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Kazeta: An operating system that brings the console gaming experience of 90s
- brabel 1y agoBefore reading this I didn’t realize how today gaming is different from 80’s and 90’s gaming , to the point Kazeta is a thing! I thought that mostly, CDs had replaced cartridges and loading games became slow, but apparently subscription plans, online chat and “micro transactions” are now accepted as standard gaming?!
- ZaoLahma 1y agoYep. Most games nowadays are released broken and incomplete. Being able to patch a game after release truly is both a blessing and a curse. Then they throw microtransactions on top of the already rather ugly mess. Microtransactions were supposed to finance free to play or "live service" games where they paid for new content over several years, but (of course) they've found themselves into what's solidly not... that.
- opan 1y ago>Being able to patch a game after release truly is both a blessing and a curse. Very true. We got stuff like Minecraft, Terraria, and Core Keeper that got updates to improve the game at no additional cost for years after release, but we also got early access games that sell you on a potentially good future game, and only sometimes deliver. Starbound is a disappointment that often comes to mind.
- hulitu 1y ago> apparently subscription plans, online chat and “micro transactions” are now accepted as standard gaming?! And looong download/update times (Delta Force - almost 4 hours). Makes a ZX Spectrum which loaded games from cassettes pale in comparison.
- reactordev 1y agoMy children have only known micro transaction riddled games. When I show them old school games, they scoffed at the graphics and returned to their phones.
- ranger_danger 1y agoWhy would one allow their children to grow up with dangerous addictive slop knowing full-well that it's bad and what the better alternatives are?
- reactordev 1y agoWe didn’t, we locked down those phones and only allowed them to play certain approved games. No transactions were ever had. We would give them gift cards for some for Christmas or birthdays but they did not have access to payment methods on their phones.
- voidfunc 1y agoHave you been living under a rock for the last 15+ years? I haven't touched a CD since the late 2000s.
- rkagerer 1y agoHave you been living under a rock for the last 15+ years? Yes, and I'm not coming out until projects like this finish scooping up all the crap MBA's have excreted all over the place in that time.
- pansa2 1y agoCDs specifically are obsolete, but games on optical media are still a thing. Unlike ROM cartridges, which AFAICT died with the GBA in 2008.
- masklinn 1y agoWhile they’re flash rather than rom, the switch 2 still supports physical distribution media.
- pansa2 1y agoTrue, but the way they work is more like discs than ROMs: their data isn’t immediately available but needs to be loaded into RAM.
- masklinn 1y agoTrue, but the low latency and constant-ish access patterns of flash makes a lot of its performance characteristics closer to ROM than CDs, even with the intermediate copy.
- euLh7SM5HDFY 1y agoI was under wrong impression that it doesn't. They really muddied the water with those other "game-key cards".
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- alex_suzuki 1y agoI had to explain to my kids (10 and 6yr old) recently what this shiny round thing was that they got from the library…
- carra 1y agoAlso, don't forget there are now launchers (you can't run your game yourself, it has to go through us) and EULAs (you can only play what you buy in our terms). Nice times indeed...
- npteljes 1y agoOf course. Physical media is long out. What was the last time you saw a laptop with a DVD drive? On PC especially, online is first. Games come with update managers, "launchers", and that's the absolute standard - publishers either roll their own, or submit to established ones like Steam. Micro-transactions are accepted, but far from universal. People bemoan them for some reason, but I'd say that the vast majority of games don't have it. Subscriptions normally come with games with a managed online gaming experience. How else are supposed to be funded, I wonder? I think it's normal to pay for a service, be that gaming, or a gym membership.
- sgbeal 1y ago> Micro-transactions are accepted, but far from universal. People bemoan them for some reason, ... Because, for one, with them came "Pay to Win". Nothing good comes from Pay to Win except that someone lines their pockets. A professor once told us that something like 1/3rd of people have personalities which are prone to become truly addicted to something. Microtransactions, regardless of their justification[^1], actively target personalities which are especially prone to instant gratification and the endorphins triggered by spontaneous purchases. [^1]: They _are_ fundamentally justified - it costs money to keep any digital service going, and tons of it for a service like an MMORPG.
