I used P11 so it would take a block of pins (p11 - p15), but P11 is assigned to one of the demoboard audio channels and programs written for the demoboard work just fine. I put the NES controllers at 23..26 so you can just add a '2' in front of hydra pin assignments to convert it (3 becomes 23, 4 becomes 24, etc).
I didn't include PS/2 because it would make the board bigger and more expensive. It is bit of positioning, too - I want El Jugador to be perceived as a console, not as a PC. I will make a PS/2 module for the Propeller Platform, though - and you'll be able to add that under the Prop Platform to have PS/2 (with El Jugador on top).
If El Jugador sells, I'll probably do a Rev. B that includes stereo audio. If people are asking for keyboard / mouse, I might add that, too.
Spanish trivia: El Jugador also translates to 'The Gambler'.
Nick, No worries, it's about time I got around to releasing the SDBoot source. [noparse]:D[/noparse]
Also, although having a keyboard and mouse is a great addition to any board, I guess it'll remove the temptation to use a cog in order to add keyboard usage, freeing it up for graphics/audio, not forgetting the saving in hub-ram space [noparse]:)[/noparse]
@Baggers,
Good point about freeing up a cog/hub ram for keyboard usage [noparse];)[/noparse] Had not thought in those terms.
Sounds like the SDBoot will work great for the board.
@Nick,
Are you planning on having a set of pre-configured (for the board) binaries in a .zip format on the site, or are you planning on pointing the user to the Hydra sub-forum? If they are having to configure their own binaries you might want to point them to a doc OBC came up with a while ago (around Christmas time maybe 1-2 years ago now?) that detailed what needs to be changed in the sources to adapt to a Proto/Demo board.
Even if you just used Bagger's games alone there would be plenty [noparse];)[/noparse]
@Nick McClick
I would love to have the "El Jugador" connected to the "Propeller Platform" I've received from you last week.
I do own a few NES controllers.
Luckily I do not have a girlfriend at the moment, because I'm pretty sure that I would have been forced to get rid of my big collection of "retro junk".
I'm currently having ~15 game machines / retro computers in my collection.
I'm still searching for a "PC engine" / "Turbografx 16" game console. I'ts almost impossible to find one in Europe [noparse]:([/noparse]
Ironically I do know that little machine better than any of the machines I do have in my collection, because I've written a complete PCe emulator from scratch.
Oldbitcollector said...
We also have a very nice sound driver "SIDcog". (Ahle2)
Thanks!
I'm halfway done coding a GoatTracker replay routine that uses SIDcog for sound generation.
What does this mean?
- You can have a few kb of music data playing high quality SID music without any need of streaming register dumps from a SD card to SIDcog.
- Replay routine + SIDcog doesn't need more than 1 additional cog. (you may need two cogs if your main spin code is very time consuming though)
- You can play sound FX while playing a tune in the same way as most C64 games does.
- A normal sized tune + SIDcog + Play routine doesn't take more than about 5kb.
@Ahle2 - I also collect old game systems. I have a TG16. Galaga & bonk are Good. Never got the Duo, though. My Jaguar blew up (took it apart and an IC actually blew up - there was a pock mark on the top), but AvP for Jag was one of my favorites.
I'm working on the howto and I've put together a list of 'games to get started' - it's right here. I still need to get permission on these, of course. I want to add Manic Miner and Jetpac to the list, too.
What do you think of the howto overall? It hasn't been published yet. Anything seem missing? Anything I should add / change?
I did some promo / teaser videos last night - I want to change a few things, but here's the 1st rev: Teaser 1 Teaser 2 Teaser 3
If there were 1 top feature for using the Propeller for game development, what would it be? Right now, I'm highlighting performance. Is that the most important thing for someone who's starting out?
I'm having problems capturing video. The video is washed out on my capture card, and doesn't look much better when recording from a TV. Looks fine when playing it on the TV, it's just hard to get a good recording. Need to figure that out.
Baggers said...
excellent Ahle2 [noparse]:D[/noparse] is it a tracker player? or editor also? on propside? or will it play mod files?
It's just a player for Goattracker modules.
It would have been nice to have a Protracker module player capable of playing ".mod" files, but 32kb isn't enough to hold even a standard sized sample [noparse]:([/noparse]
Prop2 will have enough memory to be able to playback standard sized mods.. I'm the first that will make a mod player when the Prop2 arrives.
Nick McClick said...
I also collect old game systems. I have a TG16. Galaga & bonk are Good.
The Bonk series is excellent [noparse]:)[/noparse]
"Galaga 90" is an arcade perfect remake of the arcade game "Galaga 88".
I must say that the best thing about the PCe is all the arcade'isch schumps.
Nick McClick said...
What do you think of the howto overall? It hasn't been published yet. Anything seem missing? Anything I should add / change?
Flawless as always.
Nick McClick said...
If there were 1 top feature for using the Propeller for game development, what would it be? Right now, I'm highlighting performance. Is that the most important thing for someone who's starting out?
Performance is a good choice.
"Code less create more" would have been a good propeller slogan. Too bad "QT by Nokia" already uses it [noparse]:([/noparse]
As a kit, the SD Card comes pre-soldered. It also comes with an EEPROM pre-flashed with a bootloader. I think I've already mentioned all the pinouts. Here are the design files:
@Nick,
Looks very nice! The pre-soldered SD card holder is always a good thing [noparse];)[/noparse]
All sorts of options for music players for the platform (including Ahle2's work -- Goat Tracker music player object).
There was a HSS tracker player a while back ago that could be converted/set up for the El Jugador as well as Ariba's MIDI object (which I believe OBC made a player for).
Have you thought of setting up a thread of "pre configured for El Jugador" projects (either here or on your forums)? Might save someone time as some on the Hydra list would not work without mods.
@Nick,
I didn't see anything talking about configuration, however I could have missed it.· The games there have pre-compiled binaries, which is nice.
A lot of the Hydra games are going to require changes to get them to work with the correct pin group and, depending on the game, may require modifying DAT/PASM literals in order to work for pin group 1 instead of 3.· In addition, the constants _clkmode and _xinfreq will have to be changed, depending on what crystal they are using.
On games that have Proto/Demo board· support in addition to Hydra it should be easier.··Depending on the game, it may only require changing constants for the gamepad, and commenting/uncommenting the right CON section at the top of the code.
For instance, in the Maniac Miner source, you would have to change the following setion:
PUB NES_Read_Gamepad : nes_bits | i
'This is intended as a replacement for code which contain
'an embedded NES_Read_Gamepad function. Simple overwrite
'the entire 'PUB NES_Read_Gamepad' with the contents of this file.
'Adjust remarked entries as required.
'This is designed for the adapter: 'atari_vga_schematic.jpg"
' if ina[noparse][[/noparse]16] == 1 'Read Fire alternate between Select & Start
' nes_bits := %00010000
' if ina[noparse][[/noparse]17] == 1 'Read RIGHT show as NES_DPAD Right
' nes_bits := %00000001
' if ina[noparse][[/noparse]19] == 1 'Read LEFT show as NES0_DPAD Left
' nes_bits := %00000010
' if ina[noparse][[/noparse]21] == 1 'Read DOWN show as NES0_B button
' nes_bits := %01000000
' if ina[noparse][[/noparse]21] == 1 'Read Down show as NES0_DPAD down
' nes_bits := %00000100
' if ina[noparse][[/noparse]23] == 1 'Read UP show as NES0_A button
' nes_bits := %10000000
' if ina[noparse][[/noparse]23] == 1 'Read UP show as NES0_DPAD up
' nes_bits := %00001000
You would want to change the "ina[noparse][[/noparse]16]" to "ina[noparse][[/noparse]24]", and continue down the code.
In others, like HERO or Mythic Flight, the gamepad constants are at the top:
'' gamepad pin configuration (adjust for your setup)
JOY_CLK = 16
JOY_LCH = 17
JOY_DATAOUT0 = 18
JOY_DATAOUT1 = 19
' NES bit encodings for NES gamepad 0
NES0_RIGHT = %00000000_00000001
NES0_LEFT = %00000000_00000010
NES0_DOWN = %00000000_00000100
NES0_UP = %00000000_00001000
NES0_START = %00000000_00010000
NES0_SELECT = %00000000_00100000
NES0_B = %00000000_01000000
NES0_A = %00000000_10000000
There's a shift in thinking with products like this...
We're always impressed by what the "chip" can do because we understand it's limitations.
I'm starting to see that products like SIDstick and El Jugador are judged first based on
their performance. For the El Judagor, it was more about software than the hardware itself.
In fact, I don't think I heard the word "Propeller" mentioned once.
Killer Applications will be seen first before the Propeller itself. A judgement based on ignorance
for the technicial community outside of the "Propeller" realms, but one we'll have to work against
to bring new people in.
I agree 100%. Get them in the door by showing them how to do something cool. Once they're interested, then they'll explore / learn / figure things out. "Show me, don't tell me".
They didn't try Jetpac, but I think they would have liked that one, too. I should have put Mr. Marvelous on there - that track was ridiculous.
btw - the sidstick video conversion I did is right here.
Nick you're absolutely right, "Mr.marvelous" is MARVELOUS !
The latest version of the Dumper generates .dmp files with a 25 byte header actually.
It has got a 16 character version of the song name "buried within". That's a lot better than the 8.3 DOS name that you're currentrly displaying.
The reason to use 25 byte is because of backwards compability issues.
While not being pure raw dumps anymore (due to the header), they are still played back correctly on older SID dump players.
The first frame( the header) isn't audible on older players, because the last byte of the frame (the sound volume byte) is 0.
If the first 4 bytes of the dump are equal to "SDMP" you can extract the song name from offset 8-24.
BTW, we can do a lot fancier SID Dump player by using my code from my initial SIDcog demo. What do you think?
@Ahle2,
It might be that you could combine a SID player with the bootloader, so that there is "background music" playing when the games are selected?
That might make it both "flashy" and useful at the same time.
Just a thought.
A cooler SIDplayer and bootloader would be awesome. I'm going to send them a second sample SD card in a few weeks with some of the games obc sent me, too.
If you haven't heard Mr. Marvelous before, I recorded a sample straight from my SIDStick - mp3 here. It sounds a lot better with headphones, this is just with a line in to my laptop soundcard, but it will give you an idea.
WOW.... laptops do have LOUSY soundcards [noparse]:)[/noparse]
It's sounds like you have run the signal trough a bandpass filter.... only mid range frequencies are heard.
Comments
I didn't include PS/2 because it would make the board bigger and more expensive. It is bit of positioning, too - I want El Jugador to be perceived as a console, not as a PC. I will make a PS/2 module for the Propeller Platform, though - and you'll be able to add that under the Prop Platform to have PS/2 (with El Jugador on top).
If El Jugador sells, I'll probably do a Rev. B that includes stereo audio. If people are asking for keyboard / mouse, I might add that, too.
Spanish trivia: El Jugador also translates to 'The Gambler'.
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Also, although having a keyboard and mouse is a great addition to any board, I guess it'll remove the temptation to use a cog in order to add keyboard usage, freeing it up for graphics/audio, not forgetting the saving in hub-ram space [noparse]:)[/noparse]
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·
Good point about freeing up a cog/hub ram for keyboard usage [noparse];)[/noparse] Had not thought in those terms.
Sounds like the SDBoot will work great for the board.
@Nick,
Are you planning on having a set of pre-configured (for the board) binaries in a .zip format on the site, or are you planning on pointing the user to the Hydra sub-forum? If they are having to configure their own binaries you might want to point them to a doc OBC came up with a while ago (around Christmas time maybe 1-2 years ago now?) that detailed what needs to be changed in the sources to adapt to a Proto/Demo board.
Even if you just used Bagger's games alone there would be plenty [noparse];)[/noparse]
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Thanks·
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·
I would love to have the "El Jugador" connected to the "Propeller Platform" I've received from you last week.
I do own a few NES controllers.
Luckily I do not have a girlfriend at the moment, because I'm pretty sure that I would have been forced to get rid of my big collection of "retro junk".
I'm currently having ~15 game machines / retro computers in my collection.
I'm still searching for a "PC engine" / "Turbografx 16" game console. I'ts almost impossible to find one in Europe [noparse]:([/noparse]
Ironically I do know that little machine better than any of the machines I do have in my collection, because I've written a complete PCe emulator from scratch.
Post Edited (Ahle2) : 2/9/2010 5:26:58 PM GMT
I'm halfway done coding a GoatTracker replay routine that uses SIDcog for sound generation.
What does this mean?
- You can have a few kb of music data playing high quality SID music without any need of streaming register dumps from a SD card to SIDcog.
- Replay routine + SIDcog doesn't need more than 1 additional cog. (you may need two cogs if your main spin code is very time consuming though)
- You can play sound FX while playing a tune in the same way as most C64 games does.
- A normal sized tune + SIDcog + Play routine doesn't take more than about 5kb.
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·
I'm working on the howto and I've put together a list of 'games to get started' - it's right here. I still need to get permission on these, of course. I want to add Manic Miner and Jetpac to the list, too.
What do you think of the howto overall? It hasn't been published yet. Anything seem missing? Anything I should add / change?
I did some promo / teaser videos last night - I want to change a few things, but here's the 1st rev:
Teaser 1
Teaser 2
Teaser 3
If there were 1 top feature for using the Propeller for game development, what would it be? Right now, I'm highlighting performance. Is that the most important thing for someone who's starting out?
I'm having problems capturing video. The video is washed out on my capture card, and doesn't look much better when recording from a TV. Looks fine when playing it on the TV, it's just hard to get a good recording. Need to figure that out.
Also did a brief video of the bootloader and connecting it.
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Defender is pretty impressive as well, so you might consider that for your list.
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Game(s) Mythic Flight
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·
It would have been nice to have a Protracker module player capable of playing ".mod" files, but 32kb isn't enough to hold even a standard sized sample [noparse]:([/noparse]
Prop2 will have enough memory to be able to playback standard sized mods.. I'm the first that will make a mod player when the Prop2 arrives.
