Coleco Chameleon .... hardware speculations?

[godslabrat]

That is one of the biggest unanswered mysteries of this fiasco. I can't recall the exact point it happened at but Retro Mag tweeted that they weren't going to crowd sourcing because they had private backing, then moments later the RVGS facebook posted something totally contradictory but I can't recall for sure, anyone? Obviously the private funding was BS, but what was the move? They still had to go the crowdfunding route so why claim they had funding?

 

It was a face-saving move, nothing more. Mike knew he couldn't get into Kickstarter with a DVR card in a Jag shell, and was out of time on his self-imposed deadline. His choice was to either admit his whole project was built on Jag shells and hot air, or lie again and say that crowdfunding was unnecessary.

 

The choice Mike Kennedy would have made is obvious.

[Gentlegamer]

 

Is that the same "family friend" who paid for the Toy Fair trip?

 

 

. . . and he was a good friend.

[Flojomojo]

[elmer]

That is one of the biggest unanswered mysteries of this fiasco.

I'm still curious about Steve Woita's part in all of this.

 

It's pretty easy to see Mike Kennedy as the classic lying huckster with a "Grand Plan" to get money and attention.

 

It's pretty easy to see John Carlsen as a classic self-important marginally-talented resume padder without the strength to keep a check on Mike's constant stream of promises.

 

But what role did Steve Woita play, except to appear in a photo or two, and then seem clueless and out-of-touch in Triverse's interview?

 

He's the guy that should have had at least some idea of the software side of all of this (or rather, the lack of it). Things like SDKs, documentation, licensing developers, licensing products from other developers, and how much time all of that stuff really takes.

 

Or am I wrong? Was he really only there to add his "brand" to the project because he did a few early console games in the 1980s?

 

He seems to have come out of this pretty cleanly, which is fair, because he never really seemed to do anything wrong, or ... really ... anything at all.

 

I'd love to hear his perspective on all of this.

[Great Hierophant]

Given the radio silence from Steve Woita since the Coleco Chameleon announcement, one really wonders if he ever really gave a F*ck about it. I can imagine him saying to Mike Kennedy, "Yeah, you can attach my name to the project and call me lead software developer, call me when it gets funded."

[godslabrat]

Given the radio silence from Steve Woita since the Coleco Chameleon announcement, one really wonders if he ever really gave a F*ck about it. I can imagine him saying to Mike Kennedy, "Yeah, you can attach my name to the project and call me lead software developer, call me when it gets funded."

 

Absent any more information, this make a lot of sense to me. A software developer wouldn't have had to be very involved in a project where the hardware was never clearly defined.

[jaybird3rd]

Mike claimed that Steve spent a lot of time on the phone with "The Mysterious Mr. Lee" discussing technical details, and I believe John Carlsen has said that Steve was the one who insisted on using the FPGA, so it seems that he was more heavily involved than the other people that Mike supposedly brought in during the Coleco Chameleon phase (and who, as far as I can tell, said and did absolutely nothing except allow their names and pictures to be posted on the website).

 

I too would love to hear more from Steve Woita about his involvement with the project. With his experience, he certainly should have known that Mike's "business model" and all the rhapsodic speculations about "bug-free cartridges" and such were nothing more than impossible dreams. Did he really believe all this stuff? If so, why? If not, why did he go along with it anyway? Did he ever raise any sort of concerns with Mike? At what point did it become clear to him that the whole thing was a scam, and what was his reaction?

[godslabrat]

Mike claimed that Steve spent a lot of time on the phone with "The Mysterious Mr. Lee" discussing technical details, and I believe John Carlsen has said that Steve was the one who insisted on using the FPGA, so it seems that he was more heavily involved than the other people that Mike supposedly brought in during the Coleco Chameleon phase (and who, as far as I can tell, said and did absolutely nothing except allow their names and pictures to be posted on the website).

 

 

Seeing as these examples were given to us through the filters of Mike (and to a lesser extent, John), I'm not inclined to treat them as gospel. Both of those gents had a vested interest in saying someone else made the unpopular decisions.

 

 

I too would love to hear more from Steve Woita about his involvement with the project. With his experience, he certainly should have known that Mike's "business model" and all the rhapsodic speculations about "bug-free cartridges" and such were nothing more than impossible dreams. Did he really believe all this stuff? If so, why? If not, why did he go along with it anyway? Did he ever raise any sort of concerns with Mike? At what point did it become clear to him that the whole thing was a scam, and what was his reaction?

 

Agreed, this is why I'd like to hear from Steve directly.

[jaybird3rd]

Seeing as these examples were given to us through the filters of Mike (and to a lesser extent, John), I'm not inclined to treat them as gospel. Both of those gents had a vested interest in saying someone else made the unpopular decisions.

True enough. All that we know about the involvement of the post-Carlsen crew (Paul Wylie, Phil Adam, Ben Herman, Steven Rosenbaum, etc.) comes from Mike, so I'm reluctant to assume that they did anything except allow their names to be posted to the website. We've learned a few things from Steve on a firsthand basis, but as you say, there's a lot more that we've heard only secondhand. More of Steve's input would be extremely valuable because it would give us more than one side of the story, particularly about the Coleco Chameleon phase.

[Pipercub]

If you listen to our pre-indigogo interview with that version of the RVGS gang Steve details what his role (and other people) was, and it is all true. Steve was very hands on and involved in the discussions we had both individually and in conference calls in the early days. Steve is no dummy, he originally did firmware type development before games and is a capable guy. I don't know exactly where the FPGA came from because that was after I was out. Steve and I had very similar thoughts on the original hardware design, he was thinking clearly. After I was out, I have minimal knowledge of the extent of his involvement. I know that he was on conference calls, and wasn't name only but that is about all I know. In all my dealings with Steve he has been a level headed nice guy, if I had to place my bet on any theory it is that he let his passion for the project cloud his judgement and he didn't see the signs until too late.

Edited August 10, 2016 by Pipercub

[Shawn]

I wonder if Triverse could get an interview with Steve?

[phoenixdownita]

I wonder if Triverse could get an interview with Steve?

What happened to him?

After the "hostile takeover" failure he kind of disappeared.

[jaybird3rd]

What happened to him?

After the "hostile takeover" failure he kind of disappeared.

Looks like he's been busy on his own magazine. He's posted several articles just in the past few days, all of which are more interesting than anything I've seen in RETRO.

[Pipercub]

Big things coming down soon, listen to this as a primer!!!! http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/3/6/c/36c46b57c796ea81/RoundUp091_2015.09.16.mp3?c_id=9843120&expiration=1470894946&hwt=7e7c18af0792815433f4437298de9a36

 

Pay careful attention to the claims and positions in the opening!!!

Edited August 11, 2016 by Pipercub

[Newsdee]

That's the RGR #91 interviewing the RVGS team before the IGG campaign.

 

About 8 mins in they say they go to crowdfunding to build a prototype because it's expensive. That already is a bit of a questionable claim...

[Flojomojo]

Ugh, them again

Maybe I can feed it to a transcription app

unless someone wants to summarize and provide chapter stops to the juicy bits?

[Newsdee]

It would be good to have a transcription if you can automate it (for this thread).

 

Listening to it, I remember what Kevtris said much earlier in this thread that they were trying to do way too much which isn't really justfied but drives cost up.

[elmer]

Ugh, them again

Maybe I can feed it to a transcription app

unless someone wants to summarize and provide chapter stops to the juicy bits?

I lasted 14 minutes before turning it off and smashing my head into a wall.

 

So much verbal "noise" from the team, and so little verbal "signal".

 

But it was good to hear again how they had the hardware design pretty much locked-down back then, and just needed money to pay the manufacturers for custom-specified 30um gold-plated connectors and make John Carlsen's excellently-designed boards ... er ... NOT!

 

As someone that had actually designed working FPGA hardware, I can only imagine the look on Kevtris's face each time that he talked to John Carlsen.

[godslabrat]

“Ed [Gueiss] thought it was not a great idea”.- 4:00

“Indiegogo has been courting us”, lots of insinuation that IGG was just so much cooler than kickstarter- 6:30

Oh, BTW, we don’t have a prototype and that’s a problem with Kickstarter – 7:27

“We use Indiegogo because they’re LOCAL” – 10:00

“We’re going to fabricate the boards in the US.” - 10:30

“We’re dealing with serious specification. This thing has to last a lifetime.” - 13:17

“As much technical detail as you like…” - 18:26

“Can’t go into too much detail, we have a lot of patentable technology” - 19:53

Mike is in love with the sound of his own voice and won’t stop talking about Legos despite everyone else being bored - 25:00

“Absolutely no bugs!” - 27:08

“Our minimal goals will give us a very capable system” 28:10 - (Note, they just spent several minutes hyping FPGA, and the original goal of the IGG did NOT allow for the FPGA tech)

“THE ARCHITECTURE IS VERY WELL DEFINED” - 35:30

“Stuff is being developed right now.” – 36:20

[Newsdee]

I listened to the whole thing, and a few things were quite clear:

 

MK has a big part of blame in the scope creep, aside from imposing the Jag shell for the design he also declared he decided to go for "triple-A 16-bit-like games" at some point, and so they needed more power and up to 3Gb of storage for that.

