

Gameduino: an Arduino game adapter - forwardslash
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2084212109/gameduino-an-arduino-game-adapter

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Malic
Many more details here: <http://excamera.com/sphinx/gameduino/>

    
    
        * video output is 400x300 pixels in 512 colors
    
            * all color processed internally at 15-bit precision
            * compatible with any standard VGA monitor (800x600 @ 72Hz)
            * background graphics
                  o 512x512 pixel character background
                  o 256 characters, each with independent 4 color palette
                  o pixel-smooth X-Y wraparound scroll
            * foreground graphics
                  o each sprite is 16x16 pixels with per-pixel transparency
                  o each sprite can use 256, 16 or 4 colors
                  o four-way rotate and flip
                  o 96 sprites per scan-line, 1536 texels per line
                  o pixel-perfect sprite collision detection
    
        * audio output is a stereo 12-bit frequency synthesizer
    
            * 16 independent voices 10-4000 Hz
            * per-voice sine wave or white noise

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msarnoff
The Uzebox AVCore (<http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9024>) is arguably a more
impressive technical achievement: sound and color video generated in software
from an overclocked AVR, no FPGA magic, and less than $20 in parts.

Linux Akesson's Craft demo
(<http://www.linusakesson.net/scene/craft/index.php>) also generates VGA
graphics and sound, using only an AVR.

~~~
Malic
I bow to Akesson's superior kung fu.

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zach
Wow, this is really nicely done. This system is a love letter to the best game
consoles of the 80's.

It looks like it would be great for building small-scale interactive museum
exhibits. You want something durable, easy to program, hard to mess with and
self-contained that can output video simply and is able to connect to highly
custom inputs.

I'm a little concerned it might be hard to replace, though, considering the
Gameduino is a custom chip.

Museum exhibits often have very long lives. The legendary Charles and Ray
Eames exhibit for IBM, Mathematica, is now 50 years old but still on display
at the Boston Museum of Science. Okay, not really relevant, but I totally love
that exhibit:

<http://www.designboom.com/eng/funclub/mathematica.html>

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deadsy
There using an fpga for the video chip with public verilog sources - so you
could adapt it to different fpga devices if you had to.

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unwind
Very cool, although not sure if it's unique ... Maybe by being an Arduino add-
on, but there have been other DIY 8-bit consoles (here's one:
[http://www.coolcomponents.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?pro...](http://www.coolcomponents.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=606)).

This was impressively polished, it really shows that the author has been
around a bit. :) I found the lack of any more concrete specifications a bit
annoying, but maybe I just failed at locating information about e.g. what chip
powers the board.

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mesmerized
This does't really seem to take advantage of arduino's niche. Why not just
write games for the PC?

~~~
Malic
Programming "to the metal" is a VERY different experience and one that can be
satisfying much in the same way that baking your own bread (flour, water,
yeast..) can be.

Now the Gameduino abstracts a lot so maybe it's bad comparison; one is not
doing opcode/cycle counting to time refresh rates of NTSC signals!

However, if you WANT to do something like that...
<http://nootropicdesign.com/hackvision/>

~~~
jamesbowman
Gameduino does have an on board coprocessor for that kind of in-the-video-loop
work. Sample "beam chaser" that does a split-screen scroll:

[http://excamera.com/sphinx/gameduino/samples/splitscreen/ind...](http://excamera.com/sphinx/gameduino/samples/splitscreen/index.html)

