SloeGin

Has anyone loaded up Skyhammer in the emulator? As with the rest of the games, it's much faster than on actual hardware and overall runs great. But while playing, it felt like fuel is consumed way too fast. I was almost running out of fuel before completing the first mission and had to refuel again midway through the second mission. I don't remember that happening when playing on the console. Generally you only need to refuel and repair when between missions, at least in the early parts of the game. Also, the UFO that randomly spawns nearby and attacks you is much more aggressive. You can't sit still for a second without it materializing above or below you and just pummeling you with laser fire. Curious to know if anyone else is seeing this.

You can try one of these: Modular Adapter D-Sub Pin Insertion / Extraction Tool About 10 years ago I had to assemble a handful of RJ45/DB9 adapters for CNC machines and I remember using a similar tool.

I have the same SCART>HDMI box you're using and I had the exact same problem. The good news is that I was able to get everything working; the bad news (depending on your skill level) is that I had to modify my SCART cable. This post from Zerosquare provided me with the solution I was looking for. Here's what I wound up doing (see attached pic): Disconnected the wire on pin 16 and tucked it to the side (in case I ever want to undo the mod) Connected a 150 ohm resistor to pins 8 and 16. I consider my soldering skills to be slightly above "shamefully embarrassing" but I was able to pull this off. Just be gentle after you remove the plastic cover on the SCART connector; some of the wires look like they could easily break off if they were bent or snagged.

I have an official RGB SCART cable for the Jaguar I am listing on behalf of Nick Harlow at 16/32 Systems. I purchased a cable from him but due to shipping issues I wound up receiving two cables (the first cable took over a month to arrive and was assumed lost in shipping). Nick was very polite and understanding throughout the transaction so I offered to help sell the extra cable. So if there's anyone in the US looking for an official Atari-branded Jaguar SCART cable but you don't want to deal with or wait for overseas shipping then please PM me. The cable costs £25.00. The sale will go through Nick Harlow's website but I will be shipping the cable from Connecticut. I will not receive any money or other benefit from the sale; I am only listing it as a favor to Nick. Link to SCART Cable on 16/32 System's webshop (bottom of page) See attached pic of the cable in its shipping box.

I'm trying to code some groundwork for a game idea. So far I have the following done: 1) Move player0 and player1 around the playfield and fire a missile 2) Player must wait for missile to reach end of playfield before firing again 3) Missiles fire in direction player is facing 4) The sprite for a player changes relative to the direction the player is moving 5) Scroll the playfield when a player tries to move beyond playfield boundaries 6) When a player causes the playfield to scroll, adjust the other player's x/y relative to the playfield 7) If both players are at full opposite ends of the playfield, do not scroll There's no collision detection or sound and the sprites are purely functional. How can I simplify my code? Specifically, I'd like to be able to remove the tons of redundancies. Right now I'm doing almost everything twice: once for player0/joy0/missile0, then do the same thing for player1/joy1/missile1. How can I make these into individual subroutines that know which player's attributes to modify? I feel like I'm way over thinking the "Playfield Magic" section. Any thoughts/advice on a better way to accomplish this? (edit: changed topic title) (updated code: added x/y correction for missiles, still not perfect though) pvpbasecode.bas pvpbasecode.bin

Jeez, buddy. When requesting technical assistance don't be a smart ass when asked if you have basic troubleshooting tools. Forgive me if I misread, but your statement just seemed unnecessary. Try spinning the hub with your finger. Is the hub hard to spin and/or making scraping sounds? In this I used a spare laser transport to show what to look for. In the first 3 seconds you can see the hub spins just fine. At about 4 seconds into the video I pushed the hub down (you can hear it snap into place) and tried to spin it a few times. You can hear the hub scraping as I try to turn it. If your hub scrapes like that, you'll have to pull the it up a little. You don't have to take apart the drive to adjust the hub, but it can make things a little easier. See this site for instructions on opening up the Jag CD. If you open up the Jag CD you can also check to make sure the each cable is properly connected to the motherboard. If you want to test the motors and don't have a voltmeter then grab a battery and some wire. This method is crude, but it'll at least tell you if your spindle motor is working.

