ninja_gaiden2015 Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 ... also do you think that any of this stuff with the retrovgs and chameleon will impact upon the RETRO magazine? Didn't it get mentioned earlier that Mike K transferred assets or money from that project to fund this RVGS or CC project that hasn't as yet produced an income. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Even if he had some at the beginning he quickly turned to $$$$$$$$$$$$. MK clearly believes the road to retroland is paved with the money of fools. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird3rd Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 if you guys aren't listening to live retrogamingroundup, you should. Do we basically assume that the CC project is dead as it doesn't appear to be a completed hardware and no developers on board? I'm listening right now. I only caught the tail end of the Chameleon discussion, but Scott said just now that they'll be releasing the show in a few days, so thanks to the RGR guys for that. I'm looking forward to catching what I missed. Their theory about the newest "prototype": the board inside is probably some sort of custom board built just for this project, but at the price points they were targeting, the FPGA on the board (if that's what it is) wouldn't be capable of running a full-featured SNES core, as Mike and Co. were claiming the "prototype" at the Toy Fair did. As for whether the RVGS/Chameleon project is finally dead ... I certainly hope so. As the RGR guys said, I hope Mike is able to get to a place psychologically where he can finally take the accursed thing behind the barn and shoot it, for everybody's sake. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enoofu Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 This sounds pretty close to what Retro VGS hardware was promising snickerdoodle https://www.crowdsupply.com/krtkl/snickerdoodle Anyone know if the Zynq-7020 FGPA it has is decent to run open source game system cores? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 Why is anyone still paying attention to it? Let it die. 11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenixdownita Posted February 27, 2016 Author Share Posted February 27, 2016 (edited) This sounds pretty close to what Retro VGS hardware was promising snickerdoodle https://www.crowdsupply.com/krtkl/snickerdoodle Anyone know if the Zynq-7020 FGPA it has is decent to run open source game system cores? At 85K LE the Zinq 7020 is more than enough, kevtris was toying with the idea of a Cyclone V with ~50K LE. The MCC-216 has 16K LE and the MiST around 35. Even the Jap guy SNES FPGA core was around 33K LE. Now all the others are based off of Altera products, this one is Xilinx, historically Xilinx wasn't really good wrt fractional PLL, not sure they fixed the situation now or how much it would matter to the masses if the frequency is a little off. So in short the 7020 is theoretically more than enough but I have not tried it and unless someone builds a DAC (VGA or otherwise) or an HDMI out for it there won't be much output. Kevtris wanted to use a second FPGA to deal with the HDMI out which is a sensible choice unless a cheap HDMI transmitter already exists and it is flexible enough to the needs of retro system emu. Now I do not know if the are Zinq variants with an embedded HDMI Tx, if so that would be an even better choice assuming the price is right. Pre-EDIT: 7020 chinese board http://www.myirtech.com/list.asp?id=502 this one is cheap and already has HDMI support!!! EDIT: Oh by the way an Altera Cyclone V SE (S as in SoC) is basically the same thing as the Xilinx Zynq family. That is part hard ARM (dual core) and part FPGA. It was discussed before and many here (not me) seem to be of the advise that there's no point wasting money for the ARM part, just go straight FPGA and use whatever basic/cheap micro-controller to do the basic stuff as needed (if needed). Edited February 27, 2016 by phoenixdownita Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ninja_gaiden2015 Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 do we even know if the alleged "tech guy" for the Chameleon ever existed. We might never know the answer to that one, given the current dead status of the project 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 (edited) Any FPGA system is best paired with an ARM or X86. Otherwise you're left with having to write all the amenities and management utilities. Otherwise you'd need to roll your own OS without one. Best have the ARM or X86 play host to the gate array so you can get convenience features and allow for for some easy customization. It might even be better to have the FPGA box plug into a PC via Wi-Fi or USB and take advantage of whatever OS is in vogue. And when not using it that way (coupled to a host) it will function stand-alone albeit minimally such as power on/off and game select - that'd be it! Now you have versatility and convenience and the perceived superiority to software-only emulation. Edited February 27, 2016 by Keatah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MotoRacer Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 