- npteljes 1y agoYeah, I agree with you. I handwaved micro-transactions away too much, because of what an easy time I have with them. But I truly dislike them as well, especially for the exploitation factor. To rephrase what I originally wanted to say: "Micro-transactions are accepted, but far from universal. Gaming got huge - even if you discard every game that has micro-transactions, the catalogue is still vast and impressive."
- voidUpdate 1y agoI have several laptops with a DVD drive, so the last time I saw one was last night
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- morsch 1y agoNeat. Couldn't find a video of it booting up. But here's some background info: https://github.com/kazetaos/kazeta/wiki/Technical-Details https://github.com/kazetaos/kazeta/wiki/Technical-Details
- reactordev 1y ago>When accessing the terminal/tty, the default username and password is gamer. Because /etc is read-only, this password cannot be changed. Oh noes! A little further down they say you can get it online using an Ethernet cable and a command. Let’s just hope its never able to be an ssh host. These kind of things scare me from a security standpoint. I feel like the users and /etc/passed should probably be writable so people can change the default to something not published online.
- jeroenhd 1y agoThe SSH config seems to enable SSH but disable password authentication. I'm not sure what authentication that leaves open (I'm guessing ~/.ssh/authorized_keys) but gamer:gamer won't get you in over the ethernet by default at least.
- reactordev 1y agoIt probably doesn’t belong to the group. Disabling password logins is good. That means ONLY authorized key auth is enabled or ldap/ad/domain. I should check out the sshd.conf before I talk out of my ass about what it should do… It’s just one of those spidey-senses that goes off when there’s a default user, a read-only filesystem, and internet enabled *nix
- hmry 1y agoHappy to see they're actually putting the games onto the cartridges. Most projects like this just use pieces of plastic with an NFC/RFID tag containg the Steam game ID. For me, the fact that the data is actually right there in my hand is half the appeal.
- imiric 1y agoI appreciate that as well, but SD cards still aren't the same as old game cartridges. On consoles up to the Nintendo 64, plugging in a cartridge expanded the physical memory of the system, and the CPU read data directly from the ROM on the cartridge. This is why there were no loading screens. On SNES, and I believe N64 as well, cartridges could also expand the graphical capability of the system, which made some games really special. Replicating this on a modern indie console would, of course, be prohibitively expensive and impractical. The speed of modern hardware and physical media, along with more sophisticated game engines, has also practically eliminated loading screens. And this likely wouldn't be an issue on small indie games either. Still, this is not strictly about loading screens. There was something magical about game consoles before roughly the fifth generation which we're unlikely to ever experience again. Nostalgia probably plays a role in that feeling, but the way they worked was truly different from what we have today. Modern game consoles are essentially small PCs within a walled garden.
- GTP 1y agoWhat you said is true, but this project is about replicating the experience, not the hardware. Maybe it will feel less magical, but the hacks you described were cool but needed due to HW limitations of the time. Using commodity hardware not only makes economic sense now, but also makes the project much more accessible by not requiring a specific console.
- murderfs 1y ago> I appreciate that as well, but SD cards still aren't the same as old game cartridges. On consoles up to the Nintendo 64, plugging in a cartridge expanded the physical memory of the system, and the CPU read data directly from the ROM on the cartridge. This is why there were no loading screens. SD Express is just NVMe over a PCIe lane, so you'll get to do all sorts of fun DMA tricks when it starts becoming more popular.
- snvzz 1y agoNot a fan of the trend of misusing the concept of "Operating System".
- flumpcakes 1y agoIt seems like an operating system to me. What specifically is misused?
- TickleSteve 1y agoThe technical definition of opoerating system is the software that manages the resources of the computer, i.e. RAM, storage, processor time, etc (Typically known as the Kernel). This usage is more "User Interface" or "shell".
- DSMan195276 1y ago"Operating system" has no real technical definition, it's a term that doesn't cleanly map to all the stuff we call "operating systems" today. Even the "technical" definition you gave is murky, that definition does not care _where_ the software is running. It easily encompass software running outside of the Linux kernel, much of it is expected to be there for the system to function properly and support various kinds of programs. This thing is distributed as an installable OS image and has pretty specialized software for make it manage your programs and data in a pretty specific way, IMO that's good enough to call it an operating system.