I've been using the RF port on my Jag since I bought it in '98, but the wealth of information in this thread has resurected my desire to make my own A/V cable. I tried using an old floppy cable as suggested earlier, but the edge connecter is too wide. I went to a local electronics hobby shop and picked up a 26 pin connector (the closest thing they had to a 24 pin) and repurposed the wires from the floppy cable. Here's the first quick'n'dirty attempt at getting an s-video connection: It's a bit of a cheat since the Commodore 1702 has individual chroma and luma connections, but I just wanted to make sure the new edge connector was going work. I knew the video quality was going to look better with s-video, but it looks even better than I expected. Though the jagged edges are more pronounced, the Gouraud shading really shines! I was originally just going to make a box with standard A/V RCA and s-video jacks, but seeing this RGB to Component encoder (mentioned earlier in the thread) makes me want to go all out. As you can see by the link, there are two versions of the card: one that converts RGB to component only, and another that converts RGB to component, s-video and composite. Should I just use the Jag's RBG out and have the encoder card convert all the video signals, or should I use the component-only board and use the Jag's built in composite and s-video?

Thanks for the info. Just when I think I understand the limits of my knowledge, someone comes around and points out that I actually know even less.

I brought my jag cd up to work for testing. I checked out the power supply for both the Jaguar and the CD unit on the oscilloscope. Both PSUs output fairly clean electricity, but instead of outputting 9v (as they are labeled) they output 12v. I double-checked using a multimeter: The CD's PSU is outputting 12.83v and the Jaguar's PSU outputs 12.62v. If anyone has a multimeter, can you check your own Jag's PSU to see what voltage it's outputting? I'm curious to see how common this is.

I don't think the Jaguar's cartridge port is the issue since I don't have any problems playing carts when the CD unit is removed. When I attach the CD drive I get the usual Jaguar logo with all the VLM effects in the background. For whatever reason, the drive just can't read a CD. When I plugged the drive in a few days ago (for the first time in about 4 years) I was barely able to load up Hover Strike. The game loaded and played after about the fourth try, but the audio started skipping and dropping out. Then came the "excessive read errors" message. After that, I couldn't even get more than a few seconds of play out of an audio CD. In short: Jaguar = Jaguar CD = and possibly soon just plain

I'm taking Symmetry's suggestion and am going to check supply points for any noise. I had a buddy at work show me how to use the oscilloscope so hopefully I'll be able do some checking over the weekend. Right now I can only think of checking the PSU and the two voltage regulators next to the wiring harness plug. Can anyone recommend other specific points to check voltage, or point me to some online documentation? I don't know much about electronics, but I can monkey-see-monkey-do pretty well.

Indeed. While watching the crazy antics of the drive, it became pretty clear that the left hand didn't know what the right was doing. Watching the cd spin backwards just made it that more obvious. Hopefully someone at work can give me a crash course on the oscilloscope. I'd really like to save my jagcd.

I've seen other defective CD players do this, too. If you think about it, it makes senses that the motor driver can output both polarities, as the disc rotation speed is controlled by a feedback loop. If the speed is too great, reversing the polarity will make the motor decelerate faster than waiting for it to slow down by itself. That makes sense. When trying to get the drive to read a CD I would notice quick changes in rotation speed (typical behavior when a CD drive is having trouble reading a disc). I figured the only way it was able to throttle down the speed so quickly was to give it a quick zap of juice with polarity reversed. I've only seen the CD drive spin backwards once, and it just happened to be when I was recording.

I do have access to an oscilloscope, but using it to troubleshoot electrical issues breaches my limited knowledge of electronics. I might be able to get someone at my work to help out, though. Thanks for the suggestion!

I've tried fixing my Jaguar CD using every tip I could find on the internet. I even replaced the laser transport, but nothing has revived or improved the Jag CD's operation. It's doing all the same things it was doing before I started working on it. All mechanical aspects of the CD drive are sound: the motors on the transport work fine and connections between the transport and motherboard pass continuity checks. At this point, I can only assume something on the motherboard is fried. I bought the drive in Jan '99 for $58. Videos of my Jaguar acting nutty while trying to play a music CD: Video 1: Video 2: (much worse)Video 3: Video 4: Video 5: