Making a new game console (yes really)
- Thread starter SpamYouToDeath
- Start date
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2003
- Posts
- 4,859
This looks interesting. Have you considered down the road giving developers a way to order labels, cases, and inserts to distribute games?
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2005
- Posts
- 6,193
Yeah, I'm checking out the options now. I'm imagining something the size of a CD case, but with a foam cut-out for the SD card inside. That should be simple enough to get done cheap. Printed SD card labels are already a cheap item you can buy from AliExpress.
The cards themselves could just be off-the-shelf SD cards at first - it's a standard feature of an SD card, that you can switch it permanently read-only. (Making a card partially-read-only is a huge pain in the ass and companies charge a $30-$40 premium per card for it. That's why the Neki32 console has separate savegame memory instead.)
Fancy copy-protected cards are going to take some work. I'm confident that I can write the firmware for it, but getting it physically into a card could be difficult. The first model might look like a Turbo EverDrive, all piled on a circuit board. (I did consider making a separate cartridge form-factor, to make this part easier. But then I'd need to develop the physical cases for the carts, as well as the slot and connector on the console, and would lose the economy-of-scale of SD cards.)
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2003
- Posts
- 8,217
Yeah same, really insane but cool project
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2005
- Posts
- 6,193
Got the first batch of devkits all put together and tested.
Upcoming work will probably focus on supporting Microsoft Visual Studio (as lots of game devs use it) and Python/PyGame.
Upcoming work will probably focus on supporting Microsoft Visual Studio (as lots of game devs use it) and Python/PyGame.
- Joined
- Jun 2, 2006
- Posts
- 6,260
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2005
- Posts
- 6,193
Haven't had much more time to work on this recently.
For those curious, here's how Quake runs on an ARM processor with no floating-point unit...
For those curious, here's how Quake runs on an ARM processor with no floating-point unit...
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2003
- Posts
- 8,217
Now I want a whole console dedicated to retro FPSs lol
Honestly, I think the audience for this console is going to be the sort of user that appreciates and respects this for what it is, and is generally unlikely to engage in any large-scale pirating. And at the end of the day, one or two people working on protection will never out-smart a potentially large team of experienced hackers. Even the big players can't get it right...
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2005
- Posts
- 6,193
Thanks for the orders! I'm probably the first company exporting with this tariff-code from Australia. I wonder if I'll show up on the government stats.
Yeah, anti-piracy isn't high on my list right now. I've set things up so a game could implement it: the game can read exactly the sectors it wants from the SD card, in exactly the order it wants. The OS doesn't cache or reorder the reads - that happens in libc inside the game process. So, in theory, there could be anything going on inside that game card, interacting with the program on the console. It can happen later without breaking compatibility.
I've been working on a port of SDL3 at the moment (and, indirectly, SDL2 and SDL1.2). Its software-rendering code runs reasonably fast.
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2005
- Posts
- 6,193
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2003
- Posts
- 8,217
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2005
- Posts
- 24,772
Vying for the job of PR merchant aye buddy
- Joined
- Feb 7, 2002
- Posts
- 8,220
No.
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2004
- Posts
- 6,240
Because we all need more shitty 3d printed shells that dont fit together properly.
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2001
- Posts
- 13,023
Don't forget the battery holsters. God forbid someone tosses them in a kitchen drawer like a normal person.
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2005
- Posts
- 6,193
I have some other commitments recently that need my time, but I'm still at this occasionally.
Hitting the SDK soon - an instruction-level simulator that can run a Neki32 game and connect to a debugger, all in software. It's crazy slow but accurate so far; I've been comparing traces of the real ARM CPU with my implementation and making sure things are exact every cycle.
The "consumer version" console is going to be quite similar to the devkit, but with a faster CPU - I found an Allwinner chip with an ARM926 that fits the bill. It can be clocked up to 700MHz according to some reports, and should do 576MHz reliably. The hardware is a bit on hold, as I don't have time to run around and talk to plastics companies. I do want a "real" case for it...
Hitting the SDK soon - an instruction-level simulator that can run a Neki32 game and connect to a debugger, all in software. It's crazy slow but accurate so far; I've been comparing traces of the real ARM CPU with my implementation and making sure things are exact every cycle.
The "consumer version" console is going to be quite similar to the devkit, but with a faster CPU - I found an Allwinner chip with an ARM926 that fits the bill. It can be clocked up to 700MHz according to some reports, and should do 576MHz reliably. The hardware is a bit on hold, as I don't have time to run around and talk to plastics companies. I do want a "real" case for it...
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2005
- Posts
- 6,193
Big update to the SDK - I'm including a complete static-linked toolchain now. This doesn't make much difference on Linux or FreeBSD, where developers likely have gcc and friends already. On Windows, though, it means the tools work out-of-the-box. On a clean Windows 10 system, for example, you only need 7zip (to unzip the SDK), nothing else. From there on, everything is included - the examples build their ISO images from source without having to install Cygwin/Msys/MSVC++/whatever. I guess a developer also needs something to write the image to an SD card. Maybe that's something I can whip up, too.
http://nekisoft.com.au/neki32/sdk/pvmk-sdk-20250627.7z
Haven't packaged up the simulator yet - getting an independent, static version of wxWidgets is a pain in the ass. It builds okay on Windows, FreeBSD, and Linux, but doesn't make a portable file yet.
Also moving ahead with the plastic cases: I did a design that should work with a simple straight-pull mould. I'm waiting on some 3d-printed samples from plastics companies here in Perth.
http://nekisoft.com.au/neki32/sdk/pvmk-sdk-20250627.7z
Haven't packaged up the simulator yet - getting an independent, static version of wxWidgets is a pain in the ass. It builds okay on Windows, FreeBSD, and Linux, but doesn't make a portable file yet.
Also moving ahead with the plastic cases: I did a design that should work with a simple straight-pull mould. I'm waiting on some 3d-printed samples from plastics companies here in Perth.
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2005
- Posts
- 6,193
I'm moving towards low-volume production of the plastic shells with (probably) polyurethane.
Here's what a consumer-version board looks like, test-fitted in a PLA print of the case:
(There's no power light because the final version will be translucent and the whole thing will glow.)
Here's what a consumer-version board looks like, test-fitted in a PLA print of the case:
(There's no power light because the final version will be translucent and the whole thing will glow.)
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2005
- Posts
- 6,193
I'm getting the materials together to start making the consumer consoles. One last feature made it in though - special editions! 32KB in the system ROM is reserved for a little extra graphic when the machine boots. Like so:
It's really only visible if there's no game inserted, as otherwise the game boots faster than you can see it.
It's really only visible if there's no game inserted, as otherwise the game boots faster than you can see it.
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2003
- Posts
- 8,217
lol shelfqueen
- Joined
- Jun 8, 2012
- Posts
- 496
So im a little confused. Isnt this kinda like exactly what a evercade is?
Is this running a software renderer ? I dont know shit about arm Im mean im assuming they've got some sort of built in gpu but is that in the actual cpu or is that just on the mobo chip set?
Last edited: