Hi all,
I'm (just) old enough to have played a coin-op Pong machine and of course hung around the arcades playing Space Invaders, Galaxian, Donkey Kong etc. After a hiatus from the arcades in my teens due to the fact that my father brought home a computer (TRS-80 Model I) one day, I was re-acquainted when I befriended an arcade addict at uni. These days I have formal qualifications in both software and electronic engineering, and work mostly on embedded systems and FPGAs. I've been interested in software emulation since before MAME existed, have written a couple of MAME drivers many, many years ago, and in recent years turned my hands to FPGA emulation of various systems.
Whilst my interests span retro arcade, console and microcomputers, my arcade collection is relatively modest, consisting of three generic cabinets - a 26" upright, a 19" lowboy, and a 19" cocktail - and perhaps two dozen PCBs.
My most recent arcade interests have revolved around the Neo Geo which, somewhat paradoxically, I never played back in the day. I should also mention I'm not in the slightest bit interested in 2D fighters. What interests me most about the Neo Geo is the design and capabilities of the hardware itself. So much so, I have several Neo Geo projects underway, though none are 100% complete. I have a preliminary design (schematic) for an FPGA-based motherboard, which is on the back-burner. A spin-off project, a flash-based AES/MVS cartridge, has been designed and laid-out, but not reviewed or assembled. Software wise, I converted Apple II Lode Runner to C and ported it to the Neo Geo, which I've had running on the MVS under MAME and on actual NGCD hardware. It works fine, but there's an AI bug. I'm 50% of the way through porting the arcade Donkey Kong to 68K assembler on the Neo Geo. And finally, most recently I ported the ZX Spectrum version of Knight Lore to C and the Neo Geo. It runs fine but there's sprite priority issues to be sorted.
What brought me here was someone notifying me of Darksoft's post about the Neo Geo multi-cart. Otherwise, I had no idea this forum existed. Glad to be a part of it now.
I'm (just) old enough to have played a coin-op Pong machine and of course hung around the arcades playing Space Invaders, Galaxian, Donkey Kong etc. After a hiatus from the arcades in my teens due to the fact that my father brought home a computer (TRS-80 Model I) one day, I was re-acquainted when I befriended an arcade addict at uni. These days I have formal qualifications in both software and electronic engineering, and work mostly on embedded systems and FPGAs. I've been interested in software emulation since before MAME existed, have written a couple of MAME drivers many, many years ago, and in recent years turned my hands to FPGA emulation of various systems.
Whilst my interests span retro arcade, console and microcomputers, my arcade collection is relatively modest, consisting of three generic cabinets - a 26" upright, a 19" lowboy, and a 19" cocktail - and perhaps two dozen PCBs.
My most recent arcade interests have revolved around the Neo Geo which, somewhat paradoxically, I never played back in the day. I should also mention I'm not in the slightest bit interested in 2D fighters. What interests me most about the Neo Geo is the design and capabilities of the hardware itself. So much so, I have several Neo Geo projects underway, though none are 100% complete. I have a preliminary design (schematic) for an FPGA-based motherboard, which is on the back-burner. A spin-off project, a flash-based AES/MVS cartridge, has been designed and laid-out, but not reviewed or assembled. Software wise, I converted Apple II Lode Runner to C and ported it to the Neo Geo, which I've had running on the MVS under MAME and on actual NGCD hardware. It works fine, but there's an AI bug. I'm 50% of the way through porting the arcade Donkey Kong to 68K assembler on the Neo Geo. And finally, most recently I ported the ZX Spectrum version of Knight Lore to C and the Neo Geo. It runs fine but there's sprite priority issues to be sorted.
What brought me here was someone notifying me of Darksoft's post about the Neo Geo multi-cart. Otherwise, I had no idea this forum existed. Glad to be a part of it now.
