Analogue Pocket

Thoughts and prayers :eek:

I couldn't find my entire N64 collection a while back, was convinced someone had thrown it out - eventually my mam found tucked away in a Tesco crate under their bed!

Did the GB stuff turn up?

I'm in Group B in terms of fulfilment order, which is Q4 2022. Maybe some Oracle of Ages for Christmas 2022!

Oh aye....good advice at all times on imports regardless of courier.

They weren't too far off on my amount in total, about 40 quid, and had already chased back the disbursement fee (which was about 18-20 quid IIRC, don't have it front of me), so might leave it at that, bar an email, as opposed to more follow up calls.

On another note, loving this unit (pleasantly surprised with how much time Master System games are getting), but still waiting for word on the Dock, which doesn't appear to have the most reassuring operation when removing the device etc. Analogue slow to followup but given the email mountain they seem to be under with delayed shipments and returns etc, it's probably low priority. Just tending not to use it too much for charging.

Really want to pre order a Playdate, but 180 dollars & postage & whatever VAT customs decide to add when it lands make it a little bit too pricey IMO.

Does look fantastic though, I love the overall design look of it. Be interesting to see how durable the crank is.

Finally getting off their holes to get a beta out for the Analogue OS 1.1 update in a few days seeing as how they promised July. Open FPGA post suggests more support for any core developers out there interested in going after that second FPGA , but we shall wait and see. Imagine some of the promised library/memory stuff might be in the beta........though I think most people would much rather they get cart adapters sorted.

Aye....and of course, they'll get snapped up if they ever show up if youre not on the ball. Remember looking on the Bay recently and seeing chancers wanting close to 300 dollars for in-hand Game Gear adapters.

Ridiculous

I've already seen a MiSTer core dev asking on Patreon if people would like to see their cores being ported to Analogue. I'd worry it would slow dev for the DE10.

€98,056 per month? :) not bad

Not too shabby for a hobby :) I wonder those are are making a living from Core dev, are they considering what the next DE10 for MiSTer will be.

Aye,

Had a quick look at the SMS core last night. One of the real surprises with the Pocket since it came out was how often I've booted up Master System stuff (via Everdrive) so it's nice to see standalone support added.

Looks like there is another update for the NeoGeo core soon as well, so might be worth checking out soon for those interested, though it'll be far from a complete experience.

Oh definitely, I know the Gameboy screen modes have, rightfully, garnered a lot of praise (yes the OpenFPGA cores haven't implemented it yet, apparently needs an update from Analogue), but I was floored by how well the GG and SMS stuff came across at launch via the cart adapter - they've never looked so well, and found myself revisiting so many classic SMS from when I was younger. Don't actually have the Master System anymore, so any SMS stuff over the years has always been via emulation or via Mega Drive etc, but there's something so fitting running on the Pocket. Might well be down to the simple control and interface aspect as you say Mucashinto.

NES will benefit in much the same way I'd imagine, but the SMS stuff has always been so colourful that it really pops on the small screen.

Mentioned it the other day, but just casually had a look online at eBay to see what the GG adapters were going for again on the scalpers market now that the core has been released..............some, most actually, still 200-250 dollars !

Gas stuff altogether. I know many people have loads of proper GG carts (no more than a small handful myself), and want to use them as intended, but there is a limit, so I hope none of these are being seriously considered.

Via the Everdrive yeah......the GG is essentially just a portable Master System albeit upgraded, so was perfectly capable of running the software as long as you could get the software onto it. Led to somewhat clunky Master Gear Converter, and the like, that allowed people to jab their SMS carts into the back of the GG. There were some limitations off the top of my head such as FM supported games from Japan (unless you modded the GG if I recall correctly), Card games etc. Plus because the games had to factor into displaying on GG screen, some elements might have been difficult to make out (very small sprites etc) as opposed to native GG games that are properly authored (zoomed in, on screen info etc), but the vast majority of SMS stuff worked fine.

The GG Everdrive just removed the need for the Converter, with the games just as accessible as native ones (though with the same limitations as above). Either way you're running the SMS stuff as a GG. I'd imagine the GG OpenFPGA core probably functions in the same way, but now that I've said it I don't believe I've tried it to see if there's any difference between running SMS on that GG core, as opposed to the SMS core (assuming it is and not just a rejigged GG one).

Don't recall seeing region options on the new cores, but I don't have it in front of me right now so could be mistaken. TBH, regarding any PAL/NTSC stuff, I generally veer towards the NTSC 99.9% of the time, but granted there may be situations, as you say, were region specificities would be a nice inclusion. Obviously these are only the initial attempts so there could be improvements going forward, but I doubt it'll ever have the range of configuration that the MiSTer provides. But then again, the MiSTer cores didn't appear fully featured initially (I even remember the MiST days which which had quite a few bare cores back then).