Analogue introduces its Analogue OS for the upcoming Pocket handheld device
Analogue's latest FPGA system is almost here, after two years of waiting. With the handheld Analogue Pocket's imminent launch this December, Analogue took some time to showcase a new tidbit about the handheld device. Rather than just use a simple menu like the MegaSg or SuperNt, the Pocket will be running its own custom operating system, aptly named Analogue OS. It comes with a number of features, including allowing you to filter your games by developer or publisher, region, revisions, and more. Analogue OS will also let users add custom boxart or title screen images for your whole library, make custom playlists of games, capture screenshots, provide statistics of your general gameplay, and save or load savestates.
And this is all done on official cartridges--not through emulation. In an interview with Polygon, Christopher Taber, one of Analogue's developers claimed, "It is more than just being complex but dually difficult to do this reliably, let alone on physical cartridges. As far as I know we’re the first to ever develop the technology to capture and load save states instantly during gameplay on physical cartridges."
Analogue OS will be available on the Pocket and Duo systems. Currently, there are no plans to put the new OS on any of their previous hardware. On launch, it'll support features for Game Boy, Color, Advance, and Game Gear, with future updates planned for Neo Geo Pocket Color, TurboGrafix16, and Atari Lynx games. In addition, the gameplay tracking, library sorting, and savestate capabilities will not be ready for the initial release of Analogue OS 1.0--they're planned to be added in version 1.1, whenever that releases.
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