- coolcoder613 1y agoCalling Linux distros operating systems is a very common usage.
- Gabrys1 1y agoLinux distros are operating systems in my dictionary. Unlike Linux which is just an OS kernel.
- larodi 1y ago…save for the CRT
- vunderba 1y agoNeat concept. I had to dig through a lot of the docs before I could get a good grasp of exactly how this works, though. It's an OS that mounts/searches all drives (such as an SD card reader) for the first available KZI file which is a format that describes how a specific game is run (the runtime, additional gamescope options, etc). While the idea of essentially mimicking old school carts by having a dedicated SD card per game is intriguing, I'm not sure I personally see the appeal of something like this over a Steam Deck + EmuDeck installed - particularly since you'll probably need to build/buy a miniPC that is compatible with Kazeta. Another concern would be controller compatibility, from what I can see only one controller is listed as being officially supported (8Bitdo Ultimate 2C Wireless Controller). https://github.com/kazetaos/kazeta/wiki/Requirements https://github.com/kazetaos/kazeta/wiki/Requirements
- vanderZwan 1y ago> It's an OS that mounts/searches all drives (such as an SD card reader) for the first available KZI file which is a format that describes how a specific game is run (the runtime, additional gamescope options, etc). I hope it also supports putting multiple games on one cartridge and choosing between them at boot time? Don't see a reason to waste a multi-gigabyte SD card on a single ROM of a few megabytes.
- anal_reactor 1y agoPracticality is exactly why we abandoned the old designs.
- serf 1y agosd card contact wear is pretty radical on constant insert/removal. second: one of the things that made cartridges great was that they were human-sized. as were CDs. An sd card inserted into a more handle-able/human 'cartridge' would be cool, maybe gameboy sized was about perfect imo. fiddling with sd cards and slots isn't great. an snes/genesis cartridge falls into the thing, you can't miss or do it backwards without reeally trying to. They give an affirmative 'clunk' when fully engaged. (also the contact wear on those was horrendous too.. maybe the SD card IS authentic..)
- darkwater 1y agoAn SD card is not that different from what the Switch uses, at least size wise. Use micro-SD for the actual data and a cheap SD adapter with a full size SD slot and contact wear should be an easily solvable issue.
- sankao 1y agoAlso solves the wear and tear issue.
- Dead_Lemon 1y agoReplicating something like a form factor of a Gameboy cart is a cool idea, you could probably get away with a I2C EEEPROM of a size large enough for a single rom.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- judge123 1y agoIt's less about nostalgia for the 90s and more about a cure for the modern "too much choice" anxiety.
- bondarchuk 1y agoDon't underestimate how nice and legitimately useful it is to organize real physical objects in real physical space as opposed to dragging icons around on a computer screen. Not just for some vague feel-good or nostalgia reasons but the user experience is really just significantly better for some 10s or low-100s of objects.
- BlackLotus89 1y ago[flagged]
- yourusername 1y agoA 64GB SD card is $4 and should fit the majority of games that fit the "no DRM" requirement. This product is not for me but i would just standardize on 64GB cards. Should be big and fast enough for most example games they show. For the full old school console experience you shouldn't have hundreds of games lying around anyway, most people had less than a dozen games per console.
- BlackLotus89 1y agoWhere I live no 64GB SD card is 4$ and more like 8$-12$ and the quality of those is shit. Even if they were 4$ I would still see it as an absolute waste of money and storage. You _will_ have a better gaming experience using a cheap nvme/ssd. Like I said for games that would require a 64GB SD card sd-speed is too slow. For the full old school console experience you should use a console and not emulate the nostalgia (oh and this doesn't feel nostalgic to me at all) > most people had less than a dozen games per console. This isn't a console and if you want to for instance emulate every of the dozen games per console you would for 10 consoles still need 120 SD cards at the price you listed this would add up to 480$ for that price you could buy one fast and reliable nvme that would fit your needs...
- paintbox 1y agoIt's a niche hobbyist thing, it is not meant to replace Steam as a platform.