 

The other thing I realized is that the big goals they outline for the project are available today on the MiST FPGA board. It is unbrickable, is instant-on, allows developers to add features, has carts in form of the SD card, and is a self contained developer kit with many free tools available.

Edited August 11, 2016 by Newsdee

[tschak909]

I listened to the whole thing, and a few things were quite clear:

 

MK has a big part of blame in the scope creep, aside from imposing the Jag shell for the design he also declared he decided to go for "triple-A 16-bit-like games" at some point, and so they needed more power and up to 3Gb of storage for that.

 

The other thing I realized is that the big goals they outline for the project are available today on the MiST FPGA board. It is unbrickable, is instant-on, allows developers to add features, has carts in form of the SD card, and is a self contained developer kit with many free tools available.

 

re: MiST, pretty much, yeah.

 

It would have vastly reduced scope to something a lot more manageable, namely dealing with licensing issues, and focusing on a consistent brand identity; that is, making it palatable for consumer use.

 

-Thom

[godslabrat]

1:20:20 "Getting games on this is turning out to be the LEAST of our worries!"

1:25:10 "We've learned a lot by keeping this as open as we can."

Edited August 11, 2016 by godslabrat

[Flojomojo]

It would be good to have a transcription if you can automate it (for this thread).

I just uploaded it to VoiceBase, and they say "Your recordings will be transcribed and available to you shortly. Machine Transcription are completed within 24h often within 2h."

 

I lasted 14 minutes before turning it off and smashing my head into a wall.

You're stronger than me. The edge connectors are the weak spot? What about power supplies?

 

“Can’t go into too much detail, we have a lot of patentable technology” - 19:53

Nor would they name their suppliers. Um, because there weren't any.

[Flojomojo]

 

RoundUp091_2015.09.16

We're committed to making this the absolutely best system we can afford to make looking at what

we're doing with this right now we're just trading the hardware that we want to make gains for

when you finally see the price and what's going into the box. It's going to be clear to everybody. This

thing is the single best value in gaming we deliver better value than anything that's out there. It's

not long enough for you only westerners Welcome to a special edition of the Russia game roundup

show number ninety one as it were that means this is number ninety one. So a lot of podcasts you

know they'll say Oh we're on our ninety first show because they do want to we are one today what

have you. We do a show that's well shows a year so we have all huge back catalogue if you want to

check us out. You can go back to two thousand and nine and listen to a very reliable show we never

missed a show yet where we dealt out the hits we cover the top trends we you know original top and

still we don't just sit there or read a list that we think wasn't who identify with we pick twelve and

fight it out which stays in some of the best interviews we have had groundbreaking interviews. You

know the things that became very important. Later on you know we've broken huge stories in the

history of video gaming and just have a lot of fun doing it so Mike what do we have for the folks on

this special episode. What we have on this special episode episode ninety one a Scott says is an

interview with some of the same behind the. So the TS come so the Indie Go Go. Campaign will be

going live very shortly will already be alive. So you can check that out in the show notes page you

can hear all about the come so some of the hardware inside it. The ideas behind it and more

impulsively the games you can develop for it. Yeah and I think it's a neat piece of hardware with a

real interesting backstory and a lot of history. You know who worked on it when all it contributed so

I think you're going to find interesting and we're going to roll right into that for you. Steve about

how you know ma'am. Oh Goodman's good to hear from he's got Are we all here are you here John.

Yes I'm here. Oh yeah I'm doing great. I was just mentioning to John and Mike about how a million

years ago. Like when you and I were talking about initially when I was like hey what I want to get I

want to get some new hardware going again and then you kind of said he should talk to my

candidate and he's an interesting person and all right. The same time that I was talking to Scott

after trying to get hooked on whole series of conference calls you know I was a guy I know Adam

meet you. OK And we sort of hashed out how this thing would go on and it was that was really all of

last it wasn't like it was like four and all a sudden you know here we are getting together to discuss

that this retro console man it's a busy product and then it just went on from there and of the one

page on. Yes What we didn't know or maybe I don't know if I told you. Ed freeze the guy that worked

on the X. box. It was in one of the sky meetings I got it was hilarious but he was working with

another company so we had about. Ed thought it was not a great idea back then you know I talked

after that I don't think I don't see this you know and then it was about maybe a year and a half ago.

Steve before you know I kind of. Before we kind of you know there was a lot between then and kind

of return after so when that kind of a back up and I had gotten in e-mail from Ed saying and what

were you guys add on that you know I didn't think it was a great idea but you know I kind of think

that it might be a better idea now and that's kind of all when it when he three last year. Get all the

indie games came out all these retro games really started on the big consuls and and that's when I

said Yeah I think the timing is perfect for at this point so time flies. That is that was I mean that was

probably I mean that the initial call of Ed was was out ahead of it. Well over two years ago because I

mean we brought John on about nine months ago and that was a model long time after you had time

to flies but as Steve said I mean it's. It takes a long time and but we've done it in record time. So tell

us when the interview is starting to get I don't know I mean I know what we usually get we just flow

right into it usually so I just keep it. Steve and John kind of in the loop there is I think that's what we

did and we just little insight into it but anyway thanks for having us on guys. It's great. Come on

rushing round up and talk about this because of the first exclusive all three of us have talking about

the system that something that we've never done before anywhere. We will be posting this you know

thousands and thousands Wisner's over campaign page to kind of let everybody else know right now

we're coming with Indie Go Go and not extraordinary may be a good place to start. Well before we

get into that. Why don't we have a round of introductions from everybody and everybody listening to

1

RoundUp091_2015.09.16

this knows South knows yourself Mike. So what do we have from Steve. My name is Steve white and

working on the right. Much of each Yes with Mike and Jon Jon My name is John Carlson I've been

working on this since about early March with Steve van Mike. A former engineer from from it. Want

to entertainment and a few years back I got to design a very small Play Station for Sony cool

actually. Some might you know say to want to talk about the campaign first and then we'll get into

the detail. Yeah I think you know probably one of the biggest surprises that people are going to be

seeing right now is that we're running to go go and not extract it and a big part of that is indigo has

been courting us for gosh I think about four months ago they had heard that we're going to be

bringing this product to market through crowdfunding campaign which we were originally talking

about Kickstarter and they've really just been very proactive. I've probably had I know five or six

hours where the phone calls with them you know they're really bending over backwards I think this

is going to be a pretty you know significant campaign and they really have gone above and beyond to

kind of entice us over to their side of the fence. They've just done some really great things given a

salute accommodations that they've really not given any other company to this point. So you know

they put a lot of importance on this and you know one of the other things that is also important is

you know Kickstarter they require a working prototype and now this is something that we have been

striving for for quite a while to get you know some type of prototype that we can show. Well you

know this a little while but the thing about him to go. Is that they don't require a working prototype

they're going to leave it up to you know the fans and the people backers to you know learn about our

team and I guess you know park with their faith in us that these guys are industry guys you know

they do what they say that it's going to bring this product to market and and Mike if I could get this

is John I just want to throw in yeah I think that Indigo has a much better understanding of the

hardware development process and they and they realize that you had to take a to take a. Really

good design using state of the art components and turn that into a working prototype that in itself is

a very expensive proposition so we've really been working over this design. You know that the

concept the architecture the design and we've we've really got it refined to this point. And now we're

ready to launch that crowdfunding campaign and turn this into a working prototype. But but we've

we've spent all of our personal money doing this and so now we need an infusion of cash to take the

next level because unlike software and soft across a lot of money developed to the hardware stuff is

just huge expenditure of time and money and oh yeah I know it's the order of magnitude more

expensive. I mean I'm I'm kind of holding back a little bit but yeah we definitely need money helping

her to stitch it all together. You know the design is really tight on it. It's you know we can't wait to

get stuff running on it and also I think and correct me if I'm wrong in the go go. Takes Pay Pal which

is a big thing for our crowd. You know everybody paid and I'm not sure if kick started as they did

not. Yeah they did a google on arms Amazon payment. They used to use Amazon they've actually

switched about six months ago they are using the new credit card provider that I've never heard of

at the time they switched back system but the two times that I use them for the magazine they did

use Amazon but it was sometime after October I guess or November last year they got an e-mail

basically stating that they switched providers but it's not Pay Pal's about this very convenient I think

yeah and another one of the reasons we went with the Indie Go Go. Is that part of our mission is to

try and keep as much of our supply chain local and to really help out our neighbors. So we're

working with a lot of local vendors. For electronics distribution the components the assembly even a

lot of our components are going to be manufactured locally like with within fifty to one hundred

miles and you're going to have that were added in the U.S. Oh yeah we're but we're going to you.

