Polymega - which began life as RetroBlox - is a name we haven't heard much of over the past few months.
The modular system aims to offer support for several key vintage gaming formats using removable sections which house the interface for each console's media and controllers. It's a really interesting concept, and one that we can't wait to see more of.
Given the radio silence, there have been mutterings online that the project has stalled, but the company behind the console has moved to counter such claims by showing the 14-layer PCB being manufactured.
According to Polymega maker PLAYMAJI's Bryan Bernal, more of these "development" videos will be shown prior to a "bigger marketing campaign" which occurs this year. The company is focused on E3 2018, and will be confirming details of the preorder process this year.
Let us know if you're still keen to see more of Polymega by posting a comment.
This article was originally published by nintendolife.com on Mon 23rd April, 2018.
Comments 39
Looks fascinating really.
Okay, can Polymega still able to play All Region PS1 games ?
@DarthNocturnal
Yay... !
So, i can play Both PS1 & Sega Saturn CD with Polymega.
Any date release ?
I was wondering what happened to this just the other day. I’m still curious, but can’t say I am a fan of the name “Polymega”. “Retroblox” wasn’t much better actually.
14 layers?? Is that standard for these days? I remember when there were just two layers- front and back.
It is the reason I have held off on buying retro machines or HDMI upscalers for my retro collection (outside of the Super RetroCade). I hope this turns out right.
@Qun_Mang I don't really know what qualifies as "Standard" but a 14 layer PCB for something like this does seem quite high to me. I've seen high end PC motherboards with around 8 PCB layers, for reference. To be fair, it's not often disclosed how many layers a PCB has either, so it could be 14 layers is more common that I'd think. I do know that from a hobbyist perspective, having a 2 layer PCB is way cheaper than even a 4 layer, and the cost continues to go up from there.
I'll be getting involved in polymega if it makes it out.
I hope they take pre-order soon, I need to breathe new life to all my Sega CD and PlayStation games and this may be just that.
Well, nice to know that this is still a work in progress, but that video is pretty useless for the end user interested in this modular console. Probably only interesting to tech heads and/or other people liking this kind of stuff, but not really for people actually interested in the system itself.
I would rather see a working device, and how the interface is coming along, or even how the various modules look nowadays. Don't know if their outer casing is still the same as it was before or not, so that would be a far more interesting update for me personally.
@samuelvictor It should do pretty darn well, seeing as it's FPGA-based, so that does have the potential for a much higher compatibility than any standalone emulator could ever guarantee.
It was reported back then, that eventually, all CD-based games will be able to run on this, and DVD compatibility is also considered somewhere down the line, probably if the device becomes successful enough, to help finance such an additional expansion.
I personally like that it is modular. Just take the CD module, and add all the console modules that you want to it, to make a nice mini-tower of CD based consoles...
Either way, as you might have guessed, this initiative is definitely on my radar...
@ThanosReXXX New avatar? Didn't take you for a song and dance man, but respect for the recently departed is always nice.
I will be keeping my eyes peeled for this!
@rjejr And that's exactly what it is. Another famous DJ said today that Aviici was, for all intents and purposes, the Mozart of the dance scene, and I would agree. He certainly had a brilliant, if troubled, mind and he made some brilliant music with it.
And yes, I like this kind of music as well. My taste is very broad, from classic to rock, from rap to dance, and everything in between. I do not have a specific favorite genre, and to me, every kind of music has it's good and bad songs/pieces.
So, much like I did with Prince when he passed, I thought it only fitting to pay the same respect to this brilliant artist. But once the 2nd of May arrives, I will be able to add another year to my miserable life, so I'll be reverting back to my own avatar's ugly mug, or perhaps I'll go for the MCU Infinity Wars one.
That is, if I can find a decent picture of it that equals the ominous look of the one I used up til now. Gotta keep the whole mad Titan vibe in tact...
@ThanosReXXX I didn't know who he was until I saw the article on CNN. Then sammy (PS) put out a tweet, so I figured he was big with the young Brit crowd, sammy's all about the young Brit bands. I'm not even sure how to announce his name so I just decided it was "a" "vee" "see" like saying the alphabet a b c only with v instead of b. Still not sure I've ever heard his music, barely follow bands any more, never really followed DJs. But I did think it was a nice gesture on your part.
@rjejr It's pronounced Aah-vee-chee. As in "veni, vidi, vici", if you know your Roman emperor Caesar quotes...
And he was a Swedish DJ, worked with a lot of the biggest artists out there, even with Coldplay, so yeah, he was really big. But I won't hold it against you...
Over the years, I've seen you mention several bands and artists, and I can honestly say that I don't know all of them either, nor have I heard of some.
