Re: [Audyssey] creating an audio game console - was RE: memory

[Paul Lemm]

Hi Travis,

I had heard about the Windows for the PI, although I hadn't realised that 
Microsoft charged a royalty  for using the OS.  I did do a little looking into 
it , and yep like you said it is quite different to the standard windows  
desktop OS,  from what I understood it wouldn't play standard windows programs 
, so I'd imagine without  quite a bit of tinkering  and working out what 
library's and stuff were needed  it would be quite difficult to get it to run 
audio games for windows without having to re compile or change the audio game 
code.  But all that being said and slightly more off topic, the PI's are 
definitely good fun, I got my first one a couple of months back, I've not done 
anything  really exciting with it, but put a program called Kodi on it  for 
streaming content and added text to speech, although I did set up one for my 
brother as a retro gaming console and  he's had hours of fun playing old games 
from the day of spectrums and commodores right up to the N64, so it must have a 
fair bit of power too for it to be able to run these types of games.



-Original Message-
From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Travis Siegel
Sent: 26 October 2016 03:03
To: Gamers Discussion list
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] creating an audio game console - was RE: memory

The pi has a version of windows that will run on it, it's called windows 
IOT (for the internet of things) I've tried it, and it works, but there 
is no graphical interface for it as far as I can tell.  I also don't 
know what libraries are included by default, and which ones you'd need 
to add to make windows gaming possible, but if it's absolutely 
necessary, yes, you could run windows on the pi, though it's nothing 
like the full-blown commercial releases you're used to, and it also 
requires a royalty payment to microsoft for each pi you sell running a 
copy of this IOT version of windows.  Some people are doing amazing 
things with the pi and windows, but honestly, I'd much prefer to use 
raspbian, or some other unix-like os since those generally don't require 
any sort of royalty be paid, so you're ahead of the game right there.  I 
used my pi as my main computer for more than a year, until I got a used 
macbook, then a windows all-in-one machine, and I can tell you it works 
just fine as a regular computer, which also means it will work just fine 
for running games (I know, I did it).  Of course, they were all ported 
by me to run on the pi, and I wrote one from scratch because none of the 
ones I ported had audio in them, and I wanted to see how well audio 
would work on the pi, just for reference.  It worked just fine, and 
that's why I know it will work as a game console too, but again, it's an 
arm processor, not an intel one, so getting games to work on it isn't as 
trivial as recompiling in most cases.  But in any case, I love my pi, 
and use it for all kinds of things, including games, but then again, I'd 
been windows free for more than 10 years, so I didn't have any need for 
those multi-megabyte behemoths for windows, although I did prove it can 
be done if wanted.  But regardless, folks aren't going to pick up a pi 
just for gaming, unless there's lots and lots of games for it, so that's 
the next thing I need to work on. While I used it as my main computer 
though, I had no trouble web browsing, reading email, reading books, and 
generally having an awesome time fiddling with all kinds of geek 
projects out there for the raspberry pi.  If you like to tinker, then 
it's a great platform, since it has the ability to run all kinds of 
devices, from ggps systems to biometric sensors.  It's truly amazing 
what folks are accomplishing using the pi.  It will never be a 
state-of-the-art system, no matter what you do with it, but it is cool 
and good enough to do quite a number of things, and it's being no larger 
than a pack of cards (even after I put it inside a case) makes it ideal 
for so many projects.  I'm thinking I might use it to build an external 
synthesizer, just for the heck of it. heh.



On 10/22/2016 10:48 AM, john wrote:
> Pies were intended to run linux - and there are systems that'll run fine off
> an sd card (there are actually ways to run out of just ram without writing
> anything, called live boot systems).
> The problem is that XP wasn't, so its not going to do things like reduce the
> amount of writing it does to save the card. Also as I said, since you only
> have 1gb of ram, xp won't be happy once you start doing work. You may be
> able to disable your swapfile completely, but the computer will not like it
> and may destabilize.
>
> --
> From: "Chris Wright" <blindgame...@yahoo.com>
> Sent: Friday, October 21, 2016 18:47
> To: "Gamers Discussion list" <gamers@audyssey.org>
> Subject: Re: [Audyssey] creating an audio game console - was RE:  memo