Fabricate boards locally. One of my favorite fabricators is right down here in Orange County. I've

got a an alternate that I use out here in the Denver area but I'm trying to keep this in Orange County

as much as we possibly can. You know our edge connector maker for the cartridge connector they're

based right down here in San Marcos California so they're very local like kind of logic with those

guys. It's a different vendor and we're trying not to disclose our vendors at this point but but we're

trying our local at the same time connectors very important and like it. Let's put it that way

especially for people from William Yeah yeah it's really built to last. Yeah this is edge connector. You

2

RoundUp091_2015.09.16

know I've been a hardware engineer for a really long time I grew up in Sunnyvale with Atari with

Apple. I saw the foibles on the Atari twenty six hundred back at it. Want to entertainment in the

early ninety's I got got to see what Nintendo was doing with the Super Nintendo to make that or a

liable connector and and yeah. Metallurgy is a very large part of my job so I try and and make sure

that we've got the right connector specified for this particular application so we've got a connector

on there is going to last a lifetime a guy you know that's it is such a critical thing and you myself you

know design spacecraft five spacecraft what we go through with to mitigate the effects of atomic

oxygen and thermal cycle is just insane. You know and even at you know the trustor applications you

know deliberation and you know we have a car that we go through am just literally repairing the

entire harness with good high quality. You know high pressure multi. Contact point connectors and

the car just totally changes its character so much data getting dropped with just ten to ten

connectors you know and having something that's going to perform and perform reliably for longer

than a few months that connector technology it makes the consul what fails on a I've got here you

know every console pretty much ever made on the wall here in the studio and every one of now look

at and I can think of what's the Achilles' heel on it other than the optical base ones. It's the

connector. You know other than the ones I had idiotic things like hard wired controllers but. So Scott

Yeah. Being in engineer you probably understand the importance of specifying at least thirty micro

inches of gold on on those contacts and having a split contact so that you get redundant Springs. So

so you really got two points of contact for for every piece of gold on the the cartridge that you insert

Sorry if not more it exactly. So so yeah we're dealing with. With some pretty serious specifications

this thing overall we say yeah this thing has got to last a lifetime and one of the things we're doing is

we're designing this to be completely convection cooled you know if any hack could put a a big heat

sink in a fan on a processor. But this thing is going to be cool. There's going to be no fan bearing to

wear out. And yeah there may be some some some tricky engineering that you're going to see in the

box the host just just keep it that we are trying to cool some decent hardware you got you know the

C.P.U. G.P.U. there you got the guessing from the number of gates you probably use in cycle and five

those belt out some heat man and you've got to get rid of the heat so that they do and and using the

Jaguar case it's a beautiful case but it does pose interesting challenges for me and so what I'm what

I've done is I've laid out the board in a way that allows us to. So you get the heat to escape through

those rear vents one hundred percent through convection. And depending on you know depending

on a few factors. You may see one or two heat pipes in there. So John are an engineer so it's a

coming up all this project as we said a months ago I think I was having a pre-defined cases where

she was that would it not been easy for you to go to the fire east and build me a ball and build me a

case. Well. Yes and no I having this existing case to work around. It's presented some challenges it's

drastically limited what I can do as far as the edge connector and just finding an edge connector that

would fit was a challenge into itself and then and then being able to build a circuit around it

something that would give us the kind of performance that we need that is very very confining as

well. So yeah we we ultimately save a ton of money in in the mechanical design and so it makes

sense for me to just kind of suck it up and work around the existing design. You know sitting here

looking at I just reached over to shelf and told them i jag Yeah me you know when you start looking

at mechanical placement because alternate molds this is horrendously expensive. Look if you've got

available for things you can repurpose to use as H D M I are in different inputs outputs Yeah you've

got only so much you can do here you've got one good chunk on the back and yeah you are confined

that's for sure. I didn't change the back because when we got the molds from the dental company

when they repurposed it is the dental camera they actually removed that act panel from the oh nice.

That actually yeah that does me a huge favor because that they've got a blank slate for the rear

panel. So the rear panel is going to be constructed as a combination of R.F. shielding and day and a

plastic plate our most recent addition to that rear panel is a rather sophisticated expansion

connector that that actually makes use of that detent around where the Jaguars expansion connector

was so it's a shame and there remains that back tunnel that inside to discover because I know a lot

of people are asking for are we going to get a. Yeah we're going to need to put a death capital or

3

RoundUp091_2015.09.16

that expansion port because even on the Jaguar. Yeah you get a lot of dust and dirt. You know if

you're playing your Jaguar sitting on the sitting on the carpet. First you know you shouldn't be doing

that but a lot of people are are going to do it and we've got to do what we can to keep the lint out of

at least the expansion or if it's not to keep the dust out of the out of the air pants. I was thinking

about the catch at slots as well because that was a criticism of the original lesson. Yeah

unfortunately there's not a lot we can do there. You know that that plastic is all hard tooled in there.

And it's just not economically feasible for us to put a cover on that though the best advice we can we

can give people is to just keep your favorite cartridge in there. If you know I forgot I just

environment just just leave a cartridge in just under one bit of time and it works whack one up and

you know for most of your target audience is going to be checked folks that have three D. printers

have access to want to share their on the design as they are for free. Put the cool retro logo on it.

Let folks download and print a dust cover but we have to be absolutely. I mean yeah it will make

everybody happy. I'm just looking at the Jaguar that we've got and are again it's this right now I get

to see thousand in there that really keeps the pins clean. I mean yeah yeah I mean I would love to

have a spring loaded cover for the for the cartridge connector. Like you saw on the Super Nintendo.

But with the Jaguar case as it is. It's just not practical for us to modify that case. So we think have

started rather than the brains of the system we seem to have started on the game. The cartridge

slots and the side of things going to talk about specifics of the catch Rich. You know our audience a

pretty technical set is as much technical detail is as you like and tell us you know a bit about the

technology the technology. The the technology it's pretty simple and straightforward. Actually the

first thing that I designed on the system was the cartridge interface. I knew that was you know given

the shell that was the one thing that I couldn't change so as soon as I identified the connector that

was shipped there. Then I started working around trying to figure out OK how you know how many

address how many lines. What what other support. Can we put on this cartridge to make it as media

agnostic as absolutely possible. So one of the one of the things that's been happening ever since

around the time of the Sony Play Station about one nine hundred ninety four was that that we've

gone from this this zero to five volt switching level that's T.T.L. and C. must switching level down to

a lower voltage like the Play Station was the first one that really went to the three point three bolted

frequent three people switching level and and now of course we've got bus switch at either even

lower levels. So the cartridge can actually support all of these different voltage switching levels at a

variety of different data bus with as well and I can't go into too much detail because we're we're

going to be applying for patents on this as well I mean we've got a lot of technology just on the

cartridge interface. But it's going to be a fairly high performance cartridge in. Her face will be able

to support mask. You know even an old mask ROM that switch to five volts the current new mask

ROM the switching of three point three bolts last as well as high quality flash ROMs and we can

even put other media technology in the cartridge has done a great job with that with that card

interface. It has you know the reason it has to be so diverse that is I mean the system. What we're

doing here is for having a system that can be reconfigured by woods in that cartridge. Or first

architecting this thing it's like you know trying to pick what processor or whatever would make

every developer kind of interested in this machine as you want to get developers interested so they

can make gains for if they're not interested. It's it's harder to get game and if there are no games

you're not going to sell a come sell like you know what are we put in this thing. OK well I've got an

F.P.G.A. and let people you know configure the hardware the way they want you know and that way

Will. Well get people going Oh that they're using a sixty eight thousand and they're using this aren't

you. What's wrong with a sixty eight K. Man it was my idea Believe me I had that in the design way

early in life that is pretty old school and then I just got to thinking that you know if we did have an

F.P.G.A. in there we could you know replicate a lot of different processor techniques that can be

applied there. And so we kind of ran with that and with a whole concept of being able to plug in a

game parrot up with whatever proper core that you want not core get loaded in the F.P.G.A. running

against or with your game on this machine becomes whatever you told that core to be so whether

the initial idea come from was that you'll see because I know that Scott says he did a design that

4

RoundUp091_2015.09.16

used the Motorola Power P.C. and then yes there was a team did a like a beagle bone design and.

We had at least F.P.G.A. sweat at this yet. P.J. thank came after entertaining the bee Oban black

stuff we were looking at that I saw a lot of cool stuff happening in the arcade world where there are

replicating a lot of old school machines now using an S.D. card loading it up and I'm white. You

know this needs to happen in a cartridge form for old school consuls you know if you wanted to write

old type architectures or come up with new stuff I mean that the really fascinating as John and I've

been talking about various meetings are the cool things that we can get yet P.J. to do all said and we

need a fast D.N.A. controller. You know I mean it's just you know descriptors are already out there

just grabbing you know if you want to talk a little bit about exactly what an F.P.G.A. is I know that

everyone present and knows what it is but those Yeah yeah I mean I look at it like a box of Lego and

I think I might be able to give us a little more accurate description so. So after after my time medic

want to entertain that pretty much my next job was I went over to Altera and actually designed a

F.P.G.A. stor about three years and so an F.P.G.A. is a field programmable gate array as the name

implies it's a rate logic gates that are generally in a very regular pattern that that essentially get

connected together by programming these RAM bits and it's it's very similar to most digital

application specific integrated circuits or a six in that it's got that regular structure of logic gates

but with most most standard cell a six. They've they've got this regular structure. They're basically

programmed through setting ROM bits when the when the ship is manufactured. So instead of

putting all this pattern. Into a mask to make an ace what we're doing is we're creating these these

cartridges that have the bit pattern or the a stick on the cartridge that can then be uploaded from

the cartridge very quickly. You know through this this very high performance interface into that part

to make our own A sick. That is then tailored to whatever game that game developer wants to make

that was the other answer. I think. For a simplified one which is why I was going down that Lego

metaphor. Thanks John. John if I stayed because I did probably out half a year ago I did a high level

review of F.P.G.A. isn't you know what you can be used for what they are I mean they're just a

miracle device for rapid prototyping we use them for all kinds of stuff or if you want like well say

spacecraft remote devices that you can't touch ever again. Other than your data they are a

marvelous tool for fixing things or redesigning how circuits work from a distance. So what I want to

say though I do want to say yes because the question was simplified version of it is think of it as if

you've got a box of Lego saved. You know forty nine thousand of them right. And you can reconfigure

those this is a very simplified version of what John said but you could reconfigure it in a way. So now

your hardware is doing this thing it will act this way those little label ROCKS That's the mentality of

it right. If you reconfigure these things to come up with little pieces the way you want to or little

logic areas that were the way you want and I was just going to civil quite with the label analogy but

now that you can now that you can sell look just like a block of the sixty five go to New Delhi The

lock of the bus controller. I just happen together and build a Commodore I think yeah and one of the

wonderful thing I did gather that you understand the whole thing. It's just basically it's not hardware

that's edged in stone. You can reconfigure it it's malleable and so that's what we're basing it on. So

the whole. Her architecture that of wanted in this thing was to be able to plug that cartridge and

and that will define the heart or what it needs to be for that game and I mean I mean obviously the

big deal is what kind of games we're going to be able to do on this. What do we want to do you want

to us and what are people going to want to do in the future on it. So this hardware architecture that

we have you're really covers all those basis since we're really going for like you know retro The retro

feel of games in a stuff that's not really complicated it can look like Jad it. It's not like and takes days

to figure out and you know and I mean the main thing is this whole thing is also contained in its own

ecosystem where it doesn't have to go get patches and all that you know if you're playing this thing

fifteen years from now it's not going to go ping a server and it's a what do I need to be right now

right. I mean the cartridge the whole system what could be and that's it. You know there's no

updating or anything that games are done and tested like we used to do back in the eighty's where

you had to test the heck out of these things to make sure there's absolutely no bugs and then

commits the wrong and then they're there ready. Can you tell us about these these ROMs that you

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mentioned I mean can you talk about what B.J. you're using what C.P.U. using what G.P.U. using

right now is there any kind of bias in the you know that it's possible to reach and how does that. Oh I

don't want. So you know we've we've actually got several different Bender options and where we're

basically going to leave a lot of the actual vendor selection up to up to the people during our

crowdfunding campaign. So depending on you know how to how much volume we did we can we can

make this product better faster cheaper and you know our our minimum our minimum it will get us

to a very very capable system but the. And if if we're able to stretch goals. We're we're going to be

able to just really knock this out of the park and keep adding onto onto what what it is we're putting

into the box and we're we're committed to making this the absolutely best system we can afford to

make we do have a rather large field program will gate array and here we've also got a very capable

ARM core. So you know a lot of people game developers are very familiar with making ARM based

games compiling to arm cross compiling doing cross-platform development. So we give people the

ability to make a game that just runs on the arm or a game that just runs on the F.P.G.A. or both and

our goal from the get go was to make a system. That is its own self-contained development platform

with a one hundred percent. No cost tool chain that allows people to create the software on the arm

the hardware on the F.P.G.A. or combine the two and they can just sit there at their P.C. download

their tools plug in a U.S.B. cable and and and it upload and it just uploads upload to ram into the

F.P.G.A. so it's operating system on this thing it's it's going to have a very minimum firmware set so.

So yeah it's going to give us some basic file system support obviously U.S.B. support and take care of

the basic housekeeping. But I know it's not it doesn't have an ROI or anything and I don't know I

mean you know maybe a simple bias like in television that it will be you know it will be Unix like and

we're certainly leveraging a lot of open source to do it. So if it had that's that's about it but the idea

is and it's now days ago with the future. Oh well there's the idea here is that no the system never

changes state after it leaves the factory so what we've got is a very simple but extensible firmware

on there that that we can cast in ROM it's going to last a lifetime but then if you want to extend the

functionality of that. Yeah you do that through the cartridge what whatever you plug into that

cartridge court. But if developers Well that's a challenge. It is end and I don't count as they come

they so you have because it's very simple. It never needs to be updated or patched it's by design and

so we realized you know after our crowdfunding campaign. We're going to have less than a year to

get this into people's hands so that means to have something that that we can can have one hundred

percent developed and one hundred percent tested before it's cast into ROM that has to be a design

of a very narrow scope so that we can maintain that hundred percent testability and yeah and then

the trick here is to make sure that it's extensible by design. So so that means the firmware it's got

some fantastic cooks that allow us to to put that additional functionality into a cartridge or into

something that something that you plug into this device. So the other thing I wanted it mentioned

him mind is that so you go any Vita system and you want to make a game for it and I'm just thinking

back to back in the eighty's where the sort of and so cool for me works. You get this machine and it

got this game idea. And now it's like wow I'm going to be able to make a cartridge Well how do you

do that. So the thing that we want to put in place is still mint program where and any developer or

whatever wants to make fifty to one hundred copies of their game in theory would basically be able

to go to our website and apply all or artwork for that box and. You know the manual and everything

and submit the code and long or short it can be turned around into a shrink wrapped package for the

any developer sent to them. And they can go to you know Paxil X. today you probably can't find a

table anymore. But anyway it is game X. places and actually sell your cartridge game shrinkwrapped

I mean that yeah I think we really want to try to stress want to do that because I mean how cool is

that you be able to develop a game cartridge based game and have it let you know and have it

professionally packaged. And you had part of our model there is that we allow Actually we provide a

lot of different publishing options for developers. So if you've got say a fairly large game you know

you want to this or we know we're going to sell at least five thousand of these then we'll go ahead

we'll you know we'll take their gold master and we'll do our testing publish it on ROM and make

thousands of these cartridges and get them out there if we want to have a if we want to have a small

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publisher come out and again do say you know twenty or fifty games we can offer this cafe style

publishing as well so it would actually we would we would market them the differently guys so.

Right. Yeah but we. There are some games that we are publishing that that we're indorsing that

we're given our new Tendo seal of approval on right. It's all those might be identifiable they may

look a little bit different than the games that you know some remakes of their house they want to sell

fifty to their friends or family or an ex so they will be different. We will differently but the good thing

is is that you know it does marry more people who are console which is obviously what we like to do

is if that's all the user base up by the same time we don't want to flood. You know our consul with a

bunch of me over games either so what we're going to be very careful about Reese the officially

licensed games that we balance the number of games are available with that number. Or of our

install users. We don't oversaturate because we all know what happens when Apple right. But I don't

you know any developers back in order of the market. You know we think that because it's you know

they have to pay for each copy so if they don't or one hundred pieces right and you know their

friends buy it sort of people I don't think I hear what you're saying but we don't want those being

sold on e Bay as a safety dollar game that we've been divorced that we publish that we're selling the

guess we're going to be selling direct games that we endorse in games that we maybe you know we

publish or whatever. Those are going to be sold. You know by the end user the small that they can

charge whatever they want for and if I am. They said how when and how are they want to know

those that are it is still left a couple of questions in spring to mind. Obviously it although the C.P.U.

and people know roughly how to develop a game for it's already bought because the Howard web is

still undecided. It can't be any actual games you know in full development as yet only the campaign

is kind of finished so you mentioned the different campaign options and levels could decide you

know it's going to have this processor instead of that you know the fact you have hardware. I mean

essentially talking about the same family of chips on the it's just yes simple speech change. Yes So

what we're talking about obviously everything it's dark texture is very well defined. We already know

you know what is going. What's going on our board right now we're talking about options for say

adding multiple cores higher speed grade parts and yeah we got it narrowed down to just a handful

of vendors at this point who can provide chips the performance at these levels and so with that in

mind until the campaign's finished we don't know exactly what's in there is going to be a cut

between the. Paint finishing obviously on this think it's in the shelves is the time period going to fall

in directly in chain with game development cycles are we going to have a period where there's a lot

of games and no come so you know if I spoke. No I don't know any architect right now it's basically

stuff is being developed right now let's just put it that way. We're doing it in a parallel path and hard

to explain it right here. There are games being worked on right now that are going to dovetail right.

But this. So yeah so yeah we've got some of it clean that it is going to be around nine or twelve

games that we're going to announce right along with the campaign and those games. You know

backers can add them to their pledge by adding you know thirty forty fifty bucks whatever you know

whatever game they want to the pledge and you know obviously when the campaign ends or soon as

we know that it's successful then we will start holding and sharing lots of information with these

developers but a lot of the games that we're bringing in I guess we would talk about the lot of Merari

out there you know they're either out of their own steam they're out there just in digital versions. So

it's going to be a matter of you know giving them a means of sorting that over and of course we need

to make that as simple as possible. So that's all these are all things that we're going to have to you

know cram into the you know very soon following the end of the campaign or maybe midway through

the campaign. You know hopefully we get our goals. You know early on on sort of waiting for it to

and we you know what we're going to hit it. We can start looking at all of those things but it is going

to be you know going to be a pretty major undertaking without a doubt it. We will the games are

now so I got one here for Steve specific. I mean you know you know you know I've talked a lot of the

years I recall a couple times didn't see G.E. you know hanging around and you know you said more

than once that it was really important to you to you know get back in to Sally and to work for us to

have a studio to work developing that's what your love to do. That's your passion and here you are

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ma'am. So how does the feel for you to be you know right here on this thing. Aryans or reality point.

