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Here's the release of v1.0 of Pokey Explorer! Pokey Explorer is a tool to explore all possible register combinations of the Atari 8-bit Pokey chip. Here's the source, and some kind of manual This originated in this thread, where you can see how it came to be, and why There are two binaries. One for PAL and one for NTSC, because the sweep timing is different (edit: and the tuning notes are different!) Have fun and explore Please report any bugs you find. pokeyexp-v1.0-ntsc.xex pokeyexp-v1.0-pal.xex

Datasheet update. 1. Terminology update 2. Connectors pinouts added 2. REV register added 3. SYNCTL instead GR10SHD in the GRACTL register. SOPHIA2en_1_2.pdf

Hey folks! I've put together a video showcasing 25 games on the Atari 800. I spend 1-2 minutes on each game - so you can get a proper feel of them.

I am pleased to report that the 'A Tale of Dragons and Swords' boxes have been delivered to Elektronite World HQ in Thailand. We are awaiting the overlays and will be printing the manuals and stickers in Thailand soon. Building of the boxes begins tomorrow.

Just to clarify, I'm very much an optimist in this life. I was optimistic that ATGames would eventually release a Flashback with an SD card slot...And they did! WooHoo! I'm optimistic there will be a vaccine for COVID, that maybe one day Google Maps will just work without telling me I've "dropped a pin" whatever the F that means, and that someday they'll cure cancer... But to imagine that this nutari VCAss will be 1% Fun?

I knew I had this.. I found it while browsing some old disk images. It was on a disk of music files I'd accumulated, and linked together to make a XB music box of sorts... Basic_MUSIC.DSK

Yes, software 80 columns using ANTIC mode F. DT80 is the dumb terminal version for use with the ATR-8000. ACE80 is the right cart version for the 800. ACE80-XL is the left cart version for any Atari. They replace the OS E: device so they work with BASIC, DOS, etc. There are patches for the 80 columns versions of Letter Perfect and Data Perfect. The carts have switched ROM so they don't displace any RAM. They do use over 12K of RAM for display, character buffer, character set, and resident code. This old thread has details, including my first ever post to these forums:

New update time! I've recorded some new footage showing the current game state. Crumbs is now in its final stages of development before i move it over to testing There's still some levels to create, minor bugs to address and a couple of other features i'd like to get in. The video shows some of the progression of the Campaign, played in the first level (House). There are now powerups and stuff but they aren't really featured in this video. Below is some general blurb on the game and how i've laid out the progression. Crumbs! is a new game from Sporadicsoft for the Atari Jaguar console. Run around the levels and collect all the Crumbs while avoiding the Ghosts. The game features Campaign and Arcade style games. The levels are organised into houses with 4 floors per house. There's a new map per House and each of the floors represent the difficulties. There are 3 tools you can use to help detect the proximity of the Ghosts; - Red wall glow (The walls glow red around the Ghosts' radius) - Radar (The top of the screen shows a radar indicating where the Ghosts are in relation to you) - Heartbeat (Your heartbeat speeds up as the Ghosts get closer!) There are 5 powerups to collect and use at your will (they persist between levels); - Speed up (player runs faster!) - Show map (handy for harder difficulties where the map is hidden by default) - Longer lasting power pill - Lights on (Hide the Ghosts and avoid getting caught) - Freeze Ghosts CAMPAIGN Work your way through all the houses to clear them. The map layout changes for each house and the difficulty changes for each floor in a house. You only have to clear 1 floor to move to the next house but to achieve a high score and rewards you should try and clear the entire house (all floors). Campaign progress is saved to the cart; Houses unlocked, floors cleared in all houses, power ups collected, current score, lives and maximum Arcade level unlocked. ARCADE Choose a difficulty level and progress though that floor in each of the houses in turn. The starting level can be chosen as you unlock them in the Campaign. DIFFICULTY LEVELS - Easy - Map always visible. Good for learning the House map. - Medium - Map only visible when power pills eaten. - Hard - Map always hidden. Collectables not shown on radar. Reduced distance of Ghost red wall glow. - Nightmare - Map always hidden. Dark play area (walls hard to navigate) - Only ghosts shown on radar. Further reduced distance of Ghost red wall glow. Highscores are all saved to cart; 1 scoreboard for Campaign and 4 for the separate Arcade difficulties.

eBay alchemy.... turning poop into gold ?

