Retro, homemade, 90s-style minicomputer

man, it'd be sweet if I could build my own microcomputer with integrated OS, similar to the microcomputers popular in the 80s, before PCs became universal and ALL used Windows.I talked to a friend of mine who takes apart and reassembles computers and he says it's like putting together a computer. I think it's way, way more complicated though.

I'd make a 2D game playback/development system with performance comparable to a Super Nintendo. It could perform mode-7 effects, use tracker files played by its own sound chip, have up to 32-bit graphics using its graphics chip, and use minidisks (magneto-optical disks that outwardly resemble a standard 3.5 floppy) for its games. It would also feature a DOS-like command line interface and a graphical shell, further taking you back. The exact nature of its OS is unknown to me at the moment. Using a USB (or similar device) mouse and keyboard, you can program games, write using the integrated word processor (it can hook up to a printer,) edit photos and scanned pictures, create sprites and game graphics, compose game music, and write to the system's disks.

I WILL make this thing...sometime before 2010 hopefully. Any suggestions?

Good Luck!

The Amiga was made with a budget. Hopefully, you also have a budget.

Again, good luck, and specially have a lot of patience in building this.

Yet, if I were you, I'd look into the low cost chip market, look at various parts and how they work, etc, see what you would need in that to make a full working system. Keyboard controller, CPU, graphics chip, memory management, sound chip, IO management, ports, DAC ...

It's a monumental work indeed.

BTW, you did mention minicomputer! Do you know what is a mini computer? I am sure you mean micro computer.

Hi D2, have you looked at this XGameStation

The pico is a good place to start if your interested in putting the hardware together yourself. Its a very low level machine though.. no graphics card.. you program the tv signal yourself..

The Hydra looks like it might be powerful enough to do what you want.. you'd have to write the OS for it though.

I thought the term 'Mini computer' was kind of a mainframe halfway house between a desktop and a supercomputer (like a VAX, Sun, AS400 etc)

Why not have a go at it. It would be a one of a kind. There are people out there that still build there own Sinclair ZX81's from the equivalent parts. I just hope you have the qualifications, time and money if you decide to do it from scratch.

To make it very comercially popular it would need to be as powerfull as a games console, but with the user programability of a Commodore Amiga.

If anybody comes up with a way of marketing that, the creator would be to the indie programmer like John Lennon was to the Hippies.

Good luck D2, and if you ever succede in your venture, I will be one of your very happy customers.

That's just what we need... A console that steers clear of creation inhibiting licensing mumbo-jumbo.

I think a good reference for parts are the arcade machine's hardware parts. You can focus on one machine and look at it's parts and see how it does to generate the cool music and graphics on those.

Personally I'd opt for a RISC based CPU (such as Cortex) and the RiscOS as an operating system.
http://www.arm.com/products/CPUs/ARM_Cortex-A8.html
http://www.iee-cambridge.org.uk/arc/seminar05/slides/RichardGrisenthwaite.pdf

And how about Yamaha for your sound?
http://www.yamaha.co.jp/english/product/lsi/us/products/pcaudio.html

Normen Luni posted this a while ago:
http://blitzmax.com/Community/posts.php?topic=71659

Looks ideal for what you need :)
Should match the SNES (and then some!), with no problems, and has the advantage of being PC based so you could base it on a customized linux, BSD or windows for an OS.