At this point, I'm not sure which would please Mike Kennedy more: to continue being the center of all this attention, or to get away from the glare for a while until the heat is off. As weary as we all are of tracking this story so closely, parsing every statement and examining every "sizzle video" and "prototype photo" in minute detail, I think it's important for all of us to continue to keep a watchful eye on what the likes of Mike Kennedy are doing. I'm sure that his old friends are telling the truth when they say that he started out with sincere (if misguided) intentions, but whether he started that way or as a deliberate snake oil salesman, the result is pretty much the same. Unfortunate. As SD&R says in his most recent video, the fact that our little hobby of classic gaming is attracting people like this is a sign that it's grown and matured into something bigger and more lucrative. And, at the risk of flattering ourselves, I think the fact that we (meaning those of us here on AtariAge, podcasts like Game Escape and the CUPodcast, etc.) were able to join together and shut this project down—or at least played a role in hastening its demise—is another sign of health. I can only hope that the RVGS/Chameleon story will serve as a cautionary tale for others who might consider pulling the same tricks in the future. While I get your intentions for the post, simply put, most companies aren't stupid enough to do something like this. Many companies have been profiting off classic gamers, especially recently. So people profiting off our nostalgia and our hobby isn't new. Hyperkin, Retro Freak, the plethora of game devs who are making Steam games and homebrew titles for Dreamcast, Neo Geo, Virtual Boy, etc.... clone systems, Pandora, GPX, Android-based portable gaming systems, blah blah blah blah blah... The amount is too much to list. The difference is, most of those companies (other than maybe the Pandora, which at least came out) just announced something and then showed a working system. No bullshit, it's here, give us money, buy it, and enjoy. Maybe the functionality of the product wasn't perfect. Maybe the controller sucked. Maybe not everyone who pre-ordered received a unit. But the system/game/whatever EXISTED. It was a real product that could be held, played, purchased, and enjoyed. That's how a normal product is developed by normal companies. This could be a Cuisinart carrot chopping machine, and if it was developed as badly as the Coleco Chameleon, no one would buy it. It has nothing to do with taking advantage of OUR community so much as it's a prime example of how not to make a PRODUCT... for ANYONE. The guy clearly has no hardware experience, and created his system backwards (shell first) in a vein effort to tug on heartstrings while trying to pull wool over eyes that were much more technically inclined than his own. This wouldn't work on us, ever. I honestly don't think any level headed, rational person would even support a project like this, regardless of what it was or what demographic it went after. I think we're safe with (mostly) reliably companies like the ones I mentioned above creating great retro-inspired content and systems for us for the foreseeable future. And we shouldn't be paranoid or afraid of supporting them, as those companies operate like a rational company would. Mike shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath as them, as he only dreamed to be at their level. He's just a guy who owns a magazine, wants to own the word "retro", and wants to be a guy who makes a system like the ones he idolized when he was younger. He's not a console developer. He's not a product maker. He's not anything but a greedy man who bought a mold and dreamed to screw people far smarter than him out of their money. And he was called out, and he's taking his toys and going home. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenixdownita Posted February 27, 2016 Author Share Posted February 27, 2016 (edited) Just dug a little on the Zinq family and found out the ultra scale MPSoC+ variants. Not sure how much they cost but they came equipped also with GPU. http://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/data_sheets/ds891-zynq-ultrascale-plus-overview.pdf So they have it all and they can run linux and have access to std peripherals as they support std PCIe bus singaling etc...etc.... EDIT: I suspect those to be very expensive for the time being. Edited February 27, 2016 by phoenixdownita Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godslabrat Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 Gotta give the Chamelon credit for one thing... It made The nD look well-thought-out by comparison. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenixdownita Posted February 27, 2016 Author Share Posted February 27, 2016 (edited) Any FPGA system is best paired with an ARM or X86. Otherwise you're left with having to write all the amenities and management utilities. Otherwise you'd need to roll your own OS without one. Best have the ARM or X86 play host to the gate array so you can get convenience features and allow for for some easy customization. It might even be better to have the FPGA box plug into a PC via Wi-Fi or USB and take advantage of whatever OS is in vogue. And when not using it that way (coupled to a host) it will function stand-alone albeit minimally such as power on/off and game select - that'd be it! Now you have versatility and convenience and the perceived superiority to software-only emulation. Not really. Aside from getting the romz into the SD card one way or another, you could use any microcontroller (PIC, ATMEL, TI, ARM-M, MIPS etc...etc...) Let's take Krikzz FPGA based everdrive, they use the host CPU to run the "OS" ... which is very small for what it needs to do but includes reading from the SD, listing files etc..... USB access can be mediated via a cheap FTDI232 which is a 2U$ part. And the Megadrive and SNES are BIOS less consoles, so "there's no spoon" ahem OS in there and yet everdrive runs just fine within the imposed limitations (the everdrive FPGAs are Cyclone II 4K LE or less if memory serves) It would definitely work the way you put it but it's not important, btw modern FPGAs may be able to use an ARM soft core (like any other core) just for the purpose to run a minimal Linux as OS at startup and be able to connect to the net (Wireless chips are becoming so inexpensive with the esp8266 being at the 2$ level) and allow download and general romz management. Would this compete with a full blown modern x86 PC dedicated to that .... it doesn't have to. The success of "not a PC" emu boxes (Retron5, retroFreak) makes me believe there's space for a non-PC based solution (and if FPGA cores are better then that's the way to go). Edited February 27, 2016 by phoenixdownita Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerekRumpler Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 Welp. :-) You can find the full exchange here: https://twitter.com/DerekRumpler/status/703514597588918272His biggest issue is that I spelled "Coleco" as "Caleco" but I used the wrong hashtag and didn't check carefully. LOL.I'll admit that I probably got a bit emotional, but it irks me when people lie. If it isn't him, it is the company he represents. And that is disgusting. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shawnphase Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 'all will be made clear in time' = 'we are lying through our teeth every step of the way, but keep your eyes on the prize for when we finally release the coleco chameleon, 4th quarter, 2016'. so sick of hearing this crap at this point 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cybercylon Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 Never mind. I just don't care any more. Sorry in advance if I am not reading into that correctly, but yes... this is getting pretty tiresome. Since there was no actual Kickstarter, and there still is essentially nothing, what can be said? It was somewhat amusing up until the Kickstarter, but all that incident did was just emphasize this is all just the same old song and dance in a different form. No reason to think anything will change. More then likely, nothing will ever get produced, or if it does, it will be a POS that will fall far short of what most here would have liked to see. If I am proven wrong, I'll be the first to suck on one of my dirty, moist soccer socks. Why is anyone still paying attention to it? Let it die. Some people thrive on any kind of attention, even if it is negative. Could be the more we make of this, the more enabling it is and the worse it gets. If that is what is happening, there isn't much to pay attention to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iamnotagoomba Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 Is it this one? https://vimeo.com/139674335 Yes, that's the one. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird3rd Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 I honestly don't think any level headed, rational person would even support a project like this, regardless of what it was or what demographic it went after. I think we're safe with (mostly) reliably companies like the ones I mentioned above creating great retro-inspired content and systems for us for the foreseeable future. And we shouldn't be paranoid or afraid of supporting them, as those companies operate like a rational company would. Mike shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath as them, as he only dreamed to be at their level. He's just a guy who owns a magazine, wants to own the word "retro", and wants to be a guy who makes a system like the ones he idolized when he was younger. He's not a console developer. He's not a product maker. He's not anything but a greedy man who bought a mold and dreamed to screw people far smarter than him out of their money. And he was called out, and he's taking his toys and going home. I agree, and don't get me wrong ... I have no objection to legitimate entrepreneurs who create products and services that add real value to the classic gaming and computing market. I'm not one of those who believe that all "profiting off the hobby" is necessarily a bad thing. I'm fiercely loyal to the vendors who serve our market, and I'm