UK/EU access to hardware
UK/EU Playpower People
Are you in the UK or the EU and wanting to get your hands on a Subor TV computer?
The playpower scheme is as you know to develop decent education, utility and games software to be made freely available in India, China, etc, but the current status on the software side is programming with NES emulators, which aren't currently transferrable to the Subor, while the hardware people come up with reprogrammable cartridges and other hardware mods to allow development/redistribution on the actual end user machines, because current NES homebrew solutions, such as the RetroUSB Cart, don't work yet and aren't scalable; small timing differences, the inclusion of a non-standard keyboard and mouse (!) and the current inability to "download" new software to the machines means access to the actual hardware is vital for continued development Ideally, whatever dev tools we create should eventually be in the hands of the end users as well, in order to get "fit for purpose" IT tools to those that need them. Being a child of the UK 80s personal computer boom where games were less important than the ability to program, I think we ultimately need hardware solutions that are as cheap as the Subor carts, and not reliant upon outside PCs, USB cables, etc, but are self-contained in the long run. To get to this stage we need more people hardware hacking!
The only current UK source for the TV Computer is £60+ from a retro games dealer, with none of the profits going to aid playpower; in the US there is a distributor that sells the hardware for about $60, of which a share goes to playpower. However, if we can raise enough interest/sponsorship to hit about £2000 (2220€) we might be able to order 100 straight from the manufacturers to redistribute at cost to potential playpower volunteers in Europe. NOTE: Although it's a $12 machine in Asia, customs and shipping make it considerably more here, but we can afford it. The normal minimum order is 2000 units from Subor, the Chinese manufacturers, but we are attempting to get a small initial order of 100 to seed people interested in volunteering for playpower in Europe; this is being negotiated by Derek Lomas, the lead man behind playpower in the US, but we need enough donations or potential purchasers to get the minimum order number of 100; if we go over then great!
My estimate of cost per unit is about £20 (23€) to us in bulk to the UK, including shipping and customs charges, which means needing £2000 (2220€) in donations. A small additional cost for P&P, say £10 (11€) but could be less, for getting individual orders out to people, means we could provide "at cost" seed machines for developers for £30 (34€) or less; if my estimate is high and customs and bulk shipping are lower, the reduced cost will be passed on to purchasers, and subsidise individual postage costs to the EU, or the difference donated to playpower. If you compare this with VTec kids toy computers that do far less for £60, it's clear that in the long term there is a market even in Europe for affordable "real" computers for children! Anyone interested in Serious or Educational Games, or wanting to encourage Creative IT skills in young people should be getting involved. Schools and computer clubs with limited resources would benefit, and old TVs would have reuse potential! Universities that teach Game Programming and Electronic Engineering could ultimately use these as an affordable platform for low-level programming and hardware hacking; hey, isn't Retro the new Black? So, you may have friends or colleagues to evangelise to.
It's early days, but with IT professionals involved the playpower dream of capable and affordable computers for everyone is possible. If you are interested in donating/sponsoring or pledging to purchase a TV Computer in Europe where they are costly or hard to get hold of, please contact me.
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Dr. Mike Reddy, Future Technology, Games Development and A.I., Division of Computing, Newport Business School, University of Wales, Newport, Allt-yr-yn Campus, PO Box 180 Newport South Wales NP20 5XR
Tel: +44 (0) 1633 432452 Fax: +44 (0)1633 432307 Mob: +44 (0)7971 170 199 Email: mike.reddy @ newport.ac.uk (remove spaces)
Are you in the UK or the EU and wanting to get your hands on a Subor TV computer?
The playpower scheme is as you know to develop decent education, utility and games software to be made freely available in India, China, etc, but the current status on the software side is programming with NES emulators, which aren't currently transferrable to the Subor, while the hardware people come up with reprogrammable cartridges and other hardware mods to allow development/redistribution on the actual end user machines, because current NES homebrew solutions, such as the RetroUSB Cart, don't work yet and aren't scalable; small timing differences, the inclusion of a non-standard keyboard and mouse (!) and the current inability to "download" new software to the machines means access to the actual hardware is vital for continued development Ideally, whatever dev tools we create should eventually be in the hands of the end users as well, in order to get "fit for purpose" IT tools to those that need them. Being a child of the UK 80s personal computer boom where games were less important than the ability to program, I think we ultimately need hardware solutions that are as cheap as the Subor carts, and not reliant upon outside PCs, USB cables, etc, but are self-contained in the long run. To get to this stage we need more people hardware hacking!
