Who likes Pi?

[wizkid32]

Has anyone here been following the progress of Raspberry Pi?
I know I have!
Off on a side tangent, what implications could this have for the Arcade community.
(Not a question, but an invite for discussion.)

Link:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/

[SavannahLion]

Not sure what implications it could have. At $25 it certainly has my attention. Initially, I thought this would of little value except as a closed box unit whose expandibility is limited to USB, but I noticed the row of GPIO lined up there.  The GPIO coupled with the video O and USB, this unit alone would cut the electronics cost of at least two of my projects by a few hundred dollars, minimum.

To put it another way, I don't see many applications with MAME but let's say you have a (not virtual) pinball project. This could be the entire core logic minus the monitor (as the scoreboard) and the high voltage drivers. For $25?! This is just begging the community to snatch it up.

[Blanka]

Very cool project. This is going to be awesome!

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

They've had demo units running ported versions of games like Quake 3 at 1080p, so it's capable of a reasonable level of 3D graphics as well.

I'd love to see something like Android ported to this configuration, aimed at more capable "Smart TV" like scenarios.

You mention pinball though... How about some crazy homebrew smashup with a nice heavy bit of lexan over a TV screen with a regular playfield on top of it for an augmented reality type setup?
Obviously you couldn't have 'drops' into the board, but I could see passage ways on the sides of the playfield that let your ball roll into the virtual space below.

[ark_ader]

I want Model A for XBMC.  I'm hoping it will get power from HDMI. Or will it plug into the back of a LG TV USB port?  Me thinks it will. 

[wizkid32]

Well, I was thinking about an arcade setup.  Mainly for bartops, etc., with limited game sets.  My rationale is that, while the specs aren't that great, they would still be more than enough to play Donkey Kong and Pac Man.  Plus, the small size would fit much better in that tiny cab...

I like the pinball idea, though.

I'm still maintaining "I'll believe it when I see it" attitude towards this thing.

"Cynicism is not a good thing"-A quote from Wizkid32 

[Crazy Cooter]

They're in production.

From the website:
This means that the first units from the first batch will be rolling off the line at the end of January. This first batch will consist only of Model Bs, although you will be able to buy Model As later on. Details about whether we’ll wait for all 10k to come off the line before starting sales, and about what date we’ll be starting on, will come later; so that gives you something else for you to shift around nervously on your chairs about for at least another week or so. (Please stop emailing me about it. Please.)

I want to cram one in an old S-type xbox controller.  One cord from wall wart to controller, second cord (HDMI) from controller to TV.

[wizkid32]

I want to cram one in an old S-type xbox controller.  One cord from wall wart to controller, second cord (HDMI) from controller to TV.

Ooh!  I never thought about that.  Their size does indeed makes them ideal for self-contained units...

[fallacy]

$25 whatever, I  am sure it will be well past $100 once you get everything you need.

Are units come standard with a 4GB flash drive, What you want a least 25? Plus $50. So on and so forth.

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

$25 whatever, I  am sure it will be well past $100 once you get everything you need.

Are units come standard with a 4GB flash drive, What you want a least 25? Plus $50. So on and so forth.

What would you be doing with one to need 25gb of storage?

[fallacy]

$25 whatever, I  am sure it will be well past $100 once you get everything you need.

Are units come standard with a 4GB flash drive, What you want a least 25? Plus $50. So on and so forth.

What would you be doing with one to need 25gb of storage?

I dont' know I am thinking in flash drive terms. You can get a 4GB flash drive now for like $5. If you were going to get a real hard drive it would be like $80 plus for that alone.

[SavannahLion]

That's true but that's up to you. I've come up with half a dozen ideas for this thing and none of them even need storage on that scale. I haven't even considered in that regards.

That bare header is what has my attention. At that price with that kind of horsepower under the hood. It literaly blows away dozens of other comparable priced boards and you get all sorts of IO support on top of that.

If they can hold that MSRP and meet demand, that thing will definitely have a place.

[Edgedamage]

I want Model A for XBMC.  I'm hoping it will get power from HDMI. Or will it plug into the back of a LG TV USB port?  Me thinks it will. 

