The Darkhex Console is a games console that you can program yourself. You construct it yourself too, from low cost standard parts. You should be able to make it for under 150 pounds.

Who is it aimed at? Darkhex is aimed at people who want to write their own games or people who want to play those games.

Unlike many other games consoles that you can program yourself, you do the actual programming on the Darkhex itself using the PC style keyboard. From switch-on it loads-up into a simple IDE where you can type a program and then simply press RUN.

The raison d'etre of the console is that you can switch-on and be programming a game within 5 seconds. There's no setting-up to do either -- no languages, libraries or APIs to install and set-up before you can get coding.

It's a fixed platform so you won't be distracted by endless updates, and you know that everyone with the Darkhex will be able to run your game and it will look and feel the same and run at the same speed.

When you've assembled your Darkhex You download the operating system and install it onto an SD card and it's ready to go.

Darkhex is best for folks who like writing their games more programmatically rather than doing a lot of it the GUI way (filling-in forms and ticking boxes and navigating various screens). I often have to program the GUI way when I'm doing programming as a job, but I got into programming because I quite simply love programming: I like creating elegant algorithms, setting things-out logically, refining things and seeing it all come-to-life, so when I'm programming for a hobby I want to be coding not ticking boxes and moving sliders.

Because Darkhex is aimed at programmatic programming it's ideal for writing early 80s style games but you can write any type of game.

The Internet is deliberately not included on the Darkhex and there are no other distractions from the console's central purpose of writing and playing games (no distractions like email, social media, upgrades, etc). Including Internet and wifi etc would also have increased that vital boot time. Most people have a smart phone or tablet they can look-up the odd programming query so it's best to keep the console clean and lean.