Leaderboard

It was a fad, a bubble that burst over a year ago. "Atari" posted its biggest stock gains around its height. That was when Long Island Ice Tea company rebranded itself in an effort to cash in on the feeding frenzy. "Atari" was basically doing the same thing. It's all for show, much like how they claim to be getting back into hardware. The promises are shiny, but the deliverables have not shown up. There's nothing blockchain can do for games that can't be achieved with a traditional database. "Atari" wanted to appear innovative and on the cutting edge of something, for as long as they could. Their desperation is sad to watch. If there were money to be made from blockchain or crypto tokens in games, I'm certain someone else would have beaten "Atari" to execution much better than they ever could have done. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency_bubble Why are the "Atari" faithful so into it? That I don't know. Because it's newer than Pong and Centipede, I guess.

?

Summing up the whole Atari strategy so far (for anyone lost in the hundreds of pages of tacos): 1. Crowdfund an unconsole with a Fuji logo on it 2. ????????????? 3. Profit! In regards to the next update that they are working tirelessly on (haha, sure), let's be extraordinarily generous and say that the update does provide exactly what the VCShills have been hoping for: a shipping date in December, and an SDK for devs. Granted, the latter is something that should have been handed out last year, but it's ok, it's an unconsole! Revolutionary! Synergy! Best case scenario I can still see here is: They receive their Atari Vault players from Santa. Many things don't work or are unstable, particularly Steam, since the Shills made it clear that they were willing to become the beta tester guinea pigs for this thing, Atari wanted to spend as little as possible to get something working, so it turns on, but is a mess. As such, it crashes frequently, some of them have the VCS version of the "Red Ring of Death" and get to experience the joys of trying to return their system for a working model. Many backers are "shocked" that the 32GB of on-system storage won't allow for much else to fit on the system after they install the 20GB of Borderlands 2 on there. Some external hard drives don't work, as again, no one thought to test it out, and your every day VCS backer doesn't have a clue as to how to configure things in Linux. Antstream launches on the platform, but the steaming issues that the PC version has are compounded by a ton of background overhead on the VCS being dedicated to mining digital currency. No one from the AAA, AA or A-grade game development business becomes interested in having their reputations damaged by being attached to the VCS, so Atari glosses over the issues by touting emulators and Antstream, despite numerous issues that people have in getting anything to work right. Atari rushes some of their recent catalog of flops (Star Raiders 2013, Yar's Revenge 2011, Haunted House: Cryptic Graves) to say they've got something, but then it just highlights at how terrible Atari's recent output has been. All that gets swept under the rug by the Shills as "we knew we'd be helping create something revolutionary! I love POOOOONG!" But the problems are so numerous, that "more time is needed" to hash things out, so the general release gets pushed back indefinitely. The VCS becomes a footnote in WTF gaming history and the next half-baked scam from Atari comes along to further milk nostalgia from a rusty nail. Am I missing anything?

Below is the video of the Atari-related ABIC speech. Let me save you a click: It only relates to Atari because this guy is the creator of the Atari Token. Everything else is within his short speech about how awesome he is and "disruptive technology" and using Bitcoin-like currency to fund projects instead of going to venture capitalists. When pointed out to Marss it had nothing to do with Atari Token or the Atari VCS, he gave a wink that it is related. Here's the time stamp(~8hrs, 44min): https://youtu.be/T9TV12zx3RM?t=31486 The only thing I found significant was how very cult-like his language sounded.

http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/8BITS/XL/ASG/Chips/AMY/index.html

Maybe their supplier of small springs and gears is out of stock. Meanwhile ... BH Financial Advisors is giving their usual insightful painfull digital monetary forecasts. ?

By cracking the infinitely looping blockchain, you can unlock the games on our encrypted Atari VCS system! Until you accomplish this simple task, the unit will look nice on your entertainment center. BRILLIANT!

After a move, and a long time not using my '2600, I decided to setup my actual physical machine again. Of course I had no CRT TV, so I advertised locally - no luck. I really wanted a smallish one. So, looks like I'd have to go eBay route. But then I remembered there was an old TV in the abandoned "peace bus" in the yard of our new home. It used to have someone living in it - not for over a decade, though. So I checked it out, and not only did I find a working small CRT (exactly what I wanted), but it turns out to be dual format - PAL, and NTSC 3.58 and NTSC 4.43 (or close to those figures, taken from memory). And it works with perfect picture and sound. How lucky is that! It's a models DSE G3465 - rebadged, obviously. Here's the bus, sitting in the yard.

You just need to try them with the right spices.

