A New Gp32 Version To Celebrate Its 10Th Anniversary ?

Would you buy a new GP32 version ?


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    33

Magic Sam

Forever Homebrew
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Hi,

On November 23 2011, the GP32 will turn 10 :)

Do you think someone (GPH/OpenPandora/other) could re-release it to celebrate this anniversary ?

It could even be upgraded to modern standards with SD card compatibility, a faster but still 100% compatible CPU, some more RAM, etc...

Any thoughts ?

Bye, Magic Sam
 
I've wanted a Super GP32 for quite some time now.

The funny thing is that it wouldn't need a huge upgrade.
32MB of RAM would suffice as would a triple speed CPU (say 400Mhz).
Oh and a modern flash card, like SD.

That's it!
 
@ slaanesh: dou you think it is technically possible, and would it be expensive ?

If we ask GPH or someone else kindly, and if there are enough pre-orderers, would they be OK ?

Bye, Magic Sam
 
Simply put, I haven't found the perfect replacement for my GP32 yet.

The GP2X has more stuff and better emus now, but it lacks in the build quality and comfort in my hands. The clicky joystick drove a few insane, but I really loved it! The back boobs, the simplicity of the over all design, it was a very comfortable and extremely powerful handheld at the time! At the same time though, isn't the Pandora pretty much the culmination of everything we've always wanted out of these handhelds, but haven't gotten? Touchscreen, wifi, completely open for development, longer battery life (although the GP32 was an extremely good handheld for battery life imo), creators who communicate with us, keyboard, SD cards instead of SMC's and a plethora of buttons, d-pad and two analog sticks? Even though it probably won't compete with the GP32 in terms of how shapely it is, it's gonna be THE handheld to have! I think that the Pandora is more of a spiritual successor to the GP32 than the GP2X or Wiz... What does tear me apart inside is that part of me wants to see a GP32 emulator, but at the same time I enjoy digging out the GP32 and playing with it, so it's a double edged sword... emulation vs authentic... it's hard for me to chose what I would prefer...

Plus, remember all the hassle with the new GP32 versions? BLU+ all over again, no thank you!
 
I think a super-GP32 wouldn't make much sense, since it would be less super than Pandora or Wiz. I always see Wiz as being the true successor of GP32 because I didn't liked GP2X much and Wiz brings back good battery power and controls that I like (although no sticky joy that I like too). I am still thinking about buying an old GP32 (maybe BLU+ this time?) somewhere in Ebay. And that GeePee32 emulator, I wish it was ever complete and fast enough with sound.
 
10 years? So that's why all my GP32's are breaking down! If someone went to the trouble of making a re-issue GP32, updated with new hardware or not, I would certainly get one.
 
I recently got my first GP32 off ebay, along with a load of other handheld game consoles, and I must say I really like it a lot! Even better than the GP2X I have. It's a regular NLU one and I'm bidding on a BLU now. I would buy a re-issued/updated one for sure!

P.s. Some updated comms software for the GP32 would be nice :)
 
I don't think GPH has the rights to GP32, much less Open Pandora. They probably don't actually have electrical/mechanical source and drawings et al and would have to start from nothing. So really they'd be doing a GP32-like handheld, and it wouldn't be any easier than doing any other handheld from scratch.

I think what you're after here is hardware compatibility with GP32. You would have to have an SoC with the exact same peripherals and memory map, and I doubt that Samsung makes a drop-in upgrade for the part, much less one with a much higher clock speed - I just can't see there being much demand for it. Also, the screen has to be the same and you can't replace SMC with SD because they're not interface compatible even from a software level. You could possibly move up to xD though (I giggle every time I see that..). I just don't see very much you could actually change while making this still work. A RAM upgrade and move to Lithium Ion batteries could be done, but if that's all it's offering I doubt many people would be releasing new software to take advantage of it.

Or maybe you want the case and controls spun similarly again. Companies will ultimately go with whatever interface they believe in, and Wiz and Pandora are designed the way they are because GPH and OP think that those are the best designs for the product. If they thought a very GP32-like design was better they would have gone with that. The stick-click design has its pros and cons and opinion varies between people, but ultimately it's too mechanically fragile.

Even if they could push this out, I think there is no way they would make enough money to recoup that spent in R&D, much less start making a profit.

Now, GP's apparent successor, "Gambros", could do something like this, and some of the things they're releasing now do look like GP32 successors, although they've abandoned the form factor and I doubt anything is backwards compatible. Nothing you can really do there. No other company is in a position to just start making more GP32s, altered or otherwise.

GP32 emulation on modern platforms seems like a much more feasible and attractive option, IMO.

EDIT: Maybe I'll try emulating GP32 some time in the future; does anyone have a list of external components that aren't abstracted by the apps processor? Like, things connected over GPIO, possibly the display controller and whatever audio hardware it had. Also if you want to send any *cough*other things*cough* that could be useful in emulation I can accept via e-mail ;D

EDIT2: MESS has had GP32 support for a while: http://www.bannister.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=56755&page=1 Can anyone try it and tell me how it performs? Word in that thread is that it has audio now.
 
sensible GP32 said:
I remember when Reesy was god.

:) yeah. Actually "Finalburn" Dave was the god, I was just sat on his shoulders taking all the credit ;). Cyclone is a quality piece of work! Whatever happened to Dave?
 
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OMFG, that is firefly adding GP32 support to MESS isn't it?

Beautiful!

