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Hydra status — Parallax Forums

Hydra status

El PaisaEl Paisa Posts: 375
edited 2006-09-13 19:17 in Propeller 1
I wonder what is the status of the Hydra (Parallax release).
Is going to meet the Aug 1st dateline?
Could give us a peek of the manual?

Looks like the Hydra will give us finally a description of the graphics capabilities of the Propeller.
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Comments

  • steve_bsteve_b Posts: 1,563
    edited 2006-07-14 13:37
    I've only just heard of this in a couple posts the last few days.

    What is it?

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    Steve

    "Inside each and every one of us is our one, true authentic swing. Something we was born with. Something that's ours and ours alone. Something that can't be learned... something that's got to be remembered."
  • Ym2413aYm2413a Posts: 630
    edited 2006-07-14 15:37
    steve_b said...
    I've only just heard of this in a couple posts the last few days.

    What is it?
    Hello Steve.
    The Hydra is a small propeller based gaming system that gives you full development capabilities.
    As a matter of fact, it comes with the development tools out of the box and a manual on how to program the thing.
    It's all open and you can write your own games and programs for it along with designing your own hardware plug-ins (if you wish).

    That's basically it in a nutshell.

    I can't wait to order mine!
    --Andrew Arsenault
  • El PaisaEl Paisa Posts: 375
    edited 2006-07-14 17:31
    Sorry,

    Looks like my reply was lost.

    Here goes again:

    http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=592933

    Also you can go to xgamestation.com site and·search for Hydra.
  • El PaisaEl Paisa Posts: 375
    edited 2006-07-17 03:10
    Still no answers from Parallax or Andre'.

    There are a lot of people interested in this and

    we deserve an answer.
  • Ym2413aYm2413a Posts: 630
    edited 2006-07-17 15:21
    (Hmm) I wonder.
    I'd really like to at least have an idea of when this thing will be for sale.
  • Kaos KiddKaos Kidd Posts: 614
    edited 2006-07-17 15:42
    I had a comment to "...we deserve an answer." but it wasn't in the mindset of this forum.

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    Just tossing my two bits worth into the bit bucket


    KK
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  • cgraceycgracey Posts: 14,206
    edited 2006-07-17 16:02
    As far as I know, Andre is finishing up the book that goes with Hydra. I emailed him last night and alerted him that people on the forum were asking about it. Hopefully, we'll hear from him today.

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    Chip Gracey
    Parallax, Inc.
  • Paul Sr.Paul Sr. Posts: 435
    edited 2006-07-17 16:47
    El Paisa said...
    "....we deserve an answer."

    And we will get one in due time.

    DEMANDS have no place in these forums. The good folks at Parallax have ALWAYS provided full disclosure of information about products in a timely manner. When the products finally do get their introduction, EVERYTHING is ready and works. This carries through to products from their suppliers.

    Many of us are patiently waiting the Grand Unveiling of the Hydra. Just because you don't feel like waiting is no reason to start throwing out snide remarks like this.

    Patience, grasshopper.
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2006-07-17 16:56
    The only thing harder than writing the documentation is getting the brilliant idea that needs the documentation.
    The writers need your moral support and patience.

    While I original have disdained game stations, the Hydra is very hard to pass up. My attitude originates from the 'no game playing' at the Computer Center that housed the IBM 360 which I learned Fortan on.

    I just figured that if you play games, you learn games. If you program, you learn programing. Now I see that the Hydra will be a superb introduction of the complexities of video in real time. These days it is hard to go back in the past and learn what worked. Andre LaMothe is an asset and has a wealth of particulars.

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    "If you want more fiber, eat the package.· Not enough?· Eat the manual."········
    ···················· Tropical regards,····· G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse]·黃鶴 ]·in Taiwan

    Post Edited (Kramer) : 7/17/2006 5:11:19 PM GMT
  • El PaisaEl Paisa Posts: 375
    edited 2006-07-17 17:09
    I am a LONG time customer of Parallax.

    I am not asking something for free.

    I am a paying customer.
  • Paul Sr.Paul Sr. Posts: 435
    edited 2006-07-17 17:11
    El Paisa said...
    I am a LONG time customer of Parallax.

    I am not asking something for free.

    I am a paying customer.


    As we all are. Chill Out!!
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2006-07-17 17:17
    Patience and kindness will work miracles. It isn't always about money.

    El Paisa, I am not trying to be critical of you.

    The way the Forum works is that the less directly demanding people are, the more generous the experts are.
    People really respond well to smoothness and enjoy having fun with eachother.

    We have a lot of people that really know their stuff, but are kind and humble enough to help begineers.
    It doesn't get much better than this.

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    "If you want more fiber, eat the package.· Not enough?· Eat the manual."········
    ···················· Tropical regards,····· G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse]·黃鶴 ]·in Taiwan
  • Kaos KiddKaos Kidd Posts: 614
    edited 2006-07-17 17:33
    ...And I thought my comment was "risqa" ...
    Anyway... As I have taught my children, demands are often ignored, while requests are acted on with undue haste.
    No matter your status, demanding any thing here will only bring ill.

    Kramer, you are so 100% dead right in your comments!

    If not for the "experts" and more advanced (most every one) people on this forum, taking their time and energy to show / teach me things, I'd still be lost.
    I'm not saying that I'm not lost, just that I have an idea how to get someplace and not be lost, and getting there is half the fun.
    (The above was and is ment to be funny. Laugh... Cry... or Ignore, but what ever you do, just don't get mad... Just understand.)
    ^5's all...

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    Just tossing my two bits worth into the bit bucket


    KK
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  • AndreLAndreL Posts: 1,004
    edited 2006-07-17 18:29
    I have posted the details about this before, but to re-iterate. The scope of the Hydra is huge, we wanted to make the system a bunch of demo·games and a book to go along with it all in all I would have normally wanted a 18-24 month dev cycle since when I took this challenge, the chip wasn't done, nor the IDE, and there was only a few pages of docs. The hydra system is done and is in manufacturing, the demo games are all done. And finally, the book is in progress. I am about 4 chapters away from completion. The book is about 25 chapters and the largest book parallax has ever printed to my knowledge, thus as I am writing I am also trying to keep it shorter than my usual 1000-1200 pages·which is hard when discussing game dev, so there is a lot of give and take in my mind. I am trying to finish the manuscript by the end of july/beginning of august. Then there is the author review phase and the manufacturing of everything and the printing, so we will see how fast parallax can do it once they have everything in hand, but they have been working on the manufacturing, art, packaging in parallel. There are simply a lot of pieces to the Hydra since its a product to be released at once not in pieces. Making a piece of new hardware is hard enough, but writing a 500-800 page book about it nasty, and that piece alone is a 12 month job. Additionally, since the·game dev aspect is for begineers this is much harder to write than something like advanced shader programming or AI etc.,·the pace and subject matter has to be reasonable for someone that has NEVER·programmed a game at all, so writing this kind of material is slow work, I have to put myself in the shoes of the reader which takes time.

    Plus, we didn't even know what the Propeller could/couldn't do when we started, so we basically had to do a ton of R&D, document the abilities and then write all the demos then I had to write disposable 175 page "programming manual" to give everyone just so all the programmers could program the unit, so that step took time as well. Basically, when people buy the hydra kit you will get software that will show you things that you would think are impossible to do. Plus a book that teaches game dev on the system for the begineer along with a rockin piece of hardware.

    So that said, we are in the home stretch, and the wait is worth it, the system is very cool, easy to work with, has expanded abilities such as larger memory, networking, expansion card slots. Plus, the really cool Nintendo compatible game ports which means ANY NES input device can be used on a Hydra like data gloves, etc.

