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Attached file is a mock-up of first stage based on game Another World written by Éric Chahi. This is not a full game, just an experimentation with Mad Pascal. All images are 160x192 in 4 colors (Antic mode E - gr. mode 15), compressed with a method I developed. In time it could become a bigger project incorporating Antic mode 4 graphics including additional levels. Hero and worm are generated with a help of Mad Studio (including hero animation). This demo does feature enemies, with unfinished screen scenes and physics. Anything else will be added when I figure out to work properly with Mad Pascal using unused RAM space under ROM. Hero movement: - joystick left and right for direction - pressing fire button while standing enables hero to kick with a leg - pressing fire button while going left or right enables hero to run You must disable BASIC before running this game demo. Enjoy! aw.xex

The ports locked to the Skunkboard are all now ready for the big day: Just in case anyone was wondering how long it would take me to get around to these for this board.

we have just released a small intro for the VBXE PAL... All is done in realtime, so 3d pipe incl. rotation, persptrans, flat shading and gouraud. Scanedge and Goruaud done with little blitter magic (thx to Axis and his Amiga experience :D). Code: Heaven POKEY Music: Miker in Music Pro Tracker (not RMT) Artwork: Havoc Released at the Nordlicht 2019 Party it has some bugs (objects miss some faces and don't know why but it was a quick 24h putting together project so more fire and forget entry ;)) same with loading adress etc. dsr_flat_shading_is_slower_than_gouraud_vbxe_party_version.xex

Happy Anniversary! BuzzOnLadder.xex

I remember that too - but have no idea where to find it for comparison. (...but I'm pretty sure @CharlieChaplin will... ) That would be the HAM-mode: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hold-And-Modify No post without image, so here one where you cannot be sure if the banding is part of the source or conversion... ? Trees.xex

Answering question: Should we create an 8-bit Hardware Development Subforum? As a person that has done a fair share of unique 8-bit hardware enhancements, I think it would be a very cool place to hang out, as well as a much better arena for me to have discussions about the stuff I've been involved with. I say go for it ?.

One of the "software-driven modes" that is not on the list from post #182: Graphics modes can be mixed by switching between 2 modes every second line. As I checked, GR.9 can be mixed successfully with high resolution GR.8 - the result is: hi-res details, 16 shades and no flickering Additional PMG allows to use extra colours as an underlayer: in GR.8 lines missiles and players can modify the hue of playfield pixels, in GR.9 lines missiles can modify hue and luminance of pixels. I've created that kind of graphics for "Assembloids XE" in 2013 (unfortunately this game is PAL only), coded by Xeen, music & sound effects by stRing. This is how two of the in-game faces look after separation of the modes: P.S. Yikes, it's my post number 500 here on AtariAge

I tried, but I just couldn't bring myself to do a battleship "Mission Accomplished" photoshop. So instead, I went to the Dark Web and downloaded CSI.EXE. I then ran Atari's "Atari VCS Gameplay Demo Station" picture through it; the original of which seen here: Holy smokes! Here's what it found in the metadata and extrapolated with its algorithms: I'm shocked and stunned that it's a no-taco zone.

Following several months of development and testing and one year after the prior update (version 2), I'm pleased to announce the release of version 3.00 of the 'alt' firmware for the Ultimate 1MB, Incognito, 1088XEL/XLD, and SIDE/SIDE2. Please head over to the firmware page of my website to download the updates: https://atari8.co.uk/firmware/ New features: Number of BIOS configuration profiles increased from three to four Massively faster and more powerful loader search facility Loader’s built-in FAT DOS now supports subdirectories Loader now remembers the last accessed FAT folder Loader scripts may include paths Loader can now open the location of any already mounted image Usability improvements to the loader and BIOS setup menu Optional synthetic ‘IO sound’ with ATRs and hard disk partitions Improved loader compatibility Auto-booting banked cartridge conversions on SIDE/SIDE2 All hardware-specific HDD functionality moved to plugins Several important bug fixes This thread will cover any installation and usability issues, and discussion of any further updates and fixes. Documentation has also been heavily revised, and we have the exciting prospect of ebiguy's excellent OSS language cart conversions for SIDE/SIDE2. I will be making some quick-start videos when I get time; for now the task of simply getting everything prepared and uploaded was daunting enough. Thanks to the volunteers who tested the beta and release candidate versions, and I hope everyone enjoys the end result.

@Philsan With today (July 20th, 2019) marking the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, I wanted to give another shout-out to your game! Thank you.?

