What about an AMIGA DTV ?
Amigo of AMIGA
500 and although I have experience with the C64 of my elder brother,
too, the AMIGA will always be my favourite computer.
And I think there are many AMIGA-fans left there, 'cause the AMIGA has
some really classic games like Rick Dangerous, IK+, Chaos Engine and
most of the other Bitmap Brothers games, the Turrican games and many
more.
There are joysticks based on the C64, the ATARI 2600, several Japanese
console systems and arcade systems.But none for the AMIGA.
Designing such a system would be possible by either designing an
AMIGA-on-a-chip which could be quite difficult because of its custom
chips or by using a custom version of the UAE Emulator based on some
PC hardware.I'm not a fan of reprogrammed games, so I wouldn't use the
option of using some cheap PC parts with reprogrammed AMIGA games.
There are several problems : The first is, that AMIGA is not only "one
computer" like the C64, it's a whole line of computers, there are
AMIGA 500, 500+, 600, 1000, 1200, 2000, 3000,4000 , different
revisions of boards, different AGNUS chips, OCS, ECS and AGA chipsets
and differences in RAM between chipmem and fastmen.
The classic games, however, usually work on an AMIGA 500 with 1Mbyte
of RAM, 512 Kbytes of chipram and 512Kbytes of memory expansion.There
are not many great AGA games or games that don't work with the old
AGNUS chip.
A second, big problem is, that many AMIGA games are mouse-based , but
this could be solved by designing a joystick with a USB-port for a USB
mouse or by designing a mouse or trackball with mouse-based games and
a keyboard option.
And some kinds of games like adventures and rpgs need some option to
save games.
I think such a project could be successful and doable.Most of the very
good AMIGA games need only 1 disk, for example the two Rick Dangerous
games, IK+ ,
Wings of Fury, the 3 Turrican games, the Emerald Mine games (This is a
Boulder Dash clone), Speedball 1 and 2, Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands
and Parasol Stars , the EPYX sports-classics like Winter Games and
World Games and others.
And great games need only 2 disks "The Chaos Engine", "Xenon 2" and
other Bitmap Brothers games.
That means, a joystick (or mouse/trackball) could contain 30 games in
about 32 Mbyte, or less, if packed.RAM is expensive.
And that's only the joystick-based games.There are a lot of great
mouse-based games like the great Populous 1 and 2, the classic Pirates
which has the best version on AMIGA, Defender of the Crown, the
rpg-classic Dungeon Master and Eye of the Beholder, Dune 2 and many,
many more.
Biggest problem, however, is copyright.I wonder if the company
currently owning the "AMIGA" would be interested in such a project or
sue anyone trying to work with it like Infogrames did to anyone using
the ATARI brand.
AMIGA500AMIGO
David Murray
very comparible (in my opinion) to the hardware in a low-end Amiga. As
far as mouse games go.. I doubt you'd ever see a USB port on such a
device. They'd probably put a little trackball or something on there.
Who knows... I suppose it might happen some day. I just wish they'd
release the chip from the DTV as a DIP format.. Wouldn't that be cool!
--DavidM
amiga5...@yahoo.com (Amigo of AMIGA) wrote in
news:42a9b9ba.05012...@posting.google.com:
Ziggy
> I'm one of the guys who started his "computer career" with an AMIGA
> 500 and although I have experience with the C64 of my elder brother,
> too, the AMIGA will always be my favourite computer.
>
> And I think there are many AMIGA-fans left there, 'cause the AMIGA has
> some really classic games like Rick Dangerous, IK+, Chaos Engine and
> most of the other Bitmap Brothers games, the Turrican games and many
> more.
>
> There are joysticks based on the C64, the ATARI 2600, several Japanese
> console systems and arcade systems.But none for the AMIGA.
>
That is beacuse recreating 8bit machines in an FPGA is much more
realistic then a full complex 16bit machine like an Amiga or an ST.
Not saying that it cant be done, but it wont be cost effective just to
make some sort of 'retro-game-stick'... And i dont see a market big
enough to sell a FPGA based retro pc..
The few of us that care, and would like to see a real box wouldnt keep
them in business..
rob_o...@hotmail.com
Amigo of AMIGA wrote:
> Biggest problem, however, is copyright.I wonder if the company
> currently owning the "AMIGA" would be interested in such a project or
> sue anyone trying to work with it like Infogrames did to anyone using
> the ATARI brand.
An even bigger problem are the rights to some of the games. Remember
the big Amiga revival that was to happen on the GBA? A whole host of
Amiga ports were scheduled and then disappeared off the radar, and what
ones did come out weren't very impressive (Wings, IKAdvance, Rick
Dangerous). Not to mention that Sony still retains the rights to some
of the Psygosis catalog and then there are the DMA-design games
(Lemmings in particular) that are owned by Rockstar. Team 17? Bitmpa
Bros? I could go on... I think all of the Domark and Gremlin lineup
is owned by Core, Might as well be asking EA since they will own
everyone in a few years. :-)
How about the difficuties with displaying Amiga video on a composite
monitor (aritfacting, flicker), and also the PAL/NTSC issues with
screen real estate.
microx
White Flame (aka David Holz)
news:1107075510....@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> I don't understand what you're talking about here. What is a DTV?
DTV == Commodore 64, 30 games in 1, Direct To TV joystick. It's an ASIC
recreation of the full C64 (plus some extras) that runs off batteries and
fits inside a joystick, with composite + sound out for plugging into a TV.
--
White Flame (aka David Holz)
http://www.white-flame.com/
(spamblock in effect)