Analogue Pocket

https://www.analogue.co/pocket/

by dhritzkiv • 7 years ago

53 7 7 years ago

The things that excite me the most about this aren't the backlog of games, but the TV dock, Nanoloop tracker, and making new games. I am a big fan of seeing how creative people can be with limitations. Making a game or music on this system definitely would fall in that category. I'm not aware of what the limitations are for this game though.

I like the GB studio app, though since it maintains strict backwards compatibility with the original Game Boy, you have a very restricted color palette.

I wonder if PICO-8 can be ported to this.

NetOpWibby• 7 years ago

The hardware looks incredible.

dnos• 7 years ago

Super intriguing. I don't really know much about FPGAs, but the idea of using them to essentially clone old gaming system CPUs is flat out awesome. I assume that theoretically this would be identical to original hardware, unlike emulating it in software?

This Pocket device looks like a well made product. I wish all the best to this endeavor -- if nothing else just for helping preserve gaming history and letting people (more accurately) play older games.

SwellJoe2• 7 years ago

"Identical" is a really strong word. The original Gameboy had all sorts of quirks due to the low price target of the device and the technical limitations of the time. The way the bits are tossed around inside will be very similar to the original hardware, and programming it will be roughly identical (it'd have to be to run all the old games accurately and at the same speed), but all the interfaces to the real world will be quite different.

This thing has HD color output...that's definitely not identical, but it's not a bad thing. The audio output is also a modern signal path...we probably wouldn't want it to be the same whiny/noisy output as the original at this price. And, oddly, some people do what's called a "prosound mod" on original GameBoys to clean it up a bit and obtain better frequency response, though I think that's silly...I just embrace all the quirks and accept that it's how GameBoy music sounds, if I wanted pristine I'd use my 24-bit 192KHz interface on my computer that's like a million times more powerful.

I think the cool thing about projects like this (and I'm excited about several of them) is that we get devices that we don't worry about dying, that remind us strongly of the ones we grew up with or enjoy tinkering with because of their limitations. Even if they aren't identical. If you really want identical, just buy a GameBoy. You can get original ones in good working condition for cheaper than this (though you might have to go through a few to get one that's actually in good working condition without screen problems...I bought like five on eBay to end up with two in mostly good shape, but the one with the best screen has also developed dead vertical lines since I've had it, but total spent was probably less than $200, including shipping).

SwellJoe2• 7 years ago

That's awesome!

Though, I'd rather have LSDJ than Nanoloop (Nanoloop is cool, but I found the tracker interface of LSDJ more comfortable)...but, I guess since it's compatible with Gameboy games, it's compatible with LSDJ, so, it's probably just a matter of sticking it on an SD card and plugging it in.

Assuming that's so, I'll buy this just to not have to worry about my Gameboy's screens going out completely (both have several dead or dim vertical lines already). And, being able to program the FPGA sounds hella cool. I wonder if a handheld Amiga (or C64 would also be cool, without needing the resources of an Amiga) is a possibility...

swalls• 7 years ago

Oh man, this looks great. I've been wanting a system that you can program close to the metal like this.

That being said, I think this will be just for the programmer enthusiasts, $200 is a pretty hefty price for consumers considering you can make a Pi that can emulate a lot of retro consoles for cheap. Understandably expensive, though, given what this is.

Qwertystop• 7 years ago

At least one GBA game (Megaman Battle Network 4) had a major glitch (game hangs in the WoodMan scenario, in a particular area of the game, after a random battle) that only occurred on some hardware (Nintendo has acknowledged the issue on the original DS [1]; I've seen a Let's Play [2] claiming it happens on the GBA SP as well but cannot confirm that for myself)

The cause is different behavior on trying to load invalid sprites; to my understanding, the NDS keeps reading until the address wraps around to a valid sprite, locking up until then; other hardware stops reading immediately. That scenario has a problem with one particular animation when the map reloads after a battle. It seems plausible that other games would have the same issue, but MMBN4 Blue Moon is the only one for which Nintendo's got an acknowledgement of the issue on their site, so maybe literally nobody else made that mistake.

I wonder whether they caught that? On the one hand, it's a (relatively) known issue, in that Nintendo has mentioned it on an official support page. On the other hand, it seems to only impact a single scenario in a single game, which has a load of other bugs anyway. But then, they're not trying to support DS games, so the only way for the bug to get in (if they're going for an as-close-as-possible emulation of the GBA and doing so successfully) would be if the bug does in fact cause hangs on the SP and they used that one as their reference.

[1] https://www.nintendo.com/consumer/systems/gameboy/trouble_sp... [2] https://lparchive.org/Mega-Man-Battle-Network-4-6/Update%200...

Analogue Pocket

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