Lynxpro Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 (edited) But in all seriousness, I have made some good progress. Here's what I have done so far. ;*********************************************************************** ;**** 7800 Expansion Module BIOS ;*********************************************************************** Spinning 7800 logo - probably accompanied by the Syzygy and Atari Age logos - on screen as the POKEY or YM fires up the "Have you played Atari today?" jingle - like the Jaguar - followed by the ASCII/ATASCII looking **** 7800 Expansion Module ***** text which scrolls on the screen as the POKEY makes the loading noises like an A8. Right? Perry rules. Just felt like saying that. Edited January 29, 2016 by Lynxpro 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 But in all seriousness, I have made some good progress. Here's what I have done so far. ;*********************************************************************** ;**** 7800 Expansion Module BIOS ;*********************************************************************** I would comment, but I think you have that covered ... *rimshot* 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 I've decided to use 7800 BASIC for as much of it as I can. It will be mostly for the high level stuff like the test menu and its functions. This will speed up development for me as well as make it easier for future updates if someone else needs to pick it up. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 I've decided to use 7800 BASIC for as much of it as I can. It will be mostly for the high level stuff like the test menu and its functions. This will speed up development for me as well as make it easier for future updates if someone else needs to pick it up. But science has proven that BASIC causes cancer and homebrew crashes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 homebrew crashes. I forgot to mention that I will be offering a signed and numbered, limited edition BIOS. I will also be selling a few proto BIOS's on ebay. 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Cafeman Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 But in all seriousness, I have made some good progress. Here's what I have done so far. ;*********************************************************************** ;**** 7800 Expansion Module BIOS ;*********************************************************************** Made me lol! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted January 31, 2016 Share Posted January 31, 2016 I forgot to mention that I will be offering a signed and numbered, limited edition BIOS. I will also be selling a few proto BIOS's on ebay. Not sure if this was serious or a joke... But I'll take the regular edition, thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted January 31, 2016 Share Posted January 31, 2016 Not sure if this was serious or a joke... But I'll take the regular edition, thanks! It was just a joke. I'm not into artificial rarity. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted January 31, 2016 Share Posted January 31, 2016 I've decided to use 7800 BASIC for as much of it as I can. It will be mostly for the high level stuff like the test menu and its functions. This will speed up development for me as well as make it easier for future updates if someone else needs to pick it up. I'm thinking this project is just a warm-up for Perry before he receives an epiphany to crank out an extended BIOS for the 5200. Restoring A8 functionality at higher level calls, adding mapping support for extra RAM, the PIA and SIO, multiple POKEYs and a YM2151, etc. Right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaynz Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 I'm thinking this project is just a warm-up for Perry before he receives an epiphany to crank out an extended BIOS for the 5200. Restoring A8 functionality at higher level calls, adding mapping support for extra RAM, the PIA and SIO, multiple POKEYs and a YM2151, etc. Right? You forgot the pony... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 You forgot the pony... He gets a pony after he completes it. I'm sure that wouldn't be a first on Kickstarter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zonie Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 Y'know, what would be a good project is a 5200 cart adapter for the 400/800 as there are 5200 releases not available on 8-bit... Map the keypad to the keyboard #'s, start-pause-reset to the yellow buttons, and the joystick ports to the, well, joystick ports, with analog to digital conversion done in firmware... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted March 13, 2016 Share Posted March 13, 2016 I know this got moved onto FaceBook a while back, but was wondering if anyone has any recent news on the XM perhaps a copy of an announcement that appeared on the FaceBook page? I don't have FaceBook (and don't really want anything to do with it for personal reasons), otherwise I'd check for myself. Thanks - Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaynz Posted March 13, 2016 Share Posted March 13, 2016 Ah, it's so cute that people have hope for this... 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted March 13, 2016 Share Posted March 13, 2016 I know this got moved onto FaceBook a while back, but was wondering if anyone has any recent news on the XM perhaps a copy of an announcement that appeared on the FaceBook page? I don't have FaceBook (and don't really want anything to do with it for personal reasons), otherwise I'd check for myself. Thanks - Michael The last update on there was October 2015, so we're back to where we were before the Facebook page, probably. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted March 13, 2016 Share Posted March 13, 2016 Ah, it's so cute that people have hope for this... Well I wouldn't call it hope, but more a curiosity thing on my part. I was reviewing some of the 7800 XM info on the Atari Museum site, and came across an interesting video that was posted who knows when??? But the thing that seemed strange to me, is the problem with cartridges fitting properly and apparently about a half a dozen prototype guides had been made, with there still being a fit problem with quite a few carts. The reason this seemed strange, is that I would think so long as you knew what carts were a problem, and had examples to look at, it should have been as easy as pulling out the calipers and measuring the cart with the worst case scenario and then designing the guide around that. I come from both an engineering and electronics development background and I just can't understand why it took so many prototypes to still be at a place where there was a fit problem . Now don't get me wrong I am not trying to bash anything, but it just made me curious as to what the reasoning was behind this. Now as far as maintaining compatibility electronics wise with all the possible variances, yes I can see that would, and often does take a lot of time to diagnose and fix. - Michael 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