XBMC running on Raspberry Pi
http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/571

[wizkid32]

I want Model A for XBMC.  I'm hoping it will get power from HDMI. Or will it plug into the back of a LG TV USB port?  Me thinks it will. 

You're right!  It will!   

[stefano]

Or even it could be fitted inside some old but good flat panel TVs providing a modern video player.

[wizkid32]

Or even it could be fitted inside some old but good flat panel TVs providing a modern video player.

Good idea!  I might have to try that myself...  Might work well with ark_ader's XBMC suggestion below.

[paigeoliver]

If you port an older version of Mame (like .55) than those specs are enough to run basically everything. Assuming a 700 mhz ARM processor can do what a 400 mhz intel one could.

Well, I was thinking about an arcade setup.  Mainly for bartops, etc., with limited game sets.  My rationale is that, while the specs aren't that great, they would still be more than enough to play Donkey Kong and Pac Man.  Plus, the small size would fit much better in that tiny cab...

I like the pinball idea, though.

I'm still maintaining "I'll believe it when I see it" attitude towards this thing.

"Cynicism is not a good thing"-A quote from Wizkid32 

[Howard_Casto]

As soon as they get back in stock I intend to get one and write some software for it.  I'm hoping it can handle a very bare-bones version of windows xp/9x.  It's got enough ram, and the storage space is doable... I just don't know about that arm processor.   

My thought was to write a custom version of mamehooker for the i/o pins.  Then it could essentially act as a drop-in replacement for a broken pcb, even if it's an oddball one with a lot of lights, ect....

If we can't get windoze on it I'm not sure.  Mame's output code is still in there, but it only works in windows.  Getting it to work in linux, for example could be doable... but getting it to work in dos could prove difficult.  Of course the output system is farily new as well.  It's more like version .100, not .55.  The older builds of mame could be modified, but I'm not really sure if anyone is willing to maintain an ancient build of mame anymore.


I think for standard mame it's a no-brainer, but if you want to do anything more than that, we are going to have to wait and see what OSes people manage to install on the thing.  Many of the ideas brought up thus-far sound very windows/linux gui centric.... and it may have trouble handling that.  Then again most of the tablets on the market run on arm processors so I dunno.



I think pbj's cynicism is mertied in this case.  It took the guy 6 YEARS to get the thing out on the shelves.  That's duke nukem forever territory.  This very easily could have gone the other way.  I'm very gald it didn't though!

[paigeoliver]

Howard, it has an arm processor not a x86 one. That sort of makes windows or DOS impossible to run since they aren't written for arm processors.

You have linux and all those offshoots.

But QNX could be promising as well. It is super fast, uses almost no resources, runs on arm and there is an existing mame port for it. It is a really old one, but I doubt a lot of substantial games that can run on that processor have been added to mame since then.

[Howard_Casto]

Don't encourage me, I'm obnoxious enough already.

Your replacement PCB idea is intriguing, do you have any specific applications you're thinking about?

Well a couple of things just pop off the top of my head. 

You know these vector boards that were popular for mame a few years back?  Screw a board that you hook between a pc, just have all the vector games on the pi using the i/o pins to directly drive a vector monitor!  Not sure if I"m talented enough to do that personally, but somebody here could.

I think the pinball idea is fantastic... resurrecting pinball 2000 style games would be possible with such a board.

I think it would be cool to use the i/o pins to trigger synth boards instead of playing samples in mame.... again, a bit complex, but not impossible. 

And of course there are those crazy games with force-feedback that could use help.

[Howard_Casto]

Howard, it has an arm processor not a x86 one. That sort of makes windows or DOS impossible to run since they aren't written for arm processors.

You have linux and all those offshoots.

But QNX could be promising as well. It is super fast, uses almost no resources, runs on arm and there is an existing mame port for it. It is a really old one, but I doubt a lot of substantial games that can run on that processor have been added to mame since then.

I would be lying if I said understood processor differences on more than the most basic level, but I kind of took it that you could write "drivers" for processors just like you could any other piece of hardware.  I don't know how different x86 instructions are from arm, so it could be pointless to write drivers anyway, but I wouldn't rule out windows just yet.  If nothing else there are portable flavors of windows that run on arm (ce, ect...) you would be suprised how much of the main windows api is in these portable flavors. 

