Oh who summoned me!
Yeah, haha I'm still cranking away at my console.. :)
http:// electrodev.100free.com/pcb001.png (copy paste it, my webhost doesn't like me image forwarding) latest shot of this new pcb I've been working on for it..
This new board isn't really much right now, more of a new idea.. working on a 'simple' video game console that uses ethernet soley. (Hopefully you can take a hint as to what I'm looking forward to.)
I've taken a 3 month rest from development on it, waiting for price changes, new parts to come out, etc. It seems silly, but I've been learning how to make my own console for about 3 years now. And still no ground breaking results. I've gotten video on a TV to work atleast, My own pixels, lighting up the screen, it sure feels good. :P
However, I don't use microcontrollers to do this, but actual digital logic, with the help of an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array). You can look them up yourself, if you are interested in them. They are basically a black box of digital logic that you can 'configure' into your own creations. I've been working on all kinds of things like, sprite generators, tile map generators, cpu's, memory managers, audio and video processors, sync generators -- all the works! All within a single chip. :)
It's like a pit of digital logic :P
Knowing the power you have, to create any kind of digital logic, and you can reconfigure it whenever you need. (Mainly on bootup) You then have a video game console, who's output can change. A video game console that can evolve over time. Or a Video Game that has it's own custom hardware, without needing any external components, just a stream of bytes. :)
Now add this to Ethernet, and you have an online community of game developers for an ever changing console... CPU, VIDEO, and AUDIO hardware developers building unique pieces to a puzzle that will someday be put together. :P
You can call this media buzz, but I think it's kind of my fate.
Anyway, that's what's going on around here. If any of you have any form of excitement from this, I could really use a few encouraging words. I nearly quit all together 3 months ago, because I couldn't find an audience/user base who would care. :)
To put it simply, my goal is a video game console, with hardware that changes. Say, I prefer Z80 opcodes over another CPU like 6502. Well just 'select' the core as your CPU. Now say you'd like a 'nifty NES style video core', set that as your video core. You now have a managed I/O system already setup for you, that allows your CPU to talk to the Video core, through a simple interface, which is either already coded for you, or as an advanced user, can setup for yourself. The options seem to be endless, if you don't even want to use a premade core, you could just as easily write your own. Better yet, come to the online community site, and download custom designed cores, by users who also make games and such.
Cores can be designed with the software that comes with the console, these are free development tools by the manufacturer of the FPGA, Xilinx. They include a schematic based system to design your cores, if you are totally hardcore. Or you can use a Hardware Description Language, such as Verilog or VHDL. I prefer Verilog myself, but I have a history of using schematic also, to get every single logic gate to the fullest. Think of schematics as a computer's ASM, and Verilog/VHDL as a high level language such as C. :)
I think I've said too much. Anyway, If anyone finds this idea to be really cool, please tell me! I'm looking for enthusiastic people to help. I'm not sure how they could help. But Help is nice.
Yeah, haha I'm still cranking away at my console.. :)
http:// electrodev.100free.com/pcb001.png (copy paste it, my webhost doesn't like me image forwarding) latest shot of this new pcb I've been working on for it..
This new board isn't really much right now, more of a new idea.. working on a 'simple' video game console that uses ethernet soley. (Hopefully you can take a hint as to what I'm looking forward to.)
I've taken a 3 month rest from development on it, waiting for price changes, new parts to come out, etc. It seems silly, but I've been learning how to make my own console for about 3 years now. And still no ground breaking results. I've gotten video on a TV to work atleast, My own pixels, lighting up the screen, it sure feels good. :P
However, I don't use microcontrollers to do this, but actual digital logic, with the help of an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array). You can look them up yourself, if you are interested in them. They are basically a black box of digital logic that you can 'configure' into your own creations. I've been working on all kinds of things like, sprite generators, tile map generators, cpu's, memory managers, audio and video processors, sync generators -- all the works! All within a single chip. :)
It's like a pit of digital logic :P
Knowing the power you have, to create any kind of digital logic, and you can reconfigure it whenever you need. (Mainly on bootup) You then have a video game console, who's output can change. A video game console that can evolve over time. Or a Video Game that has it's own custom hardware, without needing any external components, just a stream of bytes. :)
Now add this to Ethernet, and you have an online community of game developers for an ever changing console... CPU, VIDEO, and AUDIO hardware developers building unique pieces to a puzzle that will someday be put together. :P
You can call this media buzz, but I think it's kind of my fate.
Anyway, that's what's going on around here. If any of you have any form of excitement from this, I could really use a few encouraging words. I nearly quit all together 3 months ago, because I couldn't find an audience/user base who would care. :)
To put it simply, my goal is a video game console, with hardware that changes. Say, I prefer Z80 opcodes over another CPU like 6502. Well just 'select' the core as your CPU. Now say you'd like a 'nifty NES style video core', set that as your video core. You now have a managed I/O system already setup for you, that allows your CPU to talk to the Video core, through a simple interface, which is either already coded for you, or as an advanced user, can setup for yourself. The options seem to be endless, if you don't even want to use a premade core, you could just as easily write your own. Better yet, come to the online community site, and download custom designed cores, by users who also make games and such.
Cores can be designed with the software that comes with the console, these are free development tools by the manufacturer of the FPGA, Xilinx. They include a schematic based system to design your cores, if you are totally hardcore. Or you can use a Hardware Description Language, such as Verilog or VHDL. I prefer Verilog myself, but I have a history of using schematic also, to get every single logic gate to the fullest. Think of schematics as a computer's ASM, and Verilog/VHDL as a high level language such as C. :)
I think I've said too much. Anyway, If anyone finds this idea to be really cool, please tell me! I'm looking for enthusiastic people to help. I'm not sure how they could help. But Help is nice.