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How has this not been posted yet? Retro VGS


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Socal's representation of my Uk Mike's and my involvement could have not beet more inaccurate to a point.

I'm really looking forward to hearing you clear things up on RGR!

 

Ouch.

That was my reaction, too. It's just another example of how steep a hill Mike has to climb if he really intends to make another try at the RVGS: with the exception of the very small minority of True Believers, who were with him through the first campaign and would support a second one no matter what, anything he does in the future is going to get a very skeptical reception from everyone, and deservedly so.

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Nobody is saying emulation is bad. For some platforms such as MAME, it is the only practical way to experience them. But I prefer real hardware when given the option. Just like My Raspberry Pi bartop MAME cab (Porta Pi) is like a shrunken down arcade cab, even though it's still emulation, it just feels more legit in a nice form factor, as opposed to a PC or laptop with a USB gamepad.

 

Indeed. For fun I planned a hypothetical road trip to play 20 of my favorite arcade games. And it came out to be 1350 miles round trip and visiting 6 arcades scattered across the mid-west states. Closer to 1500 if I used my EV and went "off-route" to utilize the charging stations. And there'd be no telling if the games were in good condition and had nicely-adjusted monitors and precise working controls. Fight the weather, the traffic, the spells of boredom while driving.

 

With emulation on the PC, it can be useful to obfuscate the host OS as much as possible. So on my main emulation machine I have two desktops. One packed with utilities and maintenance stuff, and the other nothing but a blank page with icons for each system.

 

 

We're basically in agreement that however people game, it's cool. The part that I don't understand is the "experience" aspect of it. I get absolutely no different experience or feeling playing NHL '95 on my Genesis or my Ouya. It's like my previous example of watching Superbad. At the end of the day, I see no upside to me of a ritual of putting my DVD in versus watching on Netflix. I'm really glad it makes them happy to use original hardware, but I think it's individual based nostalgia and absolutely nothing to do with experiencing the game or logic.

 

It IS based on individual nostalgia. Family and friends sitting around the woodgrain television console, VCS sitting on the brown/green shag carpet in the living room adjacent to a kitchen packed with Harvest Gold appliances. The smell of Swanson's dinners permeating the house while the winter wind whipped around. A small 1/2 bookcase stacked with cartridges. All happening on a no-school Friday because of plow-stopping blizzard weather. God how we loved those impromptu extended weekends!

 

And it took like 20 minutes for our buddies only 5 houses down to haul their Vic-20 or ColecoVision paraphernalia over to enhance the variety of games at our disposal. Just as exciting as me packing up my Apple II+, 2 Disk II drives and box of cables and cards in my RadioFlyer wagon in the summer for a trek across town to work with the "big kids" 5 years older than myself in order to do WaRez.

 

Ever since videogames were invented I always wanted an all-in-one type machine. And the best way to achieve that today is with a PC packed full of emulators. So in that way emulators are genuinely nostalgic because I wrote stories about one machine being able to modify itself and become any console instantly.

 

Bonus points for being future-proof because you can always migrate to more advanced hardware piecemeal or in full. Or more often and practically - just add new emulators as they are developed.

 

As a kid I even built up my own makeshift Ultravision console by disassembling things and remounting them.

 

 

Here is something constructive, a new chip, that is an ARM and a FPGA in the same dye.

The Xilinx Zynq that features either a 667 MHz ARM Cortex A9 and a 430k gate FPGA (in the low-end configuration) or an 866 A9 and 1.3M gate FPGA.

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

 

It's good to see ARM making this type of chip today. It will be 2 years before intel puts FPGA into their consumer grade processors. Intel is always slow moving. Plodding.

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Here is something constructive, a new chip, that is an ARM and a FPGA in the same dye.

 

The Xilinx Zynq that features either a 667 MHz ARM Cortex A9 and a 430k gate FPGA (in the low-end configuration) or an 866 A9 and 1.3M gate FPGA.

 

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

Just so it doesn't get lost in translations:

http://www.xilinx.com/publications/prod_mktg/zynq7000/Zynq-7000-combined-product-table.pdf

 

so 430k gate = 28K logic cell which have to be reduced a little further to compare to Altera LEs (say 25K is a better figure).

1.3M gates = 85K logic cell (so around 75K Altera LEs maybe).

