It's not really "retro" if you've been building it in $current-year.
/pedant
Show HN: A retro video game console I've been working on in my free time
131–140 of 214 posts
Re: Show HN: A retro video game console I've been working on in my free time
#132Very impressive. My first thought is, why? Just use a Pi with Retro-pi. However, you wanted to be down at the metal. That's quite a challenge, particularly when you work alone. I'm always impressed when someone is skilled at both hardware and software to make a finished product. It's Woz-like. Very impressive work.
The same reason people run a marathon instead of just driving the route.
Re: Show HN: A retro video game console I've been working on in my free time
#133As 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…
I totally agree. The reason I stuck to DIP ICs was because I could fit them into breadboards and I thought that was easier than any alternative. I was incredibly lucky on how all the breadboards were functional. And there were a few times where I would accidentally disconnect a wire and spend the next 2 hours trying to figure out what was wrong. All this without having a logic analyser and not even an oscilloscope un…
FYI: saelae makes an affordable logic probe. chinese clones are available for ~$10 and usually work with saelae's official software or with sigrok. a logic analyzer is really a game-changing tool.
Re: Show HN: A retro video game console I've been working on in my free time
#134You should talk to the 8bits guy, he's on the process of creating his own dream 8 bits machine, and it looks like you've beaten him :)
Re: Show HN: A retro video game console I've been working on in my free time
#135Shine on, dude, shine on. Inspiring! I love the fact that you've been working on this for a long time, yet 60 seconds ago I was completely unaware of it. What other amazing things are amazing people working on out there?
Re: Show HN: A retro video game console I've been working on in my free time
#136I was expecting to see an article about yet another retro pi but I’m seriously impressed by this. Not only is the hardware really cool but your tooling and software setup is equally impressive. Great job.
Re: Show HN: A retro video game console I've been working on in my free time
#137If you wrote a book explaining how to do this, teaching the concepts, etc... I think a lot of people (or at least me) would be very interested!!! Great job
Thanks :) I've kept this project to myself and would only describe it occasionally to some coworkers and friends. I never thought that many people would find it cool. And always thought that people with more knowledge than me would find a lot of flaws. So it's really awesome to read yours and all the other comments. :) I don't think I could write a book, but I have though in writing other posts, giving more detail in…
Well, I'm glad the response has been so positive! And I'm always afraid of that too, but getting something done and out there is better than not doing anything. Plus, I think most people are supportive, and if there is any constructive feedback, hopefully it's coming from a place of just wanting to help rather than tear down.
I think most people are just amazed at what you accomplished :) I am!
Please consider writing a book or blog posts or at least something! But if you don't I totally understand, don't feel bad about not doing something requested, or anything else either. It's your life and your project :D
We are here just to support you and say thanks for inspiring us!
Re: Show HN: A retro video game console I've been working on in my free time
#138This 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. :)
Just ordered Make: Electronics and a cheap electronics starter kit with a breadboard and some basic components. Thanks for the inspiration.
Re: Show HN: A retro video game console I've been working on in my free time
#139Shine on, dude, shine on. Inspiring! I love the fact that you've been working on this for a long time, yet 60 seconds ago I was completely unaware of it. What other amazing things are amazing people working on out there?
Amazing how the world keeps going even when you're not paying attention huh?
Re: Show HN: A retro video game console I've been working on in my free time
#140You should talk to the 8bits guy, he's on the process of creating his own dream 8 bits machine, and it looks like you've beaten him :)
I agree! I was just watching one of his videos the other day on creating a brand new 8-bit computer and I think he would be super interested in your work.