First Take a look at GameTank, the 8-Bit Console No person Noticed Coming

A chunky blue slab sits on a desk, with RCA jacks protruding like forgotten relics from a storage cleanup. This 8-bit console, generally known as the GameTank, lately reached its crowdfunding aim on Crowd Provide, and backers at the moment are wanting ahead to a July 12 2026 ship date, a goal that has been locked in after greater than $45,345 was raised (as of at the moment) in opposition to a $30,000 aim.

Clyde Shaffer is the thoughts behind the GameTank, having created it from the bottom up at Clydeware, and this venture is the end result of his efforts. Shaffer wished know-how that allowed him to play actually cool 8-bit video games, not a ported-over duplicate of a basic hit (he’d had sufficient of these). Your complete factor was made to look like classic circuit boards, proper all the way down to the person chips and board association.

The principle powerhouse of the machine is a W65C02S CPU that runs at 3.5 MHz. Then there’s a second W65C02S buzzing round at 14 MHz just for sound, as there aren’t any fancy field-programmable gate arrays or fashionable controllers right here, and no hidden logic chips or RAM.

Graphics are drawn right into a 128×128 framebuffer, just like how most elderly TVs cropped out a couple of rows on the high and backside, leaving roughly 128×100 useable pixels. You might have a whopping 200 colors to play with, all of that are fully usable on the display screen on the similar time, and a blitter copies bytes to the display screen in real-time each single clock cycle, leading to super-smooth motion with out the disagreeable flicker you used to get on the NES or Atari.

Reminiscence is beneficiant by 8-bit requirements (bear in mind the previous days?), with 32 kilobytes of normal RAM divided into 8 KB chunks, 512 kilobytes for graphics information, and 4 KB for audio. Cartridges comprise 2 megabytes of flash reminiscence on a singular 36-pin board. You possibly can management the machine by way of two ports, every with a D-pad, A, B, C, and a Begin button. The video output is NTSC composite by way of an RCA jack (suppose previous TVs and VCRs), and there’s a 26-pin extension port on the again for tinkerers and GPIO traces to play with. Energy comes from a wall wart, and for these inquisitive, Shaffer offered each single schematic, board file, and 3D print template on GitHub.

You possibly can both construct the factor your self or get a soldered model from Soldered Electronics in Croatia (they deal with manufacturing). If you wish to get your fingers soiled, there’s a C SDK primarily based on CC65 for compiling code for the 6502 household, and for those who don’t need to create it from the bottom up, there’s even an emulator you should utilize to check your video games on PC. If you happen to resolve to construct it, you possibly can load ROMs utilizing a USB flasher. The developer package prices $299 and contains the console, controller, analog cable, documentation, clean cartridge, and flasher. Clean carts are offered individually in two-packs for $40

Shaffer describes the GameTank as a playground for hackers and {hardware} aficionados. The 6502 core permits for simple porting of video games from the NES or Apple II, but it surely’s the distinctive instruments that truly set it aside. With the proper instruments, you can also make animations that movement like water and wealthy music that isn’t too tinny.

Crowd Provide remains to be open for pledges till the twenty sixth. The prototypes have been working stable for the previous two years, and the subsequent step is to finish the quite a few certifications. The primary items will start to reach in the summertime, and backers will be capable of flip them on their CRTs or upscalers and cargo their new video games from flashers or carts.
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