 

7) Apologies. Hey, I think we can all agree this thread had both constructive criticism, which my team and I welcomed and also personal attacks which we didn't. I didn't mean to group everyone into any negative comments I made with regards to AA or its members. But there were a few comments that really rubbed me the wrong way and I let my emotions get the best of me. For what it's worth, I am sorry and certainly didn't mean any ill will toward the majority of the people here or on any other forum (or on Facebook) for that matter. Much of the criticism was valuable and I think we now know how to bring a viable product to market with a price point that most will agree with. But again, it's a balancing act trying to please as many people as possible while also trying to keep the price affordable.

 

 

This part needs to be posted on FB and those you blocked should be unblocked.

  • Like 8

It IS based on individual nostalgia. Family and friends sitting around the woodgrain television console, VCS sitting on the brown/green shag carpet in the living room adjacent to a kitchen packed with Harvest Gold appliances. The smell of Swanson's dinners permeating the house while the winter wind whipped around. A small 1/2 bookcase stacked with cartridges. All happening on a no-school Friday because of plow-stopping blizzard weather. God how we loved those impromptu extended weekends!

 

 

 

I try to steer clear of stating any of my nostalgia based opinions as fact. Going from nostalgia alone, retro gaming will die and all of its supporters will be in vain. Look at Dracula. Released in 1897; its longevity isn't from nostalgia. I want to hope these good games will be like movies and be timeless. If the people putting them over the most keep talking about nostalgia, it's really only worth a smirk from anyone who hasn't directly experienced it. It's like listening to old timers saying they walked 10 miles in the snow with no shoes. That really fuckin' sucks, but it's totally out of touch with modern thinking. Instead of Youtubers making videos about their 10 000 dollar NWC cart and showing off e-dick size, they should be the ones grinding it into brains just how fucking special something like Super Mario Bros is, while making sure things going by the wayside like Sonic are preserved and well known. Francis Ford Coppola is as talented of a person as anyone and he goes out of his way to restore significant films, even if they're unknown. Criterion does the same for movies, being sure that by their reputation if they release a title you've never heard of, a hardcore film fan feels obligated to watch it because of historical significance and how its art had an impact - or should have - on the world. The top names in retro video games are known for their rare dumb titles. In films, it's about the good stuff. If you wanna be art, you gotta ride with the big boys in film, music and movies. Video games, developers and fans have a lot of growing up to do if they want to be on that level. And it's their own fault if they don't.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm nostalgic and I own all these classic systems to experience them instead of merely emulation. But I love my MAME/Visual Pinball cab and Ouya.

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.... a kitchen packed with Harvest Gold appliances.

 

I had to look that up. Holy shit. That's those awful colored appliances that always looked like they were pulled directly from the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Mad retro props there.

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The avocado green ones were just as awesome looking, and even considered to be a one-up more sophisticated look at the time. I personally liked the brown and harvest colored. Warm, inviting, not sterile like today's stainless-steel professional series style.

  • Like 2

Here is something constructive, a new chip, that is an ARM and a FPGA in the same dye.

 

The Xilinx Zynq that features either a 667 MHz ARM Cortex A9 and a 430k gate FPGA (in the low-end configuration) or an 866 A9 and 1.3M gate FPGA.

 

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

What level of console can that "top" processor handle? Ballpark... Atari? NES? Genesis? Neo Geo? Judging by the specs as an ARM, it is barely Raspberry Pi worthy...

What level of console can that "top" processor handle? Ballpark... Atari? NES? Genesis? Neo Geo? Judging by the specs as an ARM, it is barely Raspberry Pi worthy...

Just so it doesn't get lost in translations:

http://www.xilinx.com/publications/prod_mktg/zynq7000/Zynq-7000-combined-product-table.pdf

 

so 430k gate = 28K logic cell which have to be reduced a little further to compare to Altera LEs (say 25K is a better figure).

1.3M gates = 85K logic cell (so around 75K Altera LEs maybe).

29K LE is a MIST, and it has a very low spec ARM (just to be the controller anyway)

http://www.harbaum.org/till/mist/mist.html

 

The 85K LE is around 1.5/1.7 times what kevtris was toying with (the 49K LE he often cites).

