microcat - The ultimative ARM based handheld game console

[p4nix]

Well, I think the current setup is very good hardware-side, except some problems with multiple voltage converters and stuff. In my opinion it should be programmable in every imaginable way - and should be as open as required to ensure people being able to hack some things. Also, people should be able to post their programs at one single point - preferable also a kind of 'App Store' on the device itself, since this would make the device also suitable for non-tech-related guys. It would be cool if it also comes with a kind of game-maker (maybe just Lua though) so that anyone can make great stuff. The firmware should definitely include a tilepainter and stuff - maybe it should even have access to an online sprite-database and sound-database. But for myself I'm fine with C

[DarkestEx]

Well, I think the current setup is very good hardware-side, except some problems with multiple voltage converters and stuff. In my opinion it should be programmable in every imaginable way - and should be as open as required to ensure people being able to hack some things. Also, people should be able to post their programs at one single point - preferable also a kind of 'App Store' on the device itself, since this would make the device also suitable for non-tech-related guys. It would be cool if it also comes with a kind of game-maker (maybe just Lua though) so that anyone can make great stuff. The firmware should definitely include a tilepainter and stuff - maybe it should even have access to an online sprite-database and sound-database. But for myself I'm fine with C [emoji14]

The new BIOS will make it highly hackable. It will allow many new cool features and will drastically ease the development of custom ROMs.
The BIOS will abstract the C code away from the hardware while still maintaining powerful and hardware near development.
Using the BIOS people can load new firmware to the WiFi SOC and the processor. And they can dump firmware that allows to be dumped (will provide flags or certificates).
We also want to provide a powerful framework to develop custom ROMs.

And yes, we are planning some sort of app and graphics and music download service.

And of course will people be able to make games right on the device.

[DarkestEx]

@c4ooo even though that it is not yet done, here is the current block diagram, as I have holidays now and will be away for the next two days.

[Dream of Omnimaga]

I don't know what many people want who are interested in the project. If anybody wants some features, please go and request them. I really appreciate any feedback, especially regarding the programming language. The worst that can happen is that it might not fit into the remaining space (for BIOS and Lua firmware releated wishes) or that I ask you to program it yourself.

Dual-booting or easy switching between firmwares. Or perhaps a Lua<>C mode that lets you reboot quickly into the other firmware back and forth? That way we can run both C and Lua games without having to reinstall another firmware over and over.

Perhaps there could be some libraries or routines for people who wants to quickly write games? But that would probably be only if there is enough space and if it doesn't make games less portable.



I would be ok with hosting games, as long as they aren't too large (eg with the audio and stuff, since CW only has 30 GB of disk space). You could otherwise add a download page on your site and stuff and it could be linked to via an extra sub-forum here and the games could also be included in CW downloads section (linking to original download).

[adekto]

im not sure abotu dual booting, if you want both c an lua and basic fermware on it its going to have to be its own special single version that can do all of these
i  think we need to focus on one version of the fermwere for now, branching out now woul lead to incompatibilaty and instabilaty

[Dream of Omnimaga]

Yeah, my worry is that DarkestEx said that the Lua firmware would only run Lua games and the C one would only run C games at first, and I feared it would be permanent. That would have caused issues because then we would need to make our games in both languages and the Microcat user reviews would probably suffer as a result of having two separate firmwares.

But yeah focus should be on one firmware IMHO for the time being. I'm glad that it's slowly coming along.

[DarkestEx]

I don't know what many people want who are interested in the project. If anybody wants some features, please go and request them. I really appreciate any feedback, especially regarding the programming language. The worst that can happen is that it might not fit into the remaining space (for BIOS and Lua firmware releated wishes) or that I ask you to program it yourself.

Dual-booting or easy switching between firmwares. Or perhaps a Lua<>C mode that lets you reboot quickly into the other firmware back and forth? That way we can run both C and Lua games without having to reinstall another firmware over and over.

Perhaps there could be some libraries or routines for people who wants to quickly write games? But that would probably be only if there is enough space and if it doesn't make games less portable.



I would be ok with hosting games, as long as they aren't too large (eg with the audio and stuff, since CW only has 30 GB of disk space). You could otherwise add a download page on your site and stuff and it could be linked to via an extra sub-forum here and the games could also be included in CW downloads section (linking to original download).

Well the BIOS will indeed support that. Lua is its own firmware (and the default one) and C games are just Games wrapped as firmware updates replacing the Lua / Basic firmware while you are playing them. They can make use of the many BIOS support functions to get started quickly.

Also thank you for offering to host them here. I'd really like that. Games can't be that big and the new audio format is really tiny compared to what we started with.

Yeah, my worry is that DarkestEx said that the Lua firmware would only run Lua games and the C one would only run C games at first, and I feared it would be permanent. That would have caused issues because then we would need to make our games in both languages and the Microcat user reviews would probably suffer as a result of having two separate firmwares.

But yeah focus should be on one firmware IMHO for the time being. I'm glad that it's slowly coming along.

And kinda yes. The Lua firmware will only run Lua and potentially BASIC games. There is no real c firmware as I said as c games are really just temporary firmware updates.

[Dream of Omnimaga]

Oh wait, that could be an idea as well for C games. As for audio I was worried since you once said it used real music, but compressed. If you take one of my 4 minutes long song, how large would it be if converted to your format and what would be the quality like?

[DarkestEx]

Oh wait, that could be an idea as well for C games. As for audio I was worried since you once said it used real music, but compressed. If you take one of my 4 minutes long song, how large would it be if converted to your format and what would be the quality like?

It really depends on the sample rate. How many tunes per second is your song approximately?

[Dream of Omnimaga]

Do you mean BPM? Because it depends of the song. One Axe to Save us All is around 195 BPM I think. If you mean bitrate/sampling rate then it's 44.1 Khz uncompressed.

[DarkestEx]

Do you mean BPM? Because it depends of the song. One Axe to Save us All is around 195 BPM I think. If you mean bitrate/sampling rate then it's 44.1 Khz uncompressed.

What format is the song in? Wav, mp3 or some custom format?

[Dream of Omnimaga]

The bandcamp versions were uploaded in WAV format. You can download them (if you pay $0.00 in the Buy field) in any format including FLAC and 320 kbps MP3, though.

Otherwise, most of my old songs were originally in 128 kbps MP3.

[bb010g]

Preliminary specifications:
- ARMv7 Core @ 120 MHz
- 128 KB builtin RAM

Ok, why the extreme dirge of RAM? How much of a problem can 128 MB be? What do you expect to do with 128 KB? Why did you even consider a VM on that?

[DarkestEx]

Preliminary specifications:
- ARMv7 Core @ 120 MHz
- 128 KB builtin RAM

Ok, why the extreme dirge of RAM? How much of a problem can 128 MB be? What do you expect to do with 128 KB? Why did you even consider a VM on that?

We can't have more RAM as we already went for one specific processor. 128 MB RAM is absolutely impossible. The 100 pin version of the chip does support external RAM of up to 32 MB though SRAM is quite pricy and it wouldn't be worth it.
Also this is not intended to be another Linux running console that can do everything. A little limitation tends to make more creative
I expect great and awesome games from you all. You managed it to do awesome things with the bug riddled TI-OS and TI Basic and just 80KB of total RAM so 128KB can't be that much of a limitation. Though I have to say, as the display is color the sprites are larger in size, but that's why we support 4 different types of sprites that have a different amount of supported colors but can be mixed freely and still give a lot of room for creativity.
Implementing a VM is not consuming much RAM at all. I assume that the consumption of the VM is just a few hundred bytes of RAM and it does barely change with the number of variables created. Our custom programming language that can be compiled on the device is very tiny and consumes almost no RAM at all. We will also provide a C SDK so that games can be developed using that one too, but as C games itself need to be loaded into RAM, you can't make them unlimited in size opposed to the VM language which has unlimited program sizes as it streams from SD through a pipeline or similar technique.

[Dream of Omnimaga]

I made First Fantasy in less than 128 KB of RAM on the CSE. Granted, this excludes the routines, but I am fairly sure that a lot can be done with such low amount of RAM, considering what old calcs can do.