At your service (AFAIK JD Sachs House wasn't converted yet) : C64: Amiga: Amiga -> RC -> A8: DREAMHOUSE.xex

I'll put them up for download, just like I did for the -Skunkboard locked ROMs. I'd love to upload 100% unlocked roms for VJ, etc, but we all know a few individuals (and, yes, we all know who they are as well) will put them up on ebay.

Well the engine is pretty clean now - no BD content. I've just got to change the tile graphics to something different and we're set to go. I had a play with the colours - will have different colour schemes on each level... this one looks quite pretty. You can see the crap graphic replacement for the man - I'll get something reasonable done tomorrow; this is just a placeholder "blobby thing". Game is essentially "complete" now I need to just put sounds in, "take-back", scoring, savekey, title screen... lots of levels...and we're done. Give me a couple of days. col.mp4

Well, nothing more for today because it's finally not hot and I want to do work outside, so... Atari 2600 Kaboom - 250 minutes Atari 5200 Moon Patrol - 45 minutes PC-9801 Dead of the Brain - 560 minutes PDP-11 Tetris - 30 minutes RCA Studio II Squash - 14 minutes X68000 Akumajō Dracula - 200 minutes Cameltry - 55 minutes ...and most of that was just in two days. Running down the list I broke out the 2600 for Kaboom and got really into it, man why do I keep forgetting that it's a fun game? The 5200 was out for a bit of Moon Patrol, I keep forgetting that I don't have space for it on my shelf that hold systems by the PC and need to use it in a different room, so I think I spent more time moving it than I did playing. PC-98 makes an appearance as I found out someone had done a translation for Dead of the Brain - it crashes a bit and I don't think I'd have wrote some of the same text but I mean for a quick and non-machine translation it's actually really nice to see, cool of whoever did it - I'll still stick to just reading the JP text but this was neat. The PDP came out for more Tetris and trying to run a C compiler, yeah C was different back then so that was fun to try and figure out. The Studio II got brought down by the PC from my room and I quickly realized that I'd much rather be playing with a ELF or VIP with some chip-8 games but hey whatever Squash isn't a bad Pong game. Finally the X68000 pops up as I fixed up three - all of them had dead power supplies, one of them in addition had broke drive belts on the floppy drives and another was missing a power switch. Some capacitors, belts, 3D printed parts, and video cables later and I got them all working. Tested them with my two go-to games, got the one out the door just in time for its intended purpose of a birthday present with a SCSI2SD full of games and the other two are waiting around on the shelf now - still no clue what to do with them but my personal 68K collection is now sitting at 11 systems and I only really need one (maybe two just to keep a 68030 in case?) so I'll probably start trying to find some of these a good new home. Hopefully next week will be something interesting but I get the idea it's not going to be, have to go deal with my university messing up and deleting my schedule about a month before classes start for the second semester in a row, going to have to try and get back in the courses that are now full because I lost my spot due to this, and also work exists... maybe I'll beat something for once in a good while? So far Dead of the Brain is just about the only title I've actually completed this summer.

Fixed the loader issue Roy found, and I'll upload the fix this afternoon. Those who've already updated should flash the fix, and those who haven't updated yet may wish to hold off and flash the fixed version. This is all most upsetting, since I have to bump the version number already. For those interested: it's a new bug (not present in most of the betas) caused by code refactoring, namely in-lining subroutines called in only one place in order to save four bytes (the JSR and the RTS). Things were that bad when it came to space... Anyway: the subroutine which looks for the FAT volume name in the boot sector if there's no volume name in the directory itself got in-lined and I clearly forgot to replace two RTS exit points with branches to the tail end of the parent routine which adds the actual FAT entry to the list of MBR partitions. Since presumably no-one who tested beta versions since June or so used any cards with no-name FAT volumes (I didn't), the bug went uncaught. I can't replicate this; if I press CTRL+X in the loader, SDX boots from the drive set via the CONFIG.SYS setting in the main BIOS, just as it does when a restart is triggered in any other manner. Have you set the desired SDX boot drive using this setting? The 'B' (boot) flag set in the partition table itself is only observed when SDX is off and the 'Boot drive' setting is 'APT'. CTRL+X is a new convenience feature in the loader, but all it does is select the SDX bank and restart the system. If I've missed something, please elaborate and I'll check it out further.

Hello everyone! The registrations are now closed and we have a total of eleven teams in the running now! This is a great turn out for the Atari Lynx! There's just over a month left to get all of your entries finalised and submitted. Good luck! P.S. I will be reaching out regarding demo details for PRGE (on behalf of Brian).

One of the goals is to organize homebrew games in a central location to make them easier to find through organization, searching, and filtering. I'm not convinced yet that the Downloads module will be that vehicle, versus a purpose-built database. But one way or another it's going to happen. The Downloads module should be a good vehicle while I potentially work on a purpose-built, more advanced database. ..Al

Let's take a closer look at the latest update, which is unsigned, like most of their recent communication. If you're going to use that word, you should probably tell folks what the "mission" was supposed to be, otherwise you end up looking like GWB on the aircraft carrier, an image I will leave to the superior photoshoppers to envision. Typical "Atari" to miss the irony of it, of course -- and to forget the history of 2003 while they try to recapture 1977. The material known as "wood" is not to be confused with "Black Walnut" or "teakwood" which is always shown in quotes. Is it real wood, or is it Atari? On what material is the Certificate of Authenticity printed? Of course they show the image labeled "Kevlar" because they're sloppy AF and they always meant to do that. Are you sure you want to trust these jackwagons to make something that plugs into electricity? It's also the closest thing anyone got to see that bore any resemblance to final hardware. It would be fun to get a closer look at it. Don't tell us that your commodity hardware in a retro-style-but-not-retro case is in danger of getting ripped off, this isn't the mighty mighty Coleco Chameleon, after all. That actually sounds like a pleasant feature to have, and I'm curious how well they hid these to prevent others from just putting them into custom linux build, or arcade frontend. Once again, there's a vague statement that is not quite a promise, but more than a hint. OK whatever. It's not as if I can prove that their animator has stopped work because Atari hasn't been paying invoices. (I'm kidding, don't sue me, you goons) That's a bold statement. Created means it was done in-house, despite all of the existing community emulators out there. And wunderkind Rob "yoga pants" Wyatt made it all by himself, even though Atari has relationships with perfectly functional 2600 emulators in AtGames and Code Mystics products? Are you sure about that statement? I'm saving the original, so if they want to correct themselves, I hope they do so in a transparent way. They sure don't think much of their backers, do they? I can't tell which is more insulting, this or Mike Arzt talking about making a simpler Netflix for mom. I see that the old patent on game-loading mini-games is no longer limited to Namco's use. That was a very neat feature ... in 1994! In other words, the poor sap who was charged with engaging the community and promising updates has been hung out to dry. Are we to assume there will be NO games at launch other than Atari Vault (available for $9.99 on big-girl hardware)? So in other public events, Atari has claimed that the VCS is retro-styled, but is not a retro product. Now they say such as the Xbox One (as low as $180) and PS4 (as low as $199), either of which have hundreds of games Oh. My. Dog. It's not of the past, it's not of the present, but it's certainly of the future, for all the streaming content that can be viewed on a Roku or AppleTV or Fire Stick. Unnamed copy writer of "Atari," do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound? Something tells me that the cartridge-lovin' true believers did NOT give $200+ a year ago for a Google Stadia client, controller not included. Yes, that's what they wrote. Their little computer can play video files. Has the author been frozen in carbonite since 1994, when the Sony Playstation dinosaur demo was something to behold? Call me jaded, but this isn't a system-seller. Contemporary as in "within our lifetimes," because it came out in 2012 and runs great on current-gen, last-gen, and mobile hardware. Too bad they didn't show any video, because the clip we saw was super-ropey. It might have been 1080p (hey what happened to 4K gaming?) but it looked to be running at about 15 frames per second. All of which are available on contemporary (as in "what you have already") hardware, as well as the delightful Nintendo Switch. I have been keeping count of differentiating features, and apart from "runs cute retro-style GIFs while loading" and "lets you play old games while loading new ones," I'm coming up empty. More game and content deals would be nice for them, wouldn't it? And I'm glad the team is getting an IndieGoGo-paid trip to China. Keep Rob Wyatt away from the airplane doors! If that's "mission accomplished," I'd hate to see a "you'll have to wait for more info" update. Not much to see here, even fewer reasons to pony up money in advance. They do NOT get points for updates, because once again, they haven't moved the ball at all. This is from their own project page: And this is from the distant past. You've seen it many times. As always, it will be ... interesting ... to see the reaction of the fans. Oh, hon! If only you had listened to your elders in the Atariage Secret Society of Eating Tacos (A.S.S.E.T., or just ASS if you're on a diet)!