Beery, I agree on both counts. Early on, someone contacted me about 3d-printed cases (he also did cases for the FinalGROM). You could also buy a right-sized plastic box as case, but you have to be careful to not put too much stress on the edge connector -- the PCB has to be at exactly the right height. This is probably easier with a printed case. I also will start on documentation soon. The SDD is quite complex, and I think it would be nice if the beta testers will have some reference material as well. I plan to do online but also a PDF version.

Overall Total Points Update: 1. IntyFanMatt [+160] 2. Rickster8 [+157] 3. INTELLIVISION SPARTAN [+145] 4. BiffMan [+138] 5. JacobZu7zu7 [+98] 6. mr_me [+93] 7. Ace24 [+79] 8. Player One [+56] 9. hoosierdadee78 [+54] 9. fakecortex [+54] 11. Intelligentleman [+44] 12. gar0u [+34] 13. JasonlikesINTV [+19] 13. roadrunner [+19] 15. Mangia-boy [+13] 16. Popsicle [+12] 17. ed1475 [+11] 17. jblenkle [+11] 19. Jimmy KDawg [+7] 20. Oscar G. [+6] 21. S.BAZ [+4] 22. dpisacane [+3] 23. cmadruga [+1]

ZPH RETURNS THIS FRIDAY! The construction is done and the studio is put back together! We can't wait to get back to streaming the newest in Atari 2600 Homebrew goodness. There's SO MUCH GOOD STUFF coming up that we're going to be packed full of incredible games for a long time! We have a ton of EXCLUSIVE WORLD PREMIERES and other unannounced secret events and games that I can't wait to share with everyone! Tune in this Friday for ZPH's return! See you then! ZPH SCHEDULE: https://atariage.com/forums/topic/276956-zeropage-homebrew-twitch-stream/

I just got an "USB IBM Floppy Disk Reader" from ShopGoodwill online and it turned out to also be a writer! I just wanted to get it because it was only $8 and it was in great condition (even came with the original carrying case) Score!

For those who did not already pickup my roms Halloween special Prices at roms. 50% at checkout. Offer valid from now to at least 1.nov http://romstore.mtxworld.dk Intellivision Roms and ColecoVision roms.

FINAL FROG BOG UPDATE: GAME WINNERS BIFFMAN AND YOURS TRULY!!! BIFFMAN ACTUALLY WON BOTH GAMES, I MANAGED TO TIE HIM ON THE LAST DAY IN FIXED ARC!!! CONGRATS EVERYONE ON A GREAT TURN-OUT!!! (Regular Game) Fixed Arc: 1. 545 Biffman - TIE [+13 +2] ?? 1. 545 Rickster8 - TIE [+13 +2] ?? 3. 525 Popsicle [+12] 4. 440 mr_me - TIE [+11] 4. 440 Gar0u - TIE [+11] ------------------------------ 6. 425 IntyFanMatt [+9] 7. 420 JaconZu7zu7 [+8] 8. 405 Player One [+7] 9. 395 Ace24 [+6] 10. 325 fakecortex [+5] 11. 310 Intelligentleman [+4] 12. 240 roadrunner [+3] 13. 160 Mangia-Boy [+2] (Bonus Level) Dir. & Tongue: 1. 660 Biffman [+7 +2] ?? 2. 635 Rickster8 [+6] 3. 515 mr_me [+5] 4. 475 Ace24 [+4] 5. 420 IntyFanMatt [+3] 6. 400 Intelligentleman [+2] 7. 370 Player One [+1] 8. 315 Gar0u [+1] 9. 210 Mangia-Boy [+1] 10. 175 fakecortex [+1] 11. 85 jblenkle [+1] Overall Total Points and Games Won Update to follow shortly..... ?

I've been playing the practice game for the last week, just to get nice and good before I post my first score. Muah ha ha. ? ...I'm not knocking any of you, but based on practice mode, this game seems like a push-over.

I have optimized the sprite drawing in the same way as for the walls. The number of instructions per pixel has dropped from 8-9 to 2-5. texcaster.rpk texcaster8.bin

The MEGA Speedy has become my go-to drive, except for an occasional DS/DD disk in my library. It is so handy not to switch drives between my Happy and Super Archiver. I should have bought two! I suspect that ABBUC could sell quite a few, but I also realize that they are time-consuming to produce, unless the whole production could be outsourced.