It feels great. It's this. I feel like I'm going to be working on hardware that is not going to move

around you know like I've I've worked in several several different platforms where you know

especially in the web space for doing web related games or whatever you're like What day is my

game not going to work. So I've got a bunch of Flash games out there right now and I know their

days are limited as far as from a distance. I don't hit hard. Twenty six hundred when I made games

for that machine they currently work right now. You knew when you were writing it. You're targeting

that machine after We're already about all these other variables software updates and whatnot. I

mean at that time in the early eighties. We didn't even conceive of these things that were that we're

dealing with right now but looking back at that and then looking at what we're doing at the start.

Right Right now we're just trading the hardware that we want to make games for and then I'm just

putting my D.N.A. in there in such a way that it's like you know knowing that when I make a game

for this machine. I've got off all these game ideas that I want to do and I'm like thinking you know

what platform Why prolong and now I'm able to influence a platform the way I want to so when I

plug in this game whatever it is. I know ten fifteen years from now. I plug it in it's still going to work

play the same way you know you try to design the game with the interface that you have at hand. I

mean back on the Atari twenty six hundred eighty status controller five buttons right you know

around a fire and then down left right. But it was a fixed interface you know what you're dealing

with and the T.V.'s back then were more of a fixed interface another kind of you know cool aspect

ratio philosopher and they varied in sizes but not a not a huge range like what we have now and a

little install base the installed base pretty much had the standard But you know looking at my I just

over the microphone here I'm looking at a whole shelf full of twenty six hundred games and the thing

that is valuable to me is that there is no license agreement. Kompany you know Reformation transfer

rights. Nothing in a word. No matter who buys Atari's name no matter who encourages her and

control activists no matter what license gets sold or expired or bought there's nothing in a world

that any of those companies can do to reach into my studio here and screw with those games

prevent them from being played. That's the standalone concept I'm talking about just you've got your

ecosystem right there. Nobody can alter it. I recently did an update to my O.S.'s and my favorite

game that I won't mention no longer works because of this update and play the game anymore I'm

just saddled with the title screen and it's like that's the stuff you know when that happened to me

I'm actually glad it happened to reinforce this is really why we're one of many reasons but this is the

big one. Why we're doing this and I've always wanted to do quite up games too for this reason it's a

stand alone experience you design. You know everything from the controller to have a screen is

going to be it's a known experience and you don't want that to change. You know and so like when

they put your favorite coin up game in a different cabinet and everything felt a little there for you

know any of the latest greatest ones that do have some comic to if you like over there in the arcade

I've got the Terminator Salvation Right right. The darn new game it's a Dell P.C. in a box is what it is

and even though has connectivity to share like networking stocks or you know it can transfer scores

or are you know whatever it's still independent you know and there's nothing in the world that can

change that. So I absolutely loved that. So that's what we're going for that's what I'm going for that's

the heart I want to work. You know where it's a slight just you know just a closed system. Every time

you know you plug in a cartridge that way the game is still going to work. It's not going to go away

to get a ping a server you're late for work it takes ten minutes to date. I'm like wow yeah exactly.

Now Steve I'd love. I don't like to point out one of the strengths of our design here is that there's

nothing that that anyone can do to push an update to your system this. To take away functionality or

that's going to risk turning your box into a brick. Once you buy this console you own it and the state

of that console it never changes. It never has to change the games they never need patching it. It's

simple operation you plug in that cartridge that you know you own it. It's the state of that's not going

to change you plug it in you press that on button and you're up them playing within seconds. Yet

another good point John is Linus the starters in such a way that Archer system so it's basically an

instantly loading phone you'll see something on the screen how fast it's going to do what it's going to

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do and I mean obviously with the ROM it's instantaneous. You know virtually if you will just like us

and it's like in your game. There's a string you know load bars all over the place and everyone yeah.

And I'd like to say one other thing too is the longevity of the system I mean we we have feel that like

the the modern day systems or every system really up to ours needed to outdo itself. You know and

create some bigger faster. You know better graphics or whatever. Every seventy nine years and with

a product like ours this is again where we've where we've taken as long as we have which really in

the scheme of hardware design isn't all that often but again spend a lot of time building and you

know a system that will grow and you have developers for many years. You know the opportunity to

come and do new things with this hardware. So you know we don't have to come out with a new

system every seventy nine years this is really a one time purchase that as long as there's developers

out here who love to build and create you know these great awesome retro style games and we've

got gamers a lot of the play mechanics. You know the sixteen and thirty two that play mechanics

which I really feels is an art form right now. I don't think it's going to go away any time soon. So

again I think for people that love the style game. We want to create a system that is the best

experience to play the style games or you know here's maybe ten fifteen twenty years people to be

making games for this just like people are still making. Aims for the twenty six hundred or genesis of

this NASA the any as this is something to be around in twenty thirty years and and that Time goes

fast you know these kids today. You know they're really thinking about this like we never thought

you know Steve was looking at his Genesis collection go on these are all over what twenty twenty

some years old and how how prepared would it be if you had this big collection of games and you got

them all here and you know you're in a boxing radical whatever and start want to collect games

again get that you get a job and you start buying all these games that you had We're going to

whatever you stick them in there and if it didn't work. That's a problem and you know again because

we've all come from that era and Steve John to work in that era that's why it's important to us to

build a system with that range of any that we don't have to a going to recreate and get bigger better

faster in the future. It's a one time purchase the last a long time and Mike if I may part of the well

part of the way that we're able to to reach into the future like this is that we also reach back into the

past you know the the system. It's got U.S.B. controllers on there. So yeah you can use our

controllers by somebody else's off the shelf U.S.B. controller those plug in but we're also giving you

these two really dynamic nine pin D. connectors on there. So if you can find a controller with a plug

that fits it will play on our system if you want to play set up P.D. using a trackball controller. It's

going to plug right in if you want to play a game with a weird controller from the Fairchild Channel

F. system two that's going to plug right in fact tracks in television you know that was a really

common connector and we've got a really flexible circuit on our side that allows all these controllers

to plug right in and play and play on brand new modern games. This is a video game composer and

creator video games like Tommy Tillery go and you're listening to retro gaming roundup. Hey Mike.

In the middle of it what you do is you talk about the show again and promote so well. We take some

of the technical So let's promote ourselves in this way. What is this show done outside of just six

hours of entertainment every minute of it and that is probably easier to say Well that's true. Well

what has been we've been convicted. We've cold Las Vegas focus we phoned in a town that found

video games for decades. I think in some of the big man. We are the only podcast that released its

own video game. C.G. adventure so one of the things we've been affiliated with over the years is the

classic game next one Vegas we've been you know attendees exhibitors contributors at that Expo

since the early. I think two thousand the first year I went you know we had the honor and last year

to visit fourteen of running the expo we funded it we ran every aspect of it other than the invites

now is handled by the previous crew that ran it and found it so we run the biggest Avast classic

game in X. while out in Vegas the video game I was mentioning we had a incident come up in an

expo that we thought would just make the perfect video game. So we decided like we always do to

put you know our money in our brains you know where we are mouth and we created an original

hard line six hundred carked so you can you can buy this thing today you know you just opened it up

off of our website your record dot com You know you open it up you take a cartridge out you play it.

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It's a huge massively complex game one of the most complex games ever done the target times it's

on and we've also done arm breaker a Nintendo game watch ask again which is being followed on by

two crack. We have made our own games we've all run major gaming expos and yeah we kind of got

our fingers in everything and while people listen to the second half of the interview you and I can get

our heads together about. Finishing the game that would mean we should because we are going to

release the organism or game of C.G. adventures. It's coming along nicely. So we've always been. I

think about ninety percent done with it for about two years the House and the ninety one percent

now because I've made the list of things we may well have put us almost nine percent. True. So I

want to talk about sort of the end specs and the output specs of the console in one second. Just one

thing that sprang to mind. I might mention these kids today and they remind the community you're

releasing this into the videogame community I guess it kind of cuts off the any piracy aspect there's

no point in piracy on this come so how sort of hackable would it. You know if you were a fifteen year

old kid with no room with all the time in the world on your hands. How could you hotness thing you

know what could you do to have you looked at it from that angle and close all those up and he says

Well absolutely. Well part of part of the joy is is that every one of these zone development stations.

You know that that was my primary responsibility back in it. Want to entertain was to create these

development systems for all these new systems the Super Nintendo the Sega Saturn Sony

Playstation. I even did a hand wired prototype for the jaguar and back then it was really really

expensive to jump in to do this. Cross-platform development the original box from super for the

Super Nintendo that was a sixty thousand dollars development station and you needed one of those

for every programmer on your team their cost reduced version came out a few years later that was

fifteen thousand dollars her programmer my development system used off the shelf Super Nintendo

with a slight modification plug right in cost us five hundred bucks just what sixty thousand dollars.

