Meggy Development
I've recently built a MeggyJR RGB (that handsome little devil to the right), sold by http://www.evilmadscientist.com. Blatantly stolen from a forum posting of the creator: "The current Arduino platform standards-- the "Diecimila" and "Duemilanove" are based on the ATmega168 run at 16 MHz. This chip has 16 kB of flash memory for storing your program (of which 2 kB is used for the bootloader, leaving 14 kB in practice), 1 kB of RAM, and 512 bytes of EEPROM (non-volatile memory). The CPU is run at 16 MHz from a crystal oscillator." The screen is an 8x8 multi-coloured LED screen, with 8 auxilliary yellow LEDs.
It's a surprisingly retro little gadget these days...and for some reason, I find it buckets of fun to program for.
The folks at Evil Mad Scientist are amazingly available on the forums. They answer quick, and they know their stuff. Two Thumbs Up!
That said, I find development on the device itself rather like pulling teeth. With my bare hands and a rotten orange. I started building Gem below, and during the development found a bug I could not diagnose on the device...so I did what any sane programmer would do: I built a simulator (complete graphic installation instructions are below).
Here are the projects I've built for the MeggyJr RGB game device:
The simulator is a partial code-level simulator of the MeggyJrSimple library, which allows programs willing to allow a regular flow through the main loop a chance to run on a PC for rapid debugging. (This means no "while(Button_A) {CheckButtonPressed();}" code. You must fall through each cycle.) Note that while some level of lower-level compatibility will likely be added in the future, this is does not completely (or even a little) emulate the hardware, so any low-level calls will not work here. You want to use this, stick to the MeggyJrSimple library.This has been built with SDL and Visual C++ Express 9.0 Free Edition. Click through for a graphical installation tutorial.
Bars of 3 randomly coloured gems drop down the screen. Your job is to line them up such that they make at least one row of 3 matching gems. Those will flash, and be removed, and you'll need to deal with the next 3. I've not broken 255 yet. Good luck!
This is a plain-vanilla version of Space Invaders for the Meggy. It's relatively true to the original, just on a 64x64 screen!
This is simply eye candy. There are two types of plasma's displayed. The first is a morphing plasma that takes advantage of the superb Meggy screen. The second is a strictly colour cycling affair. Watch how fast the Meggy can make that run!
Upcoming projects...
I've got a few other things on the boil, but nothing worth mentioning just yet...stay tuned.