libretro
[Feature Request] adding a core for the original Magnavox Odyssey
Is anyone interested in adding the original Magnavox Odyssey as a core in RetroArch? This was the first home video game console ever released, and acted more like a platform for setting up TV-assisted board games. It had 12 "cards" that were really just external circuit jumpers and could be used in different games. A "game" was just a set of rules including setup of physical items, TV screen overlays, positioning digital squares on the TV in the right position, and with the players rather than the system keeping score and enforcing the rules.
RetroArch would be a good fit because it can support overlays on top of shaders, so you could set up crisp HQ SVG overlays on top of a black and white CRT shader for a more authentic experience
OdysseyNow is a university-sponsored project by Dr. Zachary Horton, a professor of English and Media Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, that has a bunch of info on the system and games, SVG overlays, and even an emulator (Oyssey Now HAL) available
There is also another modern open-source emulator called Magnavody, which has binaries available for $3 on Steam and itch.io
links: Oyssey Now project: https://www.odysseynow.org/About.html Oyssey Now HAL emulator: https://pathealy.itch.io/odyssey-now-hal Oyssey Now HAL emulator source: https://github.com/Vibrant-Media-Lab/OdysseyNowHAL
Magnavody source: https://gitlab.com/dodgyville/magnavody
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnavox_Odyssey general history, with circuit card descripions: https://videogamehistorian.wordpress.com/2015/11/16/1tl200-a-magnavox-odyssey/
even MAME doesn't emulate the Odyssey, I also made a post there about it: https://github.com/orgs/mamedev/discussions/197
This isn't really the place to ask for cores.
Also, the Odyssey isn't really something you can emulate. There's no microprocessor, it's all discrete logic. It's like trying to emulate a record player - you can throw together something in Unity that shows a picture of a record that you put on a picture of a turntable and then plays an mp3 when you move the needle to the record (which is basically what that OdysseyNow thing is doing), and when someone says "that's not really an emulator" you can grab a dictionary and bicker over technicalities, but it's really not an "emulator" in the RetroArch/gaming sense of the word.
