Gamebuino Meta

[erico]

Hello chaps, some may remember the Gamebuino indiegogo campaign a few years ago?
I was a backer and always enjoyed the project. They have been working the past year on a follow up and I have been helping them as best I can. The campaign went live yesterday and I invite you guys to check it out and share your opinions. I have a hardware beta version here with me and it is really cool.

 

[rygD]

@erico must have had spam for breakfast.

 

[erico]

Hehe, sure shot, but I really like this handheld. Will be spamming it over the places I dwell.
The controls was my main concern and they came out quite nice!

 

[ptitSeb]

look nice. Maybe I'll back that one.

 

[elwing]

I've actually a gamebuino kit I bought for my daughter to solder... Should look for some time to do it....

 

[Orkekum]

i got the original gamebuino for 30 or so euro via kickstarterting, not beacuse i have any use for one, just curiosity mainly, had some fun games. Now iyts battery is dead so it doesnt charge :C

 

[erico]

It is not too hard to change the battery. The later revisions and the current Meta have plug in batteries (not soldered) so it should be future proof on that subject.
My old gamebuino I charge once and play once in a while so not to have the battery die. Specially the later solitaire time killer.

 

[elwing]

Hum, the kit is not a gamebuino but a Makerbuino...
https://www.tindie.com/products/Ret...uino--gamebuino-compatible/?pt=ac_prod_search

 

[erico]

Yep, it is one of the variations that sprouted from the original.
You also have the Pokito, which I guess will be compatible with gamebuino 1 at some point. Pokito is another nice project.

 

[alxm]

This one looks really nice, like a GP32 in Game Boy Micro format. I wish it was a little larger for comfort though, but as I've learned with the Arduboy, being small and pocketable means I'll actually take it with me and use it on the go.

Happy to see all these cool homebrew hardware projects happening lately

 

[erico]

The size is quite nice and pocketable(it is comfortable, at least to me), I guess it really depends on how far are one going to use it from one´s eyes against the power of its screen brightness and at what level it becomes comfortable.
I will record the beta hardware at some point.

But yeah, the wave of handhelds are always good, I love my caanoo till this day and code into it.

 

[___]

oh that looks very nice. I like the developer backpack as well. very convenient. hmm... christmas?

 

[rygD]

There are these cool things that have been around since the late 80s with various form factors and capabilities. They also have some really awesome games (and a bunch that suck, just read reviews and watch videos). You can also do tons of stuff with the hardware, either using them as is, modding them to improve various things, or harvesting parts for other projects. You can also get into writing software for them if you want (I have also seen some hardware peripherals and custom programs made by third parties to make them tools for work and leisure activities). There are a lot of people still using them, although I suspect most are using them for making music, but that means tons of aftermarket parts and accessories. Most of them are pretty damn durable, too. It is the Game Boy line by Nintendo.

 

[alxm]

There are these cool things that have been around since the late 80s with various form factors and capabilities. They also have some really awesome games (and a bunch that suck, just read reviews and watch videos). You can also do tons of stuff with the hardware, either using them as is, modding them to improve various things, or harvesting parts for other projects. You can also get into writing software for them if you want (I have also seen some hardware peripherals and custom programs made by third parties to make them tools for work and leisure activities). There are a lot of people still using them, although I suspect most are using them for making music, but that means tons of aftermarket parts and accessories. Most of them are pretty damn durable, too. It is the Game Boy line by Nintendo.

I for one am glad that there's new handhelds that carry its spirit but are completely aimed at homebrew, with contemporary tech and modern dev tools. Besides, if you wanted to get into Game Boy development on real hardware, you'd spend more money on the unit and a flash cartridge than on one of these new Gamebuinos.

I do see the nostalgic appeal of keeping old classics alive with new software, though...

 

[rygD]

I was just messing around. I think many of us ended up here because of an interest in old or homebrew games, if not both (I like both). Gamebuino and similar products definitely have a place. In a sense the Pandora and Pyra are somewhat similar. What I like about them, based on what I have rad here and in looking at them in the past, is that you get to put the hardware together. It would have been awesome if I had something like that back when the GB was released, as I would have been able to satisfy my curiosity in a less potentially destructive and expensive way, still been able to play games, and even potentially been able to make my own (the best I probably would have been able to achieve would have been a dot navigating a labyrinth that dies if it touches the walls). I actually would prefer the GB and DS lines be more hacker friendly like all these other wonderful handhelds.

 

[elwing]

Programming for the gba was great, beside the programming itself, you had to think at what you want to display, and how to achieve it... I wrote a simple isometric view engine, and it was feeling like a kind of puzzle to use correctly the tile engine, the layers and the sprite... Finding the right to do things was like playing a puzzle game...

 

[erico]

I for one am glad that there's new handhelds that carry its spirit but are completely aimed at homebrew, with contemporary tech and modern dev tools. Besides, if you wanted to get into Game Boy development on real hardware, you'd spend more money on the unit and a flash cartridge than on one of these new Gamebuinos.
I do see the nostalgic appeal of keeping old classics alive with new software, though...

I pretty much feel the same way, there is space for all of them, no need to push.
But guess what? (and I´m sorry for the rant) A post about gamebuino meta on the arduboy´s forum just got shutted down, reason being "Happy for them, but in general we take down posts about sales or campaigns about other products not related to the Arduboy." This is really sad, specially since they took assets from the original gamebuino to strengthen their own campaign without giving credits.
Software for these platforms have the ability to be somehow cross compatible and they are usually open source and free, which makes such move just ridiculous.

Here on the Pandora/Pyra forum we constantly discuss competition and alternatives to it, on the GLBasic forum we are constantly discussing other tools,
what is wrong with those people? [rant off]
[doublepost=1509208717,1509208463][/doublepost]I will post something nice to smooth out the rant, sorry.
"Big or small hands, they all fit."

 

[ClockworkCoder]

I ended up backing this one. Looks good. Actually I got a Gameduino (Arduino hat) ages back, and thought it was a cool concept, and even built an arcade console for it (well, drilled a few holes in a suitably sized wooden box for a joystick and buttons). Unfortunately I didn't do much else with it afterwards after trying a couple of demos...

This one is a lot more portable (perhaps, slightly too much so), but hopefully I can be more motivated to write something for it. Also tempted to try assembly language if I can.

 

[ible]

i'd prefer to write in C like for the bitbox (directly with makefiles and such), but i suppose i can learn the arduino ide and stuff...

 

[erico]

@ible , I saw your question on the new forum. I prefer to write with GLBasic as I can do a lot with it already. Always loved BASIC dialects, specially after AMOS.
I installed the arduino IDE here and followed the instructions to get it working with the gamebuino meta prototype I have, it is quite simple and direct...
...but it is C, so I´m a total noob with it. I will try to code some simple stuff to get started but I have been working with BASIC for soooo long that I´m biased.
I can draw though, if you wanna team up to create something I could help on that front.