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I like it too. I am not sure which solution I think is better, ignore the issue and get the comb, or have an off centre appearance. I think it's probably a take it game by game solution. With some games the comb can be annoying when it's glitching around a lot, in others I don't mind it. I think it could have worked OK in Asteroids as so much is going on, but I am guessing that they tested it and found it distracting showing stripes over the asteroids. Perhaps it was a technical issue, maybe the black line having no graphics drawn in there in buys you some time with the CPU. Someone may know more about this, there’s lots of super techie people on here when it comes to Atari programming.

Bumper Bash--1 ball 95,535

Bizarre, it’s a straight download either from DeadMike’s site or this one https://docs.dev-docs.org/htm/search.php?find=_r My AVG virus scanner didn’t give a warning on my Win10 machine, I can check later when I’m back home

Watch out that the RAM chips that mega st has are 1 bit wide, to read a word (16 bits) each chip in the bank returns one of the bits, so if a chip is bad all words in those 2MB would have a bad bit. I am not sure how at startup TOS detects the extra RAM and size, but the suggestion to write a few bit patterns and read back at an address above 2MB should tell you if the chips work unless the ST mmu blocks it (we know for example you can’t write in the 128KB cart space, you’ll get a bus error I think if you try). So you can use 2 byte patterns %10101010 (the 170 above) read it back then %01010101 (85) and read it back, or even just %11111111 (255) then read followed by %00000000 (0) and read. Working at the byte level you would be able to isolate upper/lower half bank, the bits that do not match the written pattern upon read should indicate which chip is bad. You need two complementary patterns because the bad bit(s) may be stuck high or low (bus can be both pull-up or pull down, not sure what Atari did) and using the 2 complementary patterns you’ll cover all cases.

Ha! I never heard that expression before “The Comb” that’s good!

robot reproduction.mp4

Yeah Activision did a cheeky little trick of just making the left hand side a solid black vertical line in their games, so the black horizontal lines, or I believe people call it 'the comb' are not visable. It does make it appear as if the game is off centre, but it's a neat trick to hide the distracting lines. It's just a smaller play area with no graphics drawn in the black vertical stripe down the left.

Yesterday's (5/9) totals: Android 1) Retro Bowl - 20 minutes PC Modern 1) Balatro - 25 minutes, and finally completed/won my first ever run.

Well, technically 1981 when GTIA shipped. I suppose some of these images would still be awesome on CTIA. I suppose this is one more reason to fix my original 800 and see what they look like.

If it were possible, how about the arcade port of Exerion on the 7800? That would be cool. It's a neat looking shooter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exerion

Could this be elaborated on at all, if possible: This produces the usual 'ORG at reloc block' error: .reloc 0 Start lda #0 rts .reloc 1 Main lda #1 No matter whether RELOC has a number after it or not, it's impossible to declare more than one. I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding the 2022 response to my question, or if the question itself hasn't been phrased well enough.

https://xkcd.com/2928/ Software Testing Day

I don’t believe Activision games had this issue but others did like frogger. It looks as though Activision games were offset to the right of the screen to eliminate this. If you look Activison games are not centered on the screen which also annoyed the hell out of me! lol! But I prefer this 😄

Jag exclusive levels and enemies with extra graphical enhancements would be cool. They could commission reboot to build them being they are familiar with the hardware and have proven their ability to make good games.

Nope, if the ROM data is not correct, it want go past the title screen. No music, no game.

Hmm, it is very clear: End Of Each Scan Line Of Data. Not _end_ _of_ _each_ sprite

vertical reuse of the objects and lots of flicker.

My advice - if they are shipping - is to have the 800 shipped in it's own box, and the other stuff in another box. It will almost certainly get damaged if in with other things and can break under it's own weight if not on it's base, centered in a box, with loadsa of bubblewrap, and stopped from moving around. Also, have the brick psu's kept well aware from the 800 keyboard or casing. I've had the stakpole/hitech plunger style keys and also casings trashed where the brick psu was resting on or near the computer and got loose. Bubblewrap is the best. The worst is either newspaper or packing peanuts/chips on their own. If it's not been sent yet I'd ask the seller to do the following, which I'd outlined in my reply in this thread here. It's totally worth their time as the seller to do this: Edit: also - see my full step by step pdf of the incognito install in my signature, if you decide to do it yourself. Really hope this arrives in one piece

You figured out, it is of course the line. Not the whole sprite. And as I mention always: Use Felix as it is more accurate.

Xeno Crisis, as is would be perfect. If Bitmap Beraeu could enhance the on-screen colours as they did with the S.N.E.S version that might be cool.

Does anyone still have this rev 1 pamphlet that came with the instructions for Asteroids. I like the way they try to explain away the black bar on the side of the screen as if it’s normal and doesn’t interfere with game play. It really doesn’t in my opinion when you’re playing you tend to forget about it. But when I first load up a game that has this I’m thinking that’s annoying lol! I guess most games for the 2600 have this, but some don’t or you don’t notice it because of the background color.

10275 Level 2

Update: The daily build of the 4.x version has been updated to be a 64-bit executable. This allows it to be run (again) under Wine on macOS (where 32-bit executables are now disabled in recent versions).

You're welcome! I should have taken these:

Tornado came through town this morning, right across the TCC (Tallahassee Community College) campus. Power is knocked out in that area, FSU sustained damage to the baseball stadium and the circus' tent is gone. We do not get these often, so I am sure, even in the light of damage, we are counting our blessings. https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2024/05/10/leon-county-under-tornado-warnings-as-severe-storms-sweep-across-area-tallahassee-weather/73638607007/