Category Archives: Gaming

Apr 11

Friday Post: PyCon 2014 – Hello Montreal!

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Hey All! I’m in Montreal right now for the annual PyCon conference.  I will be presenting PiMAME PiPLAY on Sunday during the poster presentations.  I’m excited to be showing off the software and getting feedback from fellow Pythonistas.

My flight in was horrible.  Finding my way around Montreal was horrible.  But now that I’m here and settled, it’s awesome!  The first day of PyCon has been interesting.  It feels a little disconnected since we are in a new conference building with multiple floors and the hotels are seperated.  The previous ones in California were all connected and on one main floor.  Either way, I’m having fun and the talks are good.

PiMAME PiPlay Kickstarter

So, 2 pieces of big news.  My Kickstarter has been 100%+ funded.  Within 18 hours you all helped to fund my project to 100%.  It is increasing every day.  I’m overwhelmed and humbled.  Thank you all!

I have had to change the name from PiMAME to PiPlay.  As I stated in the Kickstarter update, it has come to my attention that I am possibly violating the trademark(s) of the MAMEDev team.  This is something that I never meant to do, as I have nothing but the utmost respect and awe for the team that develops MAME.

PiMAME has evolved past just MAME, and it is a perfect time and opportunity to update it.

I will be updating all the names once I get back from this conference.

Thank you all for the all the support and help.

-Shea

Mar 28

Friday Post: Framebuffer Copy and new PiMAME 8 beta release

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Hey All,

Another week another PiMAME release 🙂

This is beta 2 of the new PiMAME 0.8.  I’m loving the feedback.  I know there are bugs and issues, but I’m able to iterate so much faster now.  This latest release includes:

  • Added NES support again.
  • Added C64 support again.
  • Put back in restart, shutdown, and updater tools.
  • Menu will now notify you if there are updates available.
  • PiMAME bootsplash video
  • Tankstick support

High priority features I’m working on:

  • Adding back in screenshot support
  • More joystick configuration options

Framebuffer copy

I’ve started playing with Notro’s FBTFT module again.  This allows you to use little inexpensive LCD screens for things like the console and X Windows.  The problem is that most programs expect output on framebuffer 0.  These screens operate on framebuffer 1, or /dev/fb1.  Tasanakorn has created a program called fbcp.  This mirrors the screen from the hdmi / rca port and onto the SPI based screens you see above.

It doesn’t work 100% yet for me.  I don’t know if its my screen or the program.  I’m going to purchase some more and test them out.

Little Arcade Machine

Steve Smith has created this awesome little MAME cabinet.  Plans and more images are below at the imgur link.

http://imgur.com/a/Pr4rG

Have a great weekend everyone!

-Shea

Mar 14

Friday Post: Book Stats

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Hey All,

Happy Friday!  I got an email this morning from Packt giving me the stats for my book sales from October to December of 2013.  I’m happy to report that I have sold over 200 copies.  Thank you all so much!

This weekend I will be doing a last minute presentation of PiMAME with FamiLAB at the Orlando Science Center.  I will then be preparing for PyCon in Montreal, where I will be doing a poster session on how PiMAME was built in Python.  I will also be attending Instructurecon in Utah and speaking about LTIs and how we program and implement them at UCF.   It’s going to be a fun two months of traveling 🙂

I have gotten some great feedback on PiMAME 0.8, and I am going to be working on some fixes this weekend (these are my two low hanging fruit goals to complete):

  • Tankstick / Numpad support
  • Configurable Buttons through config.yaml

Have a good weekend all!

Mar 07

Friday Post: PiMAME 0.8 Update and some stats!

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Hey All!

First of all, HAPPY FRIDAY!  Spring break is over for us at UCF, which means that campus won’t be dead for us full time employees and the food court will finally be reopened.  Little things in life…

It’s been a week since PiMAME 0.8 Beta 1 has been released and there has been great feedback.

Updating PiMAME

A small update is available.  All you need to do is go to the command line and run:

wget -O - http://pimame.org/update.sh | bash

This update includes Commodore 64 support and fixed NES emulation.

PiMAME Stats

In one week, PiMAME 0.8 has been downloaded from SourceForge over 400 times.  My server (which hosts a mirror copy) has transferred 84GB in 5 days.  My usual monthly bandwidth is 30-40GB.

I’m excited about this release.  There are bugs, but they are getting fixed, and this version has a great new foundation to grow on.  Thank you all for the feedback, suggestions, complaints, issues, and support!

-Shea

Feb 28

Friday Post: PiMAME 0.8 coming this weekend!

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Update 3: PiMAME 0.8 Beta 1 now uploaded! Download Here!

Update 2: Apparently 4 other people have reported issues this weekend with SourceForge and uploaded files not appearing.  I’m starting a new upload to a different host now.

Update: PiMAME 0.8 has been uploaded, but I’m still waiting for SourceForge to finish mirroring it before they turn on the download link. 🙁

 

Hey All!

Very happy to announce that PiMAME 0.8 Beta is going to be released this weekend.  I’m building the SD card image now and will be uploading it.

I’m very happy with this release.  I know it still has some bugs and issues to work out, but I’m confident that this will be the best evolution of PiMAME yet.

On another note, the presentation I gave at the Information Fluency conference went well.  I have a lot of different colleges and universities interested in the applications I developed for UCF.  Hopefully I can open source them soon.

I’ve started to receive the parts for my SmartRap 3D Printer build.  This is the first time I’m building something this complex without any instructions, so hopefully it all goes well.

Have a good weekend, and I’ll update this post with the image file when it’s finished uploading.

-Shea

Feb 21

Friday Post: Gear

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Hey all,

Wooo it’s Friday! Next week I’m speaking at UCF’s Information Fluency conference.  I’m very excited.  Presenting an application I wrote that helps with Online Learning.

Time to get to work on PiMAME.  Making great progress.  Can’t wait to release it 😀  One of the issues I ran into was that I didn’t realize git sub-modules don’t update to the latest code, they stay at the commit they were committed in.  Anyone who has been using the installer for 0.8 has been running on older code, which explains why the bug fixes weren’t being seen.  It was a silly mistake on my part and will be fixed soon.

Misumi

Misumi is offering a free $150 credit for new customers placing an order via credit card.  In the reddit thread advertising this promotion, a few people have put together a build list with part numbers for making your own 3D Printer.  This will greatly decrease the price of building your own RepRap.  I’m going to try and build a Smartrap Mini.

UUGear

I got an email today about a new hardware company that’s making items for the Raspberry Pi.  They are called UUGear, and they are making some pretty good looking sensors and add-ons.  I haven’t yet had a chance to test their products, but the online store should be opening soon.

USBHUB_01 USBHUB_02

 Titanfall

I was playing the Titanfall beta over the weekend, and I can’t remember ever being this excited over a game.  Mechs, freerunning, jet packs!  It’s like my inner 12 year old was asked to make a video game and he delivered.  Sorry for the terrible quality video.  Here is a couple minutes of my Titanfall gameplay:

Have a good weekend all!

-Shea

Jan 31

Friday Post: PiMAME 0.8 Preview Release (only for the brave)

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Hey All!

Happy Friday!  It has been a long week.  The weather in Florida right now is crazy.  One day it’s 80 degrees, the next day its 50, then 70, then 40.  I wish it would make up its mind!  The bad part about it is everyone is getting sick.  Anyways…

PiMAME 0.8…
… preview release only for the brave edition

PiMAME 0.8 is almost done.  We have a few more bugs to fix, and some more features to test, but the basics are there.

I have an installer available for the brave to try.  It will make a new pimame folder in your home directory, so I recommend using a fresh install of Raspbian.

From the home directory in your command line, enter in the following command:

wget -O - http://pimame.org/installer.sh | bash

When that has finished running, reboot your Pi.  It should automatically boot up into the new launcher, and a web interface should be available at your Pi’s IP address.

If you decide to test this, please send me any and all feedback!  It is much appreciated!

This has been a huge labor of love, and I couldn’t have done it without some of the contributors to the codebase:

  • Zach – https://github.com/zachberry
  • Connor – https://github.com/Conno123009
  • Scotty – https://github.com/KingScooty

Thanks everyone!  Have a great weekend!

-Shea

Jan 24

Friday Post: PiMAME is coming…

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Hey all,

The new version of PiMAME is sooooo close to being released.  Only a few little kinks to work out.  I’m hoping to put out an alpha this weekend for those who are adventurous to try it out.

All those who requested PiMAME stickers should have received them by now.  If you have not gotten your PiMAME sticker, please let me know!

Have a great weekend!

-Shea