Rock has won both John and I are at the genic Yallop first accident in under development and I ever

saw was on Steve's death. It gave him to know when a wow. More than six keys to this room and I

had one of the keys. They never vacuumed in there either. Nobody was out in there and it was

disgusting and zoning and those rules for mediagenic which became Activision again it was basically

the sixty's will be issued to the engineers you go in there and you know you do your work lock the

door. Always keep the door locks people walk by I want to know what's going on in there and we're

basically I think I know this for a fact we were the first Super Nintendo development company

outside an intended to be issued the systems. I'm almost certain about that and then as John said

they were super expensive super They were giant looking but it was really fun developing like Well

level objects systems for and getting things running it and then fast where we ended up getting body

code it came in and his crew and bought the entire company out moved to L.A. So that was kind of

the end of that but back to the point was you know the development systems that John has may

reduce the cost from you know like something it would cost so much money to do and get the same

end result. And so we're really leveraging a lot of his engineering skills on that to apply to this to the

rectory G.S.O. people they have various ways to actually develop on this thing which is going to be

really excited can't wait to get my hands I got so many things I want to try with it. So this may be a

stupid question then me being incredibly technical but let's say somebody wants to develop had an

L.D.S. style K. They know how fast the C.P.U. rooms in the ne S. Will they just get your hardware in

the console mimicking going to come they turn that clock speed up to do something the M.E.'s

couldn't they just develop their own clock speed etc etc Let me answer this is generically. And we

become like oh well Steve will take on OK I am a Johnny come in. If you have been a member

thinker. Like I said the F.P.G.A. allows you to do things the way you want. So let's say there's me put

it this way. There's a style framework that you like on how a piece of hardware works. You know you

could come up with your own ideas that are similar right and create your own hardware if you will

through the F.P.G.A. you're writing your own core business it's hard to be very generic with this. I

don't want to ease Nintendo as an exam Yeah yeah. So yeah there are some potential licensing

issues there to get that out license here. Yeah but yeah the license issue aside. Yeah our technology

would allow you to say do hardware based emulation through the F.P.G.A. or software based

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emulation through the arm but our system can do so much more so it's a really poor use of the the

computing resource but yeah if you just wanted to court a Super Nintendo game or you know

something that you've been been hacking on the Super Nintendo to port that to our console would

be trivial but that's the point I think U.K. was trying to make if I can. Neander between the two

worlds here is that I think what he was getting at is let's say for example you were a developer that

wrote stuff on say the Genesis and he said yourself. What if I only had I know there are four major

RAM or to have to six make a ram cycle I had like and as an example if I had just that much more

resource. Could you. You know modify the harbor descriptors that are used on the F.P.G.A. to add in

that to make a Mega Drive full. Yeah. So all right so technically using the Genesis an example.

Technically yes. Now obviously if we're going to have a genesis core we're going to talk to say I

haven't approved one right so that you know everything we do here is going to be approved. There's

no like but technically was good. White You know one that has more or less of these features right to

answer your question yes I have to be careful because in the case of certain corps. That's companies

own the rights to how their technology works. This is the gray area right it's like you know if we're

going to use it. Genesis core obviously we want to contact Sega and go hey this is OK Do we want to

do licenses from you to actually you know try to replicate exactly what you guys do here right. If

they send out words that if they had eight zero then you know we have to come up with a different

style coal or that people want to use that fits their needs. When some of the beauty of that is a lot of

that argument was settled a long time ago with the Atari model Try it is the exact if you Morry it's

absolutely the Atari has absolutely no it's purely a collection of off the shelf chips so that you know

that that fights already caught so this so many systems will have that he's right. What it comes down

to in our case is that we simply cannot republish someone else's copyrighted work. Second if

someone wants to make a software based emulator or a hardware based emulator as long as they're

not republishing the copyrighted work that the belongs to say Nintendo or for Sago or Microsoft or

Sony then it's really fair game because we're we're not not infringing their copyright or their

patents. I mean there's a whole lot of few classic systems that by the nature of the design had

absolutely no of any level while I mean even help it was pretty unique having for my OS Most

systems purely relied on card text that So there's a lot of clear territory out the the exceptions are

probably few but you know sort of discussing security here. You know you're always going to have

some sort of cartridge security you know who came up that concept. Are you applying to I mean

obviously you don't want your arms dumps although you know let's face it. As for they got played on

your system right. Settle you and the case you have a resource or you were certainly addressing the

issue of tension bootleggers here. And yet by giving everyone a development station. We've got to be

careful in our design so that we don't give away the shop. We've got a responsibility to our

developers as well. So if you want to publish your game on our platform. We've we've got to make

sure that we don't make it you know too easy for people just just to rip you off that we did best job

we can. And yeah and obviously what are you going to say how we're doing out here right. And there

and there are a couple of ways that we tackle this. We try and slow down people from just being able

to plug in somebody else's published cartridge and be able to say you know step through there's a

little lockout there and you know that will keep most people honest somehow lockouts a pretty

effective it took the Chinese years to hack the original arcade you know. And yes so I said we're

going on. Yes So. So anyway that's that's one thing we can do but but really I think that the most

effective thing that we can do to combat bootleggers is is just to keep our margins down on the

carpet and to keep the cartridges affordable that really it helps gamers and it helps our developers

because we're moving a lot more volume had and we just remove the profit incentive for them.

That's what we're doing in our last show the cover is from the bitmap but this was say and when

they sold. I think it was that steel soldiers in Russia they sold that house a loss cheaper than the

Pirates Yeah that's the deal right. If you're on that if you got it worked out that well that's that's the

ultimate protection. Why you know we were sitting talking with our friend current who designed the

Atari flashback to it all and you know the point that we all agreed on. YS You know if you're

releasing an inferior product you know let's say you want to release a crappy you know thirty in one

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collection of some games that sounds been altered or whatever. I now and sue people for doing

emulation you know because they want to play a proper way imply all the games. You're in a very

poor business model. If you're releasing something that really works and is really cool. I mean at the

Atari flashback two I got a new license. I've got every original Atari two thousand six hundred game.

I bought stacks of those things to give away is like you know Christmas presents. You know want to

put a carter slot in one not two. And if you got a good product. You know people will support it. You

know it's the ONLY have to bully people if you don't really have a good idea. Yeah we started talking

about the control is first want to tell us a bit about the technology it got what you know what she got

on there. What controls it will take in the how that happens. OK Well the easy place to start is with

the U.S.B. controller so the stock controller is is U.S.B. based we really allow you plug in a lot of

generic U.S.B. interface devices here. So it just about track a little and how the controller came into

the equation why you chose that and how that OK I'm about. That's a question for Mike. Yes So you

know back in all your head a bit about a year and a half ago but I was looking through one of the

issues of retro magazine and we do wish write back section and in that section somebody had talked

about this repro you control or from in a word and before I saw that. This is like really I don't know

when this was and the time frame of this whole project but I was thinking about what would the

controller look like you know for this new system and in my mind I saw controller that had lots of

things. Well two major characteristics one. It had some modern features. Like the dual analog sticks

in the shoulders the shoulder buttons but it also would all you know include some sort of a retro

style game pad kind of built in and then you know Steve and I talked and we talked to some other

developers and said you know that the two landmark sticks Yeah definitely want those and that's

what we need to have although we've gotten some flak for putting those in flight real diehard retro

this is what I don't understand. Do I want sticks back in the day would have been a godsend right.

Well yes now I know what you get whacked I personally hate him because either you're a double

thumb gamer or you're not and I am like that's what gave me that i Robot promises I'm talking

about. I mean screw that like the first person shooters and all that stuff I mean there are games you

haven't done that you can do and it's controller so it allows you to do that also or you've got the D.

pad and the buttons and so you know I saw this as this controller magnet that's exactly what I saw

my mind. So you know I talked in a recent limited they have to be local Here now a and I went and

met with them over there and and we have looked at you know some of the issues of back and forth

had mostly dealing with the wireless connectivity with the we were not going to happen is they're

actually going to you know we're rebranding at their private label and forth but they are making it

U.S.B. for us only for us. So we're going to U.S.B. version of it and and so again it's very comfortable

it's it feels very well built. We've done some testing with that we're actually getting another

prototype coming in. I'm actually picking it up tomorrow the second one and you know we're going

to basically try to destroy the saying you know over the course of the next week. I mean just do as

much as we can with what we have a little bit of a dog that's right. I'll get away and give him a

game. Like what we have won and we don't want him to like you know set it on fire on this Ferrari

like you've done in the past but anyway yeah so it's a combination control it's got that speakers of a

modern day control over the younger game most like in a fight with and it's also got a really nice

kind of built in Super he has a looking D. pad that I think a lot of the retro be emerged like. So it's

great. Wendy that So that was why we chose it. And that will work with multiple controllers in the

whole thing. Yes so to keep our device numeration simple. You know if you want to use as many of

the non hub U.S.B. ports as possible. Otherwise we we get you into a situation which you basically

have to say OK now. Now plug in your next controller Now plug in your next controller. But yeah you

can you can have a party plug it into a if you want to have people playing someone U.S.B. controller

someone nineteen controllers you can do that as well. If you want to make your own controller you

can get a nine pin cable plug it in there and and it will even will even show that the maker crowd

how to go ahead and connect your arcade style stick how to how to wire it up and wire it in and and

just have a good time. Yeah you got to be able to to get up and running. Real quick and who's doing

all this work is this the developers building all these controls and so they have a simple interface

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that creates the interface is pretty simple and generic that's something that goes through obviously

the U.S.B. all goes through the arm controller and that provides service to the they have P.G.A. and

the nine pin controllers they they connect both ways to so. So it's something that if you're making an

