The pie can run Windows? I didn’t know that. As for Windows XP, I’d be very surprised if it would run at all. Running any operating system off an SD card is a bad idea. (I’m looking at the Braille Note Touch) Why doesn’t the pie have internal storage? Wouldn’t the card be worn out from running Linux all the time? > On Oct 21, 2016, at 4:18 PM, john <jpcarnemo...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Because I needed things to google, I did a bit of looking at the Pie's specs > for the feasibility of running windows as a miniature gaming platform. > Its got 1gb ram, which means you're outright using xp or earlier. Xp will > run happily enough on 1gb - though its happier with 2. Expect some lifetime > reduction in whatever card you choose for your OS drive. > This outlaws all of VG Storm's titles, unless they manage to get their games > running on xp, but other than that, I can't think of anything that won't run > on these specs. > The CPU looks ok - 1.2ghz, but its running four cores which will help offset > some of the speed issues. Fine for xp and games, as long as you don't expect > it to move the world. > Storage will depend on the micro SD card you pick. A brief amazon search > shows me a 64gb sandisk for $20, and a 32gb for $10. If you want more, > there's a 128gb for $42, which means there's no real cost per gb gain for > any of the capacities (a 16gb kingston is also available for $5.25, but > that's pushing the lower limit of what would run xp, and audiogames aren't > exactly small). > The latest Pie (released in February of this year) has built-in wireless, so > you'll be able to play games like swamp or run muds if you want to do that. > However, I see a couple relatively major problems: > Firstly, you're doing one of the major noNos in computing - running an > operating system off something like an sd card. Xp was not designed to do > this. The card was not designed to do this, and the middling amount of ram > you have means that once you start gaming you're going to be abusing the > card even further. The larger the card you get the longer it'll last - so > that 128gb suddenly looks a lot more appealing if you don't want to have to > replace your storage device. > Secondly, is the fact that you have to run windows Xp. I'm not going to > start on the unsupported thing - it doesn't matter for our purposes, because > you're not going to be doing anything secure on the pie - if its on the > internet, you're probably only connecting to game servers. What I will say > though is that you can't buy Xp anymore. This may be the death null for any > project that wants to sell these as fully decked out audiogaming machines. > The last thing you want is Microsoft kicking down your door with a lawsuit > over those 250 pirated copies of Xp you sold. > I think its a really cool idea, but when you get into setting it up, its > probably not going to work out as well as you'd hope, unless you somehow > manage to configure a linux distro via wine to run all the games you want to > include (linux will run fine on those specs but since all of our audiogames > are compiled for windows you'd have to script an amazing amount of prep > work). > > Best, > John > > -------------------------------------------------- > From: "Paul Lemm" <paul.lem...@gmail.com> > Sent: Friday, October 21, 2016 12:52 > To: "'Gamers Discussion list'" <gamers@audyssey.org> > Subject: [Audyssey] creating an audio game console - was RE: memory > > Hi Travis, > > I don't know a huge amount about it, but wouldn't something like the > Raspberry PI be perfect for something like this? There cheap at less than > £40 for a brand new latest PI model, and I know you can get free text to > speech for the PI , as I have one myself which I use as a kind of media > server for streaming movies and sport so it had spoken menus. I did > however brought a PI for my brother as a present and turned it into a retro > gaming console (sorry before anyone gets excited, this was a retro gaming > console for sighted people so completely inaccessible( that played > everything from the ZX spectrum through to the Nintendo N64, because it > already had built in WIFI and USB ports it was easy to hook up to the > internet wirelessly and we plugged an Xbox controller straight into the > PI so it was fairly straight forward. I believe you can get a windows OS > for the PI, I'm just not sure if audio games would run on that or not, if > they did it would be a simple case of installing the windows OS, setting up > the text to speech, loading it up with audio games then once done just > copying the SD card , you could then either sell an SD card with the > preformatted image on the card, or set up a download to the SD card image > that people could download and then put on an SD card themselves, you could > either sell the PI yourself or leave it for people to buy the PI themselves > as they would just need to insert the preformatted SD card and it would be > good to go with no setting up required. > > Again like I said I don't know a huge amount about the PI and the different > operating systems and whether this would work, but now I think about it I > vaguely remember someone on this list saying they had set up a PI to play > audio games on, I could be wrong on this, but I'm sure someone did, I just > can't remember who it was. > > Sorry for the long message by the way > > People would just need to insert the SD card into a PI and it would be all > set up and ready to go > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Travis Siegel > Sent: 21 October 2016 16:38 > To: Gamers Discussion list > Subject: Re: [Audyssey] memory > > No it wouldn't cost much at all. I've already tried to fly this > concept, and got turned down flat by most developers I approached. > They['re just not interested. <sigh> > > Using a raspberry pi as the heart, it would be a trivial matter to build > a menuing system, pack the sd card full of every kind of game > imaginable, and sell the thing for a hundred bucks or so, and still make > a bit of a proffit (admittedly, not much, but still ...) The problem is > tht you'll need games for the thing, and since it uses an arm processor > (the same line as the iPhones) folks just don't want to port their > windows apps to the arm processor, even though, in some cases it's as > simple as recompiling with a different mainstream compiler. I thought > about going ahead and making an sd card with all the stuff I could find > and port on my own, then just sell the sd card for a few bucks more to > cover costs than anything else, and I may still do that, but without > ports of things like rsgames game client, and a bit more sound variety, > folks aren't going to be much interested in it. > > (Just for reference) > > This is my second attempt to float the idea of a gaming console for the > blind, the first attempt was several years ago using a small credit card > sized computer from parallax, and although initially folks said they > were interested, once the capabilities of the chip were discussed, they > all gave it up as a bad idea, because it wasn't on par with modern > windows systems. (well duh), that's the whole point of a gaming > console. But anyway, that's it in a nutshell. > > > On 10/20/2016 6:38 PM, The Life of Z wrote: >> Thanks Dark that' is some incouragement. Maybe I'll be able to play it >> aafter allWWWell, that was an intresting post. I think the reason why >> developers don't make any game additions for the sighted is because of X >> box 1 and playstatttion 4. I had an idea for a console for the blind but >> I don't know how to get it off the ground. It would be like a game console >> like and x--box or playstation except it could handle games for the blind. >> I'd even have a li'l button tthat you could press to have a visual display >> just incase you had sighted family or friends that wanted to play with > you. >> Of courrse, if I got some developers to help me bbbuild the thing, it > would >> probably cost a bunch like everything made fffor us blind people. >> Somtimesss I hate that. >> >> On Oct 20, 2016 11:43 AM, "Travis Siegel" <tsie...