The only current UK source for the TV Computer is £60+ from a retro games dealer, with none of the profits going to aid playpower; in the US there is a distributor that sells the hardware for about $60, of which a share goes to playpower. However, if we can raise enough interest/sponsorship to hit about £2000 (2220€) we might be able to order 100 straight from the manufacturers to redistribute at cost to potential playpower volunteers in Europe. NOTE: Although it's a $12 machine in Asia, customs and shipping make it considerably more here, but we can afford it. The normal minimum order is 2000 units from Subor, the Chinese manufacturers, but we are attempting to get a small initial order of 100 to seed people interested in volunteering for playpower in Europe; this is being negotiated by Derek Lomas, the lead man behind playpower in the US, but we need enough donations or potential purchasers to get the minimum order number of 100; if we go over then great!
My estimate of cost per unit is about £20 (23€) to us in bulk to the UK, including shipping and customs charges, which means needing £2000 (2220€) in donations. A small additional cost for P&P, say £10 (11€) but could be less, for getting individual orders out to people, means we could provide "at cost" seed machines for developers for £30 (34€) or less; if my estimate is high and customs and bulk shipping are lower, the reduced cost will be passed on to purchasers, and subsidise individual postage costs to the EU, or the difference donated to playpower. If you compare this with VTec kids toy computers that do far less for £60, it's clear that in the long term there is a market even in Europe for affordable "real" computers for children! Anyone interested in Serious or Educational Games, or wanting to encourage Creative IT skills in young people should be getting involved. Schools and computer clubs with limited resources would benefit, and old TVs would have reuse potential! Universities that teach Game Programming and Electronic Engineering could ultimately use these as an affordable platform for low-level programming and hardware hacking; hey, isn't Retro the new Black? So, you may have friends or colleagues to evangelise to.
It's early days, but with IT professionals involved the playpower dream of capable and affordable computers for everyone is possible. If you are interested in donating/sponsoring or pledging to purchase a TV Computer in Europe where they are costly or hard to get hold of, please contact me.
--
Dr. Mike Reddy, Future Technology, Games Development and A.I., Division of Computing, Newport Business School, University of Wales, Newport, Allt-yr-yn Campus, PO Box 180 Newport South Wales NP20 5XR
Tel: +44 (0) 1633 432452 Fax: +44 (0)1633 432307 Mob: +44 (0)7971 170 199 Email: mike.reddy @ newport.ac.uk (remove spaces)
Tags: EU, Subor, TVComputer, UK, affordable, hardware
Views: 181
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Scott A. Williams on -
Sounds kind of unfortunate, but that's a great review of the device. I don't have any experiences with the clones, just the originals, interesting that most clones have more saturated colors.
Wily's Apprentice said:I've now obtained one of the Famiclone computers. It's an "iNext" model, with no manufacturer info that I could find. The supplied 48-in-1 cartridge seems to be the same one that appears in the YouTube video from Playpower, titled "Demonstration of the Victor-70" ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjSLZ-x-GxM ), so I'm guessing it's a Victor and not a Subor.
I'm quite surprised by the build-quality of the unit and some of the accessories - they seem to me to be relatively sturdy, considering the production costs. The mouse, especially, is really quite good. The joypads are pretty terrible though, so I had to hook up a controller from another Famiclone that I already had. It was curious, and somewhat nostalgic, to see that the port labelled as "2" is actually the port which you need to plug player one's controller into (I grew up with a C64, and most often games required the joystick to be in port two). The light-gun is scarily gun-like for what's really a toy gun.
I was quite surprised by how pale and washed out the colours that the machine outputs actually are. I've owned quite a few Famiclones in my time (I find the unusual ones to be quite interesting), and this is the first time I've seen one like this - they're usually *much* more saturated than the colours that come from a real Famicom, and this one is the reverse of that.
Unfortunately - and this is the part that I was disappointed, though not really too surprised, to see - the machine is not compatible with the PowerPak. It just gives a flickering white screen. I guess any testing I do to try to help out around here will have to be restricted to emulators and my real Famicom!