- carra 1y agoThough it may be impractical I can definitely see the appeal of something like this. I'm not a fan of the current gaming model. Games we buy should be something we can own, preserve and control. It would be enticing to have a physical collection of actual, working games and to be able to use them without internet connection, user accounts, EULAs, launchers, stores, etc.
- Waterluvian 1y agoMy kids play the N64 more than the Wii because the Wii is quite frustrating to set up and maintain batteries and controller connections. The Switch is even more awful, but they’ll play it handheld. The PS5 is complex but generally straightforward. It helps that the controllers are big and we have a nice, clean charging dock for them. The Switch charging dock is finicky and annoying with the tiny controllers. I think my immediate feedback is that the game cards could be a lot bigger. Anyone out there want to make a ridiculously beefy SD card adapter and corresponding slot? Or maybe even one that interfaces like a puck/block with some keying and locking. But overall this is 100% on target for my 6 and 8 year olds. They want to play games, not operate a console. We take them to a Retro Gaming night every few months and I’ve noticed that the X-in-1 consoles (even the brand names) are rarely touched, and all have laminated cards desperately attempting to tell kids how to get into a game. The console UX is paramount.
- cornholio 1y ago> They want to play games, not operate a console. I've gifted my decade old development laptop (after a beefy RAM+SSD upgrade to the best modern version it supports) to my 7 y/o nephew and he seems satisfied. It cold boots Windows 10 in less than 30 seconds and he can play Minecraft, Roblox, BeamNG, watch Youtube etc. in the living room where he can be supervised, without hoarding the family TV with their console. Sure, a lower friction device is preferable, but the ultimate thing is that it plays the games they and their friends play.
- jsilence 1y agoA wonderful gift idea for nerd friends.
- robbbbbbbbbbbb 1y agoSuch a cool concept! For anyone who didn't slog through their docs, the recommended hardware system (and the box in their product shots) is the Geekom A5 https://www.geekom.co.uk/geekom-a5-mini-pc https://www.geekom.co.uk/geekom-a5-mini-pc and the 8BitDo Wireless controller https://www.8bitdo.com/ultimate-2c-wireless-controller/ https://www.8bitdo.com/ultimate-2c-wireless-controller/ Those + some SD cards and a spare evening for setup makes this a really tempting £400 project.
- SomeoneOnTheWeb 1y agoFor the same price you have the Minisforum UM760 Slim which should be 100% compatible and provide VASTLY superior performances. Or you can check cheaper models that would have the same level of performance as the A5. Geekom make nice products but they are usually both very expensive and very noisy compared to competitors. Their selling point is mainly their top-notch design, but I find these to be function-over-form most of the time.
- robbbbbbbbbbbb 1y agoI guess the lack of a built-in SD card slot might make the Minisforum options less attractive
- SomeoneOnTheWeb 1y agoRight, if you specifically want to use an SD card and not USB, and don't want to add an adapter either, sure the A5 is the way to go.
- robbbbbbbbbbbb 1y agoYeah, definitely boils down to how much of a factor the aesthetics of the 'tiny carts' is for you in the whole experience. I can imagine some creative modding that would make a collection of themed USBs just as appealing, if not more :)
- ThinkBeat 1y agoThis does indeed look cool but is should say: "A Linux distribution focused on console gaming". Whenever I see OS I get excited to see a new operating system but end up disappointed when it is yet another distro.
- Ericson2314 1y agoYeah, came here to say the same thing. It's really criminal. People need to stop doing this.
- asadm 1y agoit doesnt make sense to rewrite those boring parts.
- ofrzeta 1y agoI am currently working on something like this for audio, basically just like a MP3 player with full size SD cards that plays automatically when you insert them (for kids). It's actually quite hard to find full size SD cards these days and when you do they are comparatively expensive (opposed to current micro SD cards). Also I wanted to have low capacity like 128MB, so the concept "one album, one card" (as in the OP - "one game, one card") makes sense. These are even harder to get and more expensive (in terms of money per storage). Naively I thought that obsolete hardware should be cheap.
- 112233 1y agoSuper interested in something like this. Currently there is no easily operated audiobook player for elderly or people with severe arthritis. My eventual workaround was cheap bluetooth speaker (because expensive ones did not remember playback position inside a track) and a whole heap of super low capacity usb drives.