Funny, looking at that screen of the AtariVCS 2600 emulation, seems they are using game images straight from AtariAge.. I marked up the image below showing label defects that match up with scans in our database. The image is a bit low-resolution, I bet I could match all of them up with a higher-quality image. Here are the images from the AtariAge database: I don't care that much, mostly find it amusing. Odd also that they used this particular Frogger image--guess they were looking for an Atari-style label? ..Al

I'm working on the Downloads module, which I intend primarily to organize homebrew and development-related files. Each file can have a description, screenshots, reviews, link to a discussion topic (if one exists), link to where to buy (if applicable), file versioning (including release notes for each version), support for NTSC/PAL/PAL60/SECAM files (for the 2600), which controllers are supported (for 2600, 5200, 7800, Jaguar, ColecoVision, and others as I think of them), and more. I'd like to enlist the help of homebrew authors and others to help flesh out some of these categories with games and other files. Ideally the original author would upload the file(s) for his or her games, but I have also added an "Author" feel if the author is different from the person uploading the file. I can change the file uploader after the fact, so other people can help add files and I can then change the uploader, as long as that person is active on AtariAge. This makes it a bit easier to find other files by the same person. Here's an example of one game I added while I've been testing: I will be tweaking the layout a bit, since this didn't get much attention while working on the theme since it wasn't setup yet. I'm open to feedback on the information displayed for homebrew files. Here are the categories I've created so far (this is by no means final, and I'm open to suggestions on how this is organized): If you'd like to help out, please let me know. I'm especially interested in getting homebrew authors to upload their own files. Please send me a PM and I can give you access to the Downloads module so we can get this party going! Thanks, ..Al

Here are my times for this past week (July 15th through 21st)... Atari 2600: Tom's Eierjagd - 20 min. Lilly Adventure - 14 min. Mattel Aquarius: Burger Time - 78 min. in 3 sessions This week the most time was spent with continuing to play "Burger Time" on the Mattel Aquarius which is a quite challenging version. Today I managed to complete the 6th screen and advance to the 7th one which is quite different to the one in the Intellivision version. Tom's Eierjagd and Lilly Adventure both were released in the ITT Family series (albeit maybe under a different name) or at least should have been. They had the "Pumuckl" as a mascot, and "Tom's Eierjagd" should actually be "Pumuckl's Eierjagd" because he's the main creature there. The game even plays a somewhat distorted version of the title music of the "Pumuckl" TV cartoon series. But there was already a different Pumuckl game in the series (an adaptation of "Zoo Fun"), so maybe ITT realized they only had the rights to put out one actual game featuring Pumuckl, so they renamed the his 2nd occurence to "Tom", but kept the graphics and music intact. Lilly Adventure should have been released in the Family series as well, but clearly doesn't feature Pumuckl as the main character. Instead, it seems to be closely adapted from "Bobby's going home", but it plays notably different music... I could make out covers of "Hänschen klein" and "Jingle Bells" among other well-known children's songs. And it actually plays quite tricky variations on the music, using different arpeggios, pitches and instruments for the same tune to keep things interested For a VCS game I think the music is pretty complex and well done. And the game actually seems to be more difficult as well... I couldn't reach the frist level goal, if there is one at all.

Looks like eBay pulled the auction! Thanks everyone who helped report this auction! Let's watch to see if he tries listing it again. ..Al

For very active (as in, posts more than once a week) hardware development, sure. The stuff can be found just by scrolling down the page. But lets face it - hardware development isn’t easy. Some projects might go weeks between posts and those easily drop waaaaaaay down the thread list. Plus, it’s often instructive and useful to examine earlier efforts from years past, whether the project came to fruition or not. Having threads all collected in a single location would be very helpful and useful.