Hi all, I just haven't had the time to enjoy my 5200 collection so have decided to sell it. I have all the released games (except Bounty Bob Strikes Back) in CIB and a couple in NIB (Choplifter, Gremlins, and Space Invaders). I would like to sell it all together if someone is interested. The price is $1999 with free shipping in the USA. Feel free to ask questions and shoot me a PM if interested. Pictures are below.

That's true about gaming. Games can be fun no matter how old they are or what they look like. As long as they can be played via emulation or real hardware they're good to go. I was thinking about how much presentation an appearance affect whether it's gramps' old junk, or maybe something cool to hang on to. Because. Currently. I still have a room or so haphazardly and disoranizedly filled with leftover Apple II stuff. As it sits right now it looks like a rotting mess. Nothing speaks "old" better than that pile. Some weeks ago I let the wife have at a master closet and she got everything cleaned up nicely. I don't even remember or care what was in there. It's gone and that's that. Save for the console I had as a kid (and in the 80's) I feel like more and more of the "collection" is transmuting itself into useless junk. It's like a creeping disease almost.

Every day a little improvement...

While taking the opportunity to fix more bugs and address issues with problematic SD cards, I have discovered that hot-swapping issues on my free-floating pre-production board were caused by my failure to karate-chop the SD card into the connector with the edge of my hand. This handy technique allows cards which hitherto produced 'Card error' half of the time to hot-swap pretty consistently. However, since this usage scenario is hopefully not representative of the production device, it's difficult to calibrate anything on a 'one-size-fits-all' basis with a pre-production device which may have a lazy card-present latch. But... all is not lost. After spending the last week watching with envious green eyes as users' SIDE3s arrive in Canada, USA, and possibly even Outer Mongolia, I got a tracking update: Excitement prevails...

My River Raid Update: A tad bit more improvement. Not very good at this game at all.... ? 18,690

Small improvement: 60,060

Ok I will update all the tie errors this season and put together an adjusted points total. I will fix it dude..... ??

Same as Disc. Starts at Bridge 1, just an update. I don't own the game, so I read the manual to see what this Disc game variation is called.

ScanImage02_page_0001.tif ScanImage02_page_0002.tif ScanImage02_page_0003.tif ScanImage02_page_0004.tif ScanImage02_page_0005.tif ScanImage02_page_0006.tif ScanImage02_page_0007.tif ScanImage02_page_0008.tif ScanImage02_page_0009.tif ScanImage02_page_0010.tif ScanImage02_page_0011.tif ScanImage02_page_0012.tif ScanImage02_page_0013.tif ScanImage02_page_0014.tif

Only 10 more days to get in on AtariAge Secret Santa!

Another record. ? 57,340 Looks like when your score passes 50k, the letters turn black on the final screen. Not sure what that’s all about though.

i just got these 4 games for 28 bucks. All of them are CIB. I wanted Dreadnaught Factor! Boxes are not in the best shape, but good enugh...

4888 Here where I reached.:

My River Raid Update: A little improvement. More than halfway to the Patch. ? I had a sweet game going and then lost 3 guys really fast at the end. Ugh.... ? 17,840

I don’t know where cheap C64s are anymore. The price on them, at least ones available to me in Canada, have gone crazy lately. Atari is a cheaper option from what I can find. I may get a The C64 Maxi when they start shipping in November, as for US$130 it seems to be an excellent all-in-one 8bit with new hardware, and a lot less than what it would take for me to get even a basic C64 setup. Since I first commented I picked up a CoCo 3 for a surprisingly good price, and I will amend my previous assessment. I found the CoCo 2 lacklustre, but the 3 with a $20 512k ram upgrade and a CoCo SDC is a fantastic computer with a much better game library. Highly recommended.

THREAD_TOPIC EQU $2808 ; -/W ; Writing any value contributes noise to the thread and increments the subject counter by one. ; ; After 192 ($C0) writes the subject counter will automatically wrap back to $00. While the counter's value can't be ; read directly the loopback point can be detected by an uptick in complaining about the hardware's poor audio, lack ; of POKEY, and assumptions regarding GCC's intention to make their own way-better-than-anything-ever sound chip ; which could have saved the 7800, satiated world hunger, cured all diseases, cleaned up all pollution, ended all fighting, ; and funded the development of a truly sentient robot dog.