It's certainly very interesting to see what's being worked with. I'm sorry that I won't be able to do any testing on the actual hardware, though.
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Permalink Reply by Wily's Apprentice on -
I just realised that I forgot to mention one other point - oops!
The sound is quite good, and fairly close to an original machine, as far as Famiclones go. With Famiclones, this can be quite variable - some sound nothing like a real NES or Famicom, and are often too high-pitched, or hit wrong notes in places. This one is one of the good ones, sound-wise - it's mostly quite accurate.
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Permalink Reply by James Derek Lomas on
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We will really try to figure out the deal with the powerpak. It is almost certainly a voltage level issue... stay tuned and keep making noise and we will figure it out... ~!
Can you post any pics of the device you picked up? Thanks!
Wily's Apprentice said:I've now obtained one of the Famiclone computers. It's an "iNext" model, with no manufacturer info that I could find. The supplied 48-in-1 cartridge seems to be the same one that appears in the YouTube video from Playpower, titled "Demonstration of the Victor-70" ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjSLZ-x-GxM ), so I'm guessing it's a Victor and not a Subor.
I'm quite surprised by the build-quality of the unit and some of the accessories - they seem to me to be relatively sturdy, considering the production costs. The mouse, especially, is really quite good. The joypads are pretty terrible though, so I had to hook up a controller from another Famiclone that I already had. It was curious, and somewhat nostalgic, to see that the port labelled as "2" is actually the port which you need to plug player one's controller into (I grew up with a C64, and most often games required the joystick to be in port two). The light-gun is scarily gun-like for what's really a toy gun.
I was quite surprised by how pale and washed out the colours that the machine outputs actually are. I've owned quite a few Famiclones in my time (I find the unusual ones to be quite interesting), and this is the first time I've seen one like this - they're usually *much* more saturated than the colours that come from a real Famicom, and this one is the reverse of that.
Unfortunately - and this is the part that I was disappointed, though not really too surprised, to see - the machine is not compatible with the PowerPak. It just gives a flickering white screen. I guess any testing I do to try to help out around here will have to be restricted to emulators and my real Famicom!
It's certainly very interesting to see what's being worked with. I'm sorry that I won't be able to do any testing on the actual hardware, though.
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Permalink Reply by Wily's Apprentice on
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Sorry that it's taken me a few days to respond to this - I have taken a picture, and here it is;
The joypad isn't one of the included ones, as those are pretty dire. The one in the picture is from an out-of-production clone called the Blaze RetroCon (which is actually a 72-pin machine for NES cartridges, rather than a 60-pin one for Famicom cartridges).
James Derek Lomas said:We will really try to figure out the deal with the powerpak. It is almost certainly a voltage level issue... stay tuned and keep making noise and we will figure it out... ~! Can you post any pics of the device you picked up? Thanks!
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Permalink Reply by Dr. Mike Reddy on -
Hi Wiley, How are you getting on with the iNext? I am really keen to get one, to see how to hack a keyboard/mouse for the FC handheld clone. Is the powerpak you tried 72 pin with a 72->60 pin converter, as this could be your problem. Incidentally, where did you get the powerpak? Was it a US import? Know a good supplier?
And for anyone else, do you know where to source a compatible 60 pin dev cart if one exists?
And for everyone else on the west coast of the USA at least, I am in Long Beach for a conference 21-25th October if you want to meet up.
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Permalink Reply by Wily's Apprentice on
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Hey Mike,
I'm getting on alright with it, although of course the incompatibility with the PowerPak is a bit of a downer!
The PowerPak is 72-pin, and, indeed, I use a 72-60-pin adapter. It's one in a translucent black casing, which I also use when plugging the PowerPak into my Famicom (it's this adapter, but I purchased mine from an eBay seller in the US - http://www.superufo.com/product_html/Cool_Stuff_Family_Converter_60... ).
The PowerPak came directly from RetroZone ( http://www.retrousb.com/ - see the "Dev Tools" section), which is the company which manufactures them.
I'm afraid I don't know of a similar 60-pin device myself, though.
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Permalink Reply by Dr. Mike Reddy on
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Crap! The only UK supply has sold out. I think that Wiley might have bought the last one. Damn damn damn! Now I am going to have to hope eBay comes up with one. All this is coming from my own pocket, and I got stung £25 for importing the FC clone, so funds are scarce. Oh well.
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