brainwagon

I mused about a retro-style game console in today’s podcast, and over lunch I found xgamestation.com, who manufactures a simple video game system which is obviously inspired by the same ideas:

Imagine understanding how video game systems are designed and developed at an engineer’s level. Imagine writing your own games for a piece of hardware you’re personally capable of building. This isn’t a field trip to the factory — this is decades of video game hardware development boot camp compressed into a single product designed to upgrade your brain and take you to the next level of skill and understanding. It was estimated that only 100-200 people on the entire planet understood the workings of the legendary Atari 2600 and its design. What if you could design machines like this and beyond?

Nifty.

It uses the Ubicom SX52 chip, which is an interesting choice. The chips run fast enough that they support the idea of virtual peripherals, and are quite inexpensive. Far too inexpensive to really justify the $199.00 pricetag of the xgamestation, but still, there are probably some good ideas hidden in this.

Logged for later consumption.