Unfortunately not all FPGAs are born equals and how much one can effectively use out of it is also based on what one tries to achieve [case in point the SD2SNES FPGA apparently cannot do ST011 because of lack of block ram].

Edited by phoenixdownita

29K LE is a MIST, and it has a very low spec ARM (just to be the controller anyway)

http://www.harbaum.org/till/mist/mist.html

 

The 85K LE is around 1.5/1.7 times what kevtris was toying with (the 49K LE he often cites).

Unfortunately not all FPGAs are born equals and how much one can effectively use out of it is also based on what one tries to achieve [case in point the SD2SNES FPGA apparently cannot do ST011 because of lack of block ram].

I thought each cell in an FPGA can be made to function as a transistor logic gate. Then somehow these gazillion logic gates can be wired together in any way imaginable to create limitless possibilities, kind of like neural connections in the human brain. When wired properly it can emulate any chip. So the more gates/cells/transistors/whatever, the more stuff it can recreate in hardware. Or am I off in left field again? :P

I try to steer clear of stating any of my nostalgia based opinions as fact. Going from nostalgia alone, retro gaming will die and all of its supporters will be in vain.

 

Nostalgia, like appliance color, is in the eye of beholder. And at one time nostalgia was considered a mental illness. Personally I hate the word "nostalgia". I just like remembering the good times surrounding the games and all that.

 

The LED games, the electronically-assisted board games, model rockets, HO scale slot cars, chemistry sets, science and electronic kits.. It all combines to help one remember the good times.. for those that had those things.

 

But none of it fits into today's pop version of retro. Today's "retro" is a millennial creation.

 

 

[..]

The top names in retro video games are known for their rare dumb titles. In films, it's about the good stuff. If you wanna be art, you gotta ride with the big boys in film, music and movies. Video games, developers and fans have a lot of growing up to do if they want to be on that level. And it's their own fault if they don't.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm nostalgic and I own all these classic systems to experience them instead of merely emulation. But I love my MAME/Visual Pinball cab and Ouya.

 

When one partakes in sophisticated conversation among atistocracy and socialites, videogames must not be mentioned unless you've made a name for yourself in the field. And even then you're taking a big risk at becoming outcast. Videogames are looked down upon as an immature time-wasting activity no matter how you paint the picture. Film, music, movies.. the big boys.. Sure, absolutely, once you wade through all the crap that's out there.

 

Sure there's some art there. But most art is either commonplace and trashy or haute and beyond the understanding of even a well-balanced intellect.

I thought each cell in an FPGA can be made to function as a transistor logic gate. Then somehow these gazillion logic gates can be wired together in any way imaginable to create limitless possibilities, kind of like neural connections in the human brain. When wired properly it can emulate any chip. So the more gates/cells/transistors/whatever, the more stuff it can recreate in hardware. Or am I off in left field again? :P

Kind of but only in bundles:

http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1284735

 

 

When one partakes in sophisticated conversation among atistocracy and socialites, videogames must not be mentioned unless you've made a name for yourself in the field. And even then you're taking a big risk at becoming outcast. Videogames are looked down upon as an immature time-wasting activity no matter how you paint the picture. Film, music, movies.. the big boys.. Sure, absolutely, once you wade through all the crap that's out there.

 

Sure there's some art there. But most art is either commonplace and trashy or haute and beyond the understanding of even a well-balanced intellect.

Video games are an art form like any other media. Literature, Music, Movie, Theater, Dance, Fine Arts, Graphic Arts, and Yes, Video Games. Creation of a video game is a multi-discipline art form often requiring the collaboration of many creators (or one closet homebrewer), and as well the skillful playing of a video game could be considered a type of "performing art." Think of the game controller as the instrument. and the TV screen the recital.

Thanks for the link. Interesting read but I wish they went into more detail. They start off describing that cells =/= gates but stop short of explaining why or how a cell operates.

Thanks for the link. Interesting read but I wish they went into more detail. They start off describing that cells =/= gates but stop short of explaining why or how a cell operates.

http://people.irisa.fr/Arnaud.Tisserand/docs/slides-archi13-4p.pdf

 

Get to part 2 for a very short intro.

 

Unfortunately it is just a slide deck and details are taken for granted but it may give you ideas.

