SpiceWare's Blog

Have you ever taken your evil 7800's apart? I'd love to take a look at some high-res pics of those boards.

 

I like the NTSC logo the best, it is super close.

Love the sound effects and attention to detail, like the ghost of the pilot flashing when your ship gets all blowed up!

Love the sound effects and attention to detail, like the ghost of the pilot flashing when your ship gets all blowed up!

 

Thanks - although I'm not sure what it was really supposed to be. It's in the arcade explosion though, so I kept it. It almost looks like a leftover graphic from some other game:

 

I took my 7800 apart once when I was going to attempt an AV mod. Decided not to do it, and closed it back up. When I get a chance I'll open it back up and take some photos.

 

The colors for NTSC are 0x36 and 0x96. For PAL and SECAM I use color conversion functions. For PAL I use this:

const unsigned char NTSCtoPAL[16] =
{
  // SeaGtGruff's conversion values from this post at AtariAge:
  // http://atariage.com/forums/topic/165424-modify-colour-palette/?p=2043124
  0x00, 0x20, 0x20, 0x40, 0x60, 0x80, 0xa0, 0xc0,
  0xd0, 0xb0, 0x90, 0x70, 0x50, 0x30, 0x30, 0x20
};

int ColorPAL(int color)
{
  return NTSCtoPAL[color>>4] +    // chroma value
  (color & 0x0f);          // luma value
}

---

For SECAM I use:

const unsigned char NTSCtoSECAM[16] =
{
  0x0e,   // 0 = white            e = white
  0x0c,   // 1 = yellow           c = yellow
  0x0c,   // 2 = yellowish orange c = yellow
  0x04,   // 3 = reddish orange   4 = red
  0x04,   // 4 = red              4 = red
  0x06,   // 5 = reddish purple   6 = purple
  0x06,   // 6 = purple           6 = purple
  0x06,   // 7 = bluish purple    6 = purple
  0x02,   // 8 = blue             2 = blue
  0x02,   // 9 = blue             2 = blue
  0x0a,   // a = bluish cyan      a = cyan
  0x0a,   // b = cyan             a = cyan
  0x08,   // c = green            8 = green
  0x08,   // d = green            8 = green
  0x08,   // e = olive green      8 = green
  0x0c    // f = brown            c = yellow
};

int ColorSECAM(int color)
{
  if (color < 2)
    return 0;   // return black for 0 or 1
  else
    return NTSCtoSECAM[color>>4];
}

---

 

Hmm, reminiscent of the Enterprise - wonder if that's what the player's ship looked like in early versions.

It almost looks like a leftover graphic from some other game:

 

From StrategyWiki:

 

 

Note: If you watch the Star Fighter explosion carefully, you will see the original Galaxip explosion from Galaxian.

Not completely buying it...

 

Yeah, that's doesn't look right. Maybe it was from Galaga, I seem to recall it had an unused sprite that was similar to the Enterprise.

It's not the Galaga explosion...

 

 

But a very similar sprite is in there (note also a close cousin to the Bosconian Spy Ship):