Reesy: Him and many others were coding gods in my eyes... (aforementioned firefly also being on that list), last I remember was about 2006, early 2007 or so when I last heard from Dave. I'm fairly certain I even remember you yourself coming over from the GBA back then ;)

A fair few big names are around, but most are gone... heh, well atleast I can still say I learnt quite a bit from quite a few of them! I'm sure quite a fair few are still lurking around somewhere. Hell, we all know Skeezix is still around atleast ;) I still can't believe how many interviews I did with amazing GP32 dev's back in the day... :)

P.S. To any of you ol' GP32dev's out there, thanks again for everything, besides homebrew and emu's for a great system, you guys actually helped me learn how to code in ways most school can't and inspired me to make creating games my living. Now just to get my ass in gear!
 
Hooka, could you check out the MESS GP32 emulation and tell me if it appears definitive enough for PC or if there'd be a value in a replacement? I'm thinking the biggest issue will be speed, since MAME's ARM core is not very fast. GP32 is probably not that complex, just some parallel, serial, and GPIO interfaces to really simple peripherals. The CPU emulation is probably the crux of things, and I wouldn't necessarily mind having more opportunities to optimize an ARM emulation core for x86 (and other platforms, eventually)
 
Exophase: Today is a busy one (birfdey party!), but I'll definitely give it a look in the next few days and let you know. Probably a good thing I made .smc backups of all my bought games (to get screenshots on geepee32 at one point) I'll just have to find them and run them through his convertor ;)
 
I really love to take a handheld on holiday with me so I can play through a few old titles while soaking up the sun. My GP32 NLU is the only one that is any good in direct sunlight so it still gets a lot of use. I've lost count of how many times I've taken it apart and stuck bits of card, blu-tack etc onto the joystick in order to get the diagonals working again.

It also got me back into coding again, good times. :)
 
slaanesh said:
I've wanted a Super GP32 for quite some time now.

The funny thing is that it wouldn't need a huge upgrade.
32MB of RAM would suffice as would a triple speed CPU (say 400Mhz).
Oh and a modern flash card, like SD.

That's it!

The main drawback of the gp32 is the smc card limitation. Other than emulators and ported pc projects, I don't think any game released for it really pushed it's hardware. Given the fact that it can emulate a snes at fairly good speeds, it should be able to run games 5-10 times more demanding than a snes. I would think it could easily compete with a jaguar, 3do or 2d plays station 1 games. Can you imagine what kind of games could have come out on it if was the Nintendo 32 and not the gamepark 32?

I am very surprised there is not a gp32 emulator, given that the machine is so well documented.

What is "gambros" I searched on google but a medical company comes up. I tried gamebros but that didn't bring up anything either.
 
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Magic Sam said:
@ slaanesh: dou you think it is technically possible, and would it be expensive ?

Basically what Exophase said.

However I know that the GP32 can be easily upgraded to 32/64MB RAM as people have done this mod.

Speaking of which - does anyone have a 32/64MB GP32?

If anyone wants to do this mod for one of my GP32s I would be VERY interested... Anyone? :)
I'd even build a Final Burn Alpha for GP32 if I could get a 32/64MB GP32. :)
 
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slaanesh said:
Magic Sam said:
@ slaanesh: dou you think it is technically possible, and would it be expensive ?

Basically what Exophase said.

However I know that the GP32 can be easily upgraded to 32/64MB RAM as people have done this mod.

Speaking of which - does anyone have a 32/64MB GP32?

If anyone wants to do this mod for one of my GP32s I would be VERY interested... Anyone? :)
I'd even build a Final Burn Alpha for GP32 if I could get a 32/64MB GP32. :)

I'm thinking about trying it with my spare GP32, but I'll have to do some more research on it. I did manage to make my own hot air soldering pencil out of a Radioshack desoldering iron, so I have decent SMT soldering capability now.
 
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jmetal88 said:
I'm thinking about trying it with my spare GP32, but I'll have to do some more research on it. I did manage to make my own hot air soldering pencil out of a Radioshack desoldering iron, so I have decent SMT soldering capability now.
I would LOVE a 32MB/64MB GP32. :)
 
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slaanesh said:
jmetal88 said:
I'm thinking about trying it with my spare GP32, but I'll have to do some more research on it. I did manage to make my own hot air soldering pencil out of a Radioshack desoldering iron, so I have decent SMT soldering capability now.
I would LOVE a 32MB/64MB GP32. :)

I tell you what, I'll get started experimenting on mine ASAP if you can get a proper stick of RAM shipped to me.

Looks like it should be non-ECC 128mb PC133 SDRAM with 4 chips rather than 8:

http://www.cobblewar...32/gp32ram.html

I had a look on ebay and it looks like they're a bit hard to find, but there were a few sticks on there in the $8-$10 range (ECC sticks and 8-chip sticks on the other hand start as low as $2, it looks like).

If I'm successful (and feel comfortable with the procedure), I'd be willing to mod your GP32 as well. Or I could sell you my spare if you didn't want to risk your own, but the LCD on my spare is a tad bit ruined, as I tried to get rid of some scratches and ended up polishing away the anti-glare. :lol: I sort of got it back on there by intentionally sanding the LCD, but it still looks bad, and isn't nearly uniform.

But if I'm buying my own RAM, it'll be a while, as I'm in no hurry to get this accomplished myself. :lol:

EDIT: Ooh, actually I just found a proper stick for $5 shipped. Hmm... Maybe I'll go for it myself after all.

EDIT 2: Yup, this should do nicely: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220567609830
Now I'll start experimenting once I have some free time.
 
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