F.P.G.A. based game or are based games either way you've got access to all the controllers. There's

a simple controller set up interface that this available through the system menu. OK so we know

what's going in. So what's coming out what kind of sound systems D.C. You know I'm assuming it's a

minimum stereo you know is it any kind of five point one seven point one sound and what kind of

video resolutions have you got a video out so bearing in mind that potentially this is a worldwide

product. Yeah OK well. We've got this red leg. Well we've got a well we've got our primary output is

the H.D.M.I. out that just makes it really easy to connect all over the world and we've also got the

analog video out. So if you want composite S. video R.G.B. component video we we can do all of

these We're going to support for the the analog video at least N.T.S.C. we're will have to see how far

we want to take it as far as our support. But that's that's probably easily within reach. But it looks

like most people are using H.D.M.I. these days that they want that that seven twenty P. that ten

A.T.P. and they want the high frame rate as well they're not yet went up to ten eight hundred million

you know what frame makes a foot in now we can go up to at least ten A.T.P. sixty and audio it's

going to be at least CD quality. And whether someone wants to put in say a Dolby surround or T.H.X.

that's something that we we really ultimately leave up to the game developer you know if you want

to put Q. sound in your game yeah you can you can do that too. So I'm assuming you can make it one

step simple stereo jack on the river. How would you get you know like a surround sound system

going through that. Yes Well H.D.M.I. that's that's all digital A B. through that through that one

cable. And then on the analog side we've got a very similar audio DAC as well. So that's that's

pumping that out to line level left or right channel and and if the game wants to encode say. Stereo

surround you can put that into the game. The heart the hardware is very very capable. So I guess by

the time this so many people are listening to this they'll know about the Indie Go Go. Campaign and

the various purchase levels but can you. It's about because I know when Scott Mike and I would talk

and we said years ago about this comes all we want that the price point was K. and it was one state

you know we can't make this more than one thousand nine hundred eighty dollars was out there but

now this Facebook went wild for a little while talk about four hundred fifty dollars. I mean how do

we get to that fifty dollars from the want to. Well yes. So I got brought on board. Like I said back in

March. Mike in the they they came to me said Hey we want this this thing that does all this I say

yeah sure I can design a system that can do that and and I can design it to be really more cost

effective than than just about anyone I know because I've you know I've been doing this a while and

and so when we finally when we finally got down to it. I say OK well here. Here's here's how much it

will cost to do all this and so then we we started to have some pretty hard discussions about how we

go from our blue sky design to do something that that is ultimately going to provide the best value in

gaming you know let me let me preface this really well first of all we have brought the price or four

hundred fifty S. right now. So that's a great never be able to see that probably right now but

originally when when we had kind of loosely talked about this when a price range. This was sort of a

different you know time in this project. Right. This was before John this was before you know any

talk of the F.P.G.A. this was essentially back to eighty aboard black style architecture but you know

since then we have tons of discussions about like what size games we want to play and I just I'm just

going to play you know real sixteen bit you know stack games that have all of the constraints that

people had back in the day or we want to give you know the yeah people the opportunity to play all

these wonderful date retro titles that are coming out these days like you know shovel might I mean it

looks like an N E S game but it's. Massive And so somewhere in there we cut across this this line.

You know let's let's throw the long bomb here let's make a system that will play. You know that can

play these larger retro style games that are becoming more and more popular these days and and

really back then there wasn't as many of them being made this was before shot on my this was

before mighty number nine. This was before like a lot of these big kick starters own up with these

you know retro titles then believed Parker from Ron Silver and stuff like this in these games are

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going to be one two three gigabytes and so you know somewhere in there. I made the decision to say

let's do this let's you know I don't I never want to compete with Microsoft and Sony and Nintendo

believe me but yeah and I saw all these great retro games coming out in and I've always believed

like I think a lot of us at some games deserve to be preserved and so let's just make a system that's

capable of playing these larger bigger faster games as long as they've got that retro with static in

this retro sensibilities. Regardless of their size you know we want to be able to play those games on

here and give fans of those games the option. You know maybe playing it over there but owning it

over here and we hope that that will resonate. You know with a big group you know this big

demographic of gamers I know on Entertainment Software Association I mean they're saying that

there's two hundred million gamers just in the United States alone and eighty million I'm over the

age of thirty six. This is in the U.S. alone and we're international or so you know I think there's a lot

of people that grew up with cartridges that if there are playing games these days are kids maybe you

know you start to see these retro games coming back and I talked to friends of mine who were never

into games but yet they see these games coming out. They're like me. I think I'd like to play that

game and again this is there is a line drawn we want to play those games we want to give gamers

that option to own these professionally made gorgeous games not games that are just not just

limited No this is a bad thing but just limited to you know low level Indies. Homebrewed the I'm not

dissing those guys that make some great awesome games but we want this is going to be able play

their games but we also want to play the big professionally made triple A Retro blockbusters that are

out there but this you know if you think that only option to play this price was of a very recent thing

though and I'm missing something. Am I mistaken while they were in though there was no discussion

we from that from the time we now Swan eighty there was probably six or eight or nine months

where it was never mentioned again. But I mean that was because you're talking about playing these

big games again about what shall be on the counter. It's not the come sell. Let me interject years of

the the F.P.G.A. the reason the big reason for it was because there are there are a few people out

there of done extremely accurate quarters. OK And you know if you wanted an end television core to

run against run with your game. Those were running on the F.P.G.A. from it's from somebody that

we're working with right now and this person is very meticulous with writing cores and to get that to

happen. The F.P.G.A. needed to happen. This guy has a long list of accurate cores I mean there are

so accurate that they can actually run my quadrant games do the voice correctly and not. I LIKE

HE'S emulated piles of whatever so long as short of it is one of the big reasons I wanted to use

F.P.G.A. as to if we wanted to address these cores we needed this the actual platforms like the

Intellivision there are some really good ones for the Anita and then yeah the other the C. I use is one

doesn't have the that he's either a C sixty far enemy that's yet another G.I. He sixty four. So my

thought was if we can do that right. That's a development path for people that want to do those style

games right now I want to develop new ones so that was it was provided another development path

for people you know like one group was like wow how do I get my and how do I get in and television

game style game. John there I go well we have somebody who's done a very tight in television court.

So you just make your game like it's going to run on television and I still think a point that should be

made when you're talking to adding you know one ship right. Why does it have such a profound

impact on the cost of the Consul right. Well you know you when you deal with. You know something

like a you know a single sixty eight K. sixty five zero two or so for a series logic you tend to talk in

terms of pennies per you know when I see the these I see they have few days. You know I don't know

cycling five it's a fifty dollars chip depending on quantity you know you can bargain price up or down

but when you start talking about one single component bringing fifty dollars rock cost to the

console. That's how you get that big of a price and there's a lot of other costs that are not just the

F.P.G.A. you wouldn't believe it when we actually had to go through this whole thing. There's stuff

that if you had nothing in the box. It's still a lot of money man handed because you've got to

understand we are not taking a bath in the hardware like you know other big companies can do

make it up over time through software and cost reducing their system. We don't have that luxury.

You know these costs are right in our face right now everything from I mean there are so many

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pieces that have to go together. Believe it or not the F.P.G.A. is not big killer in this thing you know

it's all these things added together right. So we have to we're constantly weighing it out. It's been

the most the biggest engineering cost reducing task you know we've had to deal with. I mean you

know when I worked at Apple and I was working on the Apple two we needed a cost reduce or shrink

down was next design on it to. Chips that recall the atom mini right. I didn't have any idea how much

all this stuff was going to cost to reduce down I was just working with our own or the other logic

designer and trying to figure it out but we had no idea. Right. So now you know I have a big idea.

What's going on when it comes. Actually everything from the ground up here. John's had more

experience with the staff over various products but so we're trying to we can't take a loss on this

hardware because it comes right out of our wallets we can't do that you know we're not I'm not that

philanthropic So we need to make something on the hardware so just enough so you know we can do

this whole project then obviously yes we we want to make just enough on software right. But not too

much. I mean I'm looking at this as a developer of the games and I'm developing the hardware with

these guys and so I'm on both sides of the fence I want to keep it as realistic as possible and just

keep it where you know we're not we're not trying to make this giant profit. Whenever whatever

price he finally see on an Indie Go Go. We've cut it as much as we can't. I mean that's the guy's got

to know that out there there's people that are going to fall off and go oh wow that's too much then

that's fine. You got to go and do it but yeah and spirit I mean I stand. We can do to make this

happen. I mean we struggle with this the three of us every single day seven days a week trying to go

OK do we have to really get rid of that part you know so we go under it because people are going to

freak out if it costs over this much to be honest there's people that don't want to pay anything for it

and they just want free stuff. I mean I'm serious. So it's like you know this you know you're going to

feel it when you buy it and then you're going to see that the great stuff that you can play on it and

hopefully as years go on when you're on this thing you're going to go down this was a great

purchase. Yeah and I think we've all we've already refined the design to the point that when you

when you finally see the price and what's going into the box. It's going to be clear to everybody that

this thing is the single best value in gaming. You know when we deliver we deliver better value than

that. Anything that's out there you know we we've got this this complete system. They're great art.

