CASTLE ROCK, Colo. A
small startup here has tucked a Bluetooth RF transceiver and
protocol-translation FPGA into a cartridge format compatible
with the Nintendo Game Boy Color and Advance platforms. X-Tra
Fun Inc.'s intent is not just to provide a Bluetooth link
between gamers in one room, but to turn the Game Boy platform
into a de facto PDA. The handheld game device would be able to
synchronize with a Bluetooth-enabled PC, send and receive
e-mail, send text messages to a cell phone and, eventually,
receive streaming video at several tens of frames per second.
The key to the system's capability is twofold: a local
Bluetooth link between a Game Boy and a PC with a USB-based
receiver dongle, and an Oracle AppServer and database that
reside in the X-Tra Fun network operations center. The latter
offers the option of local peer-to-peer piconet services or
true peer-to-server capability with full Internet access.
Mark Kramer, president and chief executive officer, said
that a literature search conducted as X-Tra Fun applied for a
patent convinced the company that no other Bluetooth
developers have a cartridge-based transceiver under
development. X-Tra Fun
has been monitoring the work on proprietary modulation that Motorola
Inc. is conducting with Nintendo and other gaming
specialists. But Kramer said that alternative "gaming LANs"
seemed oriented to using the Game Boy's existing cable port,
restricting services to local multipoint communications
only.
On its own
"Nintendo still seems wedded to the strategy of using
cartridges as the primary revenue opportunity," he said. "This
means they don't want to use the cartridge slot and they are
still afraid of users downloading games online."
Consequently, X-Tra Fun is on its own, seeding software
development kits to game developers, working on middleware for
advanced communication and looking for vertical applications
where an open Game Boy platform could prove useful. In an era
where venture capital is virtually nonexistent, Kramer said
that the X-Tra Fun principals realize they may have to
postpone retail offerings of a Bluetooth cartridge until
partners have been lined up.
In the meantime, Kramer and co-executives have incorporated
a second company, BlueRadios Inc.,
which will offer special RF modules and USB dongles to provide
Bluetooth capabilities to vertical industries. If an
application in one of X-Tra Fun's four target markets
entertainment, education, medical and robotics is best
served by an embedded-design approach, BlueRadios steps
in.
"We realized that developing for a platform like Palm isn't
the way to hit a larger market," said engineering director
Will Tucker. "By contrast, the Game Boy is everywhere."
The designers decided that for footprint, cost and power
reasons, any cartridge-based transceiver had to rely mainly on
the Game Boy's resident Z80 processor. The team reduced the
footprint of the RF/IF chain, then developed an FPGA that
could run the native Bluetooth HDI protocol stack and also
translate to TCP/IP networks. The goal, Tucker said, was to
keep microcontrollers out of the cartridge itself, but to let
the RF module connect to any 8-bit or greater controller,
provided the port had some kind of UART or similar
interface.
The layout of the system board was compact enough to
justify offering the transceiver module on the open market,
where X-Tra Fun says it already has entertained some design
requests. The company also used the module inside a very small
USB dongle to enable localized PCs as access points. It is
quietly offering the dongle as an aftermarket upgrade for PCs
that have extra USB ports, but are not Bluetooth-enabled.
"This answers the question of what to do with legacy
systems," Kramer said.
The Class 1, 100-meter RF module uses the standard
Bluetooth 2.4-GHz band. It supports 79 RF channels, 1,600
hops/s and 712-kbit/s transmission rates. The cartridge will
retail for less than $49.
The company is pursuing a variety of vertical markets.
X-Tra Fun is talking to developers working with Lego's
Mindstorms environment, to link Game Boy-based communicators
to simple robotics networks. Medical corporations are
exploring the idea of using the units to link hospitalized
patients with their friends and also their doctors. In many
light-manufacturing industries, Kramer said, Bluetooth
networks are far cheaper than 802.11. Moreover, users are more
familiar with Game Boy-like controls than with an 802.11-based
high-end PDA.
Kramer holds out the hope that early licensing deals will
allow some production cartridges to be completed in early
2003.
