microcat - The ultimative ARM based handheld game console

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microcat - The ultimative ARM based handheld game console

Postby Muessigb » Tue Oct 20, 2015 6:29 pm

I really enjoy the Gamebuino, but it has some issues and limitations. Also I always wanted to create, sell and build something myself, so adekto, I and a few others came together and started creating the microcat game console.

It will have many new functions that the Gamebuino doesn't have:
- Loading and executing binary code from SD without reflashing (we do a Lua based firmware and eventually a C based one that allows loading binaries that are linked to the library stored in flash).
- Wireless capabilites (we have WiFi).
- a faster processor (ARMv7 running at up to 120MHz).
- more external IO (the GB has none, we try to break out as much unused IO as possible - 10 or more pins).
- Better display! (the display of the Gamebuino is the worst display I ever used - we have a color OLED).
- More RAM and storage (we have 128KB RAM and 512 KB Flash though the flash is not holding any games).
- More buttons and more digital controls (we have a soft power button, 4 action buttons, 1 menu button, 4 directional buttons and we control the volume using an amplifier with digital volume control).
- USB 2.0 full speed, host and slave mode (allowing memory sticks, keyboards and game controllers).
- and some more features

BUT:
- the Gamebuino has a great community and good games already. We don't want to bring any people over and we really love rodot's awsome console and both bought one and made games for them.
- our console is significantly more expensive (currently 45 EUR for a bare console and 60 EUR for a full starter kit).

We don't want to annoy anybody, but want to present you our new project and we are open for all feedback :)

You can track the progress here if you want:
- https://codewalr.us/index.php?board=40.0
- http://microcat.ninja/
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Re: microcat - The ultimative ARM based handheld game consol

Postby Quirby64 » Fri Oct 23, 2015 3:16 am

I admit this sounds pretty cool. :) I'll probably make a games ideas thread for this thing too one of these days, color seems like both a challenge due to the smaller resolution but also something good.
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Re: microcat - The ultimative ARM based handheld game consol

Postby erico » Fri Oct 23, 2015 1:59 pm

Hello Muessigb, you won´t annoy anyone, it is a cool project, keep us informed on how it goes.
To design and mass produce hardware is always a tough adventure, and a very interesting one. I have followed many in my lifetime, pandora, pyra, gcw, etc.

There isen´t much critic I could share at this moment but that you keep a close look at:

-Price. It is always good to keep it at a very affordable level so to reach many people. 60E at todays rate here at my place means 260 bananas (i live in brazil), If I have to pay duties, it will be ~400 bananas and that is all without shipping. This value, thanks to the economy and huge conversion rate of lately, means about half of my rent, therefore it is money I may think twice before spending. But don´t take my case as example, I´ve heard canadians and other people are also having some problems with the conversions.

-Software. This is one of the most important points (tell that to my atari lynx) and here gamebuino rocked by focusing on a community and dev tools (libs etc) from day 0.

Anyways, good luck with it and again, keep us informed.
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Re: microcat - The ultimative ARM based handheld game consol

Postby mougino » Sat Oct 24, 2015 2:44 am

Looks great on the paper!
Small request, sorry: I read these forums on my smartphone, I clicked on your link http://microcat.ninja but it isn't suited for a phone, the zoom is wrong and if I unzoom the text becomes too small to read.

Thanks!
Nicolas
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Re: microcat - The ultimative ARM based handheld game consol

Postby Risike » Tue Nov 03, 2015 11:47 am

I'm working on a prototype of a gamebuino/arduboy style micro console, with oled screen and powered by an ATMega2560 (more flash, more SRAM, more EEPROM, faster). All is working on a protoboard. I'm writing the library, it's not difficult.
But now, I must draw the board and stop using my Arduino Mega. And I must create a prototype. And it's very difficult...
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Re: microcat - The ultimative ARM based handheld game consol

Postby Muessigb » Thu Nov 12, 2015 10:44 pm

Quirby64 wrote:I admit this sounds pretty cool. :) I'll probably make a games ideas thread for this thing too one of these days, color seems like both a challenge due to the smaller resolution but also something good.

Well color primarily was a challenge due to small RAM, but we decided to go for a special way of palettes. There are 217 predefined colors and 39 colors that can be choosen freely at runtime. The table is here: http://docs.ninjabyte.eu/microcat/global_palette.html

erico wrote:Hello Muessigb, you won´t annoy anyone, it is a cool project, keep us informed on how it goes.
To design and mass produce hardware is always a tough adventure, and a very interesting one. I have followed many in my lifetime, pandora, pyra, gcw, etc.

There isen´t much critic I could share at this moment but that you keep a close look at:

-Price. It is always good to keep it at a very affordable level so to reach many people. 60E at todays rate here at my place means 260 bananas (i live in brazil), If I have to pay duties, it will be ~400 bananas and that is all without shipping. This value, thanks to the economy and huge conversion rate of lately, means about half of my rent, therefore it is money I may think twice before spending. But don´t take my case as example, I´ve heard canadians and other people are also having some problems with the conversions.

-Software. This is one of the most important points (tell that to my atari lynx) and here gamebuino rocked by focusing on a community and dev tools (libs etc) from day 0.

Anyways, good luck with it and again, keep us informed.

Thanks :)
I always wanted to build something like this and I am happy to be able to experience the development and mass production myself.
About the price, as far as I can say, we don't think that we will sell that many consoles. 50 is the ultimative minimum without us making a >>big<< loss. If we sell 100 consoles the price would drop to about 40 euros, but then we need more capabilities to produce them, so we will probably end up staying at 50 euros. At 500 sold consoles, one would just be about 30 euros, but with manufacturing, its more again. Also I don't really think that we will end up selling that many.
About the software, we are developing our own graphics library, OS, a compiler and VM based language, and a runtime for C games.

mougino wrote:Looks great on the paper!
Small request, sorry: I read these forums on my smartphone, I clicked on your link http://microcat.ninja but it isn't suited for a phone, the zoom is wrong and if I unzoom the text becomes too small to read.

Thanks!
Nicolas

Sure I will look into making a more responsive mobile design soon.

Btw, here's a video I made recently showing the hardware prototype to slowly boot a 6502 emulator. The reason why it's so slow is that the display is connected via SPI and that the screen redraws for every 6502 character.
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