    One good thing is that once the manuscript of the book is done and the first articles of the hardware complete then there is no reason we can't announce the final price of the hydra etc. and put the web page up to start taking orders, parallax is in charge of this ultimately, but at that point we will have all the pieces and no surprises, so everything is coming really soon. Also, at that point, the book will be done as far as manuscript goes and then I am comfortable releasing the table of contents, right now its in flux, on any day, I might split a chapter, rename, merge it, etc. But, when its done then the table of contents is more or less locked down, so we will release that on the hydra page as well. Also, at some point we will release a sample chapter of the book as well.

    In the meantime, if anyone has any other questions go ahead and ask [noparse]:)[/noparse]

    Andre'
  • Paul Sr.Paul Sr. Posts: 435
    edited 2006-07-17 18:44
    Andre,

    Thanks for the update!

    Paul
  • Ym2413aYm2413a Posts: 630
    edited 2006-07-17 18:52
    I'm assuming it'll be about a month or two from now until we'll see this for sale.
    That's alright though. I'll keep programming my DemoBoard and get the hang for this chip until then.

    Andre, I got one question though.
    How many COG's does your video objects take on the Hydra?
    After sprites, tiles and the works.

    I'm just wondering because from the old demo reel you got some really good video to come out of the thing.

    I won't ask much more since I don't want to slow down your writing.
    Many Thanks!
    --Andrew Arsenault
  • AndreLAndreL Posts: 1,004
    edited 2006-07-17 19:07
    There are multiple engines developed by people and variants of each thereof; coder x used coder's y engine and modified it etc.. The engine I made for the book uses a single cog to do sprites, tiles, and scrolling, but I don't show it until the later half of the book, the first part of the book uses the parallax graphics stuff, so its as generic as possible. Others made made multi-cog engines that support 8-bit color and do tiles, scrolling, sprites, and so forth. There are variations, but one of the engines for example you can assign as many cogs as you like to it and it will use them for the rendering, when it runs out of computation time it ignores extra objects etc. Also, we made overlay engines to run huge ASM programs on a single cog, not to mention their are tricks that you will see in the demo programs that are really clever. However, I AVOID clever in the book since the book is not to impress, but to teach. The demos are to IMPRESS, and they will [noparse]:)[/noparse] For example, how about pole position in 3D? Well, looking at a version right here [noparse]:)[/noparse] Of course, I can't write about the demos themselves or how they work, that would take about 100-200 pages per demo, or another 5000 pages of text. But, the demos are documented in the code by the coders, so you can see into their minds and what they were thinking. The last chapter of the book is on the demo programs and basically, shows each demo, the source file names, and a brief explanation of how the demo works (paragraph) and that's your entree to it, then you run the demo, look at the source, and tweak with it. Basically, the demo coders R&D has saved everyone about 3-5 years of experiementing with the propeller, and all you have to do is read their code!

    Anyway, back to writing the chapter on advanced graphics and scrolling!

    Andre'
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  • Ym2413aYm2413a Posts: 630
    edited 2006-07-17 19:19
    Thanks Andre' for the quick reply!
    I'm glad to see many people are working on this.
    Hopefully everyone's code will make development a snap!
  • Kaos KiddKaos Kidd Posts: 614
    edited 2006-07-17 20:58
    AndreL;
    Thank you very much for the insight. I too look foward to the product. I'm hoping the book will be available seperatly, as it's the key for learning a lot of the stuff you and your staff have created. If not, then I'll just have to bribe the Miss for the money for the system.
    Anyway, keep up the great stuff and I'm sure I speak for all, we cant wait to hear from you about it!