- pipes 1y agohttps://uk.yotoplay.com/yoto-mini https://uk.yotoplay.com/yoto-mini My wife bought this. I was deeply sceptical. But it's lovely, you can put story cards in it. My 6 year old daughter loves it. And we listen to a daily yoto podcast at dinner every day. Edited, found link to version we own
- ofrzeta 1y agoNeat. I wonder if the files are stored on that card (and if yes, how) or if it works like the Toniebox where you have some kind of token that triggers a network download. EDIT: this Reddit thread says it downloads the files. "All the audio files live in the cloud and it gets downloaded to your Yoto when you insert a card in the speaker. This means that you will need WiFi the first time you listen to a card, but should be fine without the next time you want to play the same." https://www.reddit.com/r/YotoPlayer/comments/1grrl9u/just_learned_yoto_exists_i_have_so_many_questions/ https://www.reddit.com/r/YotoPlayer/comments/1grrl9u/just_le... The cards have an NFC chip: https://support.yotoplay.com/en-US/what-are-yoto-cards-made-from-11585 https://support.yotoplay.com/en-US/what-are-yoto-cards-made-...
- lproven 1y agoThis sounds potentially interesting, but the website is so vague it's criminal. I have absolutely no idea what the "console gaming experience of the 1990s" was. What console? What experience? I've only owned 3 games consoles in my life. An original XBox, a gift from a friend which I immediately hacked to be an XBox Media Centre and used daily for years but never played a game on again. A PS2. And now a Wii for my kid. For any website or any publicity material it is always a mistake to rely on shared experience, because whatever your experience, there are billions of people out there who do not share it. So don't rely on it. Say what your product is and does and how it does it. This page does not.
- ninetyninenine 1y ago[flagged]
- lproven 1y agoShe is 5. I bought it less than 2Y ago. If you don't understand something then it is not OK to blame the mental faculties of the author.
- ninetyninenine 1y ago[flagged]
- lproven 1y ago> I didn’t even imply anything of that nature. Yes you did. >> maybe you got mixed up and you’re referring to your kid from a long time ago Accusing me of senility is not merely ad hominem it's also extremely rude. Learn to do better.
- ninetyninenine 1y agoThat’s your twisted opinion. I don’t know your situation. The Wii is really old and obsolete. Perhaps you have lots of kids and you don’t have any kids at the moment. The rules here even say it, you need to be charitable and assume the most positive meaning of a phrase. You need to learn to talk with basic courtesy. It’s not an assumption when I say this: you have issues.
- tantalor 1y agoSounds basically like Ouya with bring-your-own-hardware. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouya
- catapart 1y agoThis is very cool! My one gripe would be the one-card, one-game situation. I understand why it would be done, but I also remember growing up in the 90's and there was no point where I was happy that I had to switch out the games. It's not terrible, but if the cards can store more, they should. It's just practical. Other than that, though, this is something I've been dreaming of! Mostly just the "it plays games and those games are yours to play" angle of it, not so much the "no internet, no dlc" kind of stuff. Those seem less like features and more like eliminating avenues for future bad actors. Which, again, is understandable, I just wasn't particularly hoping for that.
- ranger_danger 1y agoThey're literally just SD cards, so I think you can do whatever you want... none of this is new or novel at all to my knowledge. I understand the novelty, and maybe I'm just grumpy, but I just can't get on the nostalgia cashgrab bandwagon personally. But whatever floats your boat.
- carra 1y agoMaybe a good idea for you would be to have a few cards per system (like: SNES plaftormers, or Game Boy RPGs). Or even just 1 card per system: SNES card, Game Boy card, etc. with the full catalogue. There would still be wasted space, but much more practical.
- Pfhortune 1y agoI love the idea of this. Not so much for myself; I want a system with tons of games that I can play at my leisure. But for a child or someone less savvy who wants to break free of the modern miasma of gaming towards something simpler, this would be awesome. No BS, no license checks, no choosing a Proton runtime. Just plug in a game, turn on the system, and go. Really interested to see where this goes and wish the team the absolute best!
- therealfiona 1y agoHoly crap those are steep specs...