EVO Smart Console is a line

media PC A home theater PC (HTPC) or media center computer is a convergent device that combines some or all the capabilities of a personal computer with a software application that focuses on video, photo, audio playback, and sometimes video recording ...

s and

video game console A video game console is an electronic device that outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home consoles, which are generally placed in a permanent location connected to ...

s marketed in the

seventh generation of video game consoles The seventh generation of home video game consoles began on November 22, 2005, with the release of Microsoft's Xbox 360 home console. This was followed by the release of Sony Computer Entertainment's PlayStation 3 on November 17, 2006, and Nint ...

. The system was produced by Envizions, a company based in

Anniston, Alabama Anniston is the county seat of Calhoun County in Alabama and is one of two urban centers/principal cities of and included in the Anniston-Oxford Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2010 census, the population of the city was 23,106. Acc ...

History

On August 10, 2004, the company Envizions was founded. Development of the first EVO console is estimated to have cost roughly 1 million dollars. The beta, called ''EVO: Phase One'', was released on October 20, 2006. The final name of the system was ''EVO Smart Console'', and was released to developers on November 20, 2008, and it cost $250 following a rebate scheme, with a upfront price of $600. The media debut for the system occurred after the release of developer machines on May 5, 2009. On April 9, 2009, the cumulative number of units sold was 10 at a cost of either $379 for the Linux version or $479 for the Windows version. However, on April 23, 2009

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

reported that the prices for the systems were $279 and $350. On April 9, 2009 100 units had been produced. The EVO 2 is a cancelled game console project first mentioned on an Envizions press release on January 9, 2011, under the name ''GameBox'', it was unveiled on May 25, 2011, with specs, images, and a new name. It was supposed initially to be released in fall 2011, before later being delayed to a 2012 release date. The announcement of a delay also contained the announcement of a limited re-release of the original EVO Smart Console. On November 28, 2012, Envizions CEO Derrick Samuels announced a new Android console, ''Oton'', from his new startup called 'EnGeniux', effectively ending EVO 2's development. OTON was to be a console capable of some autonomy. Despite the cancellation of the EVO 2, Envizions developed the ''EVO 2 DX'', a gaming PC running an operating system that is a hybrid of

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...

and Android. It has motion capabilities using a standard webcam.

Specifications

EVO Smart Console

Hardware

A dual core AMD Athlon 64x2 5600+ (2.90 GHz)

central processing unit A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just Processor (computing), processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes Instruction (computing), instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU per ...

powers the system, and is accompanied by a ATI HD 3200

graphics processing unit A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, m ...

. The system has 2 gigabytes of DDR2 RAM clocked at 800 MHz. A 120 gigabyte

hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magne ...

handles local storage, with cloud storage also being supported. Removable digital media was supported with a

DVD-ROM The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

Drive, which was compatible with DVD-video,

, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD-ROM, and

CD-RW CD-RW (Compact Disc-Rewritable) is a digital optical disc storage format introduced in 1997. A CD-RW compact disc (CD-RWs) can be written, read, erased, and re-written. CD-RWs, as opposed to CDs, require specialized readers that have sensi ...

formats. Additionally the system sported one

SD card Secure Digital, officially abbreviated as SD, is a proprietary non-volatile flash memory card format developed by the SD Association (SDA) for use in portable devices. The standard was introduced in August 1999 by joint efforts between SanDis ...

slot. Game media was distributed on SD cards. Graphics are output on two built in ports, one

HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controlle ...

port, and one DVI port.

Standard-definition Standard-definition television (SDTV, SD, often shortened to standard definition) is a television system which uses a resolution that is not considered to be either high or enhanced definition. "Standard" refers to it being the prevailing sp ...

or high-definition video could be output. The system sports three

audio Audio most commonly refers to sound, as it is transmitted in signal form. It may also refer to: Sound * Audio signal, an electrical representation of sound *Audio frequency, a frequency in the audio spectrum * Digital audio, representation of sou ...

ports. The system also has two USB 2.0 ports for general IO. The system included two

Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 1 ...

ports, allowing it to access the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

, as well as to allow multiple players from one master hub.

Software

The system uses the Fedora

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...

. A model which cost $100 more ran Microsoft Windows. The system came bundled with three games: ''

SuperTux ''SuperTux'' is a free and open-source two-dimensional platform video game published under the GNU General Public License (GPL). The game was inspired by Nintendo's '' Super Mario Bros.'' series; instead of Mario, the hero in the game is Tux, ...

'', ''Kobo Deluxe'', and ''Kid Destiny''. The console also features high definition (HD),

access, and was able to run

and Amiga-based games. The system relies on proprietary firmware. A

biometric Biometrics are body measurements and calculations related to human characteristics. Biometric authentication (or realistic authentication) is used in computer science as a form of identification and access control. It is also used to identify in ...

security system supported fingerprint scans, facial, and voice recognition, and biometric linked game saves The system supported

VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet t ...

Remote desktop software In computing, the term remote desktop refers to a software- or operating system feature that allows a personal computer's desktop environment to be run remotely off of one system (usually a PC, but the concept applies equally to a server or a ...

