With the introduction of multiple emulators, OpenGL ES 1.1 texture rendering for hardware scaling, and a variety of updates and improvements, BeagleSNES has outgrown its original title. The next generation of BeagleSNES will actually be a superset of the original project. This new project will be called the Beagle Entertainment System (or BES, for short).

I've had the source for BES sitting around for a while, and I've recently been cleaning up the codebase and creating some kernel patches for the 3.14-ti kernel to better support BES. Among other things, I've black-listed the 1920x1080 video mode that refreshes at 24 Hz because it causes problems with the PowerVR GLES. I've also created a set of custom static device tree binaries that resolve the long-standing pinmux conflict between the Audio Rev B cape and all of the CircuitCo and 4DSystems LCD capes.

This means that you can create a (pretty thick) hand-held console by plugging the LCD3 cape into the audio cape into the BBB. I still need to reconstruct my GPIO input circuit to verify that my custom GPIO input pinmux settings have the proper pullup/down resistor settings. Of course, you can still use an HDMI TV for audio and video and USB SNES gamepads for input. Still, I want to make it as easy as possible for people to extend this work for their own multimedia appliance projects!

I'll be working on BES here and there as time permits, and I hope to get a release out (with a new manual) soon. It can easily take me 50 to 60 hours to do a full release test, packaging, and upload/staging for a release, so I'll just continue to chip away at my development and release when I can spare the time.