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Comment by 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. :)

20 comments

pkiller

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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.

    • yonz  7 years ago

      I would totally pay (~$300) to jump on a pre-packaged MOOC like course that has a batch of students working together and the course fee would include the hardware needed and access to a TA like resource (when the batch of students can't solve a problem together).

      I can even imagine a part II with modern components after learning this level of basics.

mysterydip  8 years ago

Wow! Thanks for making such an interesting and detailed writeup! And using my favorite CPU too :) Definitely bookmarked to read through more times.

  • pkiller  8 years ago

    Z80 rules!

    Thanks :)

    • tombert  8 years ago

      Out of curiosity, have you thought about trying to port "real" games over to it, as in running a ROM of something commercially released? This is already really cool, but it would be nerd-cred-for-life cool if you could say "Oh, you have a gameboy? Yeah, I built my own."

    • collinmanderson  8 years ago

      I used to do Z80 programming in the TI-82 in high school back in 2002. This seeing the code in the article brought back some good memories.

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 ;)