galax Posted March 13, 2016 Share Posted March 13, 2016 I was reviewing some of the 7800 XM info on the Atari Museum site, and came across an interesting video that was posted who knows when??? The video's metadata says that it was encoded on 5th October 2011 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 The video's metadata says that it was encoded on 5th October 2011 Nearly 5 years ago. Hopefully the cart fit problem has been totally resolved by this time . But realistically after reading this thread, the one at the museum, and various tidbits across the internet, it doesn't look good for this to ever make it into production. But if it does it'll probably be absolute perfection . Thanks for the responses. - Michael 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 7800XM has been "just around the corner" since I joined AtariAge nearly 4 years ago. With CPUWIZ boards with bank-switching, extra RAM, a slot for Pokey, and drop in Hokey chips as replacements coming soon, most of the stuff originally developed for XM could easily be released without one. Aside from the Yamaha (unnecessary) and high score cart (a Game Genie style lock on in a sawed off shell is all you need for a HSC), the 7800 XM is unneeded, and if released will only fragment the 7800 homebrew market between the haves and have nots. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prosystemsearch Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 7800XM has been "just around the corner" since I joined AtariAge nearly 4 years ago. With CPUWIZ boards with bank-switching, extra RAM, a slot for Pokey, and drop in Hokey chips as replacements coming soon, most of the stuff originally developed for XM could easily be released without one. Aside from the Yamaha (unnecessary) and high score cart (a Game Genie style lock on in a sawed off shell is all you need for a HSC), the 7800 XM is unneeded, and if released will only fragment the 7800 homebrew market between the haves and have nots. OBJECTION! You don't have to buy it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 . . . the 7800 XM is unneeded, and if released will only fragment the 7800 homebrew market between the haves and have nots. Yep, I don't like add-ons that are needed for a game to work. I also don't need add-ons that will save my games or make them talk. If any of that is needed, I wish they would find a way to put it in the cartridge. Speaking of games that talk, roland p told me about Voder in 2013: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rAyrmm7vv0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hyI_dM5cGo I bet someone with a big brain could figure out how to produce phonemes by only fiddling with AUDVx, AUDCx, and AUDFx, since some tone frequencies almost sound like a human voice already. For example, you can make a T sound using tone 8, starting at frequency 31 and flipping over to zero and maybe ending at 1, 2, or 3: www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-program-tone-toy-2008.html I've been hoping that instead of using digitized speech or an external speech synthesizer, we could track down or bring out the phonemes that already exist inside of the Atari 2600. We could have a collection of phonemes that programmers could play in a sequence to make words or maybe even sing. Programmers would no longer have to waste space on digitized speech or hope that players have an external speech synthesizer. The amount of space needed for Voder-like phoneme data would be much smaller than what is needed for digitized speech. The best part is that the display wouldn't need to be turned off. We could have understandable speech while people play. I've tried to find phonemes by randomly goofing around with Tone Toy 2008, but with no real understanding of phonemes or how sound works on the Atari 2600, it could take a few thousand years. I'm confident that someone who knows about phonemes and Atari 2600 sound could create Voder-like data that programmers can use in their games. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philipj Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 7800XM has been "just around the corner" since I joined AtariAge nearly 4 years ago. With CPUWIZ boards with bank-switching, extra RAM, a slot for Pokey, and drop in Hokey chips as replacements coming soon, most of the stuff originally developed for XM could easily be released without one. Aside from the Yamaha (unnecessary) and high score cart (a Game Genie style lock on in a sawed off shell is all you need for a HSC), the 7800 XM is unneeded, and if released will only fragment the 7800 homebrew market between the haves and have nots. Yep, I don't like add-ons that are needed for a game to work. I also don't need add-ons that will save my games or make them talk. If any of that is needed, I wish they would find a way to put it in the cartridge. Speaking of games that talk, roland p told me about Voder in 2013: youtube.com/watch?v=0rAyrmm7vv0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rAyrmm7vv0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hyI_dM5cGo I bet someone with a big brain could figure out how to produce phonemes by only fiddling with AUDVx, AUDCx, and AUDFx, since some tone frequencies almost sound like a human voice already. For example, you can make a T sound using tone 8, starting at frequency 31 and flipping over to zero and maybe ending at 1, 2, or 3: www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-program-tone-toy-2008.html I've been hoping that instead of using digitized speech or an external speech synthesizer, we could track down or bring out the phonemes that already exist inside of the Atari 2600. We could have a collection of phonemes that programmers could play in a sequence to make words or maybe even sing. Programmers would no longer have to waste space on digitized speech or hope that players have an external speech synthesizer. The amount of space needed for Voder-like phoneme data would be much smaller than what is needed for digitized speech. The best part is that the display wouldn't need to be turned off. We could have understandable speech while people play. I've tried to find phonemes by randomly goofing around with Tone Toy 2008, but with no real understanding of phonemes or how sound works on the Atari 2600, it could take a few thousand years. I'm confident that someone who knows about phonemes and Atari 2600 sound could create Voder-like data that programmers can use in their games. I think the add-ons are a welcomed addition... Besides the YM2151 chip sounds a whole lot better then the standard TIA music wise. On another note, there was an article out there that was released in 1984 for speech synthesis using the old Texas Instrument sound chip in the old "Speak & Spell"... It use to be easy to find on line back in the day, but not anymore. It used PCM or Pulse Code Modulation, which are great codecs to use for sound manipulation. Many of the Casio keyboards through-out the 80s and early 90s used PCM for their store shelve line ups. Here's something that did come up in my internet search. https://archive.org/details/SpeechSy1984 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariBrian Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 But who is even gonna program a game and use the xm's capabilities if it ever did come out ? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philipj Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 But who is even gonna program a game and use the xm's capabilities if it ever did come out ? Whoever want to use it... This is a hobby machine after all and it's safe to assume that people will be getting the XM when it's released. The orders have already have been made at this point. Someone will come out of the blue with something rather it's a YouTube or whatever. It would be nice to see it released pretty soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mord Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 But who is even gonna program a game and use the xm's capabilities if it ever did come out ? I'd consider it, although I'm not going to start working on it prior to the XMs release. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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