Here is a compilation I found somewhere that describes the Atari's "software" graphic modes, which I guess covers mixed modes, as well as interlacing page flipping and other tricks. At least what was invented at the time, @R0ger 's new modes could be added as well as a couple others I've seen threads for in recent months and years. It also doesn't include the way Rasta converter (and I think Images done with G2F) accomplishes what it does. Some of these software modes have viewers/converters for them, and some even have paint programs that utilize them, and in the case of Pryzm and Interpainter, I think the modes were introduced with the paint program of the same name. Any Point, Any Colour The APAC System, or Any Point, Any Colour was a software-driven display mode capable of displaying an image using all 256 of the Atari's possible colors. By taking 80×192 mode lines that displayed 16 hues, and those that displayed 16 shades, and either interlacing rows of them, quickly alternating between rows of them, or both, a screen displaying 80×96 or 80×192 pixels in 256 colours could be perceived. APAC was created in early 1987 and later introduced in the magazine ANALOG Computing, Issue #60, May 1988 in an article by Tom Tanida. The source code was written in 6502 assembly language. APAC used a Display List Interrupt, or DLI, after each line of the screen was drawn to alternate between GTIA Graphics Mode 11 (15 hues) and 9 (15 shades of grey) of the GTIA chip. The hues and luminances would blend together on the screen (usually a television) to create the effect of a palette of 256 visible colours, with the artifact of a thinner, horizontal blank line in between each visible line. APACView In 1992, Jeff D. Potter created a GIF decoder and image viewer for the Atari called APACView. ColrView mode (as I mentioned in regards to the Computer Eyes hardware, using red, green and blue lenses to take 3 pictures to allow 4096 colours with Computer Eyes) Later, Potter created another GIF decoder, and later a JPEG decoder was created, which broke an image into the three red, green and blue channels. 16 shades of each, at 80×192 pixels, would be displayed in an interlaced and flickering fashion. The human eye's persistence of vision would allow the viewer to see 4096 colours (12 bpp) at 80×192, with slight 'rolling' artifacts in solid red, green or blue fields in the image. This was called ColrView mode. Pryzm Independently, in 1990 Darryl Yong created a similar software-driven display mode called Pryzm capable of producing an image that could be perceived to use all 256 of the Atari's possible colours with full 80×192 resolution. This was achieved using vertical blank interrupts to rapidly change between GTIA Graphics Modes 9 and 11. Programming interfaces for Atari BASIC, Action!, Turbo-Basic XL were included. Interpainter In 1993, Michael Franczak of the Polish demo group TIGHT wrote a graphics paint program called InterPainter. It creates 160x192 pictures which use 9 colours, by switching two 160x192 bitmaps every Vertical Blank Interrupt. FlickerTerm 80 In 1994, Clay Halliwell created FlickerTerm 80, an ANSI/VT100 terminal emulator program, which uses 40×24 text mode, combined with two character sets with an identical 4×8 font—one with the pixels on the left half of the 8×8 grid, the other on the right. By alternating where in memory ANTIC looks for graphics, and which font to display, an 80×24 character screen can be displayed. It uses less memory (about 2 KB) and can be more quickly manipulated, compared to rendering 80×24 characters using a 320×192 bitmap mode (which would require about 8 KB). The disadvantage of this mode is the 60Hz flicker on all displayed charactes (50Hz on PAL systems). As such, it was most legible on monitors with high-persistence phosphors. HARD Interlacing Picture In 1996, Atari demo coders HARD Software from Hungary created HARD Interlacing Picture (HIP), which can display 160×192 pixels in 30 shades of grey. It interlaces two modes — 80×192 with 16 shades of grey, 80×192 with 9 paletted colors — and utilizes a bug in the GTIA chip that causes one of the modes to be shifted ½ pixel, allowing for a perceived 160 pixels across. Later, other demo coders created RIP graphics mode, which is similar to HIP, but can display 160×192 pixels in colour. Another variant is the TIP mode, which alternates between Graphics 9, 10, and 11 and can display 256 colours at about 160x100 resolution. Champions Interlace In 1996, the Polish demo group Atari Programming Champions released Champions Interlace (CIN), a viewer which shows pictures in 160x192 bitmap mode with 64 colours. The technique involves switching between Graphics 15 and Graphics 11 every scanline, giving off 16 colours at 4 luminances. SuperIRG In 1998, Bill Kendrick created a puzzle video game for the Atari (Gem Drop) which utilized a similar effect, but by using two alternating character sets (fonts) in coloured text. (Each character is 4×8 pixels, each pixel being one of 4 colors.) No colour palette changes occurred, and ANTIC's display list wasn't altered — only a vertical blank interrupt was used to change the character set. This allowed for approximately 13 colours on the screen. Solid colour fields