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You have to progress through the level in this western shooter this has f18a & colecovision graphics support. still a bit rough. Thought I might show it anyways.

Pleased to say that I got the packing test code written tonight and, at least on the PC, the packing is confirmed accurate. Next step is to integrate it into the test player, and if that works, to get the TI playback code written. Then, although the toolset won't be complete, I can at least release an alpha as it'll be far enough along for people to try it. The unpacking is MUCH simpler than the old, which had suffered a bit from evolution. It incorporates a double-RLE, which was one of the things missing in the old system, and this seems to help at least bit. The main goal, though, was to reduce CPU usage (and maybe memory usage). It should succeed. No need to read on unless you're curious about the system. The original packer, as I noticed, suffered a bit from evolution. The basics were pure, at least to start. The concept was to divide the components of audio into separate streams without channel information so that they could take advantage of redundancies. So, there were 3 tone streams, 1 noise stream, 4 volume streams, and 4 "time" streams to manage the whole thing. Each stream was compressed using a simple command byte which could specify a run of up to 64 bytes of either inline data, RLE, a short back reference (offset within a stream) or a long back reference (offset anywhere in the song). After that, each stream simply contained the next byte of data, while the timestream incorporated an RLE of sorts on a per-voice basis. Each timestream byte specified up to 64 frames of idle, and then two bits indicated whether to load tone, volume, both or neither. Timestreams furthermore had an additional 6 special codes to indicate common repeated patterns - a very weak RLE for just 6 combinations of count and data. As such, playback code needed to track unpack state for 12 streams, as well as additional counts for the timestream. To save a little more data, notes are encoded into a 256-entry note table so that they require only one byte instead of 2. This worked, but used up to 30% of the CPU on moderately complex songs. The timestream compression suffered if there were lots of volume changes, which is normal for the types of music I like to encode. And no RLE was possible in back-references, meaning that a back-reference needed to contain raw strings to compress later data correctly. The new system keeps the stream concept, but adapts it. There are still 4 tone streams (well, 3 tone and a noise) and 4 volume streams, but there is only a single timestream which manages the tone channels only. 4 bits are used for time, and 4 bits indicate which voices to load. (Frequency sweeps will still hit the timestream hard, but these are less common than volume sweeps). Tone channels still use the 8-bit note table. Volume channels maintain their own count using their spare nibble, meaning instrument effects no longer hammer the timestream and much less code is required to handle one volume channel changing (in addition only 1 byte is consumed per volume change instead of 2). The packing was modified slightly as well. The "short back-reference" was discarded in favor of a 16-bit RLE, which helps for arpeggio and volumes that warble between two levels. And there are no more magic codes for the timestream. This seems to work pretty well. You still need to manage pack state for 9 streams, but that's 25% down from 12, so even if all else were equal that'd be a win. Each of the 9 streams also requires a counter for their delay value, but I think it'll fit a lot better. I still need to write this code, but I think it'll be a lot quicker to execute. It's up on my github for those who like to play, but of course it's not ready for primetime yet. But you can play with the converters and packer written so far. https://github.com/tursilion/vgmcomp2

Some games & notes: The 3D Star Trek manual is a slightly different version. Santa Paravia was written for the TI99/4 (not "a") TI-Trek is a bifocal friendly version, but did not upload (please ignore). Thanks. 3-D Star Trek Cassette.pdf King of the Castle.pdf Cross Country Car.pdf Santa Paravia.pdf QS-Solitaire.pdf

Here's a Dragon's Lair image dump, since I've been working on a video, and so have all of these images on hand: Dragon's Lair Box Front (as shipped): Dragon's Lair Box Back (as shipped): Dragon's Lair Box Interior (as shipped): Dragon's Lair Cart Labels Dragon's Lair Cartridge (as shipped): Dragon's Lair Postcard Front and Back: Dragon's Lair Poster Front: Dragon's Lair Poster Back:

Classic99 399.026 - add some missing closes to the disk image handling. should've RAI - add full directory sort when writing to a disk image to fix old broken images (this should also fix rename from the last update, but nobody had time to notice it was broken yet) - all the fixes made to saving FIAD headers over the years never made it into disk images: bytes in last header and number record field were both wrong for variable type files (and bytes was wrong for fixed) - added disk size verification to TICC handler because the TICC doesn't check like I thought it did and people are just using it for everything. DO NOT USE THIS CONTROLLER EXCEPT FOR TESTING COMPATIBILITY. Not only do you not get the extended features but it isn't fully virtualized, I just hooked the sector read/write. http://harmlesslion.com/software/classic99

FujiNet now has the ability to do screen captures to PNG when used with a version of @ClausB's PRANTIC. Claus wrote a new version called GRANTIC that sends the 8-bit color data to P: and from that FujiNet builds a 320x192 pixel PNG. Thank-you Claus! This is a neat capability. Instructions for those following along with their own devices: Mount the attached grantic.ATR, which is a DOS 2.5 boot disk with GRANTIC loading in AUTORUN.SYS. Boot this to BASIC. From a browser navigate to your FujiNet's IP (homepage). Select the "GRANTIC" printer emulator from the drop down list. There are two simple demo programs (GR2.BAS and GR3.BAS) on the ATR. Run either of those. When you no longer hear SIO traffic buzz, download the printout from the browser. The magic happens with a call to USR(8192). Sample output: grantic.atr

Original creator, Jordan Mechner, was on REDDIT, earlier today, doing an AMA and promoting a print edition of his 80s game development journals. I'm Jordan Mechner. Thirty years ago, I made a game called Prince of Persia. Now I'm releasing my 1980s game-dev journals as a book. AMA! "Thirty years ago, I made a game called Prince of Persia. Later, I worked with Ubisoft (as game designer) and Walt Disney Pictures (as screenwriter) to relaunch the franchise with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time––the game in 2003, the movie in 2010. Now we're celebrating the original game's 30th anniversary with a new illustrated and annotated hardcover book of my 1980s game-dev journals: The Making of Prince of Persia, just published by Stripe Press. Ask me anything! Well, ALMOST anything. I can’t answer questions about unannounced projects, even (especially) Prince of Persia. Alas. Info about the new Prince of Persia book at https://press.stripe.com/ and https://jordanmechner.com/journals. Info about all my projects (PoP games, movies, graphic novels, and others) at https://jordanmechner.com. I'm also on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, usually in that order. My social media links are in the footer at jordanmechner.com. And for a 20-minute look behind the scenes of making Prince of Persia, check out this ArsTechnica War Stories episode: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/04/war-stories-how-prince-of-persia-slew-the-apple-iis-memory-limitations/"

Hi 2 Everyone, i just wanted to post the status of my SF551 drive here. So. My SF551 is finally finished today, would have been finished much earlier if I had the time. Well. Is completely recognized, so far I have only experimented with MyDOS and BiBo-DOS, in MyDOS I also have the 720KB, not in BiBo-DOS (which is clear, does not know two-sided drives). After I realized that NO SF-Drive really fits 100% like this, I simply soldered the power connection and the data connection to the drive, fits the "micromilimeter" exactly ? I really like it everything, the design fits in well with my favorite ATARI-8-BITter (130XE), and even the "offspring" need not shy away from the comparison with the XF551. I probably wanted to install the second board with an ST drive directly in one of my two XEGS, there also with a track display in the front of the XEGS, of course here again one from the SF314 series is "misused" ... Thanks again to you who helped me with your photos to see where my mistake was. And thanks to DropCheck and tfhh and the other participants for this brilliant board.

