Leaderboard

This is how far a got trying to show the original Zaxxon graphics on a TI-99/4A with F18A VDP replacement. The graphics are using ECM3 mode with 8 colors per pattern or sprite from one of 8 palettes, in a resolution of 224x240 pixels. The first challenge was to display the background, which is using 702 patterns - far more than the 256 patterns available. Luckily no single screen is using more than 251 patterns, which means I could dynamically load the new patterns after scrolling each column of 8 pixels. It also gave me just enough patterns (5) to add a tile layer 2 mask that covers the sides and the top/bottom slopes. There are no patterns left for text or anything else. The diagonal scrolling is no problem for the F18A, but it uses 4K VDP RAM for the name table (screen image table). The next challenge was the sprites. They are generally 32x32 pixels (except for the rockets), so they are using a lot a resources. Since there was only VDP memory for 32 sprite patterns (8 32x32 patterns), I quickly ran out after picking just a few for the demo (no room even for the plane). I'm also running out of actual sprites (needing more than 32), which you can tell from some of the sprites blinking in the demo. With a few KB extra VDP RAM for sprite patterns this could be turned into a game, but the graphics would probably have to be simplified in some cases. zaxxon8.bin

The "I ate'nt dead" update

All TIPI models are now in stock.. combo 32k/tipi, sidecar and PEB also restocked SAMS PEB cards .. working on more sidecars

After having a coarse idea for an one button racing game, I went ahead and started coding. The current result is nowhere near to being complete, but I think it is good enough for a first impression. On real hardware it works with a QuadTari and four(!) sets of paddles, from which only the buttons are used. Gameplay: Press SELECT to select game length (30, 60 or 90 seconds) and difficulty (white = kids, blue = easy, yellow = normal, red = hard). Difficulty affects computer AI and braking. Set LEFT DIFFICULTY switch to A to activate red colored "SuperBoost" arrows. These occur randomly and provide twice the boost of a normal arrow. Press RESET to start the 5 seconds race countdown (indicated by 5 appearing red lights). During the countdown, each player must press his fire button to activate his/her car. The activated cars will become brighter, the other cars will be controlled by the computer AI. After the countdown, the race starts. During the race, press the fire button while your car is over the boost arrows. The arrows will turn your car's color if done right and black if you missed them. The former will accelerate your car, the latter will brake. The position of a car reflects its position in the race (not the gap to opponents). This gap will increase during the race, moving the leading cars further to the right. This reduces the reaction time for new boost arrows. Shortly after the race is over, the distance covered by each car will be displayed instead of the cars. Note: This game uses paddles (fire buttons only), up to eight if you use a QuadTari. There is no end to the game yet, you can only try to take the lead. BTW: During coding, I found that the latest Stella 6.5.2 still is missing some QuadTari support. Paddles aren't working as expected. But you can use Joysticks with directions left/right instead. Default mappings for 3rd and 4th controller are the identical to 1st and 2nd controller, but with Shift pressed. And since my QuadTari is still shipping, testing is a bit hard currently. Vroom 8! (v0.2) (PAL60).bin Vroom 8! (v0.2).bin Vroom 8! (v0.3) (PAL60).bin Vroom 8! (v0.3) (NTSC).bin Vroom 8! (v0.4) (PAL60).bin Vroom 8! (v0.4) (NTSC).bin Vroom 8! (v0.5) (PAL60).bin Vroom 8! (v0.5) (NTSC).bin Vroom! (v0.6) (PAL60).bin Vroom! (v0.6) (NTSC).bin Vroom! (v0.7) (PAL60).bin Vroom! (v0.7) (NTSC).bin Vroom! (v0.8) (PAL60).bin Vroom! (v0.8) (NTSC).bin Vroom! (v0.90) (PAL60).bin Vroom! (v0.90) (NTSC).bin VROOM! (v1.0) (PlusROM) (PAL60).bin VROOM! (v1.0) (PlusROM) (NTSC).bin