It's a pre-retirement "sea change" move for me, of sorts. I've never been shy to jump into something and have an adventure. The place is 9 acres with trees everywhere, and now I'm much nearer to the tropics. Warm. Pool. The previous owners (several levels deep) were just the type of people to have peace buses - hippie types, relaxed, easy going people. Unfortunately the bus is a bit too far gone to rescue, so sits as a "garden feature". Somebody lived in it, so it's decked out with a bed, etc. It's gorgeous inside, though, but just not worth doing up. The yard is incredible, with lots of different areas - a "jungle", an open forest, grassy areas. Plenty of room to hit a golf ball around -- and room for my passion - fruit trees. I feel very luck to have found this place. And, yes, it had the bus. Also a tractor, and a ride-on mower, and a rather beat up old tray/truck sort of thing. I couldn't pass it up. Bus can just be seen on the left in the above pic. There are still two old CRTs in the bus that I haven't checked out yet! Open (rather dry in this pic) wooded grassland. Mostly eucalypts here, but I'm planting fruit trees galore. "Swimsuits optional"! Very dry in this pic. It's much greener now. That's "the jungle" in the background. The bus is embedded to the left, behind that. Halfway down the yard, looking towards the house in the middle distance. That huge tree in the back is a rubber tree that basically hugs the house. It is possible 200 years old. Just jaw dropping when you see it in person. Anyway, that's the story. I moved because I don't want to get old in the same place and regret not taking the chance to do something different. This was an unexpected find, during a simple "let's visit place X" holiday when not really intending to move. I'm still broke and currently unemployed (I had to leave my job, of course, to move interstate), but it's magical and I couldn't resist the opportunity. I'll take the presence of the rather uncommon dual-format TV just sitting in an old bus on the property as a sign that it was meant to be!

So when can we order these? Also it may need a taco in there somewhere.

We are at the Airport gate on our way home, I guess this means the Faire 2019 has officially and unofficially ended.

SOON (tm) * soon is trade mark of Epic Games as in Duke Nuke 'em Forever was coming out soon, which turned to be a 10 year wait... good luck w/ that

It's usually a month or more as I recall, but they could surprise us all.... . . . . . . . . . . with an announcement of a delay anytime now.

In case folks need a quick update on what's going on....

Hi folks, at the beginning of this year, there was sourrounding an idea in my head, to bringing MP3 experience to all 8-Bit Ataris, without too much technical and financial effort. I´ve planned to realise, an external easy "Plug´n´Play" and an internal version (with a minimum of soldering skills). The idea behind is, to control a cheap but powerful MP3-Codec via SIO commands. So I´ve started to creating a Prototype (you can see at the pictures below). (I was a bit surprised how well the prototype already worked ?). For easy testing, I wrote the code in TB (works great for the Prototype), but finally it should be a small piece of Assembler code, putting in a switchable ROM. At the moment the MP3 files are stored on a SD, but for the future I´ve planned, to make it possible to provide the mp3 files directly from the ATARI to the CODEC. Unfortunately, this project just stucked for a while, depend on more important issues.... But I want to ask here, if it´s basicly for interest, to go on? If anybody is interested in, I can start to go on and also, if required, I can provide the used material and the beta code. Gtx., andY

Wow. Checks free space... Checks size of NRV2E compressed map... "The Jaguar can't play music in game" ... nods "The Jaguar doesn't have Specters" ... nods "The Jaguar couldn't handle the Spider" .... uhuh "The Jaguar really couldn't handle the CyberDemon" ... ooookaaaaay .... "You can't fit 160 maps on the cart" .... We'll discuss this in the team, we love hearing what can't be done

I'M SO EXCITED! WITH A GARBAGE BAG FULL OF COMPUTER PARTS, I HAVE FULL FREEDOM TO MAKE WHATEVER ATARI-BRANDED UNCONSOLE I CAN DREAM OF!!!

Just to be absolutely clear: Pete was banned because he maintained multiple sock-puppet forum accounts which he used to shill his products and inveigle potential customers. He was caught, offered a second chance, and then caught out again. While he exhibited many other disagreeable characteristics (paranoia, a complete lack of trust and good will towards the community, etc) and regardless of the rights and wrongs of not offering digital downloads, selling buggy, poorly tested software, shambolic labelling and packaging, etc, the reason he is excluded from the forum is squarely that he deliberately tried to run rings around admin and other forum members (and boasted to others about this) by maintaining a network of shill accounts.

In the past I have been asking about this a lot. Some people here in the board were annoyed by those questions from my side. Although I completely understand people got pretty bored by that discussion and that it was pretty useless to ask the same question over and over again, the main reason for my question is still valid and proven a right one. In the end I finally gave up and decided to buy games from V61. I thought okay what the hell, let's do it. And then it turned out, just as I expected, that the carts I ordered were full of bugs. One game had even a part that was unplayable due to that. The other game had sound issues. Not my intention to do the discussion over again, but it is a good thing to be aware of the big downside of a ROM... hard to update or fix a bug. Those games are not tested (enough) on real hardware. They are entirely developed on emulators. The beta testers (if there are any) are not doing a right job since they do not try to find issues. The problem is the ignorance and arrogance that they seem to think their software is bugfree. Well that there are bugs is not a problem at all. I forgive them bugs at once since bugs happens to any development. But arg... why do they have to be on non-fixable carts? If their titles would be proven good, I still would prefer download but then I would accept to buy carts.... but not now. One of the carts turned out to be an atarimax flash cart. So they could have fixed the bug and send me a flasher. But no... then there was this attitude that everybody is a pirate and sending a flasher would mean that their title would be spread in public. Sigh... that attitude pisses me off. Those v61 guys know not much about current development in a8 world. They seem to think that carts is a solution against piracy, whilst the rest of the a8 scene already knows that dumping a cart is as easy as possible. So for preventing piracy a cart is a totally useless reason. And yes. People are right if they say that it is their business and that they have the right to do it that way. It is not me who can tell them what to do. I have to accept that indeed. I think it is a pity that this ever happened this way. People might not believe it, but I still wish Lance and Pete all the best with their a8 productions and activity. I think the ideas are good and I also believe Peteym5 did some very nice coding. I still offer my help to test their games on real hardware and catch important bugs for them (It is not my nature to tell about things I am good at, but for finding bugs and betatest I make an exception: I am really a serious effective bugfinder). It would be really awesome to improve their titels and add them to the existing library of a8 games. But as long as they stick to this paranoid 'everybody is a pirate' attitude and keep selling bugs on non fixable cart.... I do not think there will ever come a true cooperation between V61 and myself. Lance did by the way send me money back. That was nice. Not enough to return them though. I think he did the right thing there. If he wants the games back, he could pay postage for shipping to USA. I would be more pleased if he sent me bugfixes, then I would repay him all his money. I am not against these people. I believe they really want to do great things. I wished though that they would let me help them, so that it would be all be greater and cooler (and bugfree). So Lance... if you read this and want to work things out. Send me a message. I want to make things right and not to fight.

Ok I tested mine and it works fine.. The zip file on http://ftp.whtech.com under cartridges/finalgrom99 contains files of the actual cartridge ROMS and GROMS which is the "full game" instead of the file in the flashROM99 post which are 32k ROM versions of the GROM packaged in a ROM that copy to 32k. Some carts were larger than 32k, so they trimmed out bits (like speechdata) to fit in 32k.. because, that's all there was so you had to do something to make a cart load without the cartridge.. GROM's allowed TI to put a lot more than 32k in a cartridge.. and run it all from GROM so no expansion memory required.. neet eh? You can tell the difference because the finalgrom files for alpiner are as shown in the attachment. As you can see it's 8k of rom and 32k of GROM stored there. Anyway.. if you have a finalgrom99 don't use the flashrom99 files.. use the files provided in that zip on whtech. Greg

Hey guys, Great Q&A article that ArcadeAttckUK, fellow Atariage member Arcade_Adriano, and myself have done with FULLSET regarding their upcoming titles, "Project Neon" A thumping good read for all to be amazed. Enjoy. Arcade Attack@arcadeattackUK 2h Fancy a brand new Neo-Geo game? What about a brand new Neo-Geo SHMUP? @FULLSET_Collect's Project Neo n will satisfy both needs. have a read of our Q&A with head dev Sascha Reuter complete with trailer and Kickstarter link! https://arcadeattack.co.uk/project-neon-fullset-indie-feature/… #retrogaming Arcade Attack Project Neon (FULLSET) – Indie Feature arcadeattack8th Nov 2019AA Articles, Indie FeaturesLeave a Comment How’s about a brand new Neo-Geo game for ya? Adrian & Anthony caught up with FULLSET’s Sascha Reuter to find out more about the exciting Project Neon. The Kickstarter is live, and really is a must if you are a Neo-Geo collector! Sascha! You’ve a new game in the works called “Project Neon” for the Neo-Geo. What can we expect from your upcoming title? Most of the arcade games I own are actually shoot ‘em ups. I somehow never really was a sucker for shoot ‘em ups back in the day, likely because I lacked access to the ones that were really great. I loved SWIV on the Amiga though! So if there’s a specific genre I mostly collect games for these days, it’s shoot ’em ups. Hence the first game I wanted to work on was, well, a shoot ‘em up. And while the first game I wrote for the PICO-8 and ported to the Game Boy Color was pretty basic (and not just because of the limitations of the system), I wanted to build something more ambitious and sophisticated after that. So developing a game for the Neo Geo was the most natural fit, given my personal interest and that it provides the ideal sweet spot in terms of capabilities for the game I want to build. And yeah, that game is Project Neon. It’s a shmup, surprise! So about the game itself. It’s a vertical, pretty fast-paced shoot ‘em up. The plot is pretty much about a guy called Melon Usk who abandoned the rest of the human species to go and occupy Mars (LOL – Ed), all by himself. He went away with all the advancements in technologies he made over the last couple of decades, and pretty much left the rest of the human species behind on Earth.. with all of their problems and environment that’s pretty much on fire. And to make sure nobody ever comes after him, he builds up a planetary shield around Mars, spawned across 4 other planets surrounding Mars. So yeah, the game is about two brave pilots being sent to ex-filtrate Usk from Mars, and convince him to save the human race from their extinction. Sound familiar? Where is the best place to keep up to date with your work on Project Neon and your other projects? Besides the Kickstarter? For now that it’s either the thread on Arcade Projects (https://www.arcade-projects.com/forums/index.php?thread/10194-project-neon-new-shmup-for-the-neo-geo/) or Twitter. What games/media have helped inspire Project Neon and when do you hope to complete it? That list is ever growing and pretty much endless. Lots of other shoot ‘em ups I would say like Batsugun, Batrider, Dogyuun, (Do)DonPachi, SWIV, Sorcer Striker.. So yeah, everything Toaplan, Compile, Raizing, Cave and so on and so forth… But also a bit of other genres, so things like Mega Man and Gunstar Heroes. You’ll notice an influence from lots of things for sure Tell us a little about yourself and your previous history in the video game industry. While I’ve been in the the tech industry for over 20 years now, I’ve never really found the time to get back to the reason I started digging into computers in the first place: making video games. Instead I went down the road of system and network engineering and literally choose my first employers by the available bandwidth they had, instead of what they paid.. so yeah, I mostly spend that time working for ISPs. About 8 years ago I switched my focus to software engineering as part of doing my first startup, which is also what eventually brought me and my team from Germany to Australia, about 5 years ago. Long story, but yeah, not really gaming industry related. I’ve always been a gamer tho since the days of Coleco, Atari and Commodore and also did my fair share of hacks and mods. But I never went after making my own game before apart from maybe some text adventures. That was still the case until recently, when I started to tinker around with PICO-8. From there things “escalated” quite quickly and even two weeks later I found myself porting my first little shoot ‘em up for the Nintendo Gameboy Color.. which was actually my first C project. How did FULLSET come about and what is it like on a daily basis? The initial idea behind FULLSET was to build an app for arcade and retro gaming collector, to discover, track and trade games and hardware. I always found it a bit frustrating that I had to search across 20 forums for arcade PCBs sales and thought there would be a better way to do this. I then spend about one year building the app and necessary services, content scrapers, etc. in my free time. While you can check out the current state here (https://www.arcade-projects.com/forums/index.php?thread/8304-introducing-fullset-discover-track-buy-and-sell-all-things-arcade/), development is currently paused in favour of other projects, mainly Project Neon. So yeah, instead of one just one thing, FULLSET pretty much became the umbrella for all the different kinds of passion projects I’m working on. The first project that actually just made it out of the door and shipped is a split vinyl record I did with Jeremy Blake from Red Means Recording. If you’re into synth sounds, you can check it out right here: https://fullset.io/products/fsm-1-unbiased-ep-vinyl The main focus will be around arcade and retro gaming tho. Everything from actual games, apps (like the one I mentioned) or even some hardware projects. Because that’s really were my heart is to be honest and what I spend most of my free time with anyway next to my family. What inspires you to work within the gaming industry and have you always been a fan of the Neo-Geo? What inspires me is the idea of actually being able to make a positive impact on the industry, by making things different (again). To be honest, I personally believe that most of the industry in general went down a very unhealthy path during the last decade or so. Everything seems to be about maximising profits instead of the games themselves. From gaming studios and publishers that ship unfinished games or no physical releases at all, to content that’s being held back for selling you DLCs somewhere later on. So you basically get less content when initially buying a game, while often being charged more than ever before. And then they charge you extra for their deluxe editions, early access and what not. It’s insane. But my biggest gripe is likely with that whole loot box thing. It saddens me to see that most FIFA streams these days are mostly about kids spending losing their money on crap gambling schemes, instead of actually playing the game. Not that I’ve ever been a FIFA fan, but you know what I’m getting at And there’s so much more still wrong. I don’t even bother turning on my Xbox or PlayStation anymore, as it’s pretty much impossible to just turn things on and play. Forced system updates, tens of gigabytes in updates for a single game.. installation times, loading times. Everything gets into the way of you actually playing a game. Heck, I sometimes can’t even find my games on the Xbox Dashboard So yeah, from all that currently out there, I think Nintendo with the Switch are ones that at least somehow got it right. End of rant On to the second half of your question.. For most people in Germany, and also many other countries, the Neo-Geo was more of a myth than actually something somebody owned or even saw or played with. On top of that, there were pretty much no arcades around where I lived, so me and my friends mostly spent time on the mainstream side of games for the Nintendo and Sega consoles that were available to us. There was of course always that friend of a friend that knew somebody that had one… well, yeah. So it’s only been like 3 years or so since I got my hands on my very first arcade cabinet as well as the Neo-Geo MVS. Actually, I think I bought the AES just a few months before. Doesn’t really matter tho By now I’ve collected like 4 arcade cabinets and dozens of arcade boards. The Neo-Geo MVS, next to Capcom’s CPS2 and 3, became by far my favourite arcade platform. Was there any particular reason the Neo-Geo was a choice of interest compared to other retro consoles and will you consider realising it on other platforms? The Neo Geo provides the ideal sweet spot in terms of its specifications/capabilities for the game I wanna build. From all the arcade platforms out there, it’s also the one that’s most explored by now I would say and also the one most tools and documentation around actual software development exist. That’s not the case for other systems like CPS2, hence we’ve only seen hacks and not actual homebrew for that. The focus for the initial release will stay on the Neo-Geo MVS, followed by AES and CD. For AES and CD we’ll also a menu option to rotate controls and maybe the HUD…you know, in case you’re not keen to flip your TV on the side! (we’ve given it a crack! – Ed) As it’s written in C it’s generally very portable. People asked if I plan to port it to the Dreamcast further down the road, but I think that’s too much of a common theme already for unofficial Neo-Geo games, so I’m more thinking something like the X68000… but who knows. For now I want all the focus on the game, not exploring other potential platforms we could port it to, even though it’s actually quite tempting. The Neo-Geo is highly regarded and many of its devoted fans have high standards when it comes to titles. Do you feel that this will be a challenge for FULLSET and the team members to achieve a quality developed game for it? Yeah, I’m well aware of that That’s the reason why I’m not doing this alone and instead pretty much got help for all things gfx, sound, etc. I have two very talented graphic artists I’m working with now, and freezedream on all things BGM and SFX. Furthermore, we’re lucky to get the support from people like Hpman, who’s helping with the heavy lifting stuff, like filling gaps in terms of a sound driver that supports VGM/FM playback on the YM2610, and also the cartridge production side of things. I also have a good friend of mine involved that can help out whenever I should get stuck. That being said, the game is still in an early but very playable status, with butter smooth performance and no major technical issues. So yeah, we can actually focus on the game instead of fighting with the tech, which is awesome. After Project Neon, what else can we be expecting from FULLSET afterwards and other genres in gaming? Games I don’t know yet tbh. I’m just too busy and focused on Project Neon at the moment to think about anything beyond that. Maybe another shoot ‘em up? That being said, there’s still a lot of other projects I either already started (including the app I mentioned) and also some custom furniture for setting up your gaming console collection in a very neat way, as well as some other ideas around some hardware projects. Remember the things I mentioned going wrong in the gaming industry at the moment and my gripes with the current generation of consoles? Well, it’s about that. But let’s finish that game first! What are your favourite games of all time and can you explain your top 3? Impossible. I can’t! Next question, please! Really? How should I? Too many games! OK, let me try, a wild mix.. Excluding shmups, because, again, too many! Street Fighter 3 – 3rd Strike Metal Slug Breath of the Wild (best modern game since Portal 2) But as I said, there’s so much more … And how can I not mention Monkey Island and all the other adventures from LucasArts and Sierra? Next question, please! What’s your favorite video game console of all time and can you explain why? The SNES, as it’s also what I spend most of my time with back then I believe, next to the Mega Drive. If you found yourself actually inside the Project Neon universe, which video game character would you choose to help you complete your mission? Samus, as she knows their way around space I guess. If you could share a few drinks with a video game character, who would you choose and why? Guybrush. Anthony & Adrian Now go check out that Kickstarter and also Anthony’s Official Neo-Geo thread on Atariage! Anthony...

Would you have a problem with more than one update before December?

Introducing Maker-Matrix, our site for sales and support of @smbaker's amazing analog thumbstick controllers. EDIT: We have 20 units built and ready to sell; once those are gone we will accept a limited number of back-orders but rest assured we intend to continue building so long as there is demand. https://www.maker-matrix.com/ EDIT #2: And it looks like we are sold out of left-stick models and into backorders already! Wow, thank you all for the support! We will get these shipped this week, and for backorders, we will get them into work and into your hands as soon as we can! We still have right-stick units ready and available immediately. As of 11/12/2019, we have sufficient boards and parts on order for delivery within a week to begin building out our current back-orders and get started on more for future orders! EDIT #3: Tech stuff and troubleshooting tips! First, the fun stuff! Please, if you're at all interested in the controllers, watch @smbaker's introductory video. Scott explains how Atari's analog controller circuit works, how it's replicated in his board design, and then demonstrates several games. It's 13-1/2 minutes that are well worth your time. Next, some troubleshooting tips. As I noted above in Scott's video - and apologies but it bears repeating - the controllers and the way the POKEY chip in the Atari work are analog rather than digital values. So there is always going to be a range of values to indicate "how much Left", "how much Right," "how much Up," and "how much Down", instead of a simple LEFT=Yes, UP=Yes, etc. for a digital signal. So in a 5200 controller, whether vintage or newly built, each and every stick is an analog component and will have some variability, and each of those little capacitors used on the new controller boards have a 5% tolerance. So ... to belabor the point a bit, that gives us some little bits of difference in behavior from console to console and controller to controller. Fortunately, most 5200 games seem to be written to accept a little "slop" in the values of the "how much Left"/"how much Right" etc. signals they are getting from the system and translating into movement and as Scott shows in the video, some of them even seem to self-calibrate upon first starting up a game. Even more fortunately, the Atari designers - knowing controllers will be somewhat inconsistent and that the timing capacitors inside the POKEY are also inconsistent - built the POKEY Adjust Resistor (R132) into the design. This can be adjusted to improve controller response and get the specifications of both the controllers and the specific POKEY chip inside the console to line up better. The procedure using an official Atari Diagnostic Cart or the unofficial but much more widely available Pete's Test Cart is set out in the official Field Service Manual, and it's the same for both 4-port and 2-port 5200 models. However, in the absence of a copy of Pete's Test Cart or the Diagnostic Cart (which are likely overkill for most casual gamers), the very common game MISSILE COMMAND works as a pretty good substitute. Plug in your MISSILE COMMAND cart and your controller. If the POKEY Adjust Resistor is set in the correct range, the cursor should be more or less centered on-screen. Even though a self-centering controller is really not ideal for a game like MISSILE COMMAND, it does test the full range of the analog controller very well since the cursor is so big and obvious on-screen. If you unplug the controller, the cursor will jump immediately to the lower right. Plugging a controller back into a properly-adjusted console will put the cursor immediately back to center. Here is a photo of R132, the POKEY Adjust, circled in red at lower right: It must be stressed: please use care if adjusting the POKEY Resistor! Especially this time of year when humidity is low, be sure to discharge any static electricity before you open the cover, and be very sure when turning the plastic knob that you don’t short any nearby electrical components! Finally, one possible issue is a loose or badly-fitting extension cable. Ensure the console end of the cable is inserted fully and securely into the controller jack, and that no pins on your jack are bent or damaged. Also, if you move the controller around vigorously or yank it during use, the cable will likely begin to work free of the controller. Frankly this is a shortcoming of classic game console extension cables when used with new-made devices. The original Atari systems used plugs with a large surface area to insert into the relatively deep Atari 5200 controller jacks. So extension cables are similarly deep on each end to match. However, modern DB15 connectors of the type used in this controller are shallow, and intended for use with cables using screw-connectors. Unfortunately, the connector end on the console doesn't have screw connectors and - being a deep design - won't support or hold onto a modern DB15 cable with screw terminals. So, the situation we have as modern fans is that our extension cables may work free with time. In personal use I found this is much less common when the controller is held in a proper case than when the board is used "bare." Some people who've built their own boards have used a bead of hot-glue around the outside of the controller jack to secure the cable semi-permanently to the jack. One solution - used by me personally - is to buy a Monoprice DB15 male-to-female cable, attach it to the controller via screw-terminals which then goes to a classic 15-pin extension cable, which is then plugged into the 5200. You end up with a very long cable but the large amount of slack ensures the two cable ends are undisturbed and remain firmly connected. We are currently investigating future revisions to either the case or the PCB board design to mitigate this issue entirely but have nothing yet ready to announce.

Hey folks, I have decided to embark down a path of projects to benefit this community by making complete fully dimensional drawings for (and CAD models of) all the enclosures used by this system. However, I do not own a PEB, therefor I cannot make such for that item. Can somebody whip out some calipers and give me some dimensions? What brought this on: I have seen some suggested projects that would require this information (Laptop convert of 99/4A, new shell for 99/4A, cartridge replacement shell, etc..), and I have noted a lack of good dimensional drawings for these components. I happen to be a trained industrial draftsman, and can produce these for most of these items myself without help, but I do not own a PEB. I also own a (cheap, Chinese knockoff) 3D printer, and I did some CAD experiments on making easily printed, "Interlocking" parts, that could be used to create printed versions of these items, with some effort. This last bit is a moonshot, but the former I can totally do, no trouble. If somebody has a PEB that is already taken apart, and has a pair of calipers-- Take some photos and scribble your measurements on the pictures and post them. I will make CAD drawings.

posting another ExBASIC game on my blog; star merchant. Some may remember games like this for other systems. There may even be one for the TI-99 that I'm not aware of. Anyway, it's another quick translation from the Atari 8-bit line using Harry's T40 40 column utility. simple fun game, enjoy.

Thanks for the 810 case Mr. Robot - decided to make it a bit more authentic (it was already awesome!) Added Power and Busy LEDs I took pics of project - let me know if you want a tutorial... IMG_3432.mov IMG_3432.mov

Killswitch available on Ebay for 6,99$: ATARI 800 Killswitch

I am finishing up all the games for the Fantasy World Dizzy and Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe pre-orders today, and will have them shipped over the weekend. The games are all built and tested, they just need to be labeled and then assembled into the boxes with the manuals. All the orders will be dropped off at the post office on Tuesday (Monday is a postal holiday due to Veteran's Day). Will post some photos as I wrap up this assembly process. ..Al

Very easy. The math is simple. There is some trick to remove multiplication, but you don't really need it in emulation. Let me first sum in short what Amy does: - there are 8 voices, using sine wave. They are called fundamentals. - there are 64 harmonics (also sine waves), which can be assigned to individual voices, and their frequencies are multiples of the fundamental frequency. The assigning is done in pairs, so the voice can have 2,4,6 .. up to 64 harmonics. Each harmonic can only be assigned to one voice, so if one voice has many, the rest of the voices has fewer. - harmonics (and fundamentals) have simple volume envelopes, 1 target value / slope pair, the fundamental has same system for frequency. - both volume and frequency slopes are correctly interpolated in exponential space. - the harmonics have no other parameter, just the envelope and channel assignment. If channel has 4 harmonics, it's 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th. Their phase is computed directly as multiplication of the phase of the main voice. - there are also 2 configurable noise generators, which can be somehow combined with the voices. This part is not very well described. I'm not even interested in full chip emulation. I'm interested in what can be done with this approach, because I don't know any other synth doing it like this, and I'm rather skeptical. I've played with DX7 simulator, you can do 4 harmonics with envelopes on it. And indeed, I had troubles getting interesting sounds out of it. Yes, the samples we have sound "like FM" .. but that's just because Amy syntheses is based on sine wave, and so is FM. But in FM the other generators modulate the fundamental generator. They can have widely different frequencies, or just slightly. On Amy the harmonics are just added, there is no control over their phase, their frequencies are always just multiples of the fundamental. In other words, there is much less variation. Also to get many popular synth sounds, you need lots of higher frequencies. On bass it means lots of harmonics. On Amy you also have to use all harmonics. You can't use 2nd, 4th, 8th and 16th .. which would be just 4. You have to use all 16, and mute those unused, limiting other voices. To make something as simple as PWM square wave bass would require voice with many harmonics which all would have to be carefully manipulated. Sid can do it with one poke. It's not as simple on FM, but it is still simpler then on Amy. There is obviously great room for experimenting and different tricks, and it's IMHO easier to predict what it will do, compared to FM. It would be really interesting to see (I mean hear) what people might be able to do with it if they had 30 years, like they had on Pokey or Sid. But at the moment I don't see it. Way better then AY, that's for sure.

The PAL60 and SECAM60 versions of Balloon Trip are finally here. Should've done this to begin with, but better late than never I suppose. balloontripPAL60.bin balloontripSECAM60.bin

Good job - "Almost" an exact match - the original switch did not have the white I/O letters printed on, I've got about 3 XE's now that I've fixed that had this exact problem. It's one that's easy and gratifying to complete. Got mine from UK seller "Atarifreakz" on eBay, this is the website: http://www.st-freakz.co.uk/ The culprit, and the new one about to be soldered in place: And in other news... Another testament to keep making 'connections' locally... Someone I bought an Atari manual from locally a couple years ago remembered me and out of the blue contacted me to donate me the following lot: 2x1050, 2xXF551, TRAK AT-D2, All power supplies & SIO cables, and a mix of original software and copies/PD disks, all very clean. Still in shock! After searching for an XF551 for so long.... And maybe now I have a better chance of diagnosing and fixing my other broken TRAK drive.... Will be keeping in touch with the former owner as he is so far keeping his 800 since his recent acquisition of an sDriveMAX, and will shoot him ATR's of his personal disks once I've imaged them and let him know of new stuff to try out there to try on his machine. . Some more stuff to check against the software preservation project for sure.

Hi all. It's a quiet morning of the Halloween day, and your child comes announcing he collapsed the neighbor's house. Enough to stop your heart, but fortunately the neighbor isn't angry, instead he gave your kid a juju. Instantaneously your house is attacked by zombies everywhere (of course, nothing to do with the juju), but your family is so afraid of the zombies that they are freezed by chilling horror. You need to carry them to the outside on your head (your wife, your kiddo and your daughter), but you only can carry one at a time. If the zombies touch you, you'll become a zombie dad, but you'll be dead pretty soon unless you eat some human flesh. If the zombies touch a member of your family, well, he or she will disappear. The level is complete when your family is saved or all eaten, your choice. On each level the difficulty will be harder, the zombies will be faster, and I forgot about the banshees. Once in a while, a zombie will turn onto a banshee, it won't eat your family but can turn you into a zombie dad. With a little luck the juju isn't so bad and the curse could disappear, but you don't know when!!! Move with the controller, left and right, up and down over the stairs, and also press the side button to carry a member of your family or put he/she on the floor. Enjoy it! zombie0.zip

Money got dangerously tight for Corp in Oct 84 and all of the original "New" XL work was scraped. They were planning a lot of very cool new systems, also they had planned to originally retain the "XL" name on the line. Once I'm done with all of the updates on the XL section of my site, I'll be working on a complete rebuild of the XE section and the information I've uncovered from July 84-Jan 85 is amazing... One thing I will say, those who like their XE's are going to be very miffed when they see how shortchanged they were with what was eventually delivered. Oct 84 changed everything.

