AVGA: The AVR Based Video Game Platform

August 12, 2009 by Nick Caiello 16 Comments

avrvideogame

We’ve seen our fair share of AVR projects, but this one’s pretty cool. AVGA is a color video game development platform based on the Atmel AVR family of microcontrollers. As seen in the picture above, one of the AVRs that the project uses is the popular ATMega168. There were several technical hurdles to using the AVRs to run color video games; one of the most difficult problems was figuring out a way to display detailed graphics from AVRs limited onboard RAM. Eventually, the developers figured out a way to display detailed graphics using a TILE-based driver. The TILE driver works by dividing the screen into X and Y coordinates, dividing the graphics into tiles. Then, when a graphic is needed it’s addressed from a reference table that’s stored in the AVR’s onboard RAM, allowing the bitmap graphic to be loaded from a game’s ROM. Currently, the only games available for the platform are a Super Mario clone, a Pacman clone, and a Snake clone. While there are only a few games available, the platform definitely looks promising. If anything, this project serves as a great example for what off the shelf microcontrollers are capable of.

Pac-Man Portable

August 28, 2008 by Eliot 1 Comment

This is another fine project to come out of the benheck forums. [sam_thornley] built this portable game system last Fall. It uses the guts of a JAKKS Namco TV arcade stick. The composite signal from the board is connected to a 2.5″ Intec screen with a CCFL backlight. Four rechargable AA batteries are in the case for 2.5 hours of play. It doesn’t have sound, but he says the TV games’ sound pales to the original anyway. It’s certainly a nice compact build in a regular project box.

[via Engadget]

Roomba Pac-Man

June 3, 2008 by Sean Percival 15 Comments

[Ron Tajima] fashioned a Pac-Man casemod for his Roomba using 448 LEDs and a SH2 MPU control unit. It features the correct arcade sounds and even the death animation. The bot has Bluetooth access thanks to his previous Wiimote hack. He hopes to use this platform to create a real world version of the game.