only too happy to spend my money with them: in the last two months, I've spent a few hundred dollars with B&C ComputerVisions alone, and I've got several products in my collection from Best Electronics, AtariMax, Schell's Electronics, Stone Age Gamer, 4Jays, Video 61, the AtariAge store, Intellivision Productions, and many others. I've even tried to contribute to that market myself in a small way with my products for the Mattel Aquarius. I personally don't like Steam and don't partake in the emulation collections and neo-retro titles on modern platforms, mainly because I already have the real thing in my collection, but I'm glad they're there for those who enjoy them. I wouldn't put shysters like Mike and Co. in the same category, either. As you say, most of these enterprising folks create products that we actually need, charge a reasonable fee, and deliver the product as promised. That's the kind of relationship that I understand. Mike going to IndieGoGo and Kickstarter to raise money without offering anything except vague and/or unrealistic promises, or the company behind GameSlam (which SD&R profiled in his most recent video), are simply money-grubbers. Those are the types of people I had in mind when I said that the fate of the RVGS/Chameleon should serve as a cautionary example. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StopDrop&Retro Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 Welp. :-) You can find the full exchange here: https://twitter.com/DerekRumpler/status/703514597588918272 His biggest issue is that I spelled "Coleco" as "Caleco" but I used the wrong hashtag and didn't check carefully. LOL. I'll admit that I probably got a bit emotional, but it irks me when people lie. If it isn't him, it is the company he represents. And that is disgusting. HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAA Talk about chugging the Kool-Aid, that guy is even writing like Mike now!! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shawnphase Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 what do you call it when life starts to become indistinguishable from satire? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird3rd Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAA Talk about chugging the Kool-Aid, that guy is even writing like Mike now!! Yup. Combative, condescending, evasive, arrogant, and dismissive. Mike seems to attract lots of those types. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 I had composed a reply to the article about it somehow being good for retro gaming that crap like COLECO 2016 is happening. The quote got mangled by the mobile site so I edited it so as not to have a blank post. My thought was that it is NOT good that sharks like COLECO 2016 smell blood in the water. It is NOT good that there are some people who might be duped by Mike Kennedy and his ilk. I'm not convinced that COLECO 2016 quite understands what they've unleashed in the community, and I suspect they think they can try try again and release their version of the "facts" when they're ready. For me, the story is not their product (whether it exists or not) but rather their lies, lame marketing campaign and quest for people's money. They stopped just short of crossing that taking money line yesterday. I don't really want to be a part of their story by commenting on it any more. We will probably never know if their Feb 26th Kickstarter was killed by negative feedback. They need to do their own market research, they don't care what we think anyway. 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enoofu Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 I don't think people have trouble with this project concept except for the silly idea that developers will flock to it with new games Main issue people had were all the claims of this project, and wanted it showed in a way to prove those claims. Including 2600 Atari game rights, actual game footage(Atari/SNES/CV/INV/2600) shown with the real console connected, hardware specs, and so forth. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toiletunes Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 (edited) instead, we get this... Edited February 27, 2016 by toiletunes 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 He's not anything but a greedy man who bought a mold and dreamed to screw people far smarter than him out of their money. And he was called out, and he's taking his toys and going home. I think he's just someone in total denial of how difficult it is to develop a product like this from scratch and he's painted himself into a corner. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird3rd Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 "all will be made clear in time"/ôl wil bē mād ˈklir in tīm/phrase we've just been caught red-handed—or empty-handed, as the case may be—and we have no explanation or excuse to offer, but if you'll let us stall for just a little bit longer, I'm sure we can come up with a good one. (Definition from the COLECO Business English Dictionary © COLECO Press) 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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