that were based on two actual colours (e.g., dark red created by flickering between red and black) had less artifacting because they could be drawn in a checkerboard fashion. This mode was called SuperIRG. (Normal 4×8 multi-colored text on the Atari is called IRG.) Text modes related to Super IRG In 2010, Bobby Clark documented an additional 18 display modes which are related to Super IRG, in that these modes are also based on a Vertical Blank Interrupt that changes the character set. In addition other flags, such as the GTIA setting and colour registers, are modified as well. Here is a listing of these display modes: Super IRG 2: A modification of Super IRG, in which colour register data is shifted every VBI in addition to the character set, allowing for 23 colours on screen, but with no character dithering. Super 0: This mode is based out of GRAPHICS 0 (ANTIC 2) and shifts the character set, background color and text luminance every VBI. As a result, each character is 8x8 pixels and can display 4 colours. When Graphics 0 artifacting (NTSC only) is taken into account, 16 colours can be perceived on screen. DIN (Display Interlace): This mode shifts the Display List every VBI, between ANTIC 4 and ANTIC 2. The result is an 8x8 character grid with two colours, overlaid by a 4x8 4-colour character grid which adds additional color data, allowing an effective character resolution of 8x8 with 10 colours available. With Graphics 0 artifacting (NTSC only), there are 20 colours perceivable. Super 9: This mode is based out of Graphics 0, but with the GTIA flag set so that it displays GRAPHICS 9, the 16 monochrome shade mode. The character set and background register are modified every VBI, resulting in a 2x8 character grid which can display 256 duo-tone shades. Super 10: Similar to Super 9, this mode instead has the GTIA flag set to GRAPHICS 10, the 9 colour palette mode. As in Super IRG, only the character set is shifted every VBI, allowing for a perceivable 45 colours at 2x8 character grid resolution. A dithering pattern can be used in this mode, in a similar fashion as Super IRG. Super 11: Similar to Super 9, except that in this case the GTIA flag is set to GRAPHICS 11, the 15 hue mode. The background register is shifted every VBI, which affects the brightness of these graphics, allowing for a 2x8 character grid which can display 256 colors at 3 luminance levels. APAC 0: This is the text equivalent of the APAC mode. The GTIA flag is cycled between GRAPHICS 9 and 11 every VBI, in addition to the character set flip. This allows for any of the Atari's 256 colour palette (16 hue x 16 luminance) to be displayed in a 2x8 character grid. HIP 0: This is a text mode variation of the HIP mode. The GTIA flag is cycled between GRAPHICS 9 and 10 every VBI, in addition to the character set flip. A 2x8 character grid with 16 monochrome shades displayable, is overlaid with a 2x8 9 color palette character grid, which has been shifted one color clock to the right. This gives an apparent pixel resolution of 160x192 for the display mode, with 144 colours displayable per character cell. CHIP 0: This display mode is a modification of HIP 0, except that the GTIA flag is cycled between GRAPHICS 10 and GRAPHICS 11. Anywhere between 128 and 144 colors can be displayed per character cell, at an apparent pixel resolution of 160x192 for the display mode. CIN 12/13: Inspired by the Champions Interlace bitmap mode, this mode is based out of an ANTIC 4 display list, but with the GTIA flag being cycled between normal mode, and GRAPHICS 11, and the 4 playfield colour registers in ANTIC 4 set to monochrome values. A 4x8 character grid which can display 4 monochrome shades, is overlaid onto a 2x8 character grid which can display 14 different hues. The result is a character resolution of 4x8 with 60 colours displayable. Super CIN: A modification of CIN 12/13, but with a display list shift (as in the DIN mode) between ANTIC 2 and ANTIC 4 added. The GTIA flag shifts between normal mode and GRAPHICS 11, with the display list shift increasing the colour resolution to 80 colors (16 hue by 5 monochromme) at 4x8 character resolution. MIN 12/13 and Super MIN (Monochrome Interlace): Similar to the CIN text modes, except that the GTIA flag is shifted between normal mode and GRAPHICS 9 monochrome under an ANTIC 4 display list, allowing between 60 and 80 colours (5 hue by 16 monochrome) to be displayed, at 4x8 character resolution. PCIN 12/13 and Super PCIN (Programmable CIN): This variation on the CIN text modes shifts the GTIA flag between normal mode and GRAPHICS 10 under an ANTIC 4 display list, allowing for the display of 34 to 35 colours at a character resolution of 4x8. Because GRAPHICS 10 and ANTIC 4 share 4 colour registers, a dithering pattern can be used to reduce flicker, as in Super IRG, when using these colors. CIN 0, MIN 0, and PCIN 0: These variations of CIN, MIN, and PCIN involve an ANTIC 2 (Graphics 0) display list, and a GTIA shift between normal mode, and one of the three GTIA modes. A 2x8 GTIA character grid is overlaid onto an 8x8 2-colour character grid, enabling display of 32 colours with CIN 0 and MIN 0, or 18 colors with PCIN 0. Making use of Graphics 0 artifacts will double these colors.