Linux, like you said, is more viable though.  The damn problem about linux though is that nobody in the middleware part of our hobby writes for it.  You have to start from the ground up when you decide to go the linux route.

[ark_ader]

Howard, it has an arm processor not a x86 one. That sort of makes windows or DOS impossible to run since they aren't written for arm processors.

You have linux and all those offshoots.

But QNX could be promising as well. It is super fast, uses almost no resources, runs on arm and there is an existing mame port for it. It is a really old one, but I doubt a lot of substantial games that can run on that processor have been added to mame since then.

I would be lying if I said understood processor differences on more than the most basic level, but I kind of took it that you could write "drivers" for processors just like you could any other piece of hardware.  I don't know how different x86 instructions are from arm, so it could be pointless to write drivers anyway, but I wouldn't rule out windows just yet.  If nothing else there are portable flavors of windows that run on arm (ce, ect...) you would be suprised how much of the main windows api is in these portable flavors. 

Linux, like you said, is more viable though.  The damn problem about linux though is that nobody in the middleware part of our hobby writes for it.  You have to start from the ground up when you decide to go the linux route.

Get Froyo working on it and you can have Mame4All at least.  XMame maybe, but it depends on the drivers.  Wait for Puppy Arcade 11.

[Howard_Casto]

Well I also read a story that windows 8 is going to support ARM.  You'll have to re-compile your apps of course, and there might be a bit of code re-write but it's a full version of windows.

Basically they are doing it because google android scares the crap out of them.  IF they did it right (let's face it, it's M$, they have about a 50/50 shot) it would be a game changer.  You could write a app for windows 8 and with just the slightest bit of tweaking it would run on a mobile device as well.  Hell you might be able to use the old getwindowsversion api to make version specific code and have one app that just runs on both!

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

Well I also read a story that windows 8 is going to support ARM.  You'll have to re-compile your apps of course, and there might be a bit of code re-write but it's a full version of windows.

Basically they are doing it because google android scares the crap out of them.  IF they did it right (let's face it, it's M$, they have about a 50/50 shot) it would be a game changer.  You could write a app for windows 8 and with just the slightest bit of tweaking it would run on a mobile device as well.  Hell you might be able to use the old getwindowsversion api to make version specific code and have one app that just runs on both!

My understanding is that the win8 arm support will be limited to Metro apps, and that the whole Win8 on Arm this is in branding only, similar to the Windows phones.

Now you want a more interesting project... Recall that the Windows 2000 source was leaked several years ago. Now there's a porting project.

None the less, there is a full port of Fedora specifically for the Pi in the works:

[DaOld Man]

I like Pi with ice cream.

[yotsuya]

Placed my order for one. We'll see what happens.

[wizkid32]

Linux, like you said, is more viable though.  The damn problem about linux though is that nobody in the middleware part of our hobby writes for it.  You have to start from the ground up when you decide to go the linux route.

You'd be surprised.  There are a surprising number emulators that have been written for Linux, though if they will work on the Pi is beyond me.  Who knows.  My friend swears by Ubuntu and even I, a steadfast Windows user, am impressed by it.  The main reason I would not want it powering my machine, however, is that it can't handle windows games.  I like a LOT of commercial arcade-style games...

[Howard_Casto]

Linux, like you said, is more viable though.  The damn problem about linux though is that nobody in the middleware part of our hobby writes for it.  You have to start from the ground up when you decide to go the linux route.

You'd be surprised.  There are a surprising number emulators that have been written for Linux, though if they will work on the Pi is beyond me.  Who knows.  My friend swears by Ubuntu and even I, a steadfast Windows user, am impressed by it.  The main reason I would not want it powering my machine, however, is that it can't handle windows games.  I like a LOT of commercial arcade-style games...

You'll note that I said middleware, not emulators.  There are tons of linux emulators that isn't the problem.  You have one front-end that I'm pretty sure is mame-only and zero support apps (rom managers, stuff like ledblinky/mamehooker, ect).  I don't keep up with the linux emulation scene anymore though so this could have changed.  In terms of PCs, there's no reason what-so-ever to run linux over dos or windows so I just kind of let the whole thing go and check back once in a blue moon to see if anything has changed.