Who currently owns the rights

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dmac721 wrote:

  Figures, I mentioned this whole idea months ago and got zero positive response ?

Well, I don't think much has changed in a few months...

Best anyone can do is build a technology demonstrator, if they can get the prototype in and working, for under $100 then you know that this idea is real and doable.

Once it's technologicaly proven, then an only then can anyone start taking licences and actually selling the thing. Until then it is just a pipe dream.

I would rather someone proved me wrong with a real device than sat here telling me and others that we are just trolling.

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dmac721 wrote:


   Well see there is a neat thing about it. You wouldn't actually HAVE to prototype the chipsets, all you would have to do is prototype something that even UAE could be compiled and run on well, or even "parts" of UAE.

Yeah, well for £240 I have a handheld Amiga Prototype...


Again with the photos (Yeah I love showing them :-D):

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dmac721 wrote:

I was thinking more along the lines of a 68k and a rom with a I/O controller, and a video/sound chip that would actually still run parts of os1.3 and the ECS would be emulated

Well at the most basic level all you need a 68k compatible chip (a dragonball) + a frame buffer... then load a patched AmigaOS (to remove the gfx chip depenacies... or use AROS etc...) on it. But it wouldn't run any old games as they hit the hardware.

That means you need a chip to emulate the chipset... if you are emulating the chipset it would be cheaper to get one chip that runs UAE (Chipset & 68k) than to have a 68k + another chip. Then you've got an iPAQ running UAE :-D

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Samuar wrote:
UAE already works on Sega Dreamcasts - which come with controllers and TV-OUT; second hand they are about £20 and you can purchase Keyboards and Mice for them. Hell, I've got Doom on Linux running on mine.

Out of this box, we wouldnt need the GD-ROM Drive (special kind of CD-ROM) if replaced with flash; no need for the Modem or Broadband adapter - which would reduce its profile considerably.

Now that's a much better idea!

Get a simple MIPS box with a cheap VGA chip + an RF + USB. Put linux and UAE on it and you have your retro box.

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Samuar wrote:

The Sega Dreamcast uses a SuperH processor as opposed to a MIPS. However, with a bit of hardware and software work, it could be used as a proof of theory concept prototype.

My Error, I thought the SuperH was a MIPS clone :-)

I recon a prototype could be put together for very little money, your ideas are sensible.

-Edit- THe SuperH looks great!! http://www.superh.com/products/sh5.htm

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CatHerder wrote:

bloodline wrote:

If the IP holder doesn't matter - why does Cloanto exist and retain the lone rights to the ROMS, and make a profit selling their keyed ROMs?

Cloanto have a licence to sell the ROM images. And as I keep saying unless you use AROS you will have to licence that too. This is a non issue, I don't know why you keep bringing it up.

Because you're the dummy who keeps saying the IP doesn't matter FFS!

At least I understand that the Osperating syetem IP and the Chipset IP are two separeate entities, which have nothing to do with each other any more.

In fact you have 3 separate entities!!!
Harware IP
Operating system IP
Trade Marks

The Harware IP is useless
The OS can be obtained from Cloanto
You can try and talk to KMOS about licencing the name... but I think Eyetech would moan about that.

Again, do you have any concept of what IP is? Why isn't AUE or Amiga in a Box sold as a retail product? (Because it can't legally be sold as such.)

It's because you can't sell GPL'ed IP... I thought you understood about IP?

You can include UAE in a retail product (as long as you provide the source code), as Amiga forever show.

Bzzzt. Wrong.

Cloanto can sell their package and include UAE because they have the current exclusive rights to produce/reproduce the ROMS. Name another legal UAE retailer. ?

There is an emulation pack available in my local HMV that includes WinUAE (without the ROMS)... but that is not the point, the point is that UAE is GPL. A better example is the router I bought recently came with a little note that some of the software on it's ROM was GPL'ed and I could download the source code to that software from their Website. This is a GPL issue. UAE has nothing to do with Amiga IP, nothing what so ever. There is no law against being compatible with something else, this isn't even a grey area, it's simple black and white!

Somehow Tulip has been manufacturing C64 ROMS, CPUs and other chips from old technology. Yes, I realize it's different tech - but its also 5-10 years older... so how the hell did somebody produce those? A time machine? No, they just found the right fab.

No, they either used a 6502 compatible microcontroler, or use an ARM runing an emulation. Though, looking at the Nintendo and other units, they seem to be recreations of the games, i.e. recoded just using the old graphics and audio. And running on modern, cheap, hardware.

Excellent... you chomped right down on that one.

EXACTLY!! They are using a current customized chip(s) to run the 64 TVGamer, and have modified the games (hey, what do you know they somehow modified TWENTYFIVE YEAR OLD games. Wow, but you said up above that's impossible because the source code would all be gone...)

Those companies published the games of course they have the source graphics and sounds... I would be surprised if EA still had even half the Source code to their Amiga back catalogue.
I remember Daniel Silva saying that EA dumped the source to DPaint when they saw the amiga market dry up. The Source was tied to the Amiga platfrom (not in anyway portable), and as far as they were concerned the platfromwas dead... the source disks/tapes were just wasting space.

Remember that the C86/Nintendo/Atari 8bit's etc, were much simpler than the Amiga recoding the games wouldn't take long.
There is a bloke, who in his spare time has coded a GTA clone for the NES.

"Trivia details - Jeri spent hundreds of hours developing the ASIC for the C64= DTV. In her quest to get the C64 DTV just right, she traveled to China and stayed there for a week, making daily journeys between her hotel in Hong Kong and the Mammoth Toy factory, working usually until 10 at night. ...

She also went to Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada for a few days to partner up with Robin Harbron, who worked on converting the games for the DTV"

Is this part of the Chewbacca Defense?

No, my point about ADFs is that you will need a special loader on your hardwareto handle loading the ADF's either onto your machine or into the emulator you choose... and there is the issue of disk swaping... some thing that the user doesn't want to be bothered with... that will require a simple and powerful loader + a nice pretty menu...

BZZZT wrong again.

Who said anything about providing the games in adf format? I don't think you have the ability to think past step one of every idea presented. I said an Amiga emulator can currenty read Amiga games from multiple data sources - sources that did not exist when an Amiga was around.

That was in response to why you thought you couldn't use a cartridge. Now you're changing it to cost (which I mentioned on PAGE ONE of this thread). Come on man, you're trolling pure and simple.

THe games are ALL out there in ADF format - so, you load em up in your hand dandy Amiga emulator, and you save them in some other format. OR, you load em up on your handy dandy real Amiga and you save them in some other format. (not a hard concept, work with me here)

The reason why you wouldn't use USB Cartridge is not for piracy concerns, but because adding USB host support to your device would cost a lot! But then adding any kind of Cartridge support to the design is going to cost you...

You want something proprietary so people don't grab games offline (in the initial first year of the product's lifecycle) and use them with your game device. You want somethig that generates sales. I don't care about expandability, portability (other than it's physical size), etc. I want something that sells, and resells. I already know (I've sourced them) that I can buy 16MB USB "carts" for $0.98 each from Taiwan (lots of 5,000). I'm sure if I bought 100,000 of them I could get them for $0.35 or $0.40 each. If it were possible to put an interface on the GameTV device that accepted those USB "carts", and it didnt cost $2-$5 to do so, then maybe it would be an ok idea.

But it's not an ok idea from the company's point of view:  because you can also plug that USB 16MB cart into your PC or Mac and potentially run other games on the GameTV -- games that people didn't pay the company for. (I'd give it 30 days for somebody on the internet to come up with an "ADF to GameTV converter" if you used USB).

Or you use a custom format on the USB flash stick...?

However, you're right about the usb-hc cost being too high (about a buck fifty) if you're trying to make these for under $10 each. The biggest problem then ,though, would be power - you couldn't expect this to work without an AC adapter if you included USB, batteries just wouldn't cut it (or you'd need expensive battery packs).

Although... including a USB port would allow you to use a mouse. But there again, a huge power sucker when it comes to the size of what we're discussing here. And you'd need two ports if you wanted to use a game cart and a mouse (even more expense).

You only offer games that use a joystick. Wow, what a concept. Think that one through. I mean sure, that will limit the selection to a mere 10,000 titles, but I'm sure there's 10 or 20 worth picking in there. . .

