Opining on Designing – By Howard Scott Warshaw

“Talent borrows, genius steals.” -Oscar Wilde

When Oscar said this in the late 1800’s, his medium was the written word. He said many new things, but his medium was firmly established and didn’t change much during his lifetime. He stood on the shoulders (and picked the intellectual pockets) of prior contributors, and others in turn would come to stand on his. I believe the quote demonstrates his awareness of this continuum.

Here’s something that never happened during his lifetime: A new medium. Radio, television and desktop publishing were still decades away at the time of his death.

What’s the point of this Wilde rant? Hang on a tic…

Have you ever tried to invent a game? Kids do it constantly. Making up silly ways of passing the time is easy as a child. Have you ever tried to do it as a grown up? And instead of doing it for your own enter- tainment, have you tried doing something others will enjoy? And then try doing it so someone will bet millions on your idea! And what if it’s not just a game, but a video game? Suddenly the game concept isn’t enough, you must also be able to realize it within the technology. It’s an interesting challenge.  Of course, the easiest way to meet this

challenge is to take an existing game that works well and make some minor tweaks to it. This is called a “knock off,” and it explains the lion’s share of human endeavor.

To create something fresh and new, to actually innovate… that’s hard to do. Consequently, it doesn’t happen very often (as demonstrated by the video game industry for the last four decades). How many truly new games do you see vs how many knock offs?

While some are satisfied with connecting their classic game consoles to a CRT television and calling it a day, there are others out there that want to see those games of yesteryear in razor sharp quality on their HDTVs. I certainly fall into that category, and I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve spent a modest amount of money on video upscalers, RGB cables, and other video peripherals to get the best picture possible on a modern TV. If I could go back in time and tell myself to hold out until Analogue released their Super NT and Mega SG consoles, I would have saved myself a lot of time and money.

Analogue has made quite the name for itself in delivering high caliber, FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) clone systems, that, while fetching a high price, make up for it with high compatibility and the vast amount of video options available with their products.

The Super NT and Mega SG are Analogue’s vision of a souped-up Super Nintendo and Sega Mega Drive/Genesis respectively. Both systems have a common theme to them: support the game cartridges from any region, utilize the same control ports that the original console used, operate with a simple USB to 5-volt power brick and most importantly, use an HDMI output that can display your games in resolutions up to 1080P. Plugging either system into a large HD television and seeing how sharply defined the pixels are is quite a spectacle to behold. If you don’t find the picture to your liking, you can adjust several video options to achieve the exact look you wish to get. I’ve verified compatibility with several major TV manufacturers, including 4K televisions with both devices and encountered no issues. Sharp looking, classic games with little to no latency? It’s instantly enjoyable as it is enticing.

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