Toons from various consoles.
The new game systems include NTSC/PAL video, VGA, Serial Ports, Micro SD card slot, PS/2 Port, Game Ports, Expansion Ports, Dual 3.3/5V Power Supplies and more. Both kits include a 300+ page book that guides the user into the depths of the system. APIs for graphics, sound, I/O and interfacing are provided to speed game development. Nurve also developed a high performance XGS BASIC for each system, allowing users to choose from C/C++, assembly or BASIC when coding.
Read More at Retro Thing
This kind of follows up on our previous story about affordable 8-bit dev platforms.
You want an easy to get, widely available and documented platform? The C64 is one of your best bets, but you cannot be arsed to learn a low level language like Assembler, right? At the same time, you do not want the limitations of the poor in-built BASIC included with Commodore machines, I presume.
Enter DotBASIC Plus. Its purpose is to bring you “the power to create sophisticated, modern-looking programs” without you having to burst your brain with low level coding.
According to the author, Dave Moorman, ” The Commodore 64 is the epitome of the 8-bit computer. It has everything you need for any hobbyist programmer […] except an excellent BASIC interpreter”. So he made his own.
The thing comes with a hefty 80 page manual but, unlike most C64 tradition, this is not a free release! However, at 10 dollars for the Downloadable Version, you certainly get a lot of bang for your buck. From what I’ve seen of it, it simplifies the process of BASIC coding adding keywords to the system, but also outputs more optimized code only loading the modules you need (which are all coded in machine language) and stripping the rest. Convenient.
Not enough? A second disk includes most convenient tools, like a bitmap editor, a sprite editor, a cruncher and more.
More info and purchase information at the official website.
Maker Shed has started stocking these 8bit TV-Computers (you may remember from our post here). For $50, you get:
The last two are highlighted because I ahve never heard of them. Anyone know what they are like? And hopefully Maker Shed will start carrying eeprom carts for this sucker soon..
One of the features of the MIDI Pokey synth is the ability to have one MIDI channel control all the Pokey voices polyphonically. That allows it to play chords directly from a standard MIDI keyboard without any fancy processing in between. The Pokey has four voices, so it can play four note chords. It can also do three note chords plus a melody line, and any other permutation of four. Making it work was just a matter of deciding how to route multiple notes to multiple channels.
More info and audio on the Blog. I want this one pretty bad..
8BC Dev Goatslacker has launched a new LSDJ Patch Book site. The site is very easy to use, and easy to upload your own patches. One could argue that half the fun is making your own sounds from scratch, but this is a valuable learning tool, and a good way for you old dogs to learn new tricks. The interface is great, and its mega easy for you to transcribe your lsdj patches. More features coming soon, I hope!
