[stella] Question about Chimera

[Rob]

On Monday 11 September 2006 12:09, Dennis Debro wrote:
> I don't want to come off as a "Kill Roy" or anything and I
> hope my message doesn't relay this type of attitude. I'm just
> curious as to the benefit I would get as a 2600 homebrewer.

I've been wondering the same thing.  Sure, a Supercharger 
replacement would be nice, an economical way to release 
Supercharger games on cart would be even better, and being able 
to get up to 64K of RAM would be good too (at least those 
capabilities were possible, if expensive, with products released 
during the 2600's life as a product), but at some point you 
can't say "look what I made the 2600 do" anymore.  I think one 
such point is when you're putting a CPU on the cartridge.  

In the C64 scene, they had this debate years ago with the release 
of 20MHz CPU's, extra SID chips and 1MB RAM expansions, and as a 
result, games and demos aren't really taken seriously now 
(and/or aren't eligible for entry in compos) unless they work on 
a "stock" C64.  Part of the point of homebrew for older machines 
is that they HAVE limitations that need to be circumvented 
through our awesome programming skills.

As tempting as it would be to have a new super-easy and 
not-that-expensive way to circumvent the CPU and memory 
limitations of the 2600, I think it will create a similar schism 
in our community.  I know this product is going to be released 
one way or another because Glenn and Delicon are pretty invested 
in it (though I assume that Glenn's fascination with bBasic and 
lack of posting about Chimera on stellalist means he hopes to 
attract a whole new breed of developers who would have been 
unable to do 2600 development otherwise), but try and keep in 
mind that this machine is an Atari 2600 from 1977 and not a 
Power Mac from 1994.

Rob