Uzebox - new demoplatform like C64DTV???
category: general [glöplog]
There's no challenge if you're not coding with a gun on your head and a hot bitch sucking you off! i forgot time-pressure!
It uses a $10 RGB to PAL converter chip? Kinda funny, considering that the MCU is only half of that.
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You get 256 simultaneous colors, 240x224 (40x28 tiles) graphics, a 4 channels sound engine with MIDI driver, NES joysticks ports and a MIDI IN input to compose your own songs straight on the console. The kernel is fully interrupt driven to generates video sync, mix music, read joypads, etc. so games can be written in plain C, no insane cycle counting required :D !
so basically what they did is create a piece of rather limited hardware but without the real hurdles that make developing for an actually old platform that bit more special?
sigh..
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so basically what they did is create a piece of rather limited hardware but without the real hurdles that make developing for an actually old platform that bit more special?
No, no... You're just thinking about it the wrong way. :) That'd be like faulting the C64 cause it had sprite hardware or the Vectrex because it had a BIOS!
It's meant to be an open source game system, so there's a handy-dandy kernel that gives application/game coders a lot of built-in value so it's easier to produce decent games without having to reinvent the wheel. (And they can stay in cushy 'C' land safe and sound away from assembly.)
BUT... For "other purposes" it's much more interesting-- you've got 64K of flash memory, 4K of RAM, and a 28.636MHz AVR CPU. No hardware assistance here. You generate the sync signals on the fly-- whatever you spit out on PORTC as 3:3:2 RGB shows up on the scanline as you do it. ;-) Anytime left over you can do audio (output to a hardware PWM) and whatever other calculations you want.
The kernel protects you from *having* to count cycles or provide your own tile/sprite/audio stuff for people that just want to write games and play with it, but if you want to get your hands dirty there's ample opportunity. ;-)
And the 'AVCore' version is pretty tiny. Only 1.5" square inches for the entire computer, including microSD card slot. ;-)
http://uzebox.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=56
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but without the real hurdles that make developing for an actually old platform that bit more special?
Huh? It's worth noting that this is a *general purpose* microcontroller, not conceived at all for that task. It has only 4K of RAM for crying out loud! No frame buffer. It's just the baseline, anybody is free to expand on it and create whatever crazy thing they want in assembler, just gonna be better! We don't want to take over other platforms, just offer a new kind of DIY aspect to it.
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I'm having some flashbacks ;) But could be a fun project to work on, you have any more info Uze?
Sure man, have a look here http://belogic.com/uzebox and look at the forums in the hardware and software sections. Whatever you want to contribute, let me know! :)
With all that said, I'd like to mention that one scene buddy already got an awards for that kind of thing (1st place at Breakpoint 2008, in the Console / Real Wild compo.). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNCqrylNY-0
Peace,
Uze