@nfbcal.org> wrote: >> >>> You're likely to get a lot of responses to these questions, but I'll > chime >>> in anyway. >>> >>> To answer the first question. >>> >>> No, it doesn't take as much room for a game for the visually impaired as >>> it does for a sighted gamer. The reason being, although sounds can be >>> large, (especially high-quality ones), you don't have to deal with >>> graphics, which can eat considerably more space. My son is always buying >>> the newest games, and these days, they're almost always several gigabytes >>> in size. I have yet to see an audio game that packs that big of a punch, >>> though I'm not exactly an expert on audio games for the blind, > considering >>> I'm not a fan of windows, and only recently got another windows machine >>> which I have done without for more than 10 years. On the other hand, I'm >>> quite a bit puzzled why absolutely no attempt is made by folks who make >>> blind games to make them sighted friendly. Admittedly,it would take extra >>> work, and in some cases, it might be more work than it's worth, but in >>> general, when a game is made for the blind community, nothing is done to >>> the game to make it be playable by sighted gamers. >>> >>> Sometimes, the effort is so minimal, it is laughable, and yet, developers >>> of blind games do the very thing they accuse the sighted world of doing > to >>> us. <shrug> I have never released a product that wasn't usable by both >>> sighted and blind users alike, though again, I haven't been doing > anything >>> at all in the windows world for more than 10 years, and most of the >>> freelance work I do has nothing to do with blind folks at all, but that's >>> beside the point. I find it frustrating sometimes when I download a > shiny >>> new game to play, only to find that my wife and children can't enjoy the >>> game with me, because there is no attempt made to give the sighted world >>> any interface at all. Case in point, rs games. Except for the sounds, >>> there's absolutely no reason whatsoever why the client can't have the > text >>> written on the screen right along with the spoken text. Instead, the >>> sighted folks have to use the web interface wich is so plain, they don't >>> even want to bother with it. >>> >>> I've been a web developer for roughly 20 years, and honestly, it's not >>> hard to make web sites presentable to the sighted as well as the blind if >>> it's done correctly. Yes, you'll need a sighted person to look at the >>> thing, and say things like, move the graphic to the other side of the > text, >>> or why does that link not have a picture, but it's not a difficult > process. >>> >>> As for the rest of your questions, I'll leave those for others, as I've >>> gotten badly off topic with this post, and while I could rant for several >>> pages, it's not helpful to do so, so I'll stop here, with the expectation >>> that I'll get blasted 3 ways from sunday for daring to speak such >>> blastphemy, and discussions of how hard and time consuming it would be to >>> make things usable by the sighted. I don't mean full out graphics with > full >>> motion video and such, but just a little effort put into maybe having a > few >>> pictures, (or as pointed about rsgames client,) just adding text instead > of >>> having speech only. It's not hard, and it allows friends and family to >>> play along, even if it's not the best experience in the world for them. >>> >>> >>> >>> On 10/19/2016 12:53 PM, The Life of Z wrote: >>> >>>> I have a question for you guys. Does it take a lot more memory for games >>>> for the blind to be created or is it about the same as a game for the >>>> sighted world? My second question is does it take up a lot of space for >>>> all >>>> you gamers out their who have PC computers? My third and final question > is >>>> this: is their a gamers page on youtube for the blind gamer like myself? >>>> Thanks list. >>>> --- >>>> Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org >>>> If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to >>>> gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. >>>> You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at >>>> http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. >>>> All messages are archived and can be searched and read at >>>> http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. >>>> If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the >>>> list, >>>> please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. >>>> >>> >>> --- >>> This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. >>> https://www.avast.com/antivirus >>> >>> >>> --- >>> Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org >>> If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to >>> gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. >>> You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at >>> http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. >>> All messages are archived and can be searched and read at >>> http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. >>> If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the > list, >>> please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. >>> >> --- >> Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org >> If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to > gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. >> You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at >> http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. >> All messages are archived and can be searched and read at >> http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. >> If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the > list, >> please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. > > > --- > This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. > https://www.avast.com/antivirus > > > --- > Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org > If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to > gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. > You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at > http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. > All messages are archived and can be searched and read at > http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. > If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, > please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. > > > --- > Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org > If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to > gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. > You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at > http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. > All messages are archived and can be searched and read at > http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. > If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, > please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. > > > --- > Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org > If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. > You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at > http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. > All messages are archived and can be searched and read at > http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. > If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, > please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
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