All, I have been working on designing a new 384k daughter board to be mounted into the current SRAM socket without having to piggyback chips for the original 3x128k mod to get the 384k or install additional sockets for the a 32 pin dip 512k x 8 chip. I received a few test boards to verify the design of the PCB. Between referencing documentation that @InsaneMultitasker and @fabrice montupet website for details. I came up with this PCB. I did find a trace I missed, but it was an easy fix. This is not going to be the final PCB as the SMD 1N4148 diodes are a hell of a lot smaller than I thought. I have been able to rework the board to allow for through-hole diodes. However, in order to keep this board small enough to just plug into the existing socket I had to go with a SMD version of the 512k x 8. The same wire management can be used. This board will require a handful of wires to be soldered to the header pins and ran to the respective connections of the Gate Array and U29 LS244. Attached are some photos along with what I believe will be the final board rendering. I will be order a few test boards for this revision next day or so. I want to go over it a few more times. If there is interest I will make a run. I will be posting a poll, so please if you are interested please answer the poll. I can provide a DIY Kit and Assembled/Tested in the poll (Estimated prices will be in the Poll) Intial Board design: Top Bottom Installed in Geneve and all wired up! Powered on... Decided to go ahead and replace my LED since it was old and dull. Not now! chkdsk command shows the correct memory memtest shows good too.. New hopefully final design: Top: Bottom:

You are both correct on this. Marc originally called it the SID Blaster (and I actually included that name on the original layout I did for him). He changed the name to SID Master 99 before he had the first lot of boards fabricated, though. It has been SID Master 99 ever since (and I should have a new run of the boards in hand within a few weeks, along with some more PEB Extenders, as I am just waiting for the fab to finish them and send them my way).

I received the fifth (!) round of manual proofs last week, and they all looked great! The order finally went into production and I should have the manuals by the end of this week. There are some reprints of earlier manuals above as well. There are no Jaguar manuals in the above image, as I didn't need to run proofs for them again. However, the entire order needs to be printed together, which is now being done. I'll have more physical proofs for the labels this week, and if those look good they will also go into production. The light at the end of the tunnel is getting closer! I'm really looking forward to getting these new games out to everyone! ..Al

I received the fifth (!) round of manual proofs last week, and they all looked great! The order finally went into production and I should have the manuals by the end of this week. There are some reprints of earlier manuals above as well that you can see in the above image (Colony 7, Conquest of Mars, Epic Adventure, etc.). But most of the manuals above are for new games, and this doesn't include the Jaguar manuals (didn't need to run those proofs again). I'll have more physical proofs for the labels this week, and if those look good they will also go into production. The light at the end of the tunnel is getting closer! I'm really looking forward to getting these new games out to everyone! ..Al

<DELETED PREVIOUS POST - probably a mute point since it's already propagated through quotes> Although I still feel that what I wrote wasn't far off the mark, I shouldn't have posted it. I let a bad mood and an annoyance get the better of me. For that I am truly sorry.

slowly working on posting about 30 pieces of software with manuals for this weekend. A big MBX drop and Databotics. Also LOGO, which I found I some how forgot to add previously.

Go ahead and re-download, I've updated the cartpack.dll in the zip file. That's all that was missing. Still not used to that being separate.

Just for fun I recorded a few executables I had around since I was playing around on my machine for some other tests and recordings Those were recorded off a NTSC 800xl. This sounds pretty damn cool! Exo Area1.ogg Exo Area5.ogg Exo Title.ogg

This is a detailed technical description about Pokey and SIO synchronous mode using an external clock. It is a continuation of a research I started years ago in this thread: https://atariage.com/forums/topic/139769-sio-synchronous-mode I am compiling a detailed document that would be available here together with sources and other technical data: https://github.com/ijor/sioSync In the meantime a quick highlight of the main issues for those technically oriented. Max bitrate is one third of the main system clock, which would be ~597 KHz. Pokey can't shift a serial bit in less than 3 cycles. I will elaborate about this later. The start bit must be more than PHI2 5 cycles. So the maximum effective speed is about 33 PHI2 cycles per byte, or ~ 54 KBPS. Higher frequencies require using push pull signals, including the serial clock. The pullups on these signals are too weak for open drain operation at the higher frequencies. Without special precautions Pokey sometimes might miss a pulse of the serial clock. This would create errors about once every 100 packets transferred regardless the bitrate. It is possible to avoid this by aligning the serial clock correctly to the system clock. This can be done purely with software without any hardware modification, although it might be challenging at the highest frequency. The software side at the Atari it is also challenging at the maximum frequency. At 33/34 cycles per incoming byte both interrupts and Antic DMA must be disabled. Even then, it is difficult, but not impossible, to update the checksum on the fly. Will follow up with more details.

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So... Time to test it and make documentation for developers.

in post #30, VOL wrote: However T40XB is still not polished enough. Its glyph for the tilde character is corrupted so I had to define it in this program. Thanks for catching that. In the T40XB included with the Betelgeuse3 package the tilde is one pixel higher than the one you defined and there is an extra dot in the bottom pixel row. The version of T40XB built into XB 2.8 G.E.M. has a tilde exactly like yours. I will see why this is happening and correct it.

Whew. I thought my board said 'SID Blaster', maybe it was an early run. I don't have the card any longer. For Geneve reference I am fairly certain that the player maps >BA into the >4000 space mapper address at the start of the program. Then for both the TI and Geneve, the IO routine scans for WDS, IDE, and SCS devices to cache an appropriate entry point. I don't recall how (or if?) this is documented in the user guide. I have the source if changes are needed in the future.

OK, problem solved and I feel like the biggest f'n idiot on planet Earth. ? ? I had the jumpers upside down on the UAV board. Didn't just do it once but TWICE! ? Even bought a new UAV. ugh. What so weird is that the board worked fine except for that weird problem. I had used the printed manual that came with the UAV but this time I cross referenced with the digital copy. Guess I just looked at it wrong in the book. Anyway, so the other board was probably fine too. I might use it to mod by 2600. That is as soon as I feel confident enough to work on something more technical than a fork. AND, you all where right, it wasn't the capacitors.

There's nothing like going to the fridge, opening it up and realizing you miscalculated, and life just got "one beer better"!

Hi there, I see I never posted this. I started this because I was curious how they stored the library of words after reverse-engineering Hangman. Word Zapper Disassembly

CRT is gone.

Here is a large zip file with the documentation for SCHOLASTIC SPELLING LEVEL FIVE PHM3061. REQUIRES SPEECH SYNTHESISER. Aimed at US Grades 4 to 7, UK grades 5-8, rest of world ages 9 to 13 - but the Level 5 indicates US Grade 5. Read, print, OCR (difficult!) or PDF as you wish. The zip contains hi res (400dpi) clean scans of the 48 page A4 manual (the smaller print answers pages are at 480dpi), the folder insert, and the new style green cartridge label. The manual is on high acid newsprint and mine is quite a dark yellow, brittle and powdering... magic tape can only do so much. Repair work has also been carried out digitally with cut and paste and paint! Clean up has included removing my sons felt-tip answers... The print is to the exact edge of the paper which may cause difficulty if you wish to print on a printer that doesn't allow that. SpellingLevel5.zip

Well, derail #17 (or whatever, I cannot count). I liked this episode of the Simpsons - the no-Homer's club... "Sorry, no Homer's."

I have confirmed that all 8 buttons work. I'm looking forward to seeing you guys race 4 cars each.

My HEMAN Update: Some improvement (Now over 200k). 207,900

Now this takes me back. 15 or 20 years ago, I had tracked down the programmer of Klax and interviewed him for fun. About the same time, Klax was being assembled on a cart in this release by ResQSoft. Realizing that our timelines were sort of lining up, we ended up collaborating together, so I contributed my interview to the "Tips and Tricks" booklet that came with that Klax release. The same guy that programmed Klax made Ninja Golf. The interview gave insights into how that game came about conceptually, and a few other fun details if I remember right. I've got one on my shelf.

Here you are ... including source code. I tried it on my real Geneve. (Actually, I'm not that fast, but I wrote this program already a year ago.) speed.dsk Edit: The program runs some read iterations on different pages; the results are 10ths of seconds. You will see that for a 1 waitstate page you get about 110, while a 0 waitstate page delivers about 100. I adjusted the iteration count so that one wait state delivers 1 second of added runtime.

The SID Master 99 is available in MAME since 0.225 if you want to test it (device "sidmaster").

The front and back covers are exactly the same, although the spine has the Australian distributors information on it. I've included pics of the cart as well, hope they are ok

Frogger: Finally, I connected the Atari 130XE to the TV. All games from atarionline.pl in my atari

I may do better later.....I think this game is fun and challenging.

Sent from my LM-V600 using Tapatalk

This thread is back on-track since post #3892. And it did so without the need for self-appointed mall-cops, and their stirring mall-closure drama. The boat already sailed.

124300 level 11, zero wizards Intellivision hardware I find the castle stage the toughest of the three. Tougher than the dungeon.

Done as a test, and revealed a few "interesting" bits about the internal doom engine. Those are the contents of the pc wad converted to jaguar (sound,. Textures, flats and sprites) - still some errors (like the flemoids going invisible and the HUD location being a bit off) but playable.

Couldn't pass it up after finding it stashed away for several decades in a back room of my church's office, made a $75 donation and took it home with their approval. They didn't really care about the money, but I knew this thing was nice and would be of value to some of us retro gamers. Sony Trinitron KV-27XBR35 from 1992. Looks gorgeous and the sound is surprisingly great as well with some weird room filling thing it does using two back speakers. Killer score imo. I'll now be giving away my 19" Samsung TXH1970, which is also fine but not nearly as nice. Keeping my 13" clear prison TV cuz it is nice and portable and because everyone who ever looks at it is like, "WTF is that TV" unless you've been in a prison for some reason or know about it.

As it so happens, I am looking at going the 512K route on my PFM Geneve, I'm repairing. Was just studying @fabrice montupet 's details a few minutes ago. I have installed sips instead of sockets in the positions for the sram and pfm+/bios chips.

ANALOG #35, G: printer driver.

If it’s not in Trebor’s pack I would say it’s never been publicly released. I lucked into what I am sure is a repro copy not too long ago. I was very happy to add this gem to my 7800 Collection. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

level 6 + 22,600 = 82,600

Excellent Question Giles! Asteroids Deluxe (Arcade) Star Castle (Whatever version they can figure out) Gradius (NES or Arcade) Mr. Do! (Arcade preferred) Jumpman Jr. (ColecoVision) Ultimate Qix (Genesis) Devil's Crush (Turbografx) Faxanadu (NES) Deadly Towers (NES) Targ (Arcade) Blue Max (C64) Dragon's Lair (Coleco ADAM) Cybernoid (NES or C64) Astro Blaster (Arcade preferred) Phoenix (Arcade or Atari) Super Columns (Game Gear) Breath of Fire (SNES) Any Twisted Metal (PlayStation) Frenzy (Arcade) K C Munchkin (Odyssee 2) Revenge of the Gator (Game Boy) Viewpoint (Neo Geo) Any Bomberman (Any version) Omega Race (Arcade or ColecoVision) Joust (Any version but the NES) Solstice (SNES) Dark Cavern (Atari 2600) Armor Attack II (Atari 7800 - Homebrew) Jaki Crush (Super Famicom)

I think when we wrap this up (about a week?) we should collate/post a list of names for the giveaway, post them here to make sure everyone's happy to be entered and we haven't missed anyone. Then I think perhaps ask @ZeroPage Homebrew to write each name on a post-it or something small and put in a jar and draw the winner live on the show. How does that sound?

I was never very good at these things and at first I couldn't see how to do this in Forth in one line. But I had an idea. Full disclosure in Camel99 I have to load the file that changes the system to Graphics mode which is the default in Basic but traditionally not in Forth. (I could put that in the START file and it would load when you start up Forth but you will have to give me that one or disqualify me as you see fit) I made use of the fact the characters 0 to 8 are undefined so I manually wrote the single line (FF) into each byte of each successive character pattern but bumped 1 byte forward on each character. I used a loop counting up and a loop counting down to emit the characters onto the screen and wrapped the whole thing up in BEGIN AGAIN. No GOTO in Forth. Type RUN and off it goes. It's not quite as fast as compiled BASIC but it's not bad. Thanks for the making an old man think Greg. HEX : RUN FF 841 800 DO DUP I VC! 9 +LOOP BEGIN 7 0 DO I EMIT LOOP 0 7 DO I EMIT -1 +LOOP AGAIN ; Classic99 QI399.025 2021-03-01 20-30-55.mp4

It works! My sd cards came with header soldered in. I just removed the black plastic piece, soldered it in and clipped the pins. Tight fit but it all worked out. It fits in the case pretty well, just a minor bit of trimming. VID_20210301_200643811.mp4

Workin' on that 3rd crystal. Check out this consecutive score... 6,789 I'm really diggin the graphics in this one too. The demons in the first cave remind me of the flying ghoulie... pew pew, take that flying ghoulie ?

I got my Atari VCS in the mail today and......It's pretty cool!

At long last Intellivania has started shipping! Many thanks for everyones patience and support. Matthew has created a fantastic game for our favorite system.Enjoy.

Fairly significant announcement coming in the next few days from David Crane and Garry Kitchen: twitter.com/PitfallCreator/status/1366435832832253957 twitter.com/kitchengarry/status/1366433556445028353

UPDATE: Except for the cartridges, everything else is ready (Manuals, boxes, covers, stickers, overlays) to begin the shipments to those of you who pre-ordered the game. The cartridge manufacturer is very busy and he has not given us an estimated date of when we should receive them. This means that the shipments (which should begin now) will be delayed and I will let you know as soon as we have a confirmed date. I am very sorry about this, but there are things that are outside of our hands/control. Thank you very much for your support and your patience.