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Do you think that a "custom hardware" compo would attract more people to a party? For stuff like this, and this, and FPGA/custom chip (stuff like arduino) programming. Do you think it has it's place in a demoparty? I know that for a long time that this kind of stuff apears in big parties like ASM and BP... historically does it fit in the demoscene somehow?

Maybe I don't know enough about the scene, but isn't the wild category enough to cover this? I don't think you're likely to ever see more than one hardware submission one the same party.

I agree, it's not like there's enough proper custom hardware prods in the history of the scene to fill even one compo by themselves. That said, I'd love to see more.

Could that change with a dedicated compo? And perhaps propper compo spams?

I forgot to mention circuit bending ;)

yes. more custom hardware demos plz.

ok we can organise this for the next MAIN party, in 2007 we made the circuit bending masterclass for 8bit music

yeps. also, gwem had a chiptune on a self designed sid-like chip on an fpga in outline06's wild compo. it was awesome.

but making a compo for it is a bit over the top. very few of us have a clue about chip design.

thanks to boards like arduino you don't have to be a guru to be able to whip something cool up. but isn't wild an excellent category for this kind of stuff anyway? maybe it should be encouraged somehow.

yes, make a compo with more entries you can only watch in video :)

I've always had an affection for the lower-level side of the demoscene, and limit pushing stuff. This could probably never happen, but lets say you could create a 'platform' or series of compos based on a single type of FPGA, and the configuration of that chip would actually be tied directly into what you were doing in your demo.

There are some hardware platforms out there that contain an FPGA, video circuitry / input / etc, and a way to upload your own chip core. Like the 1chipMSX, and I think the C-one would be suitable for this purpose too - the latter probably having more owners in the demoscene arena.

> yes, make a compo with more entries you can only watch in video :)

Well, if it was a standard off the shelf piece of hardware it woudn't be any harder to watch realtime than a C64 prod...

But yeah, I can't really see this gaining enough traction to be honest. All the 'obscure' hardware platforms have their own compos or categories because at one time they were popular. For what the OP is suggesting it should probably just be thrown in 'wild', but to see more of it would be nice.

POKEMON MINI

such a compo could make sense in a party with a proper workshop about such hardware. so the few people who would do stuff would first get the inside basics of how to do things, possibly share some knowledge and then have some time during the party to either do colaborations or solo work to abuse the hardware in creative ways.. ofcourse its incompatible for parties with too many compos and too little attendants.

I said:

:P
The problem of those things is that they're too expensive for using just for fun. Programming blinking LEDs or custom sound chips with PIC like stuff is MUCH cheaper, not that it wouldn't be cool to see.
Makes sense, but it's not something you could do in 3 or 4 hours, maybe an year later :)

you're talking like hardware people don't have their own scene and dedication and compos. one hobby that gets more attraction than demo making is robot design.

Do they? Where? I have no idea.
At Euskal every year they have a cool looking competition where they use some virtual environment to code robots that search for opopnents and shoot them. It looks really cool. I should read about it if I go there next year.
Robots are too expensive. They're even more expensive than those fancy FPGA boards. I wanted to buy a lego RCX but I have no moneys :(

xernobyl: just google for robot and hobby. there are at least five amateur robot groups in my university (and that is four more than the number of demo groups in my city).

a basic robot kit sold at toy stores are much cheaper than computers. but those are closed box ready parts to combine and code. if you collect your sensors, cpus etc in chip form it will be much more cheaper.

and your examples were not robots but simple single board projects. both would probably cost less than your lunch (including the lcd display). an fpga board along with connection parts would cost a few dinners but that's still comparable to the price of graphics cards.

xernobyl: i was talking about predoing the hardware and then show it to people and say "do prods for this, here is what you need to know to get you started" and then the most interesting or creative prod would win.

Have seen a lot of patched machines! But it doesnt' fit in a competition like "best hardware" or something like this. Seen modified ST's, AMIGA's and other classic machines in 19". Made myself some custom samplers...and other bullshit all mid/end of the 80's. They had very own hardware features, custom software, patches BIOS versions, often some kind of crack BIOS. NMI buttons...
This fits to scene, but how would you measure/rate things like this. If rateable this fits best to wild compo. :D As most people already wrote.
From my point of view this only showed how clever or organized a crew is/was.

This kind of thing is something I'd love to see more of. I wouldn't actually do it myself though both due to lack of knowledge and having projects I've yet to do on more normal platforms. I guess that's the same for most people, which is why it's not so popular.

seppjo: I think the point was more than just 'custom hardware' - i.e. making your hardware and then making your demo on it.

I like ps' idea - I would most likely attend such a workshop, if it fit my prerequisites. And was inside my mental capability ("But Nutman, that leaves no headroom, yadda-yadda-yadda......". Oh, fuck y'all!) ;)