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Hi there folks, I'm working since 2 weeks on a network game for Atari 8 bit computers. Basically it's a battleships game for up to 6 players. First you place ships on your territory and then you attack the oponnent's area. When you hit something it's displayed on your screen. The main engine is more or less ready, now I have to rewrite the server code because UDP transmission sometimes doesn't deliver all the data, and it's crucial that every player gets all the packages, so I'm switching to TCP. The gameplay starts at 2:00. The game will be submitted to ABBUC software contest 2021.

Next update: Syncalc 1985 - the Ultimate Syncalc1985-SD-v3.atr Syncalc1985-DD-v3.atr Only yesterday I realized that there was hacked 1983 version which supports more than 128K RAM on XL/XE machines. I stole the code accomplishig the bank switching, adapted it to my loader and now it supports: up to 245K with Axlon up to 213K with Rambo (only 320K+ gives the maximum) 149K with Compy Shop (dunno why it does not detect more) 213K with 1088K 85K with an unmodified 130XE I only loaded one of @1200XL M.U.L.E.'s big files without problems, but did no further testing. Therefore I hope that the additional memory is not only detected, but actually usable. Testing was done in Altirra.

Since I like doing useless things, I also tried a bit of an XE design for the UI.

There are some funny business practices with the remaining Atari vendors for sure. I've sort of landed on 'I'm too busy to deal with this nonsense' for both Ben and Brad. Don't get me wrong, I've had no bad experiences in the past, but my patience with the ordering quirks has pretty much expired. I'll pay a little extra to buy from ebay, or hit up some PRGE folks I know before I deal with the 'only takes orders on the 3rd Wednesday of the month when the moon is in Capricorn, and only if you pay by homing pigeon' nonsense. Ordering from best is like dealing with a time warp to '96. Still, I'm glad they're still around for folks.

One of my favorite Garfield strips with Nermal. (see strip)

Hello there! I think there is some confusion. We mentioned on the ZPH twitch stream, on our website, in the ROM's readme, on our FB post and in the post above with the ROM link that as of now the game ONLY runs on Stella (including the community build on the RetroN 77). As Fred mentioned, this is because Turbo Arcade needs the ARM and 64K to work (because of all of the graphics needed). Zeviouz is another game that will require an upgraded Harmony/Harmony Encore to run so with that precedent set we decided to follow suit and utilize this new bankswitching scheme to allow us to develop a full-featured version of Turbo for the 2600. There is currently no definite plan or timeline for this hardware upgrade/replacement (that is in Fred's hands) but as we mention above, Turbo Arcade isn't slated for release for almost a year so we feel confident that a solution will be in place by then, especially if Zeviouz is going to be released also. The ROMs we sell in our store (Mappy, Galagon, and Wizard of Wor Arcade) all work with the Harmony and Harmony Encore and we don't have any intentions of selling the ROM for Turbo Arcade until the Harmony Encore can support it. We released the early WIP ROM of Turbo Arcade with the disclaimer that it only works on Stella so people could give it a try, mostly so we can get feedback on the game long before it's scheduled to be completed. If, for some reason, the Harmony Encore is not updated to support this game (or Zeviouz) and no reasonable alternative is provided, we will most likely just sell the game in cartridge form (like we have for most of our games over the last 15 years). Hope this clears things up. Have fun! John PS Our next 3 games (RobotWar: 2684, Gorf Arcade and Lady Bug Arcade, all scheduled for release in 2021) are all 32K and run on the Harmony and Harmony Encore, as well as Zoo Keeper (32K) so those ROMs will be added to our store eventually.

June 4th is officially 64-Bit Atari Jaguar Day!

Another, nice, compiled platform game: - Rock Hopper. From MicroPendium Magazine. Details on TI99IUC page (Rock Hopper); The SSS has two version, with some differences on the second level. Moreover, the "Alt" version is easier to play. ------------------------------------ Total compiled games: 314. [GAME] Rock Hopper V1.1 (1987)(David Mennenoh - Compute!)[Compiled by TMOP].zip

My son's attack boat could go anywhere...

Congratulations to Deteacher (he's probably still playing!!) for a Captain's performance AtariSphinx takes runner up spot. Thanks for playing guys, let me know if I missed anyone. Next round will start soon. Not sure what others think but I think the more reliable punching makes the game less tense than the original where I cower if I have to do it! Like the new graphics and animation but it's slighly premature toot toot on PAL at the end of the round. final tables POPEYE ARCADE 1st Deteacher (19240) 652,430 13pts # 2nd AtariSphinx 389,280 11pts 3rd McKong 143,310 10pts 4th graywest 115,020 9pts 5th therealbountybob 113,900 9pts 6th Mr Trust 112,630 8pts 7th tompateus 103,840 8pts 8th 8BIT 1337 90,120 7pts 9th Tron04 72,730 7pts 10th fakecortex 63,700 6pts 11th roadrunner 37,870 5pts 12th Sikor 22,660 4pts 13th RedThunder 20,490 3pts 14th jblenkle 19,960 2pts 15th carlsson 16,200 2pts # includes top NTSC score bonus point

All BASIC code looks like that to me ?

When a character is killed that is not the Minstrel, it is removed from the picture (ensuring the blocks of each character would not overlap was a little trying). The bottom-right icons are the health of the characters, a camp+rest increases their color towards health, but decrements food (the bread loaf icon). #workingonit

Pencil ink it in for next season, y'all! The stats/pattern doesn't lie! Season 7 Taz: No one got loner Season 8 Silver Pick/Gopher: Loner = Dr Moocowz Season 9 Polaris: No one got loner Season 10 Adventures of Tron: Loner = Dr Moocowz Season 11 Super Cobra: No one got Loner Season 12 ???: Loner = you all know!

New compiled games: - Ball Bert. A Q*Bert clone. Added joystick support (use diagonals). Various fixes on the buggy XB code. Read the description as usual on TI99IUC (Ball Bert); - Gravity Float. An interesting strategy/action game. Read the description on TI99IUC page (Gravity Float); ------------------------------------ Total compiled games: 313. [GAME] Ball Bert V1.1 (198x)(Steve Wright)[Compiled by TMOP].zip [GAME] Gravity Float (198x)(Tigercub Software)[Compiled by TMOP].zip

Almost all games that support POKEY can be changed to run from a different address and without POKEY on cart (my board [AA] can put them all on cart, in fact you could make a 1MB game with POKEY, but POKEY external with that board), I have all that were available to me at the time, running with the POKEY at a different address on my MCP kit (RevEng credits here). In fact, I have 90+ ROM's that run on my kit, either via external WiFi/USB or SD card accessory, including BBCQ (Bob is the reason my board exists, if anyone remembers!) and DKPK, for instance. I only bought the Mateos, Concerto, Dragonfly, Harmony and Harmony Encore to support the authors and get my hands on Yamaha and POKEY MAX.

So why this? I bought this cute little game many years ago, and always kind of liked it. I now have the "Ultimate Cart" and it runs CAR files perfectly, but XEX files not so well. At least for me, with my old 48K 800. And this one wouldn't quite work right as a file version. So I just made a cart version that dumps it into memory and runs it. Nothing special, but now it works A-OK. So, just sharing in case someone else finds it useful. Plus, I just like turning XEX files into cartridges. I have some fairly easy ways to do that now. Ghost Encounters.car

I will soon release some of my games in physical form (more to come about this). I'm working on all the extra stuff, stickers, manual, box, deluxe edition, ... and I have a question about box. I made a quick & dirty tiny prototype, so the size is not good (will be the same size than a standard Lynx box). Also, the insert inside the box is missing (it would be a cardboard with a central hole for the Lynx cartridge, like card games). Here is a small footage : Well, now pros and cons as I can see them : + : easier to open the box and get the cartrige + : the inside can be printed (see video), even if maked by the insert + : same format than original box, so no difference on a shelve - not the original box & inserts - the front opens completely, and is thin (whereas sides and back are doubled) so may be more fragile than actual box if you manipulate it a lot of time. I have a sample - not the same locking system, but will be the same carboard - I opened and closed it maybe one hundred of time and no problem, it is flexible but seems resistant. Overall, price is quite the same, new option maybe a bit more expensive, but there would be no impact on final retail price.