A lot more to come.... trying to put up a few things every week... Little work going toward many times at once: proto research, XL scans, XM work, super-secret "other" project that I'm not saying shit about because I've been putting in a little time here and there over past few years on it and I don't want a repeat of the stress like the XM again... I'll pull back the curtain once the XM's are all gone and I've spent the time I want getting next things ready.

Atari VCS. Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb!

Yeah, this one's always been a problematic lie for them. They said they had a working prototype when they launched their crowdfunding, but they clearly didn't by their own admission in their updates. The closest thing they ever had was a 3D printed case with a light in it. Only in their mind does that count as a working demo. "See, it looks like dis....and da Atari logo go dehar.....and dat light go blink, blink.....and I got a wooden spoon, durrr. Now dat's what I call some highly flexible Atari VCS."

Hi and welcome! The TMS9900 architecture is substantially different, not just from the 6502 but from the 8086 as well. It has some strong advantages but disadvantages too. One thing to note is that there is no accumulator, you can do many operations on registers to registers, registers to memory, memory to registers, and even memory to memory! So doing a MOV @THIS,@THAT is totally fine, where both of those are just addresses in memory. The reason is that the registers themselves are just in memory, which allows you to switch quickly to different register sets. The advantage is flexibility, the disadvantage is a general latency overall as it takes extra clock cycles. There is a 256 byte RAM area in the base console (called the scratch pad) which is true 16-bit access memory, most of us use that space for registers as often as we can as it gains us some speed by cutting out a 4-cycle delay on every memory access. Some op-codes require registers as either the source or destination. All the immediate instructions (Add Immediate, Compare Immediate) only work with registers. This isn't a limit of the architecture so much as just a limit of opcode decoding. An important consideration though is that all the op-codes on the TI are 2 bytes. So the MOV operation I noted above is actually 6 bytes. While we can get more done in far less instructions than a 6502, they do consume more memory. On the other hand, we do have unsigned Multiply and Divide op-codes, which save a lot of memory to use. (Although you'll hear a lot of guys grumbling how divide takes too long.) Also, because of the way the address lines on the TI work, there are byte and word equivalent instructions for most everything (Compare verses Compare Byte, Add verses Add Byte, and so forth). The byte versions only work on the first/high byte, you have to use shifts or a swap byte opcode to access the other byte. I don't have immediate answers about your CRU questions, but I will point you to a grand resource: The TI-99/4a Tech Pages You'll find answers for a lot of the hardware and architecture design there.

Frederic Houde (Ubisoft) – Interview - Creator of Rayman on the Jaguar Hi guys, I recently had the ultimate pleasure of interviewing Ubisoft legend Frederic Houde. He is probably best known as the co-creator of Rayman! I ask a number of questions on how the game was made, how it was initially developed exclusively for the Jag and how he feels it compares to the PS1 version. I also ask him about the 'lost' SNES version of the game, his work on Beyond Good & Evil and lots more! Feel free to check it out: http://www.arcadeattack.co.uk/frederic-houde-rayman/ Kind regards Adrian

Centipede: 551,452

Patience, Grasshopper. All will be revealed in (*checks watch*) less than 24 hours.

This could be defeated by a determined enough kid. There's only 10,000 different combinations available.

This is an excellent resource with great example code... https://atariage.com/forums/topic/162941-assembly-on-the-994a/

As @adamantyr already said: The 9900 is a pure memory/memory architecture (by hardware), although the instructions actually use register numbers. With the help of the workspace pointer, these register numbers are mapped to memory locations. That is, everything that it processes comes from memory, and all results go to memory. There are no internal working registers, only the status register and the workspace pointer. The extreme opposite would be the MIPS architecture (load/store), where every operation works on the internal (32) registers, and you have explicit load/store operations. The advantage of the workspace pointer concept is that you can have "private" registers. You can write some subroutine with a reserved area of 32 bytes, which will serve as the "local memory" of that subroutine. Then you can glue all those routines together to a large program, and you do not have to care about memory locations, as long as every component brings its own workspace. By that you can even write recursive subroutine. The disadvantage is, of course, the "expensive" memory access (von Neumann bottle neck). To make things worse, the memory access of the TI console is stuffed with wait states, and the data bus is multiplexed (folded from 16 to 8 bits). As for CRU, this is the port-based access to devices. Other systems call it port addressing, where TI talks about CRU addressing. The CRU addresses are a separate address space, but they re-use the address bus. Data is transferred serially, i.e. you have a data width of 1 bit. There are commands that can access subsequent CRU addresses in one go (LDCR, STCR), or those that set individual bits (SBO, SBZ) or query them (TB).

Does that count as November's update?

Neither do I, good bye. ..Al