XGameStation: Anyone doing anything with it?

[98PaceCar]

I won one of these at a technical convention I attended about a month ago (right after CGE actually) and have been doing a lot of reading on it. I've got some ideas for some tinkering I'd like to do with it, but was wanting to see if anybody has any good sources for code snippets or even a forum that sees some activity. The ones on the Nurve site are pretty limited and not a lot of help. I'm not looking to re-invent gaming or anything, but I think it would be cool to understand how the software really interfaces with the processor at the hardware level!

[slapdash]

You know, at two CGEs I never stopped by their booth. I felt bad for Andy, and I even think the idea is kind of cool, but it's just not quite interesting enough to me.

That doesn't help you though, sorry.

[98PaceCar]

I'm of the exact same opinion. I stopped by their booth both years and talked to them for a little while each time. The idea is awesome and from what I can tell it's very well executed, but spending $200 on something like this is a bit hard to do, especially when there are so many other things at CGE I wanted. I hope the product is doing better for them in other markets. Maybe they have some schools using them or something like that.

I do have to say though, I'm pretty excited about it now that I have one in my hands. I've been reading the books that came with it and doing as much research as I can. Haven't done anything real with it yet, but I was working on another little programming project that I needed to get done. Now that it's out of my way, I'm gonna try to learn SX52 assembly! It'll probably never amount to anything, but if I can get something that even resembles a game I'll be happy!

[President Shinron]

sorry to ask but can somebody post a pic or tell me what you guys are talking about?

[heyricochet]

Xgamestation is a hardware platform to design games on. Its basically a cheap dev kit.

[98PaceCar]

sorry to ask but can somebody post a pic or tell me what you guys are talking about?

http://www.xgamestation.com/view_product.php?id=12

That's the Micro Edition, the same one I have. It's put together as a study of embedded system design as it relates to video game consoles. You get a motherboard that is flashable from a pc along with a ton of documentation that takes you through the design from bare components to software. Very interesting stuff!

[Necromutant]

I have never been a big fan of this idea. I would MUCH rather someone come up with a "developers kit" for NES, SNES or GBA that included the following:

- A slick, semi easy to use IDE.
- A few books worth of good documentation/tutorials for said IDE.
- A flash cart that would easily interface with the IDE.

I love the idea of learning to program for an old school system, but it would be much cooler to do it for the NES or SNES... GBA would be ok too, and there are some things out there that I have run into that can be use like I mention above for GBA, but they aren't a package deal like I'm thinking.

That is of course ignoring the idea that with the Xgamingstation you can apparently do hardware mods/add ons and interface with different types of inputs that you might design for it... I guess I don't see too much value in that though. But meh, sorry about the less than helpful reply... :P

[marcus12024]

but was wanting to see if anybody has any good sources for code snippets or even a forum that sees some activity

Check out www.gamedev.net/community/forums, I know there's at least a handful of people over there using these kits. And if you want to sell yours, it probably wouldn't take too much effort to sell it over there either.

Good luck, this piece of hardware is a neat idea, and very good for learning low-level programming. Very low-level :)