JAMMA Custom Arcade Project (JCAP)

escher

JAMMA Custom Arcade Project (JCAP)
CURRENT STATUS: Developing VGA driver

What is it?

JCAP is a project with the goal of developing a JAMMA arcade standard compatible game board using the Parallax Propeller 1 (P8X32A) microcontroller upon which a user can implement their own custom arcade game, either from scratch or by using the library of graphics, sound, input, and other drivers developed under the project. Ultimately, the project will provide:


- VGA video driver
- Sprite/tile based graphics driver
- PWM sound driver
- Serialized input driver
- Game engine
- PCB schematic and CAD files

in such a way that a user has everything they need to implement their own arcade game and have a PCB printed to build it on.

This is a project that spans several EE, CPE, and CS disciplines such as active and passive component circuit design, PCB development and design, video generation, game theory and design, assembly programming, microcontroller interfacing, FPGA development, verilog design, and many more.

A more detailed description can be found in the JCAP README.

How do I follow it?

The project is being managed via GitHub, and can be found at:

- https://github.com/cspang1/JCAP

The progress log can be found at:

- https://github.com/cspang1/JCAP/wiki

The log itself contains a lot of background information that some might find very interesting as well, such as a brief history of arcade games and an analysis of historical video formats. Here are the first handful of logs to get your feet wet on the project:

- JCAP: JAMMA Custom Arcade Project

- JCAP Log #1: A Little History

- JCAP Log #2: JAMMA

- JCAP Log #3: Input

- JCAP Log #4: Video

Contributing
Any help will be gladly accepted, and if anyone is interested in contributing to the project, please read the contribution guidelines. Currently, I would be glad to get in touch with anyone who has experience with developing graphics drivers, either on the software or hardware sides. The graphics system will be tile and sprite based, and will be very similar to the Nintendo Entertainment System's.

macca

That's a very interesting project.

I don't know if you know it, my P8X Game System already supports most (if not all) of what you require. The board should be easily modified to use a jamma connector and integrate the eeproms, and there are already a number of video drivers supporting a wide range of resolutions. If you want to merge the projects you are welcome, otherwise I will offer my collaboration, for what is possible, for anything you may need from my project. Everything is of course open source.

escher

macca wrote: »

That's a very interesting project.

I don't know if you know it, my P8X Game System already supports most (if not all) of what you require. The board should be easily modified to use a jamma connector and integrate the eeproms, and there are already a number of video drivers supporting a wide range of resolutions. If you want to merge the projects you are welcome, otherwise I will offer my collaboration, for what is possible, for anything you may need from my project. Everything is of course open source.

Damn you're not kidding, our projects are almost identical! I would love to pick your brain on a lot of topics. I'll be in touch!