never again), I realized that benheck is quite simply the best online community I've ever been apart of. It's great to see the good ol' emoticons on the left... really brings back good memories. Therefore, I decided to come back (not sure why I actually left), but in a different body. After messing up my old account which made it impossible to login, I decided that rather than emailing one of the admins that it would be best to make a fresh, new start. Enter blackbox_dev. I'll keep my signature and avatar until I've established my presence here, as it took quite a while before.So where is the Blackbox now? Completely different from any other revision. In fact, I don't think it could be considered just a revision now. I realize now that the Blackbox is just a hobby for me, and I don't need a "team" to develop it with me. However, I love getting feedback from other people so I invite everybody on this forum to help me with the project. I'd like to especially thank people on the team during the summer of 2006 when the project started to take off. The thing is, being a student I don't have as much time (or money) to work on the project as much as I like. So, what's been changed now, you ask? Well, here you go:
- Games will be stored on CDs/DVDs. An ATAPI interface has been developed.
- Separate sound chip. All sounds/music will be in MIDI format and synthesized by an Atmel GM chip. This subsystem has also been designed. Sound effects may be somewhat limited by how the MIDI format only stores note values and not sounds, but beeps and bloops can be done creatively and the GM standard has patches for different kinds of sounds, such as thunder. Music will be comparable to the SNES.
- A DC/DC power supply is being used in place of the previous linear regulators. This allows greater efficiency and provides the 3.3v, 5v, -5v, and 12v that the system will need.
- The Propeller chip is now being used as a dedicated GPU. A design has been drawn up which includes 4MB of attached RAM. The video output will be in component video with a maximum (feasible) resolution of 720p.
- The main processor designs are still in development. Right now the plan is to use a 65C816 (similar to the CPU in the SNES), which is the 16-bit cousin to the ever so popular 6502.
Whew. Well, with that out of the way, it's time for me to ask some questions. What exciting things have happened since I left? I see that Ben is working on a new film (awesome! I was a big fan of PW). What new portables have been created that are worth noting? What important members have left, and do any of the newbies (we were all one once) look promising?
Well, that was probably a lot for you to swallow. There's not much more for me to say right now, so I'll let you digest, and I look forward to seeing familiar faces and meeting some new ones as well!
-dev