Re: [Audyssey] creating an audio game console - was RE: memory

[Travis Siegel]

The pi has a version of windows that will run on it, it's called windows 
IOT (for the internet of things) I've tried it, and it works, but there 
is no graphical interface for it as far as I can tell.  I also don't 
know what libraries are included by default, and which ones you'd need 
to add to make windows gaming possible, but if it's absolutely 
necessary, yes, you could run windows on the pi, though it's nothing 
like the full-blown commercial releases you're used to, and it also 
requires a royalty payment to microsoft for each pi you sell running a 
copy of this IOT version of windows.  Some people are doing amazing 
things with the pi and windows, but honestly, I'd much prefer to use 
raspbian, or some other unix-like os since those generally don't require 
any sort of royalty be paid, so you're ahead of the game right there.  I 
used my pi as my main computer for more than a year, until I got a used 
macbook, then a windows all-in-one machine, and I can tell you it works 
just fine as a regular computer, which also means it will work just fine 
for running games (I know, I did it).  Of course, they were all ported 
by me to run on the pi, and I wrote one from scratch because none of the 
ones I ported had audio in them, and I wanted to see how well audio 
would work on the pi, just for reference.  It worked just fine, and 
that's why I know it will work as a game console too, but again, it's an 
arm processor, not an intel one, so getting games to work on it isn't as 
trivial as recompiling in most cases.  But in any case, I love my pi, 
and use it for all kinds of things, including games, but then again, I'd 
been windows free for more than 10 years, so I didn't have any need for 
those multi-megabyte behemoths for windows, although I did prove it can 
be done if wanted.  But regardless, folks aren't going to pick up a pi 
just for gaming, unless there's lots and lots of games for it, so that's 
the next thing I need to work on. While I used it as my main computer 
though, I had no trouble web browsing, reading email, reading books, and 
generally having an awesome time fiddling with all kinds of geek 
projects out there for the raspberry pi.  If you like to tinker, then 
it's a great platform, since it has the ability to run all kinds of 
devices, from ggps systems to biometric sensors.  It's truly amazing 
what folks are accomplishing using the pi.  It will never be a 
state-of-the-art system, no matter what you do with it, but it is cool 
and good enough to do quite a number of things, and it's being no larger 
than a pack of cards (even after I put it inside a case) makes it ideal 
for so many projects.  I'm thinking I might use it to build an external 
synthesizer, just for the heck of it. heh.




On 10/22/2016 10:48 AM, john wrote:

Pies were intended to run linux - and there are systems that'll run fine off
an sd card (there are actually ways to run out of just ram without writing
anything, called live boot systems).
The problem is that XP wasn't, so its not going to do things like reduce the
amount of writing it does to save the card. Also as I said, since you only
have 1gb of ram, xp won't be happy once you start doing work. You may be
able to disable your swapfile completely, but the computer will not like it
and may destabilize.

--
From: "Chris Wright" <blindgame...@yahoo.com>
Sent: Friday, October 21, 2016 18:47
To: "Gamers Discussion list" <gamers@audyssey.org>
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] creating an audio game console - was RE:  memory

The pie can run Windows? I didn’t know that. As for Windows XP, I’d be very
surprised if it would run at all. Running any operating system off an SD
card is a bad idea. (I’m looking at the Braille Note Touch) Why doesn’t the
pie have internal storage? Wouldn’t the card be worn out from running Linux
all the time?

On Oct 21, 2016, at 4:18 PM, john <jpcarnemo...@gmail.com> wrote:

Because I needed things to google, I did a bit of looking at the Pie's
specs
for the feasibility of running windows as a miniature gaming platform.
Its got 1gb ram, which means you're outright using xp or earlier. Xp will
run happily enough on 1gb - though its happier with 2. Expect some
lifetime
reduction in whatever card you choose for your OS drive.
This outlaws all of VG Storm's titles, unless they manage to get their
games
running on xp, but other than that, I can't think of anything that won't
run
on these specs.
The CPU looks ok - 1.2ghz, but its running four cores which will help
offset
some of the speed issues. Fine for xp and games, as long as you don't
expect
it to move the world.
Storage will depend on the micro SD card you pick. A brief amazon search
shows me a 64gb sandisk for $20, and a 32gb for $10. If you want more,
there's a 128gb for $42, which means there's no real  cost per gb gain for
any of the capacities (a 16gb kingston is also available for $5.25, but
that's pushin

Re: [Audyssey] creating an audio game console - was RE: memory

[john]

Pies were intended to run linux - and there are systems that'll run fine off 
an sd card (there are actually ways to run out of just ram without writing 
anything, called live boot systems).
The problem is that XP wasn't, so its not going to do things like reduce the 
amount of writing it does to save the card. Also as I said, since you only 
have 1gb of ram, xp won't be happy once you start doing work. You may be 
able to disable your swapfile completely, but the computer will not like it 
and may destabilize.

--
From: "Chris Wright" <blindgame...@yahoo.com>
Sent: Friday, October 21, 2016 18:47
To: "Gamers Discussion list" <gamers@audyssey.org>
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] creating an audio game console - was RE:  memory

The pie can run Windows? I didn’t know that. As for Windows XP, I’d be very 
surprised if it would run at all. Running any operating system off an SD 
card is a bad idea. (I’m looking at the Braille Note Touch) Why doesn’t the 
pie have internal storage? Wouldn’t the card be worn out from running Linux 
all the time?
> On Oct 21, 2016, at 4:18 PM, john <jpcarnemo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Because I needed things to google, I did a bit of looking at the Pie's 
> specs
> for the feasibility of running windows as a miniature gaming platform.
> Its got 1gb ram, which means you're outright using xp or earlier. Xp will
> run happily enough on 1gb - though its happier with 2. Expect some 
> lifetime
> reduction in whatever card you choose for your OS drive.
> This outlaws all of VG Storm's titles, unless they manage to get their 
> games
> running on xp, but other than that, I can't think of anything that won't 
> run
> on these specs.
> The CPU looks ok - 1.2ghz, but its running four cores which will help 
> offset
> some of the speed issues. Fine for xp and games, as long as you don't 
> expect
> it to move the world.
> Storage will depend on the micro SD card you pick. A brief amazon search
> shows me a 64gb sandisk for $20, and a 32gb for $10. If you want more,
> there's a 128gb for $42, which means there's no real  cost per gb gain for
> any of the capacities (a 16gb kingston is also available for $5.25, but
> that's pushing the lower limit of what would run xp, and audiogames aren't
> exactly small).
> The latest Pie (released in February of this year) has built-in wireless, 
> so
> you'll be able to play games like swamp or run muds if you want to do 
> that.
> However, I see a couple relatively major problems:
> Firstly, you're doing one of the major noNos in computing - running an
> operating system off something like an sd card. Xp was not designed to do
> this. The card was not designed to do this, and the middling amount of ram
> you have means that once you start gaming you're going to be abusing the
> card even further. The larger the card you get the longer it'll last - so
> that 128gb suddenly looks a lot more appealing if you don't want to have 
> to
> replace your storage device.
> Secondly, is the fact that you have to run windows Xp. I'm not going to
> start on the unsupported thing - it doesn't matter for our purposes, 
> because
> you're not going to be doing anything secure on the pie - if its on the
> internet, you're probably only connecting to game servers. What I will say
> though is that you can't buy Xp anymore. This may be the death null for 
> any
> project that wants to sell these as fully decked out audiogaming machines.
> The last thing you want is Microsoft kicking down your door with a lawsuit
> over those 250 pirated copies of Xp you sold.
> I think its a really cool idea, but when you get into setting it up, its
> probably not going to work out as well as you'd hope, unless you somehow
> manage to configure a linux distro via wine to run all the games you want 
> to
> include (linux will run fine on those specs but since all of our 
> audiogames
> are compiled for windows you'd have to script an amazing amount of prep
> work).
>
> Best,
> John
>
> ------------------
> From: "Paul Lemm" <paul.lem...@gmail.com>
> Sent: Friday, October 21, 2016 12:52
> To: "'Gamers Discussion list'" <gamers@audyssey.org>
> Subject: [Audyssey] creating an audio game console - was RE:  memory
>
> Hi Travis,
>
> I don't know a huge amount about it, but wouldn't something like the
> Raspberry PI be perfect for something like this?  There cheap at less than
> £40 for a brand new latest PI model, and I know you can get free text to
> speech for the PI , as I have one myself  which I use as a kind of media
> server for streaming movies and sport  so it had spoken menus.  I did
> however brought a PI for my brother as a pr

Re: [Audyssey] creating an audio game console - was RE: memory

[Shaun Everiss]

Aparently you can install win10 iot core on your pie but I have no idea 
how to do that.




On 22/10/2016 10:18 a.m., john wrote:

Because I needed things to google, I did a bit of looking at the Pie's specs
for the feasibility of running windows as a miniature gaming platform.
Its got 1gb ram, which means you're outright using xp or earlier. Xp will
run happily enough on 1gb - though its happier with 2. Expect some lifetime
reduction in whatever card you choose for your OS drive.
This outlaws all of VG Storm's titles, unless they manage to get their games
running on xp, but other than that, I can't think of anything that won't run
on these specs.
The CPU looks ok - 1.2ghz, but its running four cores which will help offset
some of the speed issues. Fine for xp and games, as long as you don't expect
it to move the world.
Storage will depend on the micro SD card you pick. A brief amazon search
shows me a 64gb sandisk for $20, and a 32gb for $10. If you want more,
there's a 128gb for $42, which means there's no real  cost per gb gain for
any of the capacities (a 16gb kingston is also available for $5.25, but
that's pushing the lower limit of what would run xp, and audiogames aren't
exactly small).
The latest Pie (released in February of this year) has built-in wireless, so
you'll be able to play games like swamp or run muds if you want to do that.
However, I see a couple relatively major problems:
Firstly, you're doing one of the major noNos in computing - running an
operating system off something like an sd card. Xp was not designed to do
this. The card was not designed to do this, and the middling amount of ram
you have means that once you start gaming you're going to be abusing the
card even further. The larger the card you get the longer it'll last - so
that 128gb suddenly looks a lot more appealing if you don't want to have to
replace your storage device.
Secondly, is the fact that you have to run windows Xp. I'm not going to
start on the unsupported thing - it doesn't matter for our purposes, because
you're not going to be doing anything secure on the pie - if its on the
internet, you're probably only connecting to game servers. What I will say
though is that you can't buy Xp anymore. This may be the death null for any
project that wants to sell these as fully decked out audiogaming machines.
The last thing you want is Microsoft kicking down your door with a lawsuit
over those 250 pirated copies of Xp you sold.
I think its a really cool idea, but when you get into setting it up, its
probably not going to work out as well as you'd hope, unless you somehow
manage to configure a linux distro via wine to run all the games you want to
include (linux will run fine on those specs but since all of our audiogames
are compiled for windows you'd have to script an amazing amount of prep
work).

Best,
John

--
From: "Paul Lemm" <paul.lem...@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, October 21, 2016 12:52
To: "'Gamers Discussion list'" <gamers@audyssey.org>
Subject: [Audyssey] creating an audio game console - was RE:  memory

Hi Travis,

I don't know a huge amount about it, but wouldn't something like the
Raspberry PI be perfect for something like this?  There cheap at less than
£40 for a brand new latest PI model, and I know you can get free text to
speech for the PI , as I have one myself  which I use as a kind of media
server for streaming movies and sport  so it had spoken menus.  I did
however brought a PI for my brother as a present and turned it into a retro
gaming console (sorry before anyone gets excited, this was a retro gaming
console for sighted people  so completely inaccessible( that played
everything from the ZX spectrum  through to the Nintendo N64, because it
already had built in WIFI and USB ports it was easy to hook up to the
internet wirelessly and we plugged an Xbox  controller  straight  into the
PI so it was fairly straight forward.  I believe you can get a windows OS
for the PI, I'm just not sure if audio games would run on that or not, if
they did it would be a simple case of installing the windows OS, setting up
the text to speech, loading  it up with  audio games  then  once done just
copying the SD card , you could then either sell an SD card with the
preformatted image on the card,  or set up a download to the SD card image
that people could  download and then put on an SD card themselves, you could
either sell the PI yourself or leave it for people to buy the PI themselves
as they would just need to insert the preformatted SD card and it would be
good to go with no setting up  required.

Again like I said I don't know a huge amount about the PI and the different
operating systems and whether this would work, but now I think about it I
vaguely remember someone on this list saying they had set up a PI to play
audio games on, I could be wrong on this, but I'm sure someone did, I just
can't remember who it was.

