HYDRA Video Demo Reel 1.0

AndreL · 2006-03-01 12:16

As promised here is a demo reel for the Hydra. It contains over a dozen various demos written in SPIN/ASM and pure ASM. Please download and save, rather than downloading over and over to save my bandwidth.·The file is about 6 megs, I compressed it to 2M, but it looks terriable. When recording NTSC video thru a frame grabber you get a lot of degradation to begin with, so compression just destroys the edges and looses all high frequency components, thus I used a lower compression and got "reasonable" results, so you can see some detail.

ftp://205.158.110.70/gamestation/media/hydra_demo_01_high.zip

Thanks,

Andre'

Bruce Bates · 2006-03-01 12:35

Andre' -

As always, thank you VERY MUCH for your kind contribution to our collective better understanding of this new Parallax Propeller System. Just as a matter of possible interest the FTP download takes about 1 minute and 10 seconds at broadband (cable connection) speeds to the East Coast of the US.

With Andre's permission, if your mailbox will handle it, I would be happy to email the ZIP file (unaltered in any way) to any who might ask, to help take the load off the server.

Regards,

Bruce Bates
bvbates at comcast dot net

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Post Edited (Bruce Bates) : 3/1/2006 12:51:13 PM GMT

Kaos Kidd · 2006-03-01 14:01

Very cool dem0 Andre`, very cool. And I am to understand all that was used was a Hydra and a propeller ? (maybe a joystick?)
Thank you for that demo!

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Just tossing my two bits worth into the bit bucket

KK
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LoopyByteloose · 2006-03-01 14:10

Quite impressive! It is hard to believe that so much can be done in such a small package.

Two things really stood out. First is that you provided a lot of variety, not just one or two games.
The second is that you were able to outline fonts with a contrasting color.
Without such, one sometimes cannot easily see the text.

I would be willing to email forward an unaltered copy to anyone that PMs me [noparse][[/noparse]to save Andre's bandwidth] .
It takes the same 1min 10 sec to get to Taiwan too.

I hadn't realized how much I missed the asteroids game. I first saw that on the Standford University campus before it was a comercial product.

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"When all think alike, no one is thinking very much.' - Walter Lippmann (1889-1974)

······································································ Warm regards,····· G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse]·黃鶴 ]·in Taiwan

Martin Hebel · 2006-03-01 14:40

Kaos Kidd said...
Very cool dem0 Andre`, very cool. And I am to understand all that was used was a Hydra and a propeller ? (maybe a joystick?)
Thank you for that demo!

The Hydra is essentially nothing more than the propeller with required hardware.· Andre's team wasn't allowed by Parallax to add any other driver ICs/co-processors, etc, to it as I understand.· It all boiled down to very sophisticated Propeller programming.· An NES game controller was used if I remember correctly.

Very cool demo Andre', it makes it a lot easier to appreciate the propeller and show off the capabilities to my students.· We appreciate the time required to put it together.
-Martin

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Martin Hebel
Perform a Survey of Electronic Technology Employers - Click here!
Personal Links with plenty of BASIC Stamp info
and SelmaWare Solutions - StampPlot - Graphical Data Acquisition and Control

Kaos Kidd · 2006-03-01 15:14

Ok...
Courriosity (sp ?) is peaked...
I know there's a website for the Hydra...
Time to go and find it...

[noparse]:)[/noparse]

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Just tossing my two bits worth into the bit bucket

KK
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Dave_Bell · 2006-03-01 17:24

Thank you, Andre'!
And with that fast a server, I'd be worried about bandwidth, too.
Even our corporate network must be blazing this morning - it took well under 10 seconds, here in Silicon Valley!
I rarely (if ever) see a clean 1 MByte/S flow!

Dave

Gadgetman · 2006-03-01 17:34

Hot D@mn...

There's one glaring error in the demo, though...

At the end it says 'Demo Coders' when it should have been 'Demo Gods'...
for that was just awesome!

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Don't visit my new website...

Abscissa · 2006-03-01 21:26

Gadgetman said...
Hot D@mn...

There's one glaring error in the demo, though...

At the end it says 'Demo Coders' when it should have been 'Demo Gods'...
for that was just awesome!

·

Kaos Kidd said...
Ok...
Courriosity (sp ?) is peaked...
I know there's a website for the Hydra...
Time to go and find it...

[noparse]:)[/noparse]

www.xgamestation.com

There's nothing really Hydra-related on there right now though, except for some threads on the forum.

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Nick Sabalausky

AndreL · 2006-03-01 22:23

Glad everyone likes it. And feel free to email it anywhere, its just a demo. As far as the hardware on the Hydra, the core processing is the Propeller, there are no extra processing chips, but there is extra hardware to make the system more game like and convenient. For example, a larger 128K EEPROM, hardware to detect cartridge plugs, so it uses external memory, built in USB, I/O buffering so VGA can operate and share the I/O with the cart slot, network filtering hardware, and of course all the inputs/outputs including the NES ports. But, when this is all done we will be designing some "super carts" that go into the cart slot to make it even more powerful --

Andre'
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Kaos Kidd · 2006-03-02 03:03

Ok, my stupid hat must be on...
Is the Hydra like the XGS ?
Or is it more like a development system, with the propeller at the center ?

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Just tossing my two bits worth into the bit bucket

KK
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LoopyByteloose · 2006-03-02 04:51

Very attractive additons, but reasonably minimal.
I was wondering about USB as keyboards and mice are moving in that direction.
One day that may be the only way to plug them in.
{Personally, I love the simplicity of the tradional interface.}
Extra EEPROM is always a plus. Ideas grow with the learning curve, so memory capacity must follow.

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"When all think alike, no one is thinking very much.' - Walter Lippmann (1889-1974)

······································································ Warm regards,····· G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse]·黃鶴 ]·in Taiwan

rokicki · 2006-03-02 06:02

I would be shocked if almost all USB mice/keyboards didn't dumb-down to PS/2 when not plugged in to a USB port.

AndreL · 2006-03-02 06:52

The mouse / keyboard plug into PS/2 style ports, this is definitely on the decline these days, but for a hobby toy irrelevant since we are supplying a keyboard and mouse with the Hydra anyway. Also, from a hardware point of view interfacing to a mouse or keyboard is 2 wires and 2 resistors, BUT interfacing to USB means a chip and lots of parts, so for the Hydra at least the PS/2 was the way to go. However, the Hydra does have a built in USB port for programming and communication, thus you CAN use it to plug in a mouse or keyboard as well if you really wanted to, of course you couldn't program the system with it in. But, the idea of the Hydra is to program your games and apps on cards and then take them with you and simply leave the default on-board program as our LOGO program [noparse]:)[/noparse] OR maybe a realmode language like Basic or Logo, so you can always boot the Hydra and program without a PC. But, the cart slot on the Hydra will allow all manner of extra hardware to be interfaced, so extra memory, processors, IDE, ethernet, etc. you name it, you can make a card for it -- plus the system comes with a free experimentor card and memory card to get you started.

Andre'

HYDRA Video Demo Reel 1.0

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