Ahh that ok then... I though you'd want to include Lemmings and Worms + the countless RPG's that Amiga users spent most of their time playing, and made the Amiga famous.

Yes, you're right there. Dungeon Master, Settlers, etc... But that fare really isn't suited as a "TV" game is it. You want a bunch of shoot em ups, beat em ups, and drive em fasts. (Remember, the primary market wouldn't be old Amiga users, it would be today's kids).

[/quote]

Yeah, I can see them getting excited about those games. "Hey Jimmy do you want to play GTA? No way man, I've got Outrun!"

Including a mouse "emulator" and remapping the buttons and the joystick (just like you do on an XBox when emulating an Amiga) would solve that and not add anything to the cost. It wouldn't be as playable though (joystick emulating a mouse never is), perhaps a mouse-port is in order... bah added expense again!

But what type of mouse port? USB is the most versitile as you can load up flash disks, keyboards, mice etc... or PS/2 but that is being phased out, and the port is less usefull...

The beauty of selling these as an all-inclusive 10 games per GameTV device is you can customize the controls based on what games you bundle. That's the concept (single stand alone ~10 game GameTV devices or "Amiga RetroGamer"). I've bandied about the idea of a cartridge version and I suppose it could be handled in the same sort of way - the "emulator" pulls the controller information from whatever cartridge is installed.

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CatHerder wrote:

Samuar wrote:
The MIPS + Uae idea looks to be the simplest, quickest and cheapest way of getting this product idea to market - as suggested by bloodline - which only leaves getting licenses for games.

However, a prototype shouldnt be too hard to knock up, which could run games that we already have single licenses for.

Running Uae ontop of another OS seems practical, especially if a little extra time is taken to make the os, say linux, small, lightweight and can boot quickly - almost becoming invisible to the consumer. This isnt too difficult to do as linux is excellent in embedded devices.

Once a prototype is ready, it could be demo'd at Amiga Shows (tho the device is more aimed at any home users, rather than amiga followers) and then aim to get some financial backing and get IP issues sorted.

I'd be interested in working on such a project.


Samuar


Edit/Addition:
The Sega Dreamcast uses a SuperH processor as opposed to a MIPS. However, with a bit of hardware and software work, it could be used as a proof of theory concept prototype.

That sounds like a far too pricey a product. Nothing like what I'm talking about at all. But good luck with it. Wait, can't you do the above, exactly, already with a $200 hand-held device?

I want to retail $20 to $25 game devices, and the money to make it is not the issue.

Pricy?? An SH4 (SH5?) + a VGA Chip + a stereo audio DAC, running Linux. Nah, that is the best idea I've heard.

I bet you could bring that in for $10 per unit, which you could sell at $40.

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seer wrote:
Relax Catherder. No need to make this look like an eye for an eye ANN based thread where everybody needs to show what was said.

You've read Bloodline's comments, he doesn't share your point of view, possible because you 2 have a different definitions on certain meanings. Either leave it as it is, or take the things you can use from his comments.

If you think your idea can work, and it seems others share your view, either work out a business plan (perhaps with some people here) and get some money or cancel it now.

Or just stop this thread and start a new one after gathering some info from what was said here.

Yeah, good advice. I just found it a really interesting disscussion, as it's something that I thought about alot about 5 years ago. The more research I did more, the less rosy the idea seemed :-(

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CatHerder wrote:

bloodline wrote:

Pricy?? An SH4 (SH5?) + a VGA Chip + a stereo audio DAC, running Linux. Nah, that is the best idea I've heard.

I bet you could bring that in for $10 per unit, which you could sell at $40.

Have you ever priced any of this out, or you just make guesses and post it?

yup just a guess based on the price per unit of the components. I don't know about the SH4 CPU, but my old router cost me £40 and had a a fairly powerful little MIPS cpu in it.  

i.e: how much for a 400MHz SH5 processor? Do you know? I happen to. Mind you, the last time I priced them out in quantities was about 20 days ago...

no I don't know about the SH4.. but any modern RISC embedded CPU will do and you can pick them up for a few $ in quanity.

