I personally like the cart idea. Yet probably to simpifly things I would make them tiny and just put a flash chip on them. The only thing is we would need to have a easy way to update or reflash the chip on the cart with out loosing space to make a arduino app that simply just writes or app/game to the flash chip (loosing out on space that that would be needed by the app it self to flash the chip). I don’t see much of a point in putting a separate cpu on the cart unless there is plans to be able to change it to a much higher end chip (like an arm M0 or M3).
Something I always liked about the pokemon mini system were it’s little cartridges.
When CPUs were expensive compared to memory, that was always the best way to go. But now that most of the CPUs we are usually discussing here have included flash, adding external memory is both complex and expensive. Many of the most common low-power devices don’t even support external flash memory, so it has to be added on via the SPI bus.
In addition, the bandwidth needed to external memory for an 8MHz CPU is far higher than the bandwidth needed to connect to the peripherals in many cases. An external memory interface ends up being more expensive to build.
Finally, there is always some basic expense on a per-chip basis. I think you might find that the cost of a bare flash memory chip is comparable to the cost of the low-end CPU – and you still need to buy and integrate the CPU.
I completely agree that it is rather non-intuitive for the cart to be a standalone CPU. But in a world of sophisticated but low-cost SoC devices, it looks like its a better value solution than breaking out the CPU and memory.
Imo I would deliver the hardware without anything on it. Instead send a little card with some tips on how to install games and anything else, the hardware will be compatible with, on it. I had to go through so much information to find out what went wrong when I first installed the IDE and wasn’t able to upload anything on the Arduboy. Imo you guys should let the customer decide what he wants to do with the device. A little like the Pi. Maybe you can even send a little book with some basics on how to program applications yourself so people would be more interested without getting lost in the world wide web
Instead of having to buy an Arduboy with a game preloaded as an official game, why not let users download the official games for a price. If creating an Arduboy model with some sort of extra storage to allow for multiple games, I feel it would appeal to more people if the official games you paid for then flash them to your Arduboy like the games available at the minute rather than having to buy a system with one preloaded that you may never play.
I don’t know what’s included with the latest Arduboy shipments, but I assume there’s something that tells you to go to https://www.arduboy.com/
On that page there’s a Getting Started section at the bottom that points you to the Quick Start Guide which contains much more than what a “little card” could about installing games, etc.
I only got the device itself and the cable that comes with it, nothing more, the package tells me to go to http://community.arduboy.com to download games but neither does it tell me how to install it nor that I have to install the IDE to upload the .ino files onto the arduboy.
That’s unfortunate. The packaging for the Kickstarter Arduboy says www.ARDUBOY.com and there’s also a QR code with a link to it.
Perhaps @bateske can address this for future shipments.
There is a link to the quickstart guide on the bottom of the front page but you are right, we should probably make it more clear! For now maybe I’ll sticky the guide into the community but we need a more better solution!
There are a bunch of videos that users have made too so we should link to those also!
I use to have a Pokemon mini, but couldn’t find a copy of Tetris Shock for it. I don’t think it was ever released in North America. But wouldn’t it be cool to have a port of it (or something looking like it) on the Arduboy?!?
It’s trademarked property which we licensed and worked to create custom hardware for the best possible gameplay experience. It has 2 chips so it allows you to have Tetris on one and then user games on the other!
We are doing our absolute best to get this shipped out in time for Christmas!
This was also on hack-a-day that is relevant if you wanted to try something very creative
I’m confused… You’d rather pay for the games then have them for free? Or are you referring to the Tetris Microcard? If you don’t want Tetris you should just buy the regular Arduboy. The only reason that one has a dual chip is because of the Tetris trademark preventing the source from being available. All Arduboy games are open source.
This is taken slightly out of the context of which I meant. Kevin stated that these official branded Arduboys would cost more to have a game preloaded on them, what I am saying is why not instead of making the Arduboy more expensive with the game on you want have some of the games at a paid price. By no means am I saying have all games at a paid price all I am saying is that maybe instead of increasing the price of an Arduboy to have an official branded game on there, why not just charge for the game instead.
I’ll have to speak in generalities here because I can’t actually give details here but…
Sometimes when companies sign licensing agreements they are bound to follow certain rules and guidelines set forth by the owner of the licensed property. If a property owner is in the business of licensing its content to multiple partners, it needs to make sure that it looks out for all of it’s interests and maximize its profits, thus will make exclusive deals with some of them. These exclusive deals will sometimes have ramifications on the opportunities that future licensees have available to them.
In fact, I’ve come to find out that many of the goof-ball, hair-brained… “why in the world did they do that?” kind of business decisions that happen in industry are the result of licensing or other agreements that bind parties to certain actions (regardless of how confusing) and are unable to divulge why (because it’s covered under NDA).
So, this is the way it has to be. But each license is different and they are to some degree negotiable, so we will see if another commercial opportunity comes to us.
But honestly for now Team-ARG makes the best games anyways!
To help redirect the conversation, there has also been a port of the GAMEBUINO software to run on the arduboy. And a micro-SD card would easily fit behind the back case…
Just watch out for the lawyers! Haha. I heard that anything with the post fix “tris” is trademarked by them. I don’t know all the rules, but I can’t imagine they’d come down too hard on a free open source basic port.