Sorry for the

Re: [Audyssey] creating an audio game console - was RE: memory

[Paul Lemm]

Hi John,

Thanks for the post and the research on the PI, I have to confess I hadn't
really looked into using the PI with windows before this post, but I did
think there was a version of windows which had been specifically designed to
work optimally with the PI.  I've just done some googling myself, and
although Microsoft have released a stripped back version of windows 10 that
is designed to run on the PI, its not windows in the usual sense but windows
10 IOT which from what I understand is more of a tool for developers  and
from what I have gathered it won't run standard windows programs/apps as
they are incompatible with the PI's ARM based hardware, so will only run
universal programs  that are designed to run across multiple devices  such
as PC, phones and the Xbox, so I wouldn't imagine it would run audio games.

Shame about the windows 10 PI OS not being an answer for this, and as you
mentioned in your post XP wouldn't really be a suitable option either, well
it looks like sticking to my desktop for games for the moment. Shame I can't
remember  who it was I thought I saw on here that had used a PI for audio
games, would be interesting to know what and how he did it and what the
results were like that he had from it

Anyway, thanks for the google research and reply

Paul 

-Original Message-
From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of john
Sent: 21 October 2016 22:18
To: Gamers Discussion list
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] creating an audio game console - was RE: memory

Because I needed things to google, I did a bit of looking at the Pie's specs
for the feasibility of running windows as a miniature gaming platform.
It's got 1 GB ram, which means you're outright using up or earlier. Xu will
run happily enough on 1 GB - though it's happier with 2. Expect some
lifetime reduction in whatever card you choose for your OS drive.
This outlaws all of VG Storm's titles, unless they manage to get their games
running on up, but other than that, I can't think of anything that won't run
on these specs.
The CPU looks ok - 1.2 GHz, but its running four cores which will help
offset some of the speed issues. Fine for up and games, as long as you don't
expect it to move the world.
Storage will depend on the micro SD card you pick. A brief amazon search
shows me a 64gb sandisk for $20, and a 32gb for $10. If you want more,
there's a 128gb for $42, which means there's no real  cost per gb gain for
any of the capacities (a 16gb kingston is also available for $5.25, but
that's pushing the lower limit of what would run xp, and audiogames aren't
exactly small).
The latest Pie (released in February of this year) has built-in wireless, so
you'll be able to play games like swamp or run muds if you want to do that.
However, I see a couple relatively major problems:
Firstly, you're doing one of the major noNos in computing - running an
operating system off something like an sd card. Xp was not designed to do
this. The card was not designed to do this, and the middling amount of ram
you have means that once you start gaming you're going to be abusing the
card even further. The larger the card you get the longer it'll last - so
that 128gb suddenly looks a lot more appealing if you don't want to have to
replace your storage device.
Secondly, is the fact that you have to run windows Xp. I'm not going to
start on the unsupported thing - it doesn't matter for our purposes, because
you're not going to be doing anything secure on the pie - if its on the
internet, you're probably only connecting to game servers. What I will say
though is that you can't buy Xp anymore. This may be the death null for any
project that wants to sell these as fully decked out audiogaming machines. 
The last thing you want is Microsoft kicking down your door with a lawsuit
over those 250 pirated copies of Xp you sold.
I think its a really cool idea, but when you get into setting it up, its
probably not going to work out as well as you'd hope, unless you somehow
manage to configure a linux distro via wine to run all the games you want to
include (linux will run fine on those specs but since all of our audiogames
are compiled for windows you'd have to script an amazing amount of prep
work).

