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[BigBenAussie]

Right!!
What we need is someone to hack this thing and make it into something that someone actually wants.
STUPID CLUELESS IDIOTS!!!

[AmiDog]

This device will probably be some kind of hardware emulator producing crappy sound (no real SID in there) and only emulating the most basic parts of the VIC.

[Lo]

Oh no, how retro can one get? So I am going to go back to Lunar Lander?

[whabang]

GIMMIE, GIMMIE, GIMMIE!
I want one! I saw one of those for NES a few years ago. It had 128 built-in games and connected directly to the TV-set.

[Bobsonsirjonny]

The GP32 is the handheld for this. It takes Smartmedia cards - and can emulate many retro machines including the C64.
Snes emulation and genesis emulation has been done - and is being improved upon as we speak ;-)

http://www.gp32x.com
http://www.gbax.com

[Dan]

Poster: BigBenAussie**Posted: 2004/4/30 5:44:51 Right!! What we need is someone to hack this thing and make it into something that someone actually wants. STUPID CLUELESS IDIOTS!!!

Leaving of second joystick connector,why not have just a 9-pin DSUB on each and a simple joystick mode switch? get two of these things and a straight 9-pin cable and play two player games or use it as a joystick for a real C64 or amiga, and serial(every embedded chip has serial, even my TI-82 calculator has a simle serial port) just to save a pair of connectors is way cheap.

[Khephren]

The GP32 is a great bit of kit. Especially as one of the coders is writing a JIT amiga emu. C64 emulation is near enough perfect, as is ST (spit!). This little handheld can emulate almost anything.

[Bobsonsirjonny]

Aye - the Amiga Emu is taking its time though cos its a HUGE task. The home brew scene is vast - and we will have that Amiga Emu cos the talent in that community is fantastic!

The ST emulation is PERFECT. The new SNES and Genesis emus will be 100% perfect - full speed and sound... but I didnt say anything ;-)

[whabang]

The GP32 looks really cool! I'm goint to put it on my wish list right away! :-o

[BigBenAussie]

WOW!!! :-o
If only I played games often enough to warrant buying one.
Hmmm. Maybe I'll just have to start playing more games. :-)

[Hattig]

Damn, that GP32 looks good ... a tad expensive at £135 quid, but I've got a 32MB smartmedia card just lying around doing nothing at the moment... Ah, £84 (+ customs and excise lottery) at http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?category=0&products_id=812&lsaid=242092

C64, Spectrum, SNES, Megadrive, MAME ... all the old games. Sweet. Atari ST as well, but Amiga is taking some time, showing how advanced the Amiga was

Anyway this joystick looks a bit lame. There is a Namco one out with 10 games that looks better, gamewise, than a few lame sports games. The Atari one is just lame. This C64 one could have done so well with a bit of thought - if it had a memory card reader then other companies could have sold their old backcatalogue of games online for a quid apiece, or as a huge bundle. Also a joypad design would have been nicer than a joystick design.

Btw, anyone played Ikaruga on the Gamecube? It is pretty damned good, old style shoot-em-up!

[BigBenAussie]

Maybe this is just silly but......
I heard it mentioned that the Gamepark has a USB port. Could you not plug in a keyboard/mouse. You would have a fully functioning OS3.9 handheld. 32 megs on the memory card for storage is better than some old Amiga HDs out there. I wonder if the storage is one way though.

[jamesm]

They should have made a hand held device complete with LCD screen and used some sort of memory stick to upload games.

They could have leveraged the huge library of games available on the internet for use in emulators.

Sounds like you've just described the GP32 http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?category=126&products_id=3059&

[Waccoon]

Of all the things to do with the C64, this was probably one of the worst. There's a similar product already on the market with some Atari 8-bit games in a joystick unit. Well, I suppose if the games selection is good, they could be onto something.

A good idea, since the only people who would invest in a C64 are the nostalgia nuts. Unless people are willing to make new titles, developing anything other than a closed console doesn't make any marketing sense.

A C64 handheld with an LCD screen, mini-keyboard and old serial interface would have been excellent.

Who would buy it? Far, far more powerful machines are possible for roughly the same amount of money, and are much easier to program. If you were to make a C64 handheld, the LCD would probably be more expensive than the entire computer, serial port, and embedded flash ROM combined. Besides, who wants to program in 8-bit assembler when they can use modern tools with 32-bit RISC chips, which are fully capable of emulation.

At the time, the C64 was an amazing machine, but now it is all too clear how difficult it was to use. I still despise having to use that damned sys command.

[Bobsonsirjonny]

Poster: BigBenAussie Posted: 2004/4/30 23:29:47

Maybe this is just silly but......
I heard it mentioned that the Gamepark has a USB port. Could you not plug in a keyboard/mouse. You would have a fully functioning OS3.9 handheld. 32 megs on the memory card for storage is better than some old Amiga HDs out there. I wonder if the storage is one way though.

Yes it is possible to attach a keyboard and mouse to it - but through the edge connector at the base. You can buy a cable for around £8, or make it yourself - and software has to be written to take advantage of it. The GP32's USB port is self powered and self hosted. Mods do exist to take advantage of the USB port.

Basically the only limit to the GP32 is that SMC has a slow data rate. Though the edge connector at the base is quite fat - people are already designing ways of attaching pocket HD's to this.