After a while of absence due to insanely busy real life, here is at least a little contribution: C64 Age of Heroes: 21 min A fairly recent homebrew. Not too bad, but not super brilliant either. Still fun to play. It's a fantasy Conan-Rastan-esque platformer. I bought the download and played it on VICE. Another homebrew, Aviator Arcade II - this time a boxed cart version - is in the mail and should arrive soonish. I'll report when I had a chance to play it.

Right, the idea that you can download ROMs of cartridges you own is the internet version of a schoolyard rumor. As as much as it pains me to say it, there's nothing legally wrong with modern Atari downloading ROMs of anything in its IP catalog and using them however they like. It just looks sloppy and unprofessional. It it will be interesting to see if they enable or encourage "VCS" users to load third party ROMs as part of their effort to "demystify" emulation. "Pass around as much old software as you like, but DON'T YOU DARE make a t-shirt about Asteroids without cutting us in."

Energy Zin #2, IRQ Loader http://madteam.atari8.info/index.php?energy=irql

Almighty 6502 is taking the vertices/facelist/face normals and do prepare rotation mAtrix, rotate all shit and puts it into transformed tables (except normals), calcs average z per face, sort faces by Z, do culling by using 2d dot product, then passes that to the actual tenderer. that does the poly scanedge but here 6502 leaves it to blitter. With some blitter operations i do the actual scanedge and fills the poly scanline by scanline. now for Gouraud shading of course additional steps needed so global face gradient steps calculation and interpolating across the face (again with blitter). the flat shading is different to my former z shaded approaches as it rotates the face normals and calculates dot product with light vector and does the face color by lookup into a cos table. the display is 256x200 in 256 colors. Byte per pixel. (Vbxe). now how can the 14mhz help in maths? Well... it has 12bit step values so I have a 64k “lookup table” which I copy with blitter source into edge tables left/right. and with some blitter operations I calculate the length by doing logical operations and sub right from edge to get the length which is fed into another blitter liste actually doing the line blit.

I reported it as "hazardous materials" just to see if I could get another department to look at it.

Ok, I managed some much better pictures this evening with the lights off. Here are RGBY 8x11f images, PAL S-video to VGA PAL-60 output at 1024x768 XGA on an LCD screen, brightness set at 45 and contrast at 90. NO upscaling or other effects, with my 1200XL's SV 2.1 video upgrade. Except the one image "Face" which has two pics and one is with my converter's upscaling/deinterlacing/comb filtering ON-but it does re-introduce some flickering that you can't see in the picture. As you can see, with my upgraded 1200XL video, on LCD VGA, the color saturation is much richer and works well for these images. The camera alters the colors seen in real-life a bit, but overall a good representation of what I see on my monitors, minus a little sharpness.

The default edit window is 60 minutes, which should be sufficient to make any corrections to a post. I had to add this restriction after several previous members edited away their posts--in one instance, several thousand posts were removed (which I later restored from a backup with some custom scripts I wrote). Subscribers can edit their posts for 30 days, as I figured if someone was willing to pay to become a subscriber, they're going to be less likely to vandalize their own posts (of course, I could be proven wrong here at some point, but 30 days is still better than several years worth of posts being maliciously altered). If you need the ability to edit specific posts, send me a PM or report the post and state that you would like permission to edit it. I or a moderator can then grant you the ability to edit the post indefinitely. Most of the time this is used for the first post in a thread that needs frequent updates. All posts in the marketplace, high score club, and development forums can be edited indefinitely by members, since it's useful to be able to do so in those threads. ..Al

Sounds good to me! I'd be glad to help move hardware-related topics into the new subforum, if it would be useful.

I think that would be a fairly busy forum.

Please see this thread, I'd like to get Atari 8-bit games and utilities and other files into this as well: ..Al

I've stated that before and I'll state it again: I'm not going to watermark the images here. I want people to be able to ues the images and not have them molested with stupid watermarks. The whole goal of AtariAge from its inception was to make the content freely available, at least for non-commercial use. If Atari wants to send me an AtariVCS when it comes out, that would be nice. But given how hostile this thread has been to them, I don't see that happening. ..Al

I think everything I have related to that Battlestar Galactica concept comes from James's personal files. Because he left Mattel early on and was never really part of Mattel Electronics, his stuff never passed on to INTV. I'm so sad I never got to meet Keith, but regularly think of him as I am working because he was such a pack rat. He saved so much that would have been lost otherwise. Sigh.