The Bonk series is excellent [noparse]:)[/noparse]
"Galaga 90" is an arcade perfect remake of the arcade game "Galaga 88".
I must say that the best thing about the PCe is all the arcade'isch schumps.
Flawless as always.
Performance is a good choice.
"Code less create more" would have been a good propeller slogan. Too bad "QT by Nokia" already uses it [noparse]:([/noparse]
As a kit, the SD Card comes pre-soldered. It also comes with an EEPROM pre-flashed with a bootloader. I think I've already mentioned all the pinouts. Here are the design files:
Layout (.pdf) (.dip)
Schematic (.pdf) (.dch)
Bootloader (sourcecode) (.binary)
All files are available under the MIT License. .dip and .dch are diptrace files, the freeware version will work with these files.
Last night, I also converted the SIDStick software to run on El Jugador, code attached if anyone want to play with it.
@baggers - Jetpac is a pretty good game! The ZX Spectrum wasn't very popular over here - looks like we missed out on some hits.
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·
Looks very nice! The pre-soldered SD card holder is always a good thing [noparse];)[/noparse]
All sorts of options for music players for the platform (including Ahle2's work -- Goat Tracker music player object).
There was a HSS tracker player a while back ago that could be converted/set up for the El Jugador as well as Ariba's MIDI object (which I believe OBC made a player for).
Have you thought of setting up a thread of "pre configured for El Jugador" projects (either here or on your forums)? Might save someone time as some on the Hydra list would not work without mods.
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I put up a list of games I've converted on the howto (here). I should add it to OBC's master project index, too...
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I didn't see anything talking about configuration, however I could have missed it.· The games there have pre-compiled binaries, which is nice.
A lot of the Hydra games are going to require changes to get them to work with the correct pin group and, depending on the game, may require modifying DAT/PASM literals in order to work for pin group 1 instead of 3.· In addition, the constants _clkmode and _xinfreq will have to be changed, depending on what crystal they are using.
On games that have Proto/Demo board· support in addition to Hydra it should be easier.··Depending on the game, it may only require changing constants for the gamepad, and commenting/uncommenting the right CON section at the top of the code.
For instance, in the Maniac Miner source, you would have to change the following setion:
You would want to change the "ina[noparse][[/noparse]16]" to "ina[noparse][[/noparse]24]", and continue down the code.
In others, like HERO or Mythic Flight, the gamepad constants are at the top:
·
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Post Edited (trodoss) : 2/16/2010 3:07:46 PM GMT
Had you seen this?
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=770318
The board I based these instructions on uses a different pinout, but the changes are close in many ways.
Perhaps it would save you some time.
OBC
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Dropped this combination into PropArcade today and was also very impressed!
Nice kit! Well documented and easy to assemble!
OBC
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We're always impressed by what the "chip" can do because we understand it's limitations.
I'm starting to see that products like SIDstick and El Jugador are judged first based on
their performance. For the El Judagor, it was more about software than the hardware itself.
In fact, I don't think I heard the word "Propeller" mentioned once.
Killer Applications will be seen first before the Propeller itself. A judgement based on ignorance
for the technicial community outside of the "Propeller" realms, but one we'll have to work against
to bring new people in.
OBC
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They didn't try Jetpac, but I think they would have liked that one, too. I should have put Mr. Marvelous on there - that track was ridiculous.
btw - the sidstick video conversion I did is right here.
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Have you started an online archive of .dmp files yet?
OBC
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The latest version of the Dumper generates .dmp files with a 25 byte header actually.
It has got a 16 character version of the song name "buried within". That's a lot better than the 8.3 DOS name that you're currentrly displaying.
The reason to use 25 byte is because of backwards compability issues.
While not being pure raw dumps anymore (due to the header), they are still played back correctly on older SID dump players.
The first frame( the header) isn't audible on older players, because the last byte of the frame (the sound volume byte) is 0.
If the first 4 bytes of the dump are equal to "SDMP" you can extract the song name from offset 8-24.
BTW, we can do a lot fancier SID Dump player by using my code from my initial SIDcog demo. What do you think?
Cheers [noparse]:)[/noparse]
Post Edited (Ahle2) : 2/19/2010 9:08:10 PM GMT
It might be that you could combine a SID player with the bootloader, so that there is "background music" playing when the games are selected?
That might make it both "flashy" and useful at the same time.
Just a thought.
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OBC
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If you haven't heard Mr. Marvelous before, I recorded a sample straight from my SIDStick - mp3 here. It sounds a lot better with headphones, this is just with a line in to my laptop soundcard, but it will give you an idea.
I also recorded gauntlet - mp3 here
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It's sounds like you have run the signal trough a bandpass filter.... only mid range frequencies are heard.