Pointless But Fun AROS Game Console Project

[korban]

First up I'll start by saying I understand this project is kind of pointless. It's just for fun.
Ive always liked the idea of making my own console. Just using existing hardware using an existing OS as a base, nothing from the ground up other than casing. Ive done some plastic smelting in the past and have access to enough raw materials to be able to make a handful of casings for a "console".
Given how easy AmigaOS/AROS is to make super light and the easy and flexible nature of things like startup sequence AROS makes a great choice for such a project. I can just make bootable cd/dvd versions of, for example, games like Quake, Quake 2, Quake 3, Duke3d, and so on just by having the startup sequence launch a version installed on the cd/dvd. In addition to this it would also be easy to check if its installed to harddrive and launch from there, and give the option if its not. If a person was inclined they could even have it launch some software for cd/dvd based systems AROS has emulators for. It's not really in line with what I personally want out of the project, but it is possible.
With a little more work (ie. some sourecode changes) things like achievements could be added. They're not essential, but they make for a nice little touch.

Most of everything that is needed already exists, its just matter of making a super slim version of the OS to use, both on the CDs/DVDs, and the ssd.
Im going to make a few tweaks to some of the games at a sourcecode level here and there to make something unique to the games running on the "Super AROS 64" console (thinking to add 3do cd music to a Doom port for eg.), but nothing that will specifically tie them to its AROS core (ie. I'll still share anything I do that can be used for a more "traditional" AROS install).

Good fun project that can be tweaked here and there until the end of time.
If anyone thinks this might be something theyd be interested in getting involved with I'd be more than happy for the help. Things like game covers, suggestions for games, "converting" titles to be using the AROS core I'll be using (this would obviously need decent understanding of AROS/Amiga DOS).
Again, its all just for fun. The idea isn't to compete with anything, or be a project with money involved, etc. Just something to scratch an itch for people who are both creative and technical. Despite this though I want the end result to look like something other than a homebrew console. Easy and fun, not cheap and nasty 

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Nice project korban, something like that I had developed with "AROS One Games"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjl3hrBlMpw

[cdimauro]

@korban: that could be interesting as a retrogaming station, as long as it doesn't require hardware acceleration. In the latter case, a system where it supported is needed.

Another problem is... how to deal with crashes. A Guru Meditation isn't good as user experience, and if you want to make the platform suitable for a large audience, then you've to prepare it in a way that it's easy to use and handle such cases. Which isn't trivial with any Amiga OS/-like system.

[korban]

@cdimauro

Unfortunately there's only so much that can be done about crashes. The AROS core OS itself is generally reasonably stable, so as long as the games that get tweaked for the project are also reasonably stable it shouldn't be a big problem.
While there's no real "fixes" I'll do whatever bits and pieces I can do at an "advanced end user /casual developer" type level.

For example I could possibly have the OS copy to RAM: and have the system actually reboot from there (its more than quick enough so as not to be noticed unless you know what to look for) when going back to the "dashboard" between games sessions just to get rid of anything that has become resident that may encourage a crash to be more likely, memory leaks that software has caused, and so on and so forth. It wont "fix" anything, but it's something at least. Also make sure software has enough stack before launching (lack of stack being another common cause of crashes that many users dont think of). Little bits and pieces like that.
As I said its not a fix, but it can help here and there.
I'll have to change the aesthetics of guru meditation, etc prompts too I guess to something more inline with a console aesthetics. Not exactly what I'll do there yet. I'll probably do that towards the end once the aesthetics of the system itself is more mature. Some sort of crash log being sent to somewhere may actually even be useful for core OS developers, but that's beyond my own coding talents (networking is my nemesis). Obviously would prefer them not to occur in the 1st place, but any Amiga enthusiast knows that at some point their OS is going to crash. It may not happen often, but it is part of the experience  
If its the sort of project that gets any sort of traction then perhaps re-evaluate from there.

As I was saying though, its mostly just for fun. No real desire to compete with anything, I just wanted to share it with anyone who might be interested.
Will make anything I do available to anyone who might be interested once Im more organized, but beyond that Im just having fun with it at the moment 

p.s. please excuse the ramble-ey nature of the response. It's sort of just an off the cuff/thinking aloud type response while I kill a fove minutes waiting for public transport.

[cdimauro]

np. And I like technical discussions. :-)

My only suggestion was/were to "package" such project so that it's easy to be used by customers, hiding the intrinsic problems which AROS have as being an Amiga OS-like OS.