- XGameStation
The XGameStation is a creation of
Andre LaMothe that is designed to teach electronics and video game development to programmers. [http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/21/1411242Slashdot article about the XGameStation] Originally he planned to use anARM architecture processing unit and anFPGA to create a video game development system. But after finishing this project it was decided that the resulting system was much too advanced for beginners. The Micro Edition was instead created, based on theSX52 Processor . It has add-on packs for creating your own expansion card and electronic experimenting kit. The Micro Edition contains the XGameStation unit, a detailed book inPDF format teaching the basics of electronics, and a few extras. [http://www.electricalfun.com/XGameStation.htm Article about teaching electronics with the XGameStation] The Pico Edition is a simplified version of the Micro Edition in a build-it-yourself kit. [http://makezine.com/xgamestation/ XgameStation Pico Edition]Video signal generated by software
The most remarkable aspect of the SX52 Processor is its ability to create a color video signal using only software, and still have the power to simultaneously run the software that uses this video display in order to create an elementary
video game or game demo. These latter programs may or may not evolve into a real (playable) game, as often the memory of the SX52 processor is too restricted to support them. Some people also write non-game video demos to show off the video display possibilities of the system.Obsolete status of the SX-52
The SX-52 has been made obsolete by Parallax, the company that now packages the SX-series of micro controller dies, made by
Ubicom , because they did not have a package with 52 pins. However, according to the people at XGameStation, there are enough SX-52 chips available for all their future needs. [http://www.ubicom.com/processors/sx/sx_family.html End of life announcement for SX processors packaged by Ubicom]New Hydra system
In
2006 Andre LaMothe launched his newHYDRA Game Development Kit , a much more powerful system. The Hydra uses the new multi-core Propeller micro controller, also from Parallax, which has an architecture resembling the cell processor used in the newPlayStation 3 . This micro controller runs at 80MHz and uses eight processor cores, (Called COGs) to reach a performance of 160 MIPS. It also has much more memory than the SX52. 32K RAM and a 32K ROM which contains a bitmap font for the video display generator, (the Propeller can generate a high quality VGA or PAL/NTSC color picture using software and some special support logic built into each CPU core), tables for mathematical function, and an interpreter for the multi threaded SPIN language. Each CPU core also has its own 2K RAM (512 32bit words) of dedicated memory. With this new chip, and the other support logic on the board, such as PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports (the Hydra is sold with both a keyboard and a mouse), a USB interface, twoNES compatible game controller ports, (one game controller is included) and a 128K serial FlashEEPROM for storage, it should be possible to develop much more impressive (fully functional) games, and more impressive demos. With his new optional 512K external RAM card for the Hydra the possibilities are even further extended.External links
* [http://www.xgamestation.com/ XGameStation official site]
* [http://www.xgamestation.com/phpbb/ XGameStation official community board]References
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