I want to create a very simple console maybe like Snes or a dos console and then create servers to play online for 2d games I know I've said I want to do many things but I just want to see how far out this is
I would like to create a portable online console
Where can I learn to create a server for a homebrew game for my own console
Er... right. Yeah, that's a bit of a far shot buddy.
Seeing as you want to make your own console, I'm going to assume that you know something about digital logic, driver programming, etc.
The first step is you need to be sure that your console can support two different internet protocols. TCP, and UTP. Luckily the console doesn't have to support the WWW protocols (HTTP, FTP, etc)
Once you get to that point... it's a matter of knowing what endianess your system is. And then you can make a server. The process is similar to making one for PC I am sure.
Once you get to this point. It's pretty difficult, but no where near as difficult as the previous parts. I don't know of any resources that actually talk about how to make a server. And I've searched through google for other users in the past. Your best bet is to just browse GDC...
If you are planning to do everything yourself I'd say it's a very ambitious project. And the fact you ask the question so broadly shows me, that you lack the experience to accurately estimate the effort that will need to go into it.
On the other hand you could just take a Raspberry Pi, stick a screen on it and put it in a case together with some buttons and then program it with PyGame.
As for the server programming, it makes no difference if it's for PC games or console games. How you program one depends entirely on what the game needs. Which is why I have to ask: Why do you need a server at all? If you build only one console for yourself there would be no real benefit.
I would recommend looking in to Raspberry Pi to set up the server using LAMP stack,
use a reasonable NAS or free NAS for storage,
You also need to look in to web based applications that you can control.
Fiddle around with MEME64 at first and see if you can world your way around to allowing others access, Than you can apply that same trick to build your own game library based on the emulator(s) you are using for your desired game.
If it makes any sense...sort of. Be sure not to step on anyone's toes while doing it. Read up the license agreements of anything that you are using, in this process.
Well, I'd recommend starting this once you're comfortable with a language that has a native networking API, then learning that API. Once you understand how socket connections actually work then you can have a much more enlightened discussion about client/server interaction.
If you know C or C++ then the starting point for learning about sockets is Beej: http://beej.us/guide/bgnet/
If you want to get in-depth then you can check out the first two books in the TCP/IP illustrated series (old but still quite relevant):
- http://www.amazon.com/TCP-Illustrated-Vol-Addison-Wesley-Professional/dp/0201633469
- http://www.amazon.com/TCP-IP-Illustrated-Implementation-Vol/dp/020163354X
Sockets essentially transmit and receive streams or packages of raw bytes, so you need to be to the point that you're comfortable working with raw data representations. Endianness is a concern, but BSD socks (and the other APIs that are based on it) has functions for translating from network order to local order reliably.
If you can make a video game console, you shouldn't have any trouble figuring out how to make a server. By comparison, it's quite trivial.
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