, I'm very glad to have it and to be able to finally try some arcade emulation on Vectrex. As for needing more programmers, I can't help in that regard unfortunately, I can help with testing although I'm sure you guys have enough people already telling you what isn't working properly, etc. One weird bug I've encountered is that sometimes the menu system seems to stop allowing me to move the cursor above a certain game in the AAE menu and other menus (sometimes can't move left or right past certain games in the standalone binaries lists, etc). Like all of a sudden I can't move up above Star Wars in the list, for example. Also I'm not sure what a soft reset is supposed to do (Using the Vectrex reset button), but all it does for me is get a black screen. So I have to power off and on the system to reset the Pitrex. Otherwise I really like the interface you guys have for the Pitrex, it's very easy to navigate. If you ever need a new version tested of anything with the Pitrex, feel free to message me or post on here. QA is my background so I'm quite good at it, just never got into programming or scripting.

No worries, I didn't take your comment as any sort of complaint, I just wanted to put in a good word for Thomas.

 

We don't support soft reset, but there is an equivalent button combination on the controller that should work.  It'll be in Malban's documentation.

 

Best place for support questions is the mailing list.

 

G

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8 hours ago, charlie_jumper said:

Is there any good prebuild image for the Pitrex? Anything where you just can put your Roms in it?
I would love to be able to play the star Wars Game, but i have not the slightes Idea of programming....

Star Wars for me is also the holy grail.

 

From the videos I've seen so far you are going to be disappointed right now if that is your main goal as it's not ready. I imagine it is the most complicated to get running well.

 

It's exciting we have projects like that coming.

 

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8 hours ago, charlie_jumper said:

Is there any good prebuild image for the Pitrex? Anything where you just can put your Roms in it?
I would love to be able to play the star Wars Game, but i have not the slightes Idea of programming....

http://vide.malban.de/pitrex/pitrex-baremetal-download

Starwars is the one game that's not ready for prime time yet, but being worked on.

 

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18 minutes ago, uczmeg said:

Star Wars for me is also the holy grail.

 

From the videos I've seen so far you are going to be disappointed right now if that is your main goal as it's not ready. I imagine it is the most complicated to get running well.

 

It's exciting we have projects like that coming.

 

On that subject... we're working on a static binary translator for 6809 code, which is progressing quite well: http://gtoal.com/SBTPROJECT/6809sbt/

 

If there's anyone here who is interested in compiler techniques, a little experiment I'm playing with at the moment is a source-to-source optimiser for the subset of C that is output by the SBT, which would eventually let us improve the generated program more than is currently being done: http://gtoal.com/SBTPROJECT/6809sbt/experimental/precedence-parser/parser.c.html

 

G

 

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I still have to load up a Linux Pitrex sd card and try that, the baremetal sd image I messed around with that and I am honestly mostly just using it for getting high scores on Vectorblade! (1.9M in case you wonder)

If I was a better C programmer and like, you know, smarter, I'd offer help Graham, but I am not! I am a UNIX sysadmin who tinkers in coding, and I know math up to an 8th grade level or something haha.

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  • 2 months later...
On 2/4/2022 at 8:37 AM, ianoid said:

I have one of these carts. Can anyone suggest a source for a Pi Zero WH or W? Everyone seems to be sold out. I look forward to trying mine out.

 I have a pi zero 1.3 without wifi and it works fine except I can't download stuff by wifi.  I did have to solder on header pins. If you have any  pi zero, try it.

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3 hours ago, bah said:

 I have a pi zero 1.3 without wifi and it works fine except I can't download stuff by wifi.  I did have to solder on header pins. If you have any  pi zero, try it.

Our suggestion of using Pi Zero W (apart from the 'with header' option only being available on the 'W') was because when we first started distributing boards, we expected people would be developing on them and using the Pi version of linux.  If you get one just for play and are using Malban's distro, then there's no advantage or requirement to use the 'W' version (though you do still need the header).

 

Adafruit and PiMoroni do 'hammer headers' if you don't want to solder them on.  Avoid that kind of header from eBay as chances are extremely high that the ones you'll get are too tight to attach by hand.  Some major electronics vendors do supply good ones directly but I can't remember which vendors and anyway they wouldn't be significantly cheaper (after shipping charges, because big electronics vendors tend not to offer a cheap shipping option and send everything by courier) than those two retail sites above.

 

I don't think the shortage is 'supply chain issues'.  My guess is that the Pi Corp is allowing the older models to sell out before releasing large numbers of the new Pi Zero 2 so that their resellers are not left with unsellable stocks of the older model.  It's been their playbook in the past.  Usually the new version then drops in price but I suspect that won't happen in the case of the Pi Zeroes as its clear they've regretted the too-low initial price from the start.

 

btw we don't yet have support for the Zero 2 *under linux* but it may come.  Malban supports it already in single-core mode with the bare metal distro.

 

G

 

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  • 7 months later...
On 2/5/2022 at 11:05 AM, gtoal said:

I don't think the shortage is 'supply chain issues'.  My guess is that the Pi Corp is allowing the older models to sell out before releasing large numbers of the new Pi Zero 2 so that their resellers are not left with unsellable stocks of the older model.  It's been their playbook in the past.  Usually the new version then drops in price but I suspect that won't happen in the case of the Pi Zeroes as its clear they've regretted the too-low initial price from the start.

Production on all models are expected to continue for a while:

image.png.b0c107c874ac7a970385b25dcc428af9.png

 

So it must be the supply chain issue.

 

I work in the electronic industry and it is a real thing that is affecting a lot of companies out there.

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