Some utility software instructions in pdf format: Things were going well so tried TI-Trek again and it worked! (Bifocal friendly version) Magic File Manipulator V2.pdf QS-Disk Manager IV.pdf Super Copy.pdf TASS 2001.pdf T-Shell.pdf Valwrite.pdf WriterEase.pdf TI-Trek.pdf

Graphics/ artwork related manuals to pdf for easier printing: CSGD LABEL MAKER UTIL v1_3.pdf CSGD Label Maker v1_3.pdf Panorama 4_0.pdf TIPS v1_7.pdf

Excited to see Atari Projects picked up by Hackaday https://hackaday.com/2020/04/29/classic-8-bit-computing-the-atari-way/

Loving this cool wet weather. Perfect for reading vintage Apple II manuals!

It doesn't have to be that way, and it would probably be best if someone with only 58 posts to their name, and who jumped into this topic for the first time I'm aware of, to not be dictating how things should be. I don't think anyone had a problem with what you were posting (I certainly didn't). And I also find myself in full agreement with what you just stated in your last post. Thank You. ------------ So now let's get back to the regular Q&A and shared experiences with building and/or using a 1088XLD .

I can't keep up with MAME and the need for new ROMsets.

I'm ready to throw down a score. Original hardware. Auto fire. Disc speed. Drift. Dual controller. No pause.

21,270 Yeah, I don’t see myself playing this one for long. Killing my thumbs and gets repetitive fast.

I say it's past time for a VBXE remake of this classic game. I'm just looking for volunteers / models to photograph for the remake

The rapid fire (RF) mod I'm going to make will be B button only. Pressing the push button on the rear of the controller will switch rapid fire on. The red led next to Atari logo on the front of the controller will turn on. With one press RF will be 5 CPS, then 6,7,8,9, then back to no rapid fire and led will turn off. In the picture you see the spot rapid fire button will be. In the second picture you see the rapid fire led that will turn on. It will turn off if you press the button enough times to get back to normal fire mode.

Today I made my first-ever instant messaging + screen sharing mistake. I finished working around 2am this morning just as the massive thunderstorms rolled in, keeping me awake with nonstop lightning and thunder. Finally got to sleep around 4:30 and woke up a few hours later. Made it to the afternoon feeling ok but then joined a conference call session with 10+ other people. Halfway through I was asked to share my screen and walk through a document. Well, the conversation droned on for a few minutes after I was done with my part. however, i never stopped sharing my screen. Probably because I had my head in my hands wondering if the meeting would ever end. Anyway, I brought up instant messaging to send a quick note to a colleague about how if the decision was mine, I would take certain action. Nothing bad but to those watching might have been seen as a slight against one or two people when taken out of context. The recipient realized what I was doing and took ownership of the screen sharing... alas... only to display my same instant message in a 3x larger window. I took myself off of mute and called attention to the window, figuring I had better face this head-on instead of hoping it goes away. I felt pretty out of sorts after that meeting ended, and consumed a while pint of Blue Bell brand ice cream as consolation. I've made it nearly 25 years across multiple roles without doing that - and have even chuckled when others have made that bone-headed mistake. Tonight I hope to get to sleep early....

OK I make a joke, look away, come back to a @hit storm? To point out I was trying to be playful and pull some music people in, Peter Gun and Mission Impossible both by Mancini, loosely modeled on the Man from Uncle theme. I was aiming at @DrVenkman & @flashjazzcat you see I haven't seen a recent video from Jon with a musical instrument, I hoped my quip would maybe nuge a few cords out. Switching Gears - ( the body of christ compels me ) Apparently Someone took it on to say "The entire point of user groups and forums like these are to ask questions and receive immediate answers. Ask away and ignore the "RTFM" people." If it's a joke I missed the humor. I quote Miracle Max from The Princess Bride " You rush a miracle, you get a rotten miracle " It is disingenuous to ask for help if you are not willing to make an effort to educate yourself first, if you are unwilling to help yourself, why should anyone here? This is a forum, it's just that, a place of free exchange and honestly, free advice. My experience is the people here are willing to help you if you are genuine in your own pursuits. This is not a Bank, we don't owe you answers if you are unwill to make an effort on your own behalf. The visual I perceive of it is as follows. You have fallen off the back of a cruise ship, I'm offering to toss the lifesaver to you, your reaction is to flip me the bird. I appreciate the efforts and labor of everyone here. Be kind or find a forum where they embrace unkind behavior. These folks have years of work and untold amounts of money invested for the love of the community and the camaraderie, a grip of effort and cash, show a little respect.

Sunset with a horse, 29 colors. amarok_sunset_horse.xex

Finally have the last hand-held i was missing.... Heading out shortly for new caps and the bigger screen.

Finally had a breakthrough game and made it to board 11.

Hardware related files: Competition Computer Drive Install.pdf Panasonic RQ-2309A Recorder.pdf

Update for those who are curious: After switching to a (somewhat crappy) Tac-2, the game LA Swat now runs properly on my 130XE. Either I am pushing the wrong directions or there is some weird crosstalk in the cable to my Starplex Deluxe Video Controller that causes the game to go amok. I managed to debug some of it in Atari800win and found the code where the joystick input is read and temporarily stored but didn't have time to analyse what the game does with the input later.

LINES for TP99 An example in Bitmap mode! you can unpak the zip file to classic99 and map it to DSK1. TP-LINES.zip The program runs with EA5 DSK1.LINES1 If you will compile it then you can use the TP99V2.dsk image from post #2 Map the image to DSK1 and put the Lines source to DSK2 or DSK3. The program must be linked with LINES-O and the library PACKBIT@

I have 2 extra Rifles right now but I'm designing a new custom box and was planning on releasing 2 "DELUXE" Zombie Outbreak Game packs that would include everything in the regular game pack + the Rifle + the custom box that will hold the Rifle and the game pack + (1) additional overlay and maybe extra mission and bonus material. It will be a bit pricey though as I paid a lot for the rifles so the entire Deluxe game kit will be $250 + shipping. I started trying to collect Rifles a long time ago back in 2012 and was planning on including them in Hunting Adventure but I couldn't get enough and they were too expensive. I wish I could make more Deluxe kits but I only have 2 Rifles. First one who wants to claim these kits POST here and I will reserve them for you but please make sure you really want them and are wiling to pay because I only have 2.

Ironically, the outdoor sports tend to be more sun faded.

Well, first thing... I want a unique way to differentiate between any binary/screenshots/video of the new version, so it might be something like this interesting effort.... change is as good as a holiday, I guess. I quite like it actually. Click on the picture for a larger view.

The grocery store was out of meat? At least we have plenty of pudding.

It took me a very long time to find back to this topic. But here we are

KEY.COM is a keyboard buffer driver, it has to buffer key events, then feed programs with them, when they are ready to receive them. So I guess it cannot pass the processing on to the original keyboard handler, because there will be a conflict. As about the service to chain the keyboard handlers, I do not think it would solve much, but it certainly would occupy memory (and keeping the MEMLO as low as possible is one of our goals). Loading the history program after key probably will not solve much either, because KEY will grab the interrupt vector again after one does KEY OFF, then KEY ON. I have no clear thoughts on it at the moment, but maybe using the interrupt service is an overkill and the thing could be solved by hooking your history program onto the CIO keyboard vectors? I mean, by reallocating the vector set and correcting the entry in HATABS. I did not check this but you could then probably catch whatever is in KBCODES before the regular keyboard handler kicks in, and the keyboard buffer would not be a problem anymore.

SWAT: 56,228! Getting better at NOT killing the hostages.

OK, here we go... I've been on the edge of making a decision about using a different bank-switch scheme. Now I've had a bit of time to (very briefly) review the DASH and 3E+ schemes, one of those is the most likely candidate for my switch. I'm not saying these are the best schemes out there, but they are close enough to 3E and one of them, at least I'm the actual lead designer of DASH (as I recall, anyway). I think Thomas did the Stella implementation - I'm vaguely sure it wasn't me! I totally forgot about this scheme, which was designed to correct the limitations @Thomas Jentzsch and I ran into when writing Boulder Dash. Those are the same as described in my earlier post. Now, I happen to think DASH looks like the bee's knees - I can see that this would work very well with my current design - or at least I think so. And yet, Thomas writes (regarding Stella) "we kicked DASH from the next release, because it was unused for years after I found it very unpractical. If you find out different (which I doubt :)), please let me know." So, there's that. In some ways that got me to thinking "well, it's now or never" but I had pretty much already decided to attempt DASH (or 3E+, which is derived from it) before I was aware of the above. I don't know what Thomas found very impractical, but I guess I'm going to find out. I've already had a quick think about implementation, and I think the screen draw is the very first thing to test, because that uses complex RAM-based self-modification and self-switching for banks. If things are going to fail early on, it will be there. So I guess while I'm playing with that conversion/test there will be a bit of a hiatus on further features/improvement on this version of the game. As noted earlier, I'm practically out of ROM space anyway - at least where it is required. I totally expect the DASH scheme to alleviate this issue and allow me to add much more functionality. Although en-passant code is in there now, it's not functional. But new code would be the prevention of castling when any of the traversed squares in check. I played a couple of games today - a long battle at 5-ply (q8) where I slowly gained a pawn advantage, pressed home a passed pawn and forced checkmate. It was a really enjoyable game and the program fought hard towards the end, making it awkward to do what I planned. Very happy with that. The second game was a quick 3-ply (q4) where I really didn't spend long enough planning my game, and eventually the computer ended up a knight (R+N vs R) with both having fairly matched pawns/structure. I was prepared to concede that one, although I probably would have won. Again, it played a good game especially for the speed at which it was moving. So, I expect over the next few days - if I can be bothered programming - will be what I learn about the DASH scheme and its shortcomings. Here's my description of the DASH scheme, from the stella implementation.... oh, the irony of relying on documentation that you, yourself, wrote so many years ago that you don't remember it at all! This is why we document code! Cartridge class for new tiling engine "Boulder Dash" format games with RAM. Kind of a combination of 3F and 3E, with better switchability. B.Watson's Cart3E was used as a template for building this implementation. The destination bank (0-3) is held in the top bits of the value written to $3E (for RAM switching) or $3F (for ROM switching). The low 6 bits give the actual bank number (0-63) corresponding to 512 byte blocks for RAM and 1024 byte blocks for ROM. The maximum size is therefore 32K RAM and 64K ROM. D7D6 indicate the bank number (0-3) D5D4D3D2D1D0 indicate the actual # (0-63) from the image/ram ROM: Note: in descriptions $F000 is equivalent to $1000 -- that is, we only deal with the low 13 bits of addressing. Stella code uses $1000, I'm used to $F000 So, mask with top bits clear :) when reading this document. In this scheme, the 4K address space is broken into four 1K ROM segments. living at 0x1000, 0x1400, 0x1800, 0x1C00 (or, same thing, 0xF000... etc.), and four 512 byte RAM segments, living at 0x1000, 0x1200, 0x1400, 0x1600 with write-mirrors +0x800 of these. The last 1K ROM ($FC00-$FFFF) segment in the 6502 address space (ie: $1C00-$1FFF) is initialised to point to the FIRST 1K of the ROM image, so the reset vectors must be placed at the end of the first 1K in the ROM image. Note, this is DIFFERENT to 3E which switches in the UPPER bank and this bank is fixed. This allows variable sized ROM without having to detect size. First bank (0) in ROM is the default fixed bank mapped to $FC00. The system requires the reset vectors to be valid on a reset, so either the hardware first switches in the first bank, or the programmer must ensure that the reset vector is present in ALL ROM banks which might be switched into the last bank area. Currently the latter (programmer onus) is required, but it would be nice for the cartridge hardware to auto-switch on reset. ROM switching (write of block+bank number to $3F) D7D6 upper 2 bits of bank # indicates the destination segment (0-3, corresponding to $F000, $F400, $F800, $FC00), and lower 6 bits indicate the 1K bank to switch in. Can handle 64 x 1K ROM banks (64K total). D7 D6 D5D4D3D2D1D0 0 0 x x x x x x switch a 1K ROM bank xxxxx to $F000 0 1 switch a 1K ROM bank xxxxx to $F400 1 0 switch a 1K ROM bank xxxxx to $F800 1 1 switch a 1K ROM bank xxxxx to $FC00 RAM switching (write of segment+bank number to $3E) with D7D6 upper 2 bits of bank # indicates the destination RAM segment (0-3, corresponding to $F000, $F200, $F400, $F600). Note that this allows contiguous 2K of RAM to be configured by setting 4 consecutive RAM segments each 512 bytes with consecutive addresses. However, as the write address of RAM is +0x800, this invalidates ROM access as described below. can handle 64 x 512 byte RAM banks (32K total) D7 D6 D5D4D3D2D1D0 0 0 x x x x x x switch a 512 byte RAM bank xxxxx to $F000 with write @ $F800 0 1 switch a 512 byte RAM bank xxxxx to $F200 with write @ $FA00 1 0 switch a 512 byte RAM bank xxxxx to $F400 with write @ $FC00 1 1 switch a 512 byte RAM bank xxxxx to $F600 with write @ $FE00 It is possible to switch multiple RAM banks and ROM banks together For example, F000-F1FF RAM bank A (512 byte READ) F200-F3FF high 512 bytes of ROM bank previously loaded at F000 F400 ROM bank 0 (1K) F800 RAM bank A (512 byte WRITE) FA00-FBFF high 512 bytes of ROM bank previously loaded at F400 FC00 ROM bank 1 This example shows 512 bytes of RAM, and 2 1K ROM banks and two 512 byte ROM bank halves. Switching RAM blocks (D7D6 of $3E) partially invalidates ROM blocks, as below... RAM block Invalidates ROM block 0 0 (lower half), 2 (lower half) 1 0 (upper half), 2 (upper half) 2 1 (lower half), 3 (upper half) 3 1 (upper half), 3 (lower half) For example, RAM block 1 uses address $F200-$F3FF and $FA00-$FBFF ROM block 0 uses address $F000-$F3FF, and ROM block 2 uses address $F800-$FBFF Switching in RAM block 1 makes F200-F3FF ROM inaccessible, however F000-F1FF is still readable. So, care must be paid. This crazy RAM layout is useful as it allows contiguous RAM to be switched in, up to 2K in one sequentially accessible block. This means you CAN have 2K of consecutive RAM (don't forget to copy your reset vectors!) @author Andrew Davie

Ah, don't feel that way, any comments I make are firmly tongue-in-cheek. While disk images is truly work I did not want to spend time on, your detailed problem reports made fixing the issues faster than they would otherwise have been, and ultimately that helps everyone who uses Classic99. Thank you! No more for a while though, please.

completely disassembled my ps4 then cleaned out all of the dust, far far quieter.

I lost a customer due to an "open mic" situation. I had a customer who I was trying to get migrated off Small Business Server 2003 to 2011 (tells you how long ago this was.) However, the accountant was petrified by the notion she could lose data during the migration, irrespective of how many times I went through the process with her, highlighting the multiple points at which backups were made, and how the entire system could be restored back to its original state if things went horribly bad. This was a good customer, someone I had for almost a decade. I was friendly and had a close relationship with everyone there. That tends to lead to two things: a familiarity and comfort which allows you to let your guard down, and a personal catalogue of everyone's strengths and faults. One must be careful in such a situation. The migration had been scheduled and delayed numerous times because of various accounting stuff. This audit, that audit, payroll, end-of-month, reconciliation, etc. But at this point a non-removable Windows security update had broken the network drivers between Server 2003 and Hyper-V 2008R2. I tried all the fixes but it still kept locking up so we were forced to schedule the migration for the upcoming weekend. Except while I was out in the heat installing a wireless system for a local fraternity, sweaty, tired from having worked up until wee hours trying to fix the server, I get a phone call. I grab my earpiece hanging on its lanyard and put it in my ear; it is the accountant calling. She is freaking out about the lock-ups, scared we will lose date, but nonetheless wants to push the migration off for another two weeks. I explain this is the only way I can guarantee we will not have problems, that we have been putting it off for over six months, and our borrowed time has expired. No, it must be put off, and you have to do something about the server network locking up. The boss has (strangely out of character) approved this message. Fine, but you will have problems, I cannot make any promises, I cannot be held responsible, I am not going to monitor the server 24/7 unless they pay for it because I am leaving next week to visit family, etc. I understand, thank you, she says. In one movement I press the call button on my earpiece, remove it from my ear, and drop it to hang from the lanyard at my chest, again. My colleague working with me asked me about what he heard and in my tired and aggravated state I let loose. This particular colleague is someone I had known for several years, helped him when he first got started, someone I with whom I often speak candidly. It took me a good two minutes or so to realize that I had missed the call button. It was the following week I knew for certain my candid outlay of aggravation had been heard. In just two minutes I had made several professional faux pas and broken the trust of someone who was actually important to me, beyond just a customer. The details are unimportant, so suffice to say a few phone calls back and forth and I had lost them as a customer. In hind sight, I should have gotten ahead of it. Should have called the boss on her cell phone and explained, apologized, done something. This was a hard lesson. A mistake I had never made before. Certainly one I would never, at least at the time of this post, make again. Words are powerful tools. Even more powerful Devastating when misused.

That's why debugging is fun. Hehe, right now that's Turbo Pascal....

Another option for small internal parts that need structural strength is automotive-grade 2-part epoxy, designed to adhere to plastics and metals, sand-able and paintable. Firm to touch in about 15 minutes and hardens fully within a few hours, depending on the size of your application. When I built by 1088XLD, I used a very beat-to-hell 1050 I had in the bottom of my parts pin as a case donor. The 1088XLD front I/O riser boards use the front two drive mechanism supports in the case. In the 1050, there are a press-fit metal pins used to locate and stabilize the mech. In the XLD, you pull those pins out and screw in very small hex-head threaded rods. After the I/O boards are installed and you’ve verified everything is lined up properly and working, you secure it all with nuts and washers. This particular 1050 I think it had been dropped in its past life because one of the supports was cracked badly and broke completely when I was removing the metal pin. I tried super-glue (cyanoacrylate) but it just basically melted the plastic and made a mess. I found a tube of automotive epoxy at Home Depot, mixed up a little bit and used it to hold the pieces together and coat the outside of the case support. When I dried, it was hard as a rock and stronger than the original case plastic. I sanded away the excess, screwed in the new support rod for the XLD I/O boards and it’s better (stronger) than new.

Got mine from SAG today. From what I can tell, the "extras" to the deluxe edition are a NeoPocket sticker, a SAG sticker, and a SAG business card (in addition the case and manual). I got the NGPC "themed" deluxe edition since AES or MVS styled stuff doesn't really "fit" the NGP to me, though I'd probably like the black AES style better overall...I gotta say, this is not really really up to their usual standard for deluxe edition artwork, in my opinion, but at least they provide options. I can also confirm that the BitBox case is just a GBA case with a bit of foam adhered in place to fit the cart. All told, it's only an extra $12 or so to get a nice case, so it's fine. Then again, once you have one of these, you'll never really need to change carts again, so perhaps a case is unnecessary? ? The firmware is v1.02 (the version on RetroHQ matches the one on SAG) and I'm fairly certain my beta cart is is running v1.01 - I'm not sure what the difference is. I haven't played with it a whole lot yet but I haven't seen any noticeable differences thus far. I have a guess based on old beta testing talks with SainT and the rest of the testing crew, but can't be sure (if I'm right, it's nothing major that that the end user would notice in most cases). Regardless, I'm super happy to see this out with distributors and from what I've seen it's been getting a really great response from a larger audience. Really glad to see this getting the love it deserves. I will say I really like the new shell. It looks more like an original cart and has a super nice texture to it. The SD card sits a tad bit more flush with the top of it than it did the old shell. This is minor but definitely makes it seem more polished. Overall, I don't think there's any reason for anyone to "upgrade" unless they just want to. Personally, I wanted a second one anyway, so here we are. But if you've been waiting and don't have one yet, it may be time to go through one of these sites.

Don't forget, if you're playing with Stella and you want it to choose its moves quicker, just TAB to bring up the menu, then select Video and change emulation speed to 1000%. You will need to change it back to 100% after computer has moved, as the UI is unusable at 1000%. But it could turn your 30 minute wait into a 3 minute one.

See attached pictures. Regards, Luis.

P-Code & Disk Controller sidecars.

Gridrunner: 69,710 (level 10) LA SWAT: 47,930

Fixed.

Snow's all gone! Feels like Summer! Soon it'll be the smell of fresh cut grass, the sound of my mountain bike tires on gravel, BBQs, and that "HypnoToad" sound the Atari makes when the cartridge isn't inserted all the way...

Here's the summary for Week 17, running from April 20 - 26. We logged 4518 minutes of eligible play, playing 54 games on a total of 11 systems. Top 10: 1. Legend of Zelda, The (NES/Famicom) - 555 min. (#4) 2. Spy Hunter (Arcade) - 440 min. 3. Tomb Raider II (PlayStation) - 401 min. 4. Streets of Rage 2 (Genesis) - 304 min. (#8) 5. Street Fighter Alpha - Warriors' Dreams (Arcade) - 210 min. (#6) 5. Street Fighter Alpha 2 (Arcade) - 210 min. (#6) 7. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 199 min. 8. Tomb Raider (PlayStation) - 193 min. (#1) 9. RoboCop vs. the Terminator (Genesis) - 167 min. 10. Dolphin (Atari 2600) - 155 min. Pre-NES top 10: 1. Spy Hunter (Arcade) - 440 min. (PN#2) 2. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 199 min. (PN#4) 3. Dolphin (Atari 2600) - 155 min. 4. Pitfall! (Atari 2600) - 142 min. 5. Pac-Man Collection (Atari 7800) - 118 min. (PN#6) 6. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 116 min. (PN#3) 7. Spaceman Splorf (Atari 2600) - 95 min. 8. Asteroids (Arcade) - 67 min. (PN#8) 9. Protector (VIC-20) - 66 min. 10. Asteroids Deluxe (Arcade) - 60 min. Top 10 systems: 1. Arcade (1071) (#2) 2. Atari 2600 (1010) (#3) 3. PlayStation (594) (#6) 4. NES/Famicom (573) (#1) 5. Genesis (562) (#4) 6. Atari 7800 (170) (#9) 7. Sega Saturn (165) (#5) 8. Sega Master System (120) 9. TG-16/PC Engine (112) (#7) 10. VIC-20 (66) This week, Lara is trumped by Zelda and an unnamed agent (perhaps Alec like in the 2001 remake?) which in his turn drives the G-6155 Interceptor long enough to take the pre-NES title by a wide margin. Together with the two Street Fighter Alpha games and a few more, the Arcade platform takes the systems title just ahead of the Atari 2600. Asteroids (Arcade) becomes #404 in the 1000 Minute Club with a total of 1058 minutes while at the same time Tomb Raider II (PlayStation) enters the 5000 Minute Club with 5162 minutes in total. Also the classic tracker now has just over 9300 games listed (though a handful of those with 0 minutes played).