Impressed with the Hydra
Chris Kraft
Posts: 20
Today I got home from work and was happy to see that the box with my Hydra was waiting at the door.
I have to congratulate Parallax and Andre' on a great job putting together the Hydra. When I opened the shipping box I really didn't know what to expect on the inside. All the other things I received from Parallax always came in basic white boxes.
I was floored when I saw the packaging that the Hydra came in. It really was reminiscent of the type of packaging that the classic consoles, the Atari 2600, Intellivision, Collecovision, came in. I flipped it over several times just reading all the sides taking in the quality of the packaging. I was surprised and impressed.
I opened up the box and reviewed all the included components. If you bought the Propeller demo kit then you are already familiar with the keyboard and mouse. They are not bad and I really like the small size of the keyboard.
The things that really stood out to me are how impressive looking the actual Hydra is. The black PC board looks great. I am a sucker for boards that are not the usual color. The included carts are also a nice addition. I ended up playing the "Ball Blaster" game for several minutes just having fun with its simple design.
Finally, the book is very nice. Like the other console programming books from Andre, it nicely covers the fundamentals of NTSC and VGA signal generation. It does a good job of answering the questions I am sure many of us have. Like "Why can't I have 512x224 graphics in 16 million colors on my TV". I just started reading the book but it is clear that this will be a very useful book for writing your own Hydra games.
From the day I got my first console, an Atari 2600, I wanted to write my own games for it. Over the years I managed to write my own computer games, but I never really was able to go back and write console games. I created some roms for the Atari 2600 emulator (Stella) but I didn't follow through with having them burned to carts.
Now I feel that I have a device that will let me create those classic style games, write them to carts and play them like those long lost days on my old Atari. I am hoping that a lot of people buy Hydra's so that we can all trade tips, trade ideas and ultimately trade our final product.
You could always do something like this yourself, building a console out of parts. You could use the propeller to build your own device and several people are. To me though this is a unique opportunity to be able to write a game and send people the rom and know that they will be able to run it on their Hydra without having to make any modifications, without porting, they can just run it.
I know I sound a bit effusive, maybe a little over hyped but I truly hope this device catches on because I want there to be a community around this machine. I want people to make cool things and then be able to share those things with everyone else. The more people who have Hydra's the more fun we will be able to have.
Enjoy
Chris
I have to congratulate Parallax and Andre' on a great job putting together the Hydra. When I opened the shipping box I really didn't know what to expect on the inside. All the other things I received from Parallax always came in basic white boxes.
I was floored when I saw the packaging that the Hydra came in. It really was reminiscent of the type of packaging that the classic consoles, the Atari 2600, Intellivision, Collecovision, came in. I flipped it over several times just reading all the sides taking in the quality of the packaging. I was surprised and impressed.
I opened up the box and reviewed all the included components. If you bought the Propeller demo kit then you are already familiar with the keyboard and mouse. They are not bad and I really like the small size of the keyboard.
The things that really stood out to me are how impressive looking the actual Hydra is. The black PC board looks great. I am a sucker for boards that are not the usual color. The included carts are also a nice addition. I ended up playing the "Ball Blaster" game for several minutes just having fun with its simple design.
Finally, the book is very nice. Like the other console programming books from Andre, it nicely covers the fundamentals of NTSC and VGA signal generation. It does a good job of answering the questions I am sure many of us have. Like "Why can't I have 512x224 graphics in 16 million colors on my TV". I just started reading the book but it is clear that this will be a very useful book for writing your own Hydra games.
From the day I got my first console, an Atari 2600, I wanted to write my own games for it. Over the years I managed to write my own computer games, but I never really was able to go back and write console games. I created some roms for the Atari 2600 emulator (Stella) but I didn't follow through with having them burned to carts.
Now I feel that I have a device that will let me create those classic style games, write them to carts and play them like those long lost days on my old Atari. I am hoping that a lot of people buy Hydra's so that we can all trade tips, trade ideas and ultimately trade our final product.
You could always do something like this yourself, building a console out of parts. You could use the propeller to build your own device and several people are. To me though this is a unique opportunity to be able to write a game and send people the rom and know that they will be able to run it on their Hydra without having to make any modifications, without porting, they can just run it.
I know I sound a bit effusive, maybe a little over hyped but I truly hope this device catches on because I want there to be a community around this machine. I want people to make cool things and then be able to share those things with everyone else. The more people who have Hydra's the more fun we will be able to have.
Enjoy
Chris
Comments
I was really impressed with the package too.
I fired it up and did not have any problems at all. It was nice that EVERYTHING is included (power supply, mouse, keyboard, controller, EEPROM Card, Experiment card, book, etc).
Then I feverishly read chapter 14 of the book. Now things start making more sense. (Like why 4 colors per tile).
Nice job Andre' and Parallax.
Bean.
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·
I love the hydra for the same reason!
I've built my own consoles in the past. Some of which are even more powerful then the hydra.
But in the end, you have no one to share your ideas with.
The Hydra is a standard platform for which people like us can create and trade!
and as anyone would know, Trading is the most important part of any scene.
Thanks!
^^
--Andrew Arsenault
Andre'
Thanks,
Coolguy
Andre'
The one suggestion that we have here in OZ as a disty for Parallax
re the Hydra kit is that the powerpack that comes with it is useless here.
It is rated at 120VAC and we have 240VAC
It would be really cool if Parallax good supply a universal one ..switchmode type
rated 100-240VAC with simple adapters for the world market.
There must be a supplier in China that can supply one for a few bucks ..
apart from that the Hydra rocks it is awesome..
Cheers to Andre ..
Ronald Nollet· Australia
But, like I said, xgamestation.com supports this feature, so anyone in australia that needs a hydra with a uni supply send our way.
Andre'