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    Just tossing my two bits worth into the bit bucket


    KK
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  • Fabian NunezFabian Nunez Posts: 29
    edited 2006-07-17 21:00
    Others made made multi-cog engines that support 8-bit color

    That's very interesting.· 8 bit color means either 256 palette entries or 256 direct colours (RRRGGGBB probably).· Neither of·these are directly supported by·a cog's video device, which according to the manual·only supports 2 bits per primary color (meaning 64 palette entries or direct colours max).· Major cross-cog voodoo going on here, I must say that I'm really looking forward to finding out how your crew of deranged wizards did it :-)
    ·
  • AndreLAndreL Posts: 1,004
    edited 2006-07-17 21:10
    We are planning on selling the book seperately as well, but of course its "hydra-centric". Also, if I get time I will write a doom game on the hydra, but it will have to wait for me to complete this book etc., the memory constraints make assets a problem, but I can without doubt get a full texture mapped engine running on the hydra with lighting effects, etc. and a couple 3d sprite monsters running around, about 2-3 months of work, so that will have to wait for a rainy day. But, the bottom line is that the propellers simple serial streaming unit coupled with a software gpu running on 2-5 COGs pretty much makes it easy to do most things.

    Andre'
  • Kaos KiddKaos Kidd Posts: 614
    edited 2006-07-17 21:24
    AWESOME!

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    Just tossing my two bits worth into the bit bucket


    KK
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  • HarleyHarley Posts: 997
    edited 2006-07-17 22:40
    Wow, what an awesome beast the Propeller IC is to do all I've just read on this one forum on Hydra.

    I may never be able to program any games, but just hearing what Andr
  • AndreLAndreL Posts: 1,004
    edited 2006-07-17 23:02
    Well, I guarantee after reading this book you will be able to make basic games, but more importantly have a good understanding what goes into a game and how complex they are.
  • Rob7Rob7 Posts: 275
    edited 2006-07-17 23:13
    Great,

    "Hydra", something new to play with. I can't wait to get this in my hands, The long nights of codeing and trying something new.

    Thx, Andra. And all who are working hard to bring these new developments our way.

    You guy's are the best!

    Rob7
  • sharpiesharpie Posts: 150
    edited 2006-07-17 23:28
    Andre, I could say how cool this sounds but you've heard that from everyone else.... and you already know how cool it is.. I will say that I'm looking forward to buying one, and making it do stuff that it's probably wasn't designed to do. I've heard alot about what kind of graphics it'll do and so on, as well as having the nintendo controller ports, and mention of the cartridge slot.. But has there been any word on the slot that I missed as far as how flexible it is... is it just for memory, etc..? Can we go crazy and build a bluetooth adapter onto the cartridge, or gps or whatever? Maybe these are questions I should wait and see for..
    Your efforts are appreciated, and it seems like you've taken on a HUGE project and are delivering.

    It might be said to some here that I don't think Parallax, or anyone else here are obligated to release any information before the product is released... They could just keep quiet and then just announce it the day it's released. But that wouldn't be any fun for anyone.
  • El PaisaEl Paisa Posts: 375
    edited 2006-07-18 02:03
    Sorry for my comments.
    My intent is exactly was to get what we are getting.
    If I kept my mouth shut, nobody knew what is going on.
  • El PaisaEl Paisa Posts: 375
    edited 2006-07-18 02:31
    Sharpie,

    In regard to you last comment.

    Look at this[noparse]:http:[/noparse]//forums.parallax.com/forums/default.aspx?f=25&m=131973
  • AndreLAndreL Posts: 1,004
    edited 2006-07-18 02:45
    you can interface anything you want to the expansion slot, memory, GPU, added processor, bluetooth, whatever you can think of [noparse]:)[/noparse] That's the idea, it has 8 parallel bits, plus power, plus clock, etc., so its like an Apple II interface more or less to let people build whatever they want.

    Andre'
  • sharpiesharpie Posts: 150
    edited 2006-07-18 05:33
    That rocks. Thanks Andre. I figure this to be a masterpeice. And I'm sure that with the documentation will give birth to a new generation of enthusiatstic coders and HW geeks alike.. And help bridge the two even more. I grew up on the Apple ][noparse][[/noparse], c64 etc.. Did more than my share of crazy stuff on both.. Looking forward to feeling young again with the Hydra..
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