Case in point: I'm currently watching this year's American Idol (don't judge, I like talent shows), and more than half the songs performed in it are completely unfamiliar to me, but on a positive note: it does bring me into contact with new music and artists that I wouldn't have known otherwise.
glad to see this still alive, i have been watching this project for a while now as a replacement for my retron 5
Yeah, I guess I lost interest when they called the Super NT a good interim solution and Kevtris responded how he hasn't seen anything to indicate it's more than vaporware and what they are trying to accomplish is a good deal harder than what he's done with the Super NT thus far.
Here's a quote from Kevtris which may know a thing or two about FGPA development.
"I still am curious how they are going to get around the whole BIOS ROM problem (among the 2000 other issues they will have). It's pretty hard to run CD based systems without the BIOS ROMs. I guess they could take a stab at rewriting one but it's a big job and compatibility will be suspect. It sounds more and more their "hybrid emulation" ™ is basically a retron 5, where it uses a simple CPLD/FPGA to read the carts and stuff and interfaces it to an android system running emulators.
There's zero way to get a software emulator to actually run a cartridge without dumping it IMO. They could theoretically run a CPU emulator, but it cannot do anything else, because running the cart bus will take all available CPU cycles, and it cannot be sped up (because the cartridge can only be read at the "usual' rate and it cannot be sped up to help do bulk processing)."
Source: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242970-fpga-based-videogame-system/page-347
From the best I can tell, the system bios in CD based systems is covered under software copyright protection. So it would be illegal for them to copy the PS1 bios and include it in the system. Much like a person can't copy the original Super Mario Bros and start selling it (legally at least). Versus clone consoles which the hardware would fall under patent protection and would be expired for most retro systems at this point. So the options are to have users get their own bios which is messy because they could the wrong one and maybe still be illegal if the only way to use your product is to have the end user find something illegally. Or play without the bios which I guess is possible. But it's glitchy and won't work with all games.
I cannot help but feel that, in order to do it all, and not be outrageously expensive, concessions will have to be made. I wonder if it would just be better to have separate machines that each work very well on their own, than trying to cram them all into one.
@samuelvictor I think I've come across EDM before, "electronic dance music" I'm guessing, but not Mike Posner. And I'm really not up on anything new, anything at all. Anything 4 or 5 years old is still probably new to me. With the notable exception of Greta Van Fleet, but I can't imagine there's a lot of crossover between them and avicii.
@Anti-Matter YES
@Heavyarms55 They are all separate, that's why it's a modular system. You purchase the unit for the console you want. The base Cd drive is the only part that remains the same.
All i want is a new TG-16 platform so that i can put my beautiful original safely away.
@YANDMAN ... then why would you buy this machine over any other? What is the benefit to the modular system?
@samuelvictor Better tell @rjejr that EDM stands for Electronic Dance Music. He does like his abbreviations, but only the ones that he knows himself...
Oops... late to the party...
@Heavyarms55
You don't have to buy the machine over and over: you buy one CD module, and then add whatever console modules you want. You can then switch on one at a time in combination with the CD drive, and those will detect each other and act as one console with a CD drive.So, for example, you could have one CD drive, with a Sega Genesis module and a PS1 module, and a Turbogrfx16 module.Of course if you DO want them all separate, you could get a CD module for all three, but you could simply stack 'em in a neat, small tower with just the one CD module at the bottom...More info:
http://polymega.com/
(picture of two combined modules right there on the front page)
forum:
http://polymega.com/forums/
FAQ:
http://polymega.com/frequently-asked-questions/
EDIT:
Have to correct myself there: you DO only need one CD module, but you can't stack several console modules on top of it. As the website shows, the CD module is the base unit, and console modules are interchangeable, so only one can be connected at a time.
@Heavyarms55 Never mind: I misread your comment. My bad.
Still: the reasons to buy this system are obvious from the information I posted, so perhaps they're still useful to you...
@ThanosReXXX I didn't 100% KNOW what EMD stood for, but I figured my guess, which turned out to be right, was close enough to get the gist to follow along. Or at least play along if I was wrong.
Back to robotics. 405 teams heading to Detroit today. One from this place if you'd like a rooting interest. And it's their 1st year, they only formed last September and off to Detroit they go. I'm impressed.
https://frc-events.firstinspires.org/2018/team/6968
They probably get Labo more than most people here.
https://teampi.nl/
@rjejr With my heritage and background, I'd rather root for your team. And the Dutch team is from Eindhoven. People in Amsterdam hate them. Those two cities are the home base of two of the biggest Dutch premier league soccer teams.