OK, I have the list compiled and updated on the Stella webpage: https://stella-emu.github.io/credits.html Please let me know if someone has been left out, some detail is incorrect, etc. There were so many people involved with this fundraiser that it is very easy to forget some detail. So if you think you should be mentioned, by all means, SPEAK UP. For all you've done, the very least I can do is correctly add you to this list. Overall, the experience was much bigger and more successful than I could have imagined. Certainly much more money was raised than I ever thought was possible, and I believe James also mentioned that he got the highest-ever attendance for that particular stream. So that really goes to show the interest in Stella, and in a 40+ year old console. Amazing really. I don't think some of the other consoles out there will have the legs that the 2600 has. I've gotten the funding straightened away (for the most part; there were some minor issues with Paypal and GoFundMe that are now fixed). Now in the process of dividing the spoils. At least one of the Stella team is already looking for new Atari hardware to help with testing So realize that this support goes a long way, and ultimately helps everyone using Stella too. So, thanks again, from all members of the Stella team: Steve A. @stephena Thomas Jentzsch @Thomas Jentzsch Christian Speckner @DirtyHairy

I suppose I should at least say *something.* Right? http://www.whimsey.com/z26/ It's up to 4.02 by now. But I guess the main feature of this series is I ported the TIA engine from the original assembly language sources. So as far as I can tell, most things, like "early" HMOVE and the multi-sprite trick seem to be working reasonably OK. The sound is reasonably OK too. So there you go. You can leave a comment if you like. Thanks!

Regarding the moon landing debate, I also went through that phase where I gave some thought to the conspiracy theory; b/w television, easy to fake & fool, we needed to beat the soviets & raise American pride & moral, etc. So it seemed plausible. But then as I got older, learned about what was involved, got the facts, etc. I came back to reality. I went through the same phase with the Kennedy Assassination & I guess for today’s younger generation, the 911 thruther’s now run amuck. Regarding the space shuttle program, I emphatically agree that it should NEVER have been ended & the shuttle crafts retired. At least not until the viable & functional replacement was fully tested & in place. It worked. Period. Why change that? Why end that? Granted, 2 fatal accidents, but out of what, 135 missions! Those are incredible mathematical odds & an extremely safe statistic, all things considered. Well worth & within the acceptable risk range for space travel. And of course, when did they occur? During take off & landing. Ask any airline pilot, take off & landing are the most dangerous times during a flight. rebuild a newer & better & safer & more economical & fuel efficient shuttle utilizing modern parts & technology, and you could run another 135 missions for the next 30 years all over again. And even if 2 of them don’t make it, it’s not grossly negligent. Rather it’s the understood & accepted price paid by pioneers & explorers. How many sailors lost their lives at sea when voyaging across the oceans?

Because they're not really the same kinds of games. Star Ship (okay, and Star Voyager) are arcade games; Star Ship in particular is essentially a stylized electronic carnival shooting game (with a few spin-off variations). Starmaster and Star Raiders are action-oriented strategy games--essentially evolved forms of the old Trek games from the '70s. While they share superficial similarities, IMO they don't scratch the same itch.

There are quite a few and people like tix are adding new ones all the time. They tend to get lost in this forum or the 5200 hacks sub forum.

20 years... crazy. No idea what ever happened to Danny. We were going back and forth on making a magazine styled thing for a few months and it was looking really good but I guess he got tied up with whatever company he ended up landing and I never heard from him again.

This is definitely going to be a huge help for sure for the information and files, especially if it's kept accurate by developers and maintained by active members. Right now the go to resource for Atari 2600 Homebrew releases is @Arenafoot who has an up to date database of over 3000 entries! I'm sure he would be able to help out with suggestions for this.

The trackpad on PS4 and touch screen on Switch help. Regarding the controller, I know they're taking great care fussing over getting it right, and the prototype I've used felt familiar. The muscle memory kicked in quite naturally.

Robert Redford approves of this idea.

Stop picking in Atari! No one has proven that there's not a Walnut 800 and a Kevlar inside that big black box! ?

Eh they probably stole Stella and didn't get permission to use it. Us "retro fans" already have ways to play games on modern TVs that don't require $300.

I'm not a user of Action!, MAC/65, or any of the other OSS languages, so I'll be interested to hear of the findings of Roy and others. Ebiguy certainly knows his way around those OSS ROMs, however; he did a marvellous job and I have every confidence in the implementation. Eric's ROMs, coupled with the new SIDE loader's ability to persistently default to the selected OSS cart, should be a boon for SIDE owners interested in these popular languages. There are a couple of unavoidable issues, such as minor glitches when using DDT (owing to the slower banking), but on the other hand, Eric made a couple of minor improvements too (The "DIR" command in one of the BASIC ROMs used to default to "D1:"; Eric patched that out so it's easier to use when the default drive is not "D1:"). Thanks again to @ebiguy for coming to the rescue when I found myself all fingers and thumbs attempting to the patch the ROMs myself. One thing I forgot is the AVG SIDE Loader ROM: I'll get that done today and add it to the ZIP file. PS: Many thanks @DrVenkman!

For those of you who haven't noticed, Jon does all this out of the goodness of his heart, as a volunteer for the community. Please - if you haven't done so - consider a donation to help support his work.