Best,
John

--
From: "Paul Lemm" <paul.lem...@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, October 21, 2016 12:52
To: "'Gamers Discussion list'" <gamers@audyssey.org>
Subject: [Audyssey] creating an audio game console - was RE:  memory

Hi Travis,

I don't know a huge amount about it, but wouldn't something like the
Raspberry PI be perfect for something like this?  There cheap at less than
£40 for a brand new latest PI model, and I know you can get free text to
speech for the PI , as I have one myself  which I use as a kind of media
server for streaming movies and sport  so it had spoken menus.  I did
however brought a PI for my brother as a present and turned it into a retro
gaming console (

Re: [Audyssey] creating an audio game console - was RE: memory

[Chris Wright]

The pie can run Windows? I didn’t know that. As for Windows XP, I’d be very 
surprised if it would run at all. Running any operating system off an SD card 
is a bad idea. (I’m looking at the Braille Note Touch) Why doesn’t the pie have 
internal storage? Wouldn’t the card be worn out from running Linux all the time?
> On Oct 21, 2016, at 4:18 PM, john <jpcarnemo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Because I needed things to google, I did a bit of looking at the Pie's specs 
> for the feasibility of running windows as a miniature gaming platform.
> Its got 1gb ram, which means you're outright using xp or earlier. Xp will 
> run happily enough on 1gb - though its happier with 2. Expect some lifetime 
> reduction in whatever card you choose for your OS drive.
> This outlaws all of VG Storm's titles, unless they manage to get their games 
> running on xp, but other than that, I can't think of anything that won't run 
> on these specs.
> The CPU looks ok - 1.2ghz, but its running four cores which will help offset 
> some of the speed issues. Fine for xp and games, as long as you don't expect 
> it to move the world.
> Storage will depend on the micro SD card you pick. A brief amazon search 
> shows me a 64gb sandisk for $20, and a 32gb for $10. If you want more, 
> there's a 128gb for $42, which means there's no real  cost per gb gain for 
> any of the capacities (a 16gb kingston is also available for $5.25, but 
> that's pushing the lower limit of what would run xp, and audiogames aren't 
> exactly small).
> The latest Pie (released in February of this year) has built-in wireless, so 
> you'll be able to play games like swamp or run muds if you want to do that.
> However, I see a couple relatively major problems:
> Firstly, you're doing one of the major noNos in computing - running an 
> operating system off something like an sd card. Xp was not designed to do 
> this. The card was not designed to do this, and the middling amount of ram 
> you have means that once you start gaming you're going to be abusing the 
> card even further. The larger the card you get the longer it'll last - so 
> that 128gb suddenly looks a lot more appealing if you don't want to have to 
> replace your storage device.
> Secondly, is the fact that you have to run windows Xp. I'm not going to 
> start on the unsupported thing - it doesn't matter for our purposes, because 
> you're not going to be doing anything secure on the pie - if its on the 
> internet, you're probably only connecting to game servers. What I will say 
> though is that you can't buy Xp anymore. This may be the death null for any 
> project that wants to sell these as fully decked out audiogaming machines. 
> The last thing you want is Microsoft kicking down your door with a lawsuit 
> over those 250 pirated copies of Xp you sold.
> I think its a really cool idea, but when you get into setting it up, its 
> probably not going to work out as well as you'd hope, unless you somehow 
> manage to configure a linux distro via wine to run all the games you want to 
> include (linux will run fine on those specs but since all of our audiogames 
> are compiled for windows you'd have to script an amazing amount of prep 
> work).
> 
> Best,
> John
> 
> --
> From: "Paul Lemm" <paul.lem...@gmail.com>
> Sent: Friday, October 21, 2016 12:52
> To: "'Gamers Discussion list'" <gamers@audyssey.org>
> Subject: [Audyssey] creating an audio game console - was RE:  memory
> 
> Hi Travis,
> 
> I don't know a huge amount about it, but wouldn't something like the
> Raspberry PI be perfect for something like this?  There cheap at less than
> £40 for a brand new latest PI model, and I know you can get free text to
> speech for the PI , as I have one myself  which I use as a kind of media
> server for streaming movies and sport  so it had spoken menus.  I did
> however brought a PI for my brother as a present and turned it into a retro
> gaming console (sorry before anyone gets excited, this was a retro gaming
> console for sighted people  so completely inaccessible( that played
> everything from the ZX spectrum  through to the Nintendo N64, because it
> already had built in WIFI and USB ports it was easy to hook up to the
> internet wirelessly and we plugged an Xbox  controller  straight  into the
> PI so it was fairly straight forward.  I believe you can get a windows OS
> for the PI, I'm just not sure if audio games would run on that or not, if
> they did it would be a simple case of installing the windows OS, setting up
> the text to speech, loading  it up with  audio games  then  once done just
> copying the SD card , you could then either sell an SD card with the
> preformatted image on the card,  

