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Comment by kgwxd

8 years ago

This is the coolest thing I've seen posted on HN in years, very cool work.

I've been playing with Atari 2600 programming on and off for the past few years and it is so fun programming directly against the specific hardware. I can't help but occasionally wonder if I could piece together a similar system, but I have 0 experience with electronics. I can only imagine how satisfying it must be to actually pull it off.

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kgwxd

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pkiller  8 years ago

Thanks a lot :)

It really is super satisfying to get this far, I still turn it on sometimes just to check if it really works.

And I also had zero experience with electronics (and I still don't know as much as I should...), so yeah I think you could piece together something like this. :)

  • matthall15  8 years ago

    > I still turn it on sometimes just to check if it really works.

    I feel this on a personal level, albeit on my much smaller, less complicated projects. Thanks for the amazing write-up, you are an inspiration to us all.

  • ArtWomb  8 years ago

    I was a tad skeptical when I saw the title. But it looks like you really pulled it off. It took Atari engineers like 4 years ;)

    Is it fast enough for multi-input / multi-player?

    • pkiller  8 years ago

      Thanks :)

      The only multi-input game I have right now is Tetris for 2 players. My girlfriend doesn't complaint while playing it (except when I win :P), so I'd say it's pretty responsive, even with the somewhat convoluted way the CPU communicates with the PPU and the double-buffering.

      I think it will work for other types of games as well. With all the hardware, firmware for the 3 microcontrollers, bootloader software, compiler toolchain and tools, I still haven't gotten around to actually make a lot of games for it.

      2 replies →

  • kgwxd  8 years ago

    Just ordered Make: Electronics and a cheap electronics starter kit with a breadboard and some basic components. Thanks for the inspiration.

    • larrywright  8 years ago

      You should check out Adafruit and Sparkfun as well. They have a lot of solid tutorials to get you started, and a bunch of inexpensive microcontrollers that are easy to get going with, as well as all sorts of lights and sensers and switches to connect to them.

  • fxfan  8 years ago

    > I still turn it on sometimes just to check if it really works.

    I know that feeling ;)

pushpop  8 years ago

There is something weirdly satisfying about doing something purely for the sake of doing it. So many people start projects hoping they can turn it into a business or gain stars in Github - you see less and less people hacking stuff together just for personal enjoyment.

I think we need more of that too. Everyone seems to be on a quest for perfection: perfect code, 3D printed casing, everything intellectualised to the nth degree. There's a lot to be said for the "rough and ready" approach of experimentation. However to do that you really need to be on a pursuit for personal gratification because the internet is a harsh bitch for pointing out ones mistakes.