Do you know what VGA chip you would use? What's the cheapest one that can output Amiga resolutions and maintain at least 24fps? And how you would deliver that VGA display to a TV screen? As for audio, the AC97 (or cheaper) chip would cost around $0.80 per board if you bought it in quantities of 100,000.

A simple VGA FB RAMDAC isn't goning to cost much at all, and by using UAE you don't have to worry about the Amiga Resolutions, which most games used 320*200 anyway with would scale to VGA without any problems.

For audio I would use a micro-controler with a lowpass filer + OPAMP as a simple PDM DAC... I expect the most expensive parts to be the ROM chips and the RAM.

How much to license the Amiga IP - that's the question you just keep avoiding because you do not seem to know what Intellectual Property is. $5 each? $20 each?

For 1.3, it's going to be tiny... There is some dispute as to if the 1.3 is even owned by anyone any more (but that a totally different matter).

You will NOT be able to sell any sort of an Amiga emulator that uses any form of an Amiga ROM image (1.3 or 3.0 would be your most viable choices for widest compatability for the games that are available) without getting the IP licensed. And even selling the emulator is dicey at best without also lisencing the IP it's emulating (trust me, Gateway would be all over you like white on rice if you started selling Amiga emulator game devices and they were not getting a cut -- if they still own the IP that is).

Not if you don't use any of their IP... which UAE doesn't.

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I pulled these specs for the SH-4 It really does seem like the prefect chip for the job (expensive though at $50/1k -Edit- that price is from 2002 :-D):

-------------------------- -------------------------------------------
Item                       Specification
-------------------------- -------------------------------------------
Product Code               SH7760 (HD6417760BP200D)
-------------------------- -------------------------------------------
Operating temperature       -40(degrees)C + 85(degrees)C
 range
-------------------------- -------------------------------------------
Operating voltage          Internal: 1.5V       I/O: 3.3V
-------------------------- -------------------------------------------
Operating frequency        200MHz (max.)
-------------------------- -------------------------------------------
Processing speed           360MIPS, 1.4GFLOPS (at 200MHz)
-------------------------- -------------------------------------------
CPU core                   SH-4 core
-------------------------- -------------------------------------------
CPU instructions           91 (16-bit fixed-length instructions)
-------------------------- -------------------------------------------
Cache                      16-KB instructions/32-KB data separation,
                            two-way set associative, write
                            through/copy back selectable
-------------------------- -------------------------------------------
External memory            Bus state controller supports SRAM,
                            Synchronous DRAM, Burst ROM
-------------------------- -------------------------------------------
Data bus width             External 8/16/32 bits selectable
-------------------------- -------------------------------------------
On-chip peripheral         Interrupt controller (INTC)
 functions                 Direct memory access controller (DMAC)
                            x 8channels
                           Clock pulse generator (CPG) with phase
                            locked loop (PLL)
                           Watch dog timer (WDT)
                           User break controller (UBC)
                           Timer unit (TMU) x 3 channels
                           Compare match timer (CMT) x 4 channels
                           LCD controller (LCDC)
                           Smart card interface module (SIM)
                           10-bit resolution A/D converter
                            x 4 channels
                           Advance user debugger (AUD)
                           Hitachi user debug interface (H-UDI)
-------------------------- -------------------------------------------
Interfaces                 Serial communication interface with FIFO
                            (SCIF) X 3 channels
                           I2C bus interface x 2 channels
                           Serial sound interface (SSI) x 2 channels
                           Hitachi Audio CODEC interface (HAC)
                            x 2 channels
                           USB host interface (version 1.1 support)
                            x 1 channel
                           Hitachi controller area network 2 (HCAN2)
                            x 2 channels
                           Hitachi serial peripheral interface (HSPI)
                           MultiMediaCard interface (MMCIF)
                           NAND flash memory interface
                           Multi-function interface (MFI)
-------------------------- -------------------------------------------
Power-down modes           Sleep mode
                           Deep sleep mode
                           Software stand-by mode
                           Hardware stand-by mode
                           Module stand-by mode
-------------------------- -------------------------------------------
Package                    BGA-256 pin (21mm X 21mm, 1.0 mm pitch)
-------------------------- -------------------------------------------

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Samuar wrote:
...not to mention existing OS support, from an OS which UAE runs on too.

