Thanks for sharing. This looks awesome! Post likes this are the reason I follow Hacker News.
Show HN: A retro video game console I've been working on in my free time
81–90 of 214 posts
Re: Show HN: A retro video game console I've been working on in my free time
#82I think this should give everyone the motivation to continue working on side projects till they are finished.
Re: Show HN: A retro video game console I've been working on in my free time
#83This is the coolest thing I've seen posted on HN in years, very cool work. I've been playing with Atari 2600 programming on and off for the past few years and it is so fun programming directly against the specific hardware. I can't help but occasionally wonder if I could piece together a similar system, but I have 0 experience with electronics. I can only imagine how satisfying it must be to actually pull it off.
Thanks a lot :) It really is super satisfying to get this far, I still turn it on sometimes just to check if it really works. And I also had zero experience with electronics (and I still don't know as much as I should...), so yeah I think you could piece together something like this. :)
> I still turn it on sometimes just to check if it really works.
I know that feeling ;)
Re: Show HN: A retro video game console I've been working on in my free time
#84One word, awesome.
Re: Show HN: A retro video game console I've been working on in my free time
#85Very cool project, I just wish the images on the website weren't many megabytes a piece. They can't even all load on my slow internet connection without timing out. It's unfortunate how often people share files directly from their camera without first compressing and resizing them appropriately these days.
Thanks :)
And yeah you're right...my bad...
(EDIT) It should be a bit better now, thanks for the warning
Re: Show HN: A retro video game console I've been working on in my free time
#86Nice job! Are you going to do more designs in the future? Maybe Verilog/VHDL based?
Thanks :) Yeah, I already have another ongoing project based on a cheap FPGA board with a Cyclone II (quite old but it does the job), the idea is to keep it cheaper and much less complex. The FPGA has a Z80 implementation, video, sound and handle the game controllers. An external Atmega328 is used to handle the SD Card and then just RAM, an ICs for composite video and an op-amp. I also have some ideas for a better co…
Have you seen Project IceStorm? I don't know if ICE40 FPGAs would be good fit here, but they could definitely be more hobbyist friendly.
Re: Show HN: A retro video game console I've been working on in my free time
#87It's interesting how this kind of project has come into the realm of possibility of an individual's pet project (a smart individual, sure, but not a company). I guess that the availability of information and materials through the internet has helped a lot. And also more people have knowledge in electronics and programming. Great job, Sérgio. É muito giro.
Interestingly enough, looking at the HW, there is not much there that wouldn't have been feasible for hobbyist a decade ago. But of course the community and information has absolutely exploded during that period
Re: Show HN: A retro video game console I've been working on in my free time
#88This is fantastic
Re: Show HN: A retro video game console I've been working on in my free time
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Z80 rules! Thanks :)
I love that there is a group of people who still love the Z80! Such a beautifully designed chip.
I was doing a little bit of Z80 work a while back, but I didn't particularly seem to appreciate its design (compared to say MIPS). Why do you think it's beautifully designed?
Re: Show HN: A retro video game console I've been working on in my free time
#90As much as I enjoy quickly building circuits on a breadboard like in many of the photos, they’re hell to debug, because there’s so much that can go subtly wrong. It’s much easier with digital than analog circuits, of course, but it still can be crazy hard to logic-probe every connection to get it all to work. I have spent far too much time fixing little bugs in breadboarded circuits. The toughest issue I encountered…
When I was a lad, wirewrap was the thing. You can prototype quickly, and make changes easily too. (It seems like it's still a thing in fact http://www.nutsvolts.com/magazine/article/wire_wrap_is_alive... )
For those interested in working with wire wrap: ebay/aliexpress/whatnot all sell old-new-stock wire wrap wire and the manual wrapping tools. Wire wrap works perfectly on standard headers, but the extra-long headers you sometimes see on arduino shields and such give you a couple more connections per pin: 5 vs 3 if I recall correctly.
It's a really nice way to work, you solder your components onto one of those pcbs with a lot of holes, solder the pins next to em, and from that point on you can wire, unwire, and rewire to your hearts content. Its great to easily be able to undo a connection when you make a mistake.