 

Some more:

 

http://www.eecg.toronto.edu/~vaughn/challenge/fpga_arch.html

Edited by phoenixdownita
Video games, developers and fans have a lot of growing up to do if they want to be on that level. And it's their own fault if they don't.

 

Yet on the other hand they may be slap happy as a pig in mud. They may not want to be burdened with the superfluous rituals and demands of an elite lifestyle. The wife goes through seemingly byzantine folderols setting up falderals every time we have a supposedly "high-class" guest over. I can't stand that shit. High-class my ass. "Honey!! Im'na go out and rust-proof the lawn mower and grease the shed ok!" "Okay..."

 

The avocado green ones were just as awesome looking, and even considered to be a one-up more sophisticated look at the time. I personally liked the brown and harvest colored. Warm, inviting, not sterile like today's stainless-steel professional series style.

My parent's house was harvest gold in the kitchen and master bath and the 2nd bathroom was that green.
Come to think if it, the carpet in my bedroom was green as well.

http://people.irisa.fr/Arnaud.Tisserand/docs/slides-archi13-4p.pdf

 

Get to part 2 for a very short intro.

 

Unfortunately it is just a slide deck and details are taken for granted but it may give you ideas.

 

Some more:

 

http://www.eecg.toronto.edu/~vaughn/challenge/fpga_arch.html

I have studied Electronics technology extensively in school and some of those links make even my brain hurt... :???:

 

Well at least the 107 page PDF I skimmed through. I'm going to bed now. Nite nite...

Edited by stardust4ever

We had this blue shag carpet at least an inch deep, maybe more, talk about funky stuff! I was indifferent toward the color but we sure did have fun with it!

 

Every time I'd move my chair back and forth it would get caught and eventually dug a hole. I took the opportunity to put U-shaped "rails" in the ruts and placed the chair atop them. Worked perfectly. My first home-improvement project IIRC. And one time let some ants out of the ant farm and hoped they made a bivouac in the fibers. Another time I got bored and spent the whole afternoon tying knots in the pile in a pattern and made a smiley shape or something.

 

One time someone knocked the lamp over, the carpet never caught fire nor did the base or padding, being synthetic plastic and all that. But it sure made loads of smoke. The amount from just a 20cm2burn are filled the living room jam-packed with opaque smoke. My dad got out the fan and cleared the air. I got scared and all and BMX'd down to my buddies house. Crying about the fish and my Apple II+. And from down there you could see this white smoke billowing out the open windows. The fire department showed up, but there was no fire going on. Just an incredible amount of weird smelling smoke! From then on whenever we did fireworks and model rockets I had to be wearing 100% synthetic clothes. What a great discovery! I even cut part of the carpet off and taped it to my favorite astronomy book. In time I lost the main bundle thread, it fell out or got pulled off or something. But one or two fibers remained entombed beneath the clear Scotch Tape which holds the cover in place.

 

post-4806-0-45920100-1444374618_thumb.pngpost-4806-0-80306300-1444374598_thumb.png

 

 

 

 

  • Like 1

 

Yet on the other hand they may be slap happy as a pig in mud. They may not want to be burdened with the superfluous rituals and demands of an elite lifestyle. The wife goes through seemingly byzantine folderols setting up falderals every time we have a supposedly "high-class" guest over. I can't stand that shit. High-class my ass. "Honey!! Im'na go out and rust-proof the lawn mower and grease the shed ok!" "Okay..."

 

If anyone in existance called Ingmar Bergman superflous or indicative of an elitist lifestlyle, I'd never respect the man nor ever thing he had half a brain. Ingmar Bergman won't die... but nostalgia will. Ingmar Bergman is in no way elitist. Though I can't force you to open your mind and be one with film.

I have studied Electronics technology extensively in school and some of those links make even my brain hurt... :???:

Well at least the 107 page PDF I skimmed through. I'm going to bed now. Nite nite...

 

Maybe just go through altera's documentation center?

https://www.altera.com/support/literature/lit-index.html

https://www.altera.com/products/fpga/new-to-fpgas/resource-center/learn.html

https://www.altera.com/support/literature/wp/lit-wp.html

https://www.altera.com/support/literature/lit-br.html

http://www.altera.com/literature/misc/FPGAs_For_Dummies_eBook.pdf

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