The mutual animosity is even worse than my feelings towards Sony, so if I would root for Eindhoven while living in Amsterdam, they'd probably skin me alive. And obviously, I'm for the Amsterdam team, even though they lost this year, so there's already enough anger going 'round here about "us" finishing in 2nd place...
@ThanosReXXX There's always a story with you. That's a pretty good one though. It always comes down to soccer over there doesn't it? I mean sure, Mets and Yanks fans hate each other, but it doesn't seem to reach the animosity of soccer fans. Though NY and Philly fans in almost every sport hate each other, always have. I think Elton John wrote Philadelphia Freedom just to stick it to NYers. So I suppose I can understand it a little.
@rjejr "Always a story with you... "
Well, I'm here to entertain, so I'm glad you liked it...
And I'm still a Yank at heart, AND I'm firmly rooted in my favorite Dutch city, so what can you do? Gotta go with the flow or drown...
As for these soccer "fans": yeah, I truly still have no idea what that's all about. I've never heard about massive fights breaking out between baseball, football or basketball fans. And in ice hockey, all the fighting is done on the ice by the players themselves, but if you look at soccer around the world, the aggressiveness towards those of the other teams is just through the roof.
The English are also still infamous across the world, as well as certain Italian and Spanish "supporters" of various teams.
The weird thing though, is that in it's mildest form (swearing, hating the other team but not actively harming any of them or their supporters), it's actually completely acceptable, and as such, even I go along with it, so by now and after all those years of having lived over here, I actually DO find myself despising the other teams and not wanting them to win over "my" team.
But I'm not even close to being one of these actual idiots, who even go so far as to arrange fights by calling the other teams (which is odd to begin with, because why would you call the opposing team of supporters who you hate so much?) and meeting up somewhere to bash each other's head in. That has even resulted in some deadly casualties at one point, a decade or two ago. Since then, things have calmed down a bit, but not too much, or enough, depending on how you look at it...
I suppose all of that could probably come as something of a culture shock if you've never seen something like this during or after a sports match. Back in the day, when my dad was just a kid, you could simply stand right on the field itself, just outside the lines.
Nowadays it's all plexiglass shielding/boarding, metal fences and concrete moats, all constructed and put in place to prevent hooligans from entering the soccer arena.
Actually quite sad that it had to come to this, if you stop to think about it. Sort of like having to waste money on a solution to a problem that never should have become a problem in the first place if it weren't for a couple of prime examples of why, in certain cases, the world would be better off without (certain types of) humans...
@ThanosReXXX "hooligans and hoodlums" is pretty much in the title or subtitle of any book ever written about soccer fans, deserving or not.
Good thing the rest of the world doesn't have fanaticism about the 2nd amendment or there would be no soccer fans left.
@rjejr Amen to that...
@samuelvictor May have heard of the Chainsmokers. I do know Zedd b/c he was on one of those morning shows, Good Morning America or the like, a few years back, when they had a woman on live singing Clarity. I'm not too big on pop music but I really like that song. "If our love is a tragedy why are you my remedy?". I'm all about the irony. Before Zedd I knew of Danger Mouse b/c he was pretty much everywhere for awhile, but that was 10 years ago.
@Heavyarms55 Because systems like the Turbo-Grafx 16 CD are hugely expensive and often fragile. This unti combined with Turbo Grafx module will be a CD/Turbochip combined unit just like the Duo and it's multi-region. If i can play this and save my original unit from further wear and expensive repairs then ie'm definitely going to do that. The base CD drive will play PS1, saturn , sega cd and pc-engine CD.
@samuelvictor It's come to my attention that I may have been confusing Danger Mouse with deadmau5 so I'm just going to shut up now.
@samuelvictor Yeah, differentiating people I don't follow isn't really my strong point. All the Kardashians are the same person to me too.
@samuelvictor Its like a curse.
I was like that back in college and grad school, I could tell you everything you'd ever want to know about Batboy, but 16 years of being home has turned me into Peg Bundy. Or it's some age thing like Alzheimers, senility, dementia. Though if ti means not knowing who the people on Jersey Shore are, well that's a fair trade off for not remembering my own kids names.
Trump, Jersey Shore, the Kardashians, it all begins with Batboy. He's the Godfather of pop-culture celebratory, and just as real.
@samuelvictor The made up stories in those papers can't compete with the "truth" today on Facebook, so they had to go. And porn, well all the porn you'll ever need is free in the palm of your hand on your phone, so....
@samuelvictor Yeah, everybody gets their 15 minutes of porn stardom fame. And sometimes porn stars get never-ending fame and $130,000 for not performing. smh
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