You know that you have these. We've got great technology great concept great design. Well

implemented for a low price and yeah you just get a lot more in the box than you would with with say

you know like a a Raspberry Pi you know that those low cost things out there like you know that they

really make it very difficult for us to compete because everybody sees paid you for thirty five bucks I

can get this pipe board over here and and then we've got to say well yeah but you but you don't get a

power to act like you don't have a case you don't get a controller. It's like by the time you add all

these things up you know you're you're putting some significant money into that investment and you

just you don't get that what will performance. You're going to get with retro beach Yes we're trying

to E.T.F. Channel unique ecosystem. That's what it is we're not right in saying you know I mean the

things where we say it's not like this that or the other we're just saying here's what we want and it

happens to be not like this that or the other you know the fact that you don't have to connect and

access a server all the time I mean that's just what we want. We're not doing it to be different. We're

doing because that's what we want as a gaming community and we don't want updates and all that.

So we're just trying to make the system. I'm trying to make a system that I want is a developer and a

player and that's where we're all coming from and this is what it takes to do that today everybody

out there and it's you know you're going to have to open your wallet or he can't get this thing. And if

we don't have this system it's one less system that's out there and we're going to be relying on all

downloadable content on our glass surfaces are tablets and whatever to play and there's a lot of

great games I'm a sucker for almost two but I do know at one point they're not going to work and it's

a different experience to it. So it's like all these experiences can all happen it's not like you got to go

our way and not play games on this or whatever ascend the other ecosystem we're trying to bring to

the gaming community and the developer community. Because I mean the maker crowd can have a

great time of this. Thank you. Now tell me at P.J. this that yeah there are controls people that are

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doing arcade step I mean I've got a thought of putting this thing inside an arcade box jam a

controller I know it. There's all kinds of great things. This thing can do go out there. Try to find

yourself an F.P.G.A. development system for a low cost compared to what we're doing. I mean it's

not out there you know I think if you compare what we've got under the hood and its potential and

then all the gains that you're going to actually see that people are going to bring that to the system.

I think it's great. I mean talking about all of the games to a lot of people who want to know who's

going to develop for a system the user base is going to say just to kind of close out at the end of the

day all of this you put in as a team and you know previous teams are all really relies on game sales

and sweaty people in the bedroom so I think games to some degree and hopefully offices to some to

great. I don't see is not a sweaty kit. Yet we announced this thing and we've put our website up and

we've made some posts out there like if you're developer or we'd love to start talking with you. Now

we've been approached well over one hundred fifty developers developers are excited about the

potential of having their you might that's why you by going away has now I counted on my desk Well

I got asked about this developers are very excited about this we've talked to you know very small

developers are doing you know Atari eight bit style games we've talked to developers that are

making you know any Ask games and sixteen bit games and we've talked to larger developers we

talked to each other right way forward. You know what they're very excited to bring shot they on

here. You know there's certain big developers there they're made to make their games today that on

this perfectly clubs games you know that perfectly way for games are going to fit perfectly N.-G. dev

team is on board. We'll bring in guns Lord. And the last hoping all it's and you know more from their

catalog of potentially new exclusive games for this thing if it does what we think it's going to do you

know we all see the pores of it will do what we think it's going to do I think the bottom line is we do

have games getting games on it. This is actually turning out to be the least of our warts really yes I

mean there were to have plenty of the games. You know play games to choose from. We've had tons

of games. You know brought in front of us like we'd love to get this game and you know that's going

to be part of you know Steve big job is picking and choosing which games are going to come on to

this system this first initial batch you know we're not getting any explicit on it's really hard to get

exclusives when you're a small company just starting out but you know we have talked with

companies about that possibility that it was like hey if you've got you know if you can show us that

there's a market here we can certainly talk I mean you've got all of these sequels all of these

awesome games were playing at you know there's hundreds of games before us. He brought back

and you know some of these companies try to bring them back on glass and they just don't work you

know some of these companies are starting to kind of bring them back in on the downloadable stores

that's fine and great too but again there's just never been a perfect platform to bring some of these

games back to the sixteen bit era looking games and you know let you know if there's like a new

fantasy star coming out on this and that a three D. No AAA X. Box twelve. You know people want like

a sixteen bit and Star sixty that Final Fantasy people would go nuts for a new game. You know of

that era and yet there has never been a perfect tonsil or do we really hope that this will of lot into

that consulate over time where you know these big developers these big publishers who look at this

and you know we can bring this game back it's a small development team at a low budget we can do

it. What we're going to be all these big AAA came to take this years to make you know who are these

three games that we know people want. And here's a great platform to do it on and we have the

contacts to go to make this happen and we know people so it literally there's this market here that

we're telling everybody here we have inroads to the. Publishers and you know we can get in and talk

with them about this stuff so it really comes down to gamers at this point say and we want this back

we want this culture we want this tangibility back and we want to show the bigger developers that

we're here you know we've been here we want these games and you know hopefully again this is

they get behind us. They buy the system we the grown install user base over the course of time and

these games can start being brought back I mean that's the whole mission. Do you mind if I point out

a collaborative effort of the every single one of us may and why you've shot yourself in the felt

pleased with this thing's going to be around for years. You say So this you're not going to be able to

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make a retro V.T.S. tell you you have no future. All right that I developed games is that true. You

know Mike we're actually not making that error as I've mentioned very early on in our in our

interview here we have some very good expansion capability on this machine. So at Adweek after we

get this extensible machine out there now we're going to be making some little ADD at and yeah and

we're we're going to be adding on this for for quite a long time so you know you buy this console

you're not going to have to buy a retro two in five years. What you've got is is still going to work and

you can really take it any direction you want. That's why you put the U.S. based on I guess not. Not

just U.S.B. there's a lot of expansion capability on this machine but you know going to go into. Is

there anything else that you want to put out that it's all about the so I hope this goes through

because there's a lot of games I want to make or the system not make it what I'm gonna act but I've

been asked to start up kid two million to of course that's hard to get that will be and yet they're in.

It's a guess but you never know you never know. I mean the least with retrofit Yes we there are

possibilities for a lot of these things to happen there's there's possibilities for a lot of expansion. I

mean obviously we don't know five years down the road. What were to be put into this thing but

again part of John's task is the task of building a system that is somewhat expandable about without

having to buy completely random machine is I think it's actually that's really the only not we're not

harnessed into some little pinhole of development. It's very very wide open sort of on the. Well and

thanks a lot. You guys. Yeah Steve for Amanda us. You're welcome. Hope it all works out for us.

Indigo go complain this successful. Thanks. We hope so too and then we'll take it apart and see what

you will talking about I tell you what the other guys I mean before we end I mean we want to put our

backers on the front lines. You know we've been very transparent up to this point for better or for

worse I mean it's gotten us into some trouble but you know at the same time it's been fantastic. I

mean we've learned a lot by keeping this year's Open as we can and it's really been tremendous. I

mean whether you know we had a lot of critical talk about it. We had tons of thing and talk about

you know in learning from everybody has been a great experience and that's what we want to

continue to do you know somewhat through the development of this is kind of keeping someone on

the front Frontline so they can see what this process is and we have to remind everybody we're not

just starting a campaign to start just a by product this campaign is green a company to life that if

you can we hope to be there five ten fifteen twenty years from now bringing tons of entertainment

year after year after year with you know these developers who you know over time. Get used to the

system. You know right when they get used to it lead to all these fantastic things were going to

change the game plan on a last minute they can start to lower that's got a long runway and like the

setters there's lots of opportunities for developers to exploit were given him over the course of time.

Of course we're going in a completely different direction then the industry's going I mean the next

systems that come out are going to separate gamers even further from their games and at least for

those of us who enjoy the retro games we've got another option. You know when you get back to the

way excellent. All right guys. All right thank you very much. Thank you very much for the interview I

saw him. OK man touch man talk you later. Write to cure you guys speak and act like you're

welcome. But the problem is that. My problem. Matthew Mercer working the story. Mr President I

met was not the same sound. Yes Howard so let's make people I see the White House on the Hill.

This is David Crane. This is higher. If I have a right to travel to help take place in the next three days

they're legally obligated let me know there's a little under your friggin idiots. Well you've got it

straight from the horse's mouth and you will have made your mind up by now whether you're going

to back this thing whether you're not going to back this thing on whether you're going to develop a

game for these things. So go check out the show notes page go check out the Indie Go Go. Campaign

and keep your eyes peeled games coming through the system out of Goss. As John pointed out that

fugitive. It means on the system. Once you buy this console you own it and the state of that console

it never changes. It never has to change the games they never need patching It's simple operation

you plug in that cartridge you own it plug it in you press that on button and you're up there playing

within seconds.

17

Here's the machine transcript. Sorry it's not paginated or anything.

[godslabrat]

I'm quite amused, even after all this time, that the Retro VGS crew kept weeping over the current state of gaming and its expendable titles. It's actually a fair observation, but their response is to say "Wouldn't it be terrible if my Genesis games stopped working? We should make a new cartridge system!"

 

Instead of, you know, observing that your Genesis games DO still work, and are a fairly solid platform. I think one of the biggest mistakes made in this project was to envision an entirely new console, rather than embracing one that was already loved by fans. People DO have fond memories of playing Sega Genesis games. No one has fond memories of playing "RVGS" games. This is where their console becomes a solution looking for a problem. You want people to buy into your dream because they don't like modern gaming, but the product you offer doesn't really address their concerns in any meaningful light.

 

Listening to all this, and knowing what we know now, all these guys sound like crooks.