Internet Television Streaming television is the digital distribution of television content, such as TV shows, as streaming media delivered over the Internet. Streaming television stands in contrast to dedicated terrestrial television delivered by over-the-air a ...

, Streaming content, Akimbo-based

video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of ...

(VOD), and DVR. Most of this was handled by the voice-enabled Media Center Communicator.

Latest Revision

The latest version had Amiga-based games, and an Akimbo-based video on demand service. It also had a larger, 250 GB

hard drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magne ...

1080p 1080p (1920×1080 progressively displayed pixels; also known as Full HD or FHD, and BT.709) is a set of HDTV high-definition video modes characterized by 1,920 pixels displayed across the screen horizontally and 1,080 pixels down the screen ve ...

resolution, and ran a version of Fedora

operating system, ''Mirrors Evolution''. There is

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Op ...

for developers to make games for the system.

EVO 2

The EVO 2 uses a Samsung S5PV210 CPU, containing a

ARM Cortex-A8 The ARM Cortex-A8 is a 32-bit processor core licensed by ARM Holdings implementing the ARMv7-A architecture. Compared to the ARM11, the Cortex-A8 is a dual-issue superscalar design, achieving roughly twice the instructions per cycle. The Cortex ...

core clocked from containing a 1 GHz up to 1.2 GHz, The system has 512MB of RAM. An

Nvidia Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...

Tegra Tegra is a system on a chip (SoC) series developed by Nvidia for mobile devices such as smartphones, personal digital assistants, and mobile Internet devices. The Tegra integrates an ARM architecture central processing unit (CPU), graphics proc ...

2 is used as a

GPU A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobi ...

. The system uses 2GB of internal

flash storage Flash memory is an electronic non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for the NOR and NAND logic gates. Both use ...

. Storage is expandable via SD/

SDHC Secure Digital, officially abbreviated as SD, is a proprietary non-volatile flash memory card format developed by the SD Association (SDA) for use in portable devices. The standard was introduced in August 1999 by joint efforts between SanD ...

memory cards with a SD memory card slot (supports SDHC cards) Further expansion is possible with 5 USB 2.0 ports Two different kinds of display output were supported. An "AV Multi Out" port, supported composite video,

S-Video S-Video (also known as separate video, Y/C, and erroneously Super-Video ) is an analog video signal format that carries standard-definition video, typically at 525 lines or 625 lines. It encodes video luma and chrominance on two separate chan ...

(

NTSC The first American standard for analog television broadcast was developed by National Television System Committee (NTSC)National Television System Committee (1951–1953), Report and Reports of Panel No. 11, 11-A, 12–19, with Some supplement ...

consoles only). An

out port, supported six-channel PCM linear output through HDMI. Resolutions supported included

1080i 1080i (also known as Full HD or BT.709) is a combination of frame resolution and scan type. 1080i is used in high-definition television (HDTV) and high-definition video. The number "1080" refers to the number of horizontal lines on the scre ...

720p 720p (1280×720 px; also called HD ready, standard HD or just HD) is a progressive HDTV signal format with 720 horizontal lines/1280 columns and an aspect ratio (AR) of 16:9, normally known as widescreen HDTV (1.78:1). All major HDTV broadcast ...

480p 480p is the shorthand name for a family of video display resolutions. The p stands for progressive scan, i.e. non-interlaced. The ''480'' denotes a vertical resolution of 480 pixels, usually with a horizontal resolution of 640 pixels and 4:3 ...

, or

480i 480i is the video mode used for standard-definition digital television in the Caribbean, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Laos, Western Sahara, and most of the Americas (with the exception of Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay). The ...

, standard 4:3 and 16:9 anamorphic widescreen.

EVO 2 DX

The system was powered by an undisclosed "quad-core Opteron & Phenom" CPU, working in conjunction with a DirectX 10.1 compatible Integrated ATI Radeon HD 4200. The underlying system made use of an

AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...

785G chipset as well as a SB750 chipset. Internally the system has 4 x SATA II ports capable of 3Gbit/s with support for RAID 0,1,5,10 through AMD RAIDXpert. For external storage the system has two

eSATA SATA (Serial AT Attachment) is a computer bus interface that connects host bus adapters to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives, optical drives, and solid-state drives. Serial ATA succeeded the earlier Parallel ATA (PATA) standard t ...

ports. Networking is handled by Realtek PCI-Express based

Gigabit Ethernet In computer networking, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE or 1 GigE) is the term applied to transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of a gigabit per second. The most popular variant, 1000BASE-T, is defined by the IEEE 802.3ab standard. It came into use ...

port. Video output ports include HDMI 1.3,

VGA Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the PC industry within three years. The term can no ...

, and DVI-D. Audio is handled by an Integrated ALC662 6-CH HD audio. Other ports included 1 x 32-bit PCI and 1 x mini- PCI Express,

EVO 2 DX Pocket

An android powered handheld system.

References

External links

* (Archive) {{Seventh generation game consoles Personal computers Computer-related introductions in 2006 x86-based game consoles Linux-based video game consoles Android-based video game consoles Seventh-generation video game consoles Anniston, Alabama