Hehe, raven's out to turn everyone green
Yeah as I said a few posts back, I only considered an onboard all in one briefly as a size consideration, but I went back to the original idea of the l/bracket pci/agp solution to allow for upgradability and superior performance.
The cube idea I like 'specially seeing the spacecube thingies at watford, but my only problem is most people's lounge room hifi/dvd/video equipment is horizontal, which means it's gonna be harder to fit a cube into a stacked system than a larger oblong, but in the end, the thing can obviously be made into any shape the parts allow. To me though, form follows function in this case. I also want mine to be portable, perhaps even with a handle but when I imagine walkin' about with a cube I can already feel it bashing against my thigh in an unnerving way...
I have some experience in making prototype enclosures using injected resin molding techniques, but I'll leave that until I've assembled all the parts and have a concrete idea of the space I have to work with.
David89: I'm a way off from the menu, but if once it comes time to write it, and it'll actually need to be quite open in terms of development. Once I get to the point of actual software development I'll probably put a message in the team request section, because there'll need to be a few aspects for which I haven't the time, money or inclination to set up myself, such as web hosting a central site for upgrades/skins/profiles/plans etc... A clever buisnessman/woman could easily find affiliate companies to advertize on the site and make it simpler to get high quality parts that meet the spec that I'm gonna probably argue about with Raven, 'cos he knows his hardware, but I've got to consider cost/availability, I want the basic system to be as affordable as a cheap pc, but have maximum bang for the buck... I don't see why a system like this couldn't grow into what I feel the xbox could have been, a machine which can run any software you can download off the internet or burn onto a cd.
That includes using it as a sega master system, nintendo zx spectrum, c64, right up to a ps1/2 etc and when someone finds a way, I don't see why it couldn't run xbox software also
All the tech is there to make this possible, the reason it won't happen any other way(the xbox could easily have been this
is that there's no way to charge for the machine, and that's just not viable for a company to do. The only thing I considered 'selling' is a kit rather than finding all the bits to meet the spec yourself.
The menu would have options to turn the pc into any other machine via existing emulators, the choice of which I'm sure all of us will debate over until we find the most compatible ones, and Also, you can always exit to windows and use the thing as a normal pc, though pc games would be implemented as a "put the cd in and run" or select stored game and run type solution
Another part of hosting would be a place for all db coders to link to and have the machine download demo's/free games through a special browser.
There's a lot of work involved in that stuff, and it's kind of a seperate project in itself, quite apart from the actual console-PC, but the thing is If the console-PC has a spec, developer's can work with that in mind.
Just a few ideas to chew on, you know all I wanted it for was to run db and some media creation software on the thing at my girl's house, without having to buy a laptop but the idea grew into this
It's all extremely possible, and is only a matter of time before it becomes reality.
Anyone with ideas for the project should post them here, the concept and framework is there, but has obvious room for development
ZX Spectrum 48k Issue 3, Radio shack Tape drive, Rank arena 12" T.V. set.
