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Kazeta: An operating system that brings the console gaming experience of 90s

kazeta.org

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Re: Kazeta: An operating system that brings the console gaming experience of 90s

#81

Post by Yokolos »

vunderba wrote: post #15

Neat concept. I had to dig through a lot of the docs before I could get a good grasp of exactly how this works, though. It's an OS that mounts/searches all drives (such as an SD card reader) for the first available KZI file which is a format that describes how a specific game is run (the runtime, additional gamescope options, etc). While the idea of essentially mimicking old school carts by having a dedicated SD card…

I've imitated something like this for my Steam Deck by just keeping a bunch of games on sdcard and switching them out when I want to play something else. Sure, it's technically a complete waste of time and I don't suggest you do or anybody else do it. But I have fun doing it and that's all that matters in this case that has no effect on anybody else.

I find it odd when people on Hacker News say "but why?" Because I can, dude, and it makes me happy.

On that note, this project sounds awesome to me.

Re: Kazeta: An operating system that brings the console gaming experience of 90s

#82

Post by grugagag »

jnaina wrote: post #76
cout wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it still possible to buy smaller SD cards in bulk, maybe 8mb or 16mb? The smallest I could find was 128mb for about the same price as a 2gb card. While I like the idea of physically separate cards for each game, at $10 per card it seems economically limiting.

<$3 bucks for 16GB on AliExpress

Still feels like a waste to put 4mb game on it

Re: Kazeta: An operating system that brings the console gaming experience of 90s

#84

Post by ndriscoll »

ofrzeta wrote: post #65

I am currently working on something like this for audio, basically just like a MP3 player with full size SD cards that plays automatically when you insert them (for kids). It's actually quite hard to find full size SD cards these days and when you do they are comparatively expensive (opposed to current micro SD cards). Also I wanted to have low capacity like 128MB, so the concept "one album, one card" (as in the OP -…

It's probabably more sensible to have a drive for your full music collection and then use an NFC reader + cards to trigger an album. I see you can get 100 NFC cards for $22 on amazon right now. I saw some German blogs about doing this a few years back.

Re: Kazeta: An operating system that brings the console gaming experience of 90s

#85

Post by Saline9515 »

vunderba wrote: post #15

Neat concept. I had to dig through a lot of the docs before I could get a good grasp of exactly how this works, though. It's an OS that mounts/searches all drives (such as an SD card reader) for the first available KZI file which is a format that describes how a specific game is run (the runtime, additional gamescope options, etc). While the idea of essentially mimicking old school carts by having a dedicated SD card…

It's nice if you have kids in a no-tv house and want to allow them to experience retro-gaming while being able to control what is played, and how. Scarcity has it virtues, too.

Re: Kazeta: An operating system that brings the console gaming experience of 90s

#86

Post by unixhero »

Saline9515 wrote: post #85
vunderba wrote: post #15

Neat concept. I had to dig through a lot of the docs before I could get a good grasp of exactly how this works, though. It's an OS that mounts/searches all drives (such as an SD card reader) for the first available KZI file which is a format that describes how a specific game is run (the runtime, additional gamescope options, etc). While the idea of essentially mimicking old school carts by having a dedicated SD card…

It's nice if you have kids in a no-tv house and want to allow them to experience retro-gaming while being able to control what is played, and how. Scarcity has it virtues, too.

>Scarcity has it virtues, too.

I would even wager to say; Without it, we're doomed.

Re: Kazeta: An operating system that brings the console gaming experience of 90s

#87

Post by Timpy »

ofrzeta wrote: post #65

I am currently working on something like this for audio, basically just like a MP3 player with full size SD cards that plays automatically when you insert them (for kids). It's actually quite hard to find full size SD cards these days and when you do they are comparatively expensive (opposed to current micro SD cards). Also I wanted to have low capacity like 128MB, so the concept "one album, one card" (as in the OP -…

This is something I want to see in the world. Do you have a public repo? I'm currently doing third party application development for the Yoto, and I've done a lot of hacking on MP3s. If you're open source I'd be interested in helping, or at the very least chatting about the project.

Re: Kazeta: An operating system that brings the console gaming experience of 90s

#88

Post by ofrzeta »

ndriscoll wrote: post #84
ofrzeta wrote: post #65

I am currently working on something like this for audio, basically just like a MP3 player with full size SD cards that plays automatically when you insert them (for kids). It's actually quite hard to find full size SD cards these days and when you do they are comparatively expensive (opposed to current micro SD cards). Also I wanted to have low capacity like 128MB, so the concept "one album, one card" (as in the OP -…

It's probabably more sensible to have a drive for your full music collection and then use an NFC reader + cards to trigger an album. I see you can get 100 NFC cards for $22 on amazon right now. I saw some German blogs about doing this a few years back.

You are right that this is probably the more reasonable thing to do. I was just thinking that 1) I want to use full-size cards for better haptic and 2) have the actual data stored on the media. For instance when you are in the car with your playback box and the SD card you can listen without a network connection. But I concede that I am stubborn and this will probably be a dead end :)

Re: Kazeta: An operating system that brings the console gaming experience of 90s

#89

Post by ofrzeta »

Timpy wrote: post #87
ofrzeta wrote: post #65

I am currently working on something like this for audio, basically just like a MP3 player with full size SD cards that plays automatically when you insert them (for kids). It's actually quite hard to find full size SD cards these days and when you do they are comparatively expensive (opposed to current micro SD cards). Also I wanted to have low capacity like 128MB, so the concept "one album, one card" (as in the OP -…

This is something I want to see in the world. Do you have a public repo? I'm currently doing third party application development for the Yoto, and I've done a lot of hacking on MP3s. If you're open source I'd be interested in helping, or at the very least chatting about the project.

Eventually I will write a blog post. The software is actually not much, just some basic Arduino stuff. I am using an ESP32, a full size SD card board and a VS1053 board (both connected via SPI). The software is currently just trying to read from the SD card in a loop and when it can it just plays the MP3 files in order. Other things that are not connected to software is a Li-Ion battery, charger circuit, step-up converter, LM386 based amplifier circuit and a speaker :)

Re: Kazeta: An operating system that brings the console gaming experience of 90s

#90

Post by ofrzeta »

cout wrote: post #51
vanderZwan wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's an OS that mounts/searches all drives (such as an SD card reader) for the first available KZI file which is a format that describes how a specific game is run (the runtime, additional gamescope options, etc). I hope it also supports putting multiple games on one cartridge and choosing between them at boot time? Don't see a reason to waste a multi-gigabyte SD card on a single ROM of a few megabytes.

Is it still possible to buy smaller SD cards in bulk, maybe 8mb or 16mb? The smallest I could find was 128mb for about the same price as a 2gb card. While I like the idea of physically separate cards for each game, at $10 per card it seems economically limiting.

The smallest I could find was 128MB (see adjacent thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45101932) on Aliexpress but you are right, they are comparatively expensive. A source for those obsolete cards would be great. Have they all been shredded by now? Or is there a forgotten shipping container somewhere? :)
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