This cought my eye:

http://www.logicpd.com/eps/som/renesas/SH7760-10/


I've requested a quote per 1K

-Edit- the Board is of a much higher spec than we would need but would be a great for a tech demo.

[bloodline]

CatHerder wrote:

bloodline wrote:
-Edit- the Board is of a much higher spec than we would need but would be a great for a tech demo.

Could probably get a cheaper ITX board for a demo.

You can get one with an SIS 2GHz processor and integrated everything for about $70.00 and most measure 5in by 5in.

Here's one as an example.



It's still too much $, but it demonstrates how small a full blown PC can be... one that runs todays applications (including web servers and database servers -- there's even dual CPU Mini-ITX boards out there now). A couple good writeups can be found here: http://www.mini-itx.com/

Yes I have an 800Mhz Mini-ITX... the board has far too much functionality and is too large for what you require.

That Said if you could source the Nano C3 CPU and a cutdown Nothbridge, you might be able to buld a custom board using it.

The Advantage with using C3 is that UAE is already very optimised for the x86 and has a working JIT (not that that is important for old games).
But the Chip power hungry, requires a lot of support chips and it needs active cooling. It would work out to be too expensive in the end.

I prefer the idea of using an Embedded RISC system. I natuarally drife towards the ARM chips because they are so so small and cheap, and use no power at all... but I've been really impressed with the SH-4 spec and feature list.

If money was no object then putting two ARM9 cores on to a single chip with some support features (Audio + Gfx) would be the best idea, get Linux on it. Then optimise UAE to thread across the two CPUs.

[bloodline]

MskoDestny wrote:
I don't think the Dreamcast is powerful enough to emulate the Amiga properly.  It has enough trouble emulating the Genesis which it only does reasonably well when using the PowerVR to do most of the graphics emulation.  This causes glitches in some games and would probably not work as well for the Amiga hardware (the copper makes the kind of raster f/x that screw up these techniques that much easier).  IIRC, the SH-4 doesn't scale much beyond 200MHz (the speed of the SH-4 in the Dreamcast) so I don't think it's a realistic choice here.

Maybe the SH-4 isn't perfect, but UAE is mostly CPU intensive... with careful optimiseation UAE could easilly get A500 speeds... though I'm not sure about sound quality... THat is why I suggest putting two smaller ARM cores on to on chips that would allow much better control of the timing issues and allow at least two parts of the emualtion to run at once... which is closer to the real thing (tm).

Out of curiousity, about how many gates are in the OCS or ECS chipset (not counting the 68k)?

I don't but if you read Dave Haynies post, this says that it's not much. And if you were recreating the functionality of such chips now you could probably get the whole lot on to one FPGA.

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minator wrote:

Maybe the SH-4 isn't perfect, but UAE is mostly CPU intensive... with careful optimiseation UAE could easilly get A500 speeds... though I'm not sure about sound quality...

I've heard more than one report that even a high end PC can't fuly handle UAE (in AGA mode IIRC) so I'm not fully convinced about a CPU based emulator, especially on somthing with as little computing power as an ARM.  Something with a "lockable" cache should do a better job though.  A lockable cache allows you to map all or part of it to a specific area of RAM and use it as a high speed on-chip memory.

I suggest you do your own research rather than relying on this information.

A P133 can run UAE almost prefectly, the only problem is the audio which is choppy, I can't run the latest version of UAE on it though as it doesn't have a new enough verion of DirectX. The same PC can fun Fellow (Which only goes up to A500+ spec) without problems.

My 600Mhz Athlon can run WinUAE, perfectly, including sound.

My ARM based PDA runs the Beta of PocketUAE at A500 speed, agains with choppy sound. Once the Emulation is optimised I expect it to run better.

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Dan wrote:

Martyn wrote:
So what you're after IS to resurrect BoXer then?

Coldfire+Atari Falcon compatible DSP+custom chips in FPGA :-P
Amiga,Atari and 68k Mac compatible?

Yeah, but I've already got one of them... and it runs MacOS X and Windows XP too :-P

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http://www.mini-itx.com