Re: [Audyssey] creating an audio game console - was RE: memory

[john]

Because I needed things to google, I did a bit of looking at the Pie's specs 
for the feasibility of running windows as a miniature gaming platform.
Its got 1gb ram, which means you're outright using xp or earlier. Xp will 
run happily enough on 1gb - though its happier with 2. Expect some lifetime 
reduction in whatever card you choose for your OS drive.
This outlaws all of VG Storm's titles, unless they manage to get their games 
running on xp, but other than that, I can't think of anything that won't run 
on these specs.
The CPU looks ok - 1.2ghz, but its running four cores which will help offset 
some of the speed issues. Fine for xp and games, as long as you don't expect 
it to move the world.
Storage will depend on the micro SD card you pick. A brief amazon search 
shows me a 64gb sandisk for $20, and a 32gb for $10. If you want more, 
there's a 128gb for $42, which means there's no real  cost per gb gain for 
any of the capacities (a 16gb kingston is also available for $5.25, but 
that's pushing the lower limit of what would run xp, and audiogames aren't 
exactly small).
The latest Pie (released in February of this year) has built-in wireless, so 
you'll be able to play games like swamp or run muds if you want to do that.
However, I see a couple relatively major problems:
Firstly, you're doing one of the major noNos in computing - running an 
operating system off something like an sd card. Xp was not designed to do 
this. The card was not designed to do this, and the middling amount of ram 
you have means that once you start gaming you're going to be abusing the 
card even further. The larger the card you get the longer it'll last - so 
that 128gb suddenly looks a lot more appealing if you don't want to have to 
replace your storage device.
Secondly, is the fact that you have to run windows Xp. I'm not going to 
start on the unsupported thing - it doesn't matter for our purposes, because 
you're not going to be doing anything secure on the pie - if its on the 
internet, you're probably only connecting to game servers. What I will say 
though is that you can't buy Xp anymore. This may be the death null for any 
project that wants to sell these as fully decked out audiogaming machines. 
The last thing you want is Microsoft kicking down your door with a lawsuit 
over those 250 pirated copies of Xp you sold.
I think its a really cool idea, but when you get into setting it up, its 
probably not going to work out as well as you'd hope, unless you somehow 
manage to configure a linux distro via wine to run all the games you want to 
include (linux will run fine on those specs but since all of our audiogames 
are compiled for windows you'd have to script an amazing amount of prep 
work).

Best,
John

--
From: "Paul Lemm" <paul.lem...@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, October 21, 2016 12:52
To: "'Gamers Discussion list'" <gamers@audyssey.org>
Subject: [Audyssey] creating an audio game console - was RE:  memory

Hi Travis,

I don't know a huge amount about it, but wouldn't something like the
Raspberry PI be perfect for something like this?  There cheap at less than
£40 for a brand new latest PI model, and I know you can get free text to
speech for the PI , as I have one myself  which I use as a kind of media
server for streaming movies and sport  so it had spoken menus.  I did
however brought a PI for my brother as a present and turned it into a retro
gaming console (sorry before anyone gets excited, this was a retro gaming
console for sighted people  so completely inaccessible( that played
everything from the ZX spectrum  through to the Nintendo N64, because it
already had built in WIFI and USB ports it was easy to hook up to the
internet wirelessly and we plugged an Xbox  controller  straight  into the
PI so it was fairly straight forward.  I believe you can get a windows OS
for the PI, I'm just not sure if audio games would run on that or not, if
they did it would be a simple case of installing the windows OS, setting up
the text to speech, loading  it up with  audio games  then  once done just
copying the SD card , you could then either sell an SD card with the
preformatted image on the card,  or set up a download to the SD card image
that people could  download and then put on an SD card themselves, you could
either sell the PI yourself or leave it for people to buy the PI themselves
as they would just need to insert the preformatted SD card and it would be
good to go with no setting up  required.

Again like I said I don't know a huge amount about the PI and the different
operating systems and whether this would work, but now I think about it I
vaguely remember someone on this list saying they had set up a PI to play
audio games on, I could be wrong on this, but I'm sure someone did, I just
can't remember who it was.

Sorry for the long message by the way

People would just need to insert the SD card into a PI and it wou

[Audyssey] creating an audio game console - was RE: memory

[Paul Lemm]

Hi Travis,

I don't know a huge amount about it, but wouldn't something like the
Raspberry PI be perfect for something like this?  There cheap at less than
£40 for a brand new latest PI model, and I know you can get free text to
speech for the PI , as I have one myself  which I use as a kind of media
server for streaming movies and sport  so it had spoken menus.  I did
however brought a PI for my brother as a present and turned it into a retro
gaming console (sorry before anyone gets excited, this was a retro gaming
console for sighted people  so completely inaccessible( that played
everything from the ZX spectrum  through to the Nintendo N64, because it
already had built in WIFI and USB ports it was easy to hook up to the
internet wirelessly and we plugged an Xbox  controller  straight  into the
PI so it was fairly straight forward.  I believe you can get a windows OS
for the PI, I'm just not sure if audio games would run on that or not, if
they did it would be a simple case of installing the windows OS, setting up
the text to speech, loading  it up with  audio games  then  once done just
copying the SD card , you could then either sell an SD card with the
preformatted image on the card,  or set up a download to the SD card image
that people could  download and then put on an SD card themselves, you could
either sell the PI yourself or leave it for people to buy the PI themselves
as they would just need to insert the preformatted SD card and it would be
good to go with no setting up  required.

Again like I said I don't know a huge amount about the PI and the different
operating systems and whether this would work, but now I think about it I
vaguely remember someone on this list saying they had set up a PI to play
audio games on, I could be wrong on this, but I'm sure someone did, I just
can't remember who it was.

Sorry for the long message by the way 

People would just need to insert the SD card into a PI and it would be all
set up and ready to go 


-Original Message-
From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Travis Siegel
Sent: 21 October 2016 16:38
To: Gamers Discussion list
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] memory

No it wouldn't cost much at all.  I've already tried to fly this 
concept, and got turned down flat by most developers I approached.  
They['re just not interested.  

Using a raspberry pi as the heart, it would be a trivial matter to build 
a menuing system, pack the sd card full of every kind of game 
imaginable, and sell the thing for a hundred bucks or so, and still make 
a bit of a proffit (admittedly, not much, but still ...) The problem is 
tht you'll need games for the thing, and since it uses an arm processor 
(the same line as the iPhones) folks just don't want to port their 
windows apps to the arm processor, even though, in some cases it's as 
simple as recompiling with a different mainstream compiler.  I thought 
about going ahead and making an sd card with all the stuff I could find 
and port on my own, then just sell the sd card for a few bucks more to 
cover costs than anything else, and I may still do that, but without 
ports of things like rsgames game client, and a bit more sound variety, 
folks aren't going to be much interested in it.

(Just for reference)

This is my second attempt to float the idea of a gaming console for the 
blind, the first attempt was several years ago using a small credit card 
sized computer from parallax, and although initially folks said they 
were interested, once the capabilities of the chip were discussed, they 
all gave it up as a bad idea, because it wasn't on par with modern 
windows systems.  (well duh), that's the whole point of a gaming 
console. But anyway, that's it in a nutshell.


On 10/20/2016 6:38 PM, The Life of Z wrote:
> Thanks Dark that' is some incouragement. Maybe I'll be able to play it
> aafter allWWWell, that was an intresting post. I think the reason  why
> developers don't make any game additions for the sighted is because of X
> box 1   and playstatttion 4. I had an idea for a console for the blind but
> I don't know how to get it off the ground. It would be like a game console
> like and x--box or playstation except it could handle games for the blind.
> I'd even have a li'l button tthat you could press to have a visual display
> just incase you had sighted family or friends that wanted to play with
you.
> Of courrse, if I got some developers to help me bbbuild the thing, it
would
> probably cost a bunch like everything made fffor us blind people.
> Somtimesss I hate that.
>
> On Oct 20, 2016 11:43 AM, "Travis Siegel"  wrote:
>
>> You're likely to get a lot of responses to these questions, but I'll
chime
>> in anyway.
>>
>> To answer the first question.
>>
>> No, it doesn't take as much room for a game for the visually impaired as
>> it does for a sighted gamer.  The reason being, although sounds can be
>> large, (especially high-quality ones), you don't have to deal with