I hardly see any atgames or any of those little mini arcades or even the arcade1ups in my area, Windsor Ontario. It doesn't bother me because personally I think all that stuff is a bunch of cheap crap, but that's just my opinion so sorry to those out there that love it. Point is, yes, it seems Canada isn't a high priority for some of these retro companies which have relative success in the marketplace, something new Atari will struggle with in the US market, let alone Canada so I don't see much penetration, if at all, here at the retail level.

Overall Total Points Update: 1. IntyFanMatt [+160] 2. Rickster8 [+157] 3. INTELLIVISION SPARTAN [+145] 4. BiffMan [+138] 5. JacobZu7zu7 [+98] 6. mr_me [+93] 7. Ace24 [+79] 8. Player One [+56] 9. hoosierdadee78 [+54] 9. fakecortex [+54] 11. Intelligentleman [+44] 12. gar0u [+34] 13. JasonlikesINTV [+19] 13. roadrunner [+19] 15. Mangia-boy [+13] 16. Popsicle [+12] 17. ed1475 [+11] 17. jblenkle [+11] 19. Jimmy KDawg [+7] 20. Oscar G. [+6] 21. S.BAZ [+4] 22. dpisacane [+3] 23. cmadruga [+1]

Lol, yeaaaah the key word there is 'seems'...... ? Got two words for you. BIG CANNONS!!! ? ENJOY!!!!

Hi all, and thanks for the messages. So far, people seem to only be interested in the rare type of games versus the whole lot. Also, everyone is generally interested in them. If I end up parting it out then it will likely have to go to eBay so I don't look like I'm playing favorites. LOL! ?

I'm very pleased to say that this problem I had now seems resolved. Many thanks to @Simius for providing me an alternate firmware, and to @flashjazzcat for both comments here, and the excellent information provided in your Youtube videos, of which I have watched many and has been one of my main sources of info for info on mods to my 800XL. Specific info which helped I found here from around 20.50 onwards where the same problem I had was occurring. So, after receiving the firmware, and then ordering and after a few days received a USB blaster and micro-match connector I proceeded to Source Quartus suite for the programming, and kicked off this little project last night. Last night was actually a complete failure as I couldn't get the damn thing to detect the USB blaster, and after some major faffing with the Jtag server service, different drivers (causing a few blue screens!), turning off driver signing on Win 10, I gave up at around 2am. I had the idea the blaster was crap, so ordered another, and now note I got lucky and sourced the exact one used here in the video (Hobby Components). Seems I got a dodgy £7 clone before, but the extra £3 I spent made all the difference! Firmware went on with no fuss, and so far it's behaving nicely now. Now this firmware is 1280x1024 which is the same resolution I had before, however previously I could only get it to work on one of my screens. Now with this one it syncs with another monitor it definitely didn't work with before. Means I don't have to switch inputs on the screen I use for work, so I can flip between things more easily - double win. I'll report back if anything weird continues, but I've given it a fair old test this evening so far. I did have my own "Ah S*it, here we go again" moment however after putting the Atari back together, related to my recently received Side3, however I think that merits another post, as could be a bug that needs looking at in the loader.

Exomizer has changed, current SP version support newest Exomizer (is attached)

2,073 - game 7 Hey... Where'd the Earth go? It's just off screen, right? Dead Meat to Mission Control... Dead Meat to Mission Control... Guys?

If your emmu is working it should look like this

Okay I know a few people want me to get to work on Inty Sonic, but my plate has been filled with other things. It will still happen just not now...

Real gamers don't use save sates.

What did I find in the mail today? A Box!!!! Nice.

178 in this case refers to the number of minutes he played, not part of the game title. The Sydney Hunter games are recent homebrews by the way.

Wow that seems like a really high score, great job. I need to try this one again, and hopefully will get used to the difficulty a little more. That is interesting to know. 12 years of tracking these game is pretty amazing. Thanks for tracking this weeks times again, I really do appreciate it. I never really played the Colecovision that much. But since Im starting to play the Atari 2600 more, I should try and give this system a shot. That's a funny title as well, I wonder why they used the # 178?

Here's the summary for Week 41, running from October 5 - 11. We logged 2575 minutes of eligible play, playing 110 games on a total of 13 systems. Top 10: 1. Akumajō Dracula X: Gekka no Yasōkyoku (JP version of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night) (Sega Saturn) - 293 min. (#1) 1. Jr. Pac-Man (Atari 2600) - 293 min. 3. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 257 min. (#3) 4. Ecco the Dolphin (Sega CD) - 240 min. 5. Sydney Hunter and the Caverns of Death (ColecoVision) - 178 min. (#6) 6. Jr. Pac-Man (Arcade) - 131 min. (#10) 7. Space Griffon VF-9 (PlayStation) - 112 min. 8. Laser Gates (Atari 2600) - 99 min. (#7) 9. Mega Man X3: New Zero Project v4.1 (SNES) - 90 min. 10. Bases Loaded (NES/Famicom) - 76 min. (#8) Pre-NES top 10: 1. Jr. Pac-Man (Atari 2600) - 293 min. 2. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 257 min. (PN#1) 3. Sydney Hunter and the Caverns of Death (ColecoVision) - 178 min. (PN#3) 4. Jr. Pac-Man (Arcade) - 131 min. (PN#6) 5. Laser Gates (Atari 2600) - 99 min. (PN#4) 6. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 72 min. (PN#10) 7. Galaxian (Atari 2600) - 40 min. 8. Pac-Man Collection (Atari 7800) - 30 min. 9. Pressure Cooker (Atari 2600) - 29 min. 10. Jet Set Willy 2019 (Atari 8-bit) - 23 min. Top 10 systems: 1. Atari 2600 (909) (#1) 2. NES/Famicom (387) (#2) 3. Sega Saturn (293) (#4) 4. Sega CD (240) 5. ColecoVision (178) (#3) 6. Arcade (136) (#6) 7. PlayStation (122) (#9) 8. SNES (90) 9. Genesis (68) (#8) 10. Atari ST (57) This week, Alucard & c:o share first place with Jr. Pac-Man, with the first four within 60 minutes of eachother. Jr. Pac-Man (Atari 2600) also takes the pre-NES title and in total the Atari 2600 remains the most played system. A welcome return to the Atari ST platform, which barely has been played since September 2012 when @twoquickcapri routinely posted times for it. Despite a massive 110 games being logged (mainly on the NES), none exceed the 1000, 5000 or 10000 minute barriers. As noted, next Monday October 19 marks 12 years since the tracker was started. Hurray!

