mame-on-a-stick
Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 9:48 pm
Version: 0.1
Status: Beta
License: BSD
This is a project I haven't worked on for a while and figured I'd share it. The initial idea was to make a tiny mini-cabinet but I just haven't come around to making the cabinet. Anyway, here's a quick rundown:
- Fully functional custom z80 emulator, written in C and coming in around 10k total. Could be reduced a LOT if it's rewritten in assembler
- Display driver for 2.8" 240x320 LCD from DisplayTech
- Micro-SD interface and neutered FAT-16 file-system ( read-only )
- PWM audio
On reset, the game boots to a menu that looks into the 'games' directory that then populates the menu with screenshots and information to launch the game. Each game is a separate executable stored in its own directory which then in turn loads the roms from within that directory. This unfortunately means that you have to write an emulator FOR EACH GAME, which kinda sucks. Right now it's got pacman and ms. pacman as they're very close from an emulation point of view.
Compatibility-wise, it runs on a single core chip and uses 5 threads (display, render, game, audio, pwm). Total power consumption is minimal and hovers around 100ma. The whole thing runs off of 3-AAA batteries.
I'll post some development clips later if anyone's interested.
Images:
Status: Beta
License: BSD
This is a project I haven't worked on for a while and figured I'd share it. The initial idea was to make a tiny mini-cabinet but I just haven't come around to making the cabinet. Anyway, here's a quick rundown:
- Fully functional custom z80 emulator, written in C and coming in around 10k total. Could be reduced a LOT if it's rewritten in assembler
- Display driver for 2.8" 240x320 LCD from DisplayTech
- Micro-SD interface and neutered FAT-16 file-system ( read-only )
- PWM audio
On reset, the game boots to a menu that looks into the 'games' directory that then populates the menu with screenshots and information to launch the game. Each game is a separate executable stored in its own directory which then in turn loads the roms from within that directory. This unfortunately means that you have to write an emulator FOR EACH GAME, which kinda sucks. Right now it's got pacman and ms. pacman as they're very close from an emulation point of view.
Compatibility-wise, it runs on a single core chip and uses 5 threads (display, render, game, audio, pwm). Total power consumption is minimal and hovers around 100ma. The whole thing runs off of 3-AAA batteries.
I'll post some development clips later if anyone's interested.
Images: