Ben style making-of the Blackbox

[Skyone]

are you gonna make a custom pcb or just use perfboard

A custom PCB for the final, but for now, protoboard and wire-wrap.

If I knew more about it, such as controller and language, then I could program emulators for it. (Or atleast try )

Sure! Let us know how it goes! (Although there are some Propeller emulators in development.)

Are you going to make it a console? A handheld? Sell just the loaded motherboard, and people add their own controllers and case like the Apple 1?

A console and a kit are what we're actually mainly marketing. The console will just be like buying any other game console, it'll come with the electronics, case, controller, cables and this will probably come with an SD card, that's what the BlackBox uses to store games, you see.

Why didn't you get the Propeller from Digi-Key though?

They have 'em on there?

Are you planning on selling this or just giving us the schematics to build our own? Are you gonna make a little 5 second test game soon? To test video/audio/controls and such?

Both, console and kit, as answed a few questions up. Right now, controller is still in its minor stage of development, so soon we'll be releasing controller, and then we'll do a few prototype games.


If you guys got any more questions, PM me or iam7805, or visit the BlackBox forums: http://blackbox.jconserv.net/

[vb_master]

Why didn't you get the Propeller from Digi-Key though?

They have 'em on there?

Yeah, Digi-Key part number P8X32A-D40-ND. $25 each.

Would you guys mind of I took the BlackBox schematic, and made it into a board in Eagle?

[Indigno]

Well, once you get a controller and a bit more set up, I'd be more than happy to code for the BB.

Hey, I keep trying to register at your forum, but everytime I enter the registration code it says I'm wrong. I tried doing it in the same case as the pic, and everything I can think of but it just keeps telling me I'm wrong...

EDIT: After about 30 minutes of continually trying to get it to accept my confirmation code I finally got it right. You may want to consider replacing the images with clearer ones.

[Skyone]

Would you guys mind of I took the BlackBox schematic, and made it into a board in Eagle?

Nope! Go on right ahead, it is open source of course. Just keep it open source and share the PCB with the rest of us.

[Skyone]

Hey vb_master, I can't order the Propellers off Digikey yet, it says they ship 9/8/06.

[scherzo]

How fast is it? Like what's the MHZ? If it's not measured easily that way, what could I compare it to? The performance of the NES, SNES, PSOne?

[Sparkfist]

How fast is it? Like what's the MHZ? If it's not measured easily that way, what could I compare it to? The performance of the NES, SNES, PSOne?

The Propeller runs at 80MHz, and it could be compared to the PlayStation/Saturn as just the CPU. However before you think we're going to pump out Solcom or Nights, as the Propeller is also does video and audio the graphics are not going to be that high end. Really when the domos are shown and some of the games written for the Hydra (rival system made by Parallax) they were of 8bit quality, like the Pitfall! game.

I'm sure there will be ways to get 16bit graphics out of the Propeller, more work just needs to be done in designing a software GPU.

[SavageLych]

Couldn't you just run two of the propellers, and controll them with a micro controller chip thingy?

[timmeh87]

The Propeller runs at 80MHz, and it could be compared to the PlayStation/Saturn as just the CPU. However before you think we're going to pump out Solcom or Nights, as the Propeller is also does video and audio the graphics are not going to be that high end. Really when the domos are shown and some of the games written for the Hydra (rival system made by Parallax) they were of 8bit quality, like the Pitfall! game.

the crystal is 80mhz, but whats the instruction clock? i know that microchips PICs divide their clock input by 4, a PIC with an 80mhz ocscillator only actually operates at 20

[Sparkfist]

Ok looking back at the Propeller Page the internal clock speed is 12MHz to 20KHz. But really I don't think you'd run the Propeller without an external oscillator. This chip was designed for hobbiests and I don't think people would want to keep the chip running so slow.

@SavageLych, the idea of having two Propeller chips in like a Pro version of the BlackBox has been mentioned. There is even a setup on Parallax where a member setup 3 Propeller chips as a Master, Slave, Slave. They used the I/O pins, as really if you want to control another CPU an IC or PIC would only hamper the speed or efficency of the circuit you're building.

[blackbox_dev]

The Propeller runs at 80MHz, and it could be compared to the PlayStation/Saturn as just the CPU. However before you think we're going to pump out Solcom or Nights, as the Propeller is also does video and audio the graphics are not going to be that high end. Really when the domos are shown and some of the games written for the Hydra (rival system made by Parallax) they were of 8bit quality, like the Pitfall! game.

the crystal is 80mhz, but whats the instruction clock? i know that microchips PICs divide their clock input by 4, a PIC with an 80mhz ocscillator only actually operates at 20

Actually, the crystal is 5Mhz. The crystal can be multiplied with code (in this case by 16). This is the code to do that:

Code: Select all

  _clkmode = xtal1 + pll16x
  _xinfreq = 5_000_000

The first line specifies a low speed crystal (5-10Mhz) multiplied by 16. The second line specifies the exact frequency of the crystal.

Edit:

[jeroen]

*gasp* wow. First own software running. I'm so gonna order the parts asap.

[Kurt_]

I wouldn't. Right now that's all it can do.

[Skyone]

Dammit, iam, get on AIM.

[vb_master]

Enjoy!