Okay, I'll play too.. My parents had a lot of big parties when I was a kid, everybody was always drinking beer and smoking because people were actually cool back then. As a kid I liked it because we could basically get away with anything during these shindigs. The older cooler teens and adults would hang upstairs while us younger kids would play in the basement. There would usually be some random kids I'd never seen before (and didn't particularly like) frakking with my sweet A-team toys or Hogging my Fischer Price adventure set BUT with no supervision (or dreaded bedtime) and a giant bowl of M&Ms we could tear into all night...it was worth it!! We would sneak (seemingly unlimited) room temperature soda from the porch and at some point the night would always turn into a "lord of the flies" style game of the floor is lava mixed with "dodgeball" using random stuffed animals I had outgrown. Any other night we could never pull it off...but party nights were different! It was a free for all! Yeah, Id usually pass out completely satisfied on a bean bag chair in a sugar coma and my Dad would carry me to my room. The late 70's and early 80's were truly a magical time ...but one of these parties my Dad called me upstairs...this was...unusual... I walked up the stairs and through the kitchen, there was a haze of smoke and (loud) chatter. Some random girl said "awwww, whats this little guy doing up here" and patted my head while she grabbed a beer from the fridge. She had a tight shirt and no bra and they pressed right into my face when she gave me a hug. I felt like I was definitely not supposed to be upstairs. Everyone was wearing bandanas, backwards hats, and even sleeveless jean jackets with patches! They were the coolest people I had ever seen!! I heard my Dad yell for me again, he was in the living room. I walked in and immediately saw my cool older cousin in the crowd. He was wearing a Rolling Stones T shirt with sunglasses...INDOORS! He was like 9 years older than me so he was by default the COOLEST person I knew, he even had a season pass to the Go kart tracks! I was actually currently growing my hair long just like his. I said Hi but He just pointed at the TV...even without talking that dude was cool...I wanted to be that cool too... "Give it to him" My Dad said... I didn't even look at the TV because there was a LARGE man with a shaved head and army tattoos sitting cross legged in front of it. I knew this guy, he was my friends dad and he was freaking terrifying. We were all scared of him, he was a bad ass marine that didn't take any shit....he would yell at any of us kids if we got out of line. He stood up and signaled for me to take the video game controller, he even (half assed) smiled...that dude NEVER smiled...it didn't feel genuine. I really did not want to be upstairs anymore...I wanted to go back downstairs where I belonged. The wonderland of sugar and toys with no rules! This was too overwhelming, everyone was quiet now and looking at me. I walked forward, awkwardly, and took the controller... When I looked at the screen I immediately recognized it. DONKEY KONG!! I had never played or even seen an Atari 2600 but I knew the arcade machine. Looking back at it I bet my Dad talked me up a bit as some kind of arcade whiz-kid, maybe that is why you could hear a pin drop when I started playing... I grabbed the controller and immediately walked right into a barrel and died... Defeated, I handed the controller back to the marine, my Dad said "try again" while the Marine said "you have to jump the barrels" I obviously knew that but just nodded out of fear and tried again. My cousin started cheering me on, the girls sitting on the couch with him followed suit. I felt a sudden surge of confidence. I was so nervous the actual gameplay is a blur, but in the end I had a decent game for a kid. People clapped, I handed the controller to some random girl and she asked ME how to play it. I felt pretty damn awesome. My cousin handed me a COLD soda from the upstairs fridge and even said he was going to take me to the arcade with his (much older and cooler) friends someday and he would PAY for all of it!! We could even go in his car! (he had a pretty rad lemans that everyone liked) WOW!! For the next few minutes EVERYONE was talking about video games. The marine said he was getting an Intellivision because it was way better and he made sure everyone knew it meant "intelligent television" people were talking about Pacman, etc.. It was one of those moments you try to explain to younger people now that don't understand just how BIG these early games were back when they came out. They laugh at the simplicity and graphics but if you were there, when it happened, you knew everyone had video game fever!! Even if it was unfortunately a bit short lived for me... I ended up going back downstairs that night as my time with the cool teens and adults had expired but not before I ran to my room and grabbed a Corvette mesh hat (that I put on backwards) and an awful pair of sunglasses that I could barely see out of. I still had fun down there but it felt different now... My cousin never did take me to the arcade and my parents and their friends outgrew the video game phase just as quick as it started. In no time at all the box of atari stuff and a small black and white TV ended up in my room...forgotten by them but always cherished by me. The party with the atari as the centerpiece turned back into adults/teens upstairs parties with the kids downstairs playing the atari nobody cared about anymore. I will always remember when it was everything though, I was there man, I saw it! I lived it... I sometimes wonder if I were just born a few years earlier, I could have had a little more time with the Atari when it was king of the mountain...but maybe then I too would have left it behind like everyone else did...then again maybe not. I still read comics, watch cartoons and play video games just like I did 30-40 years ago. Ive tried to stop, I don't want to...maybe I'll just never grow up Donkey Kong for the Atari 2600 will always be something special for me though... The Atari 2600 will always be special to me...

I recently reformatted the pdf with all text retyped and all images' contrast/brightness adjusted for better results with my printer (your mileage may vary). I thought to upload the pdf here, but turns out my adjustments made the thing 56MB ? (prolly because I made it 600dpi). So, here's a google drive link. Zipped up it's just over 42MB. https://drive.google.com/open?id=15iKTEZx-zPzCkA6aM72a9Pmsv4BgXIsx If you print with Adobe Acrobat or some variant of it, choose the "Booklet" setting. You'll want to be able to print double sided. For my printer, I found out "Orientation" had to be "Portrait," (NOT "Landscape" like you'd think). It will print Landscape either way, but when set to Landscape, it prints the reverse-side pages upside-down. Here's a screenshot of my Adobe print settings: Printed like this, you can fold the stack of pages in half to make a booklet, staple it at the center line, and trim off the edges. It should turn out like the pic in my earlier post.