I too just got my 2021 club package and blown away by the games. Well worth the club membership and what a great surprise the games are. @digress You can access the club section of the website here : https://collectorvision.com/club/index.html While I like the new website design, in the club downloads section one has to download each rom/manual individually. Considering the large number of roms and manuals that are there this will be really tedious if someone wants to download them all. And lets be honest, who doesn't. So, I really think a "Download All" option is necessary.

Week 21 Top games 1. MLB The Show 21 (Xbox Series X) - 2492 min. (#1) (6 weeks) 2. Mass Effect: Legendary Edition (Xbox One) - 1062 min. 3. Flowers: Les quatre saisons (Switch) - 1022 min. (#6) 4. Solasta: Crown of the Magister (PC) - 661 min. 5. Doom Classic II (Switch) - 455 min. 6. Suikoden 3 (PS2) - 360 min. 7. Beat Saber (Oculus Quest) - 350 min. (#7) 8. Walking Dead: A New Frontier (Xbox One) - 293 min. 9. Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds Saga (PC) - 279 min. 10. Surviving the Aftermath (PC) - 169 min. Top systems 1. Xbox Series X - 2492 min. (#2) 2. Xbox One - 1816 min. (#1) 3. Switch - 1574 min. (#4) 4. PC - 1371 min. (#3) 5. PS2 - 360 min. 6. Oculus Quest - 350 min. (#6) 7. 3DS - 210 min. 8. Vita - 112 min. (#5) 9. DS - 75 min. (#8) 10. GBA - 45 min. Total 8463 minutes and 31 different games on 12 different systems. MLB The Show 21 still is playing in its own league (the Major League Baseball?) though the two games battling for second and third places are a mere 40 minutes apart. Quite a number of new entries in the top 10. Systems wise the Xbox Series X is back in the lead with the four first systems all exceeding 1000 minutes and the rest a bit behind. No Xbox 360 but the PS2 clocks in at 360 min...

Cedar Point theme park here in Ohio has had to close a few days in the week due to not having enough employees. Even though they are paying $20 an hour. So come to Ohio if you want to make about $40k/year making overpriced munchies for families or tearing tickets at the roller coaster. Not making light of their work, I am sure it's hard, as most jobs are. Rent is cheap in Ohio. $700-$800 a month in most areas will get you a nice apartment with a pool, gym, etc..

Probably end of 2021 is what I am hearing from the Marketing & Operations group. There is coding plus there is production and distribution. COVID-19 has added delays (not kidding).

Let's face it, only the Kiwi's got it right. With that sorted, I'm getting back to oiling my deck... <---- and with that post count, I may never post again... \m/ \m/

This is, IMO, one of the strangest threads I’ve seen on AtariAge. I mean, aren’t most of us in our 40s/50s? “It’s okay to like the VCS?” What a weird title for an adult to write to other adults. This is the kind of stuff I say to my 5 year old when they have disagreements with other kids. I am really into underground Scandinavian Death Metal, which doesn’t have many fans, and I often hear the “it’s just noise!” arguments. But who cares? It’d be so weird for me to write a post saying “It’s okay to like Scandinavian Death Metal”. Who would I be trying to convince?

Yesterday's News June 2021 YN_06_06.pdf CAT_06_06.pdf YN_06_06_1.DSK YN_06_06_2.DSK QS SOFTKEYS.pdf TI-KEYS.pdf

Last night and today I played Final Fantasy V for Super Nintendo for another 660 minutes. Each character has mastered the White Mage job.

I heard this story once before. You live in the alternate reality bro.

Spent some time playing Asteroids Deluxe today. Love this cart, especially the hidden version of the original game. Thank you @PacManPlus?

PC Solasta: Crown of the Magister (661 min) Surviving the Aftermath (169 min) Worms World Party Remastered (39 min) Xeno Crisis (10 min) Oculus Quest Beat Saber (350 min) Not much gaming during the week; I started a game of Surviving the Aftermath, a post-apoc colony builder. It's still in early access, but it's pretty fun. But I found out that Solasta was available on game pass, and decided to check it out and I'm hooked. It's a lot like Divinity Original Sin 2, but with D&D 5e rules (but not the license). It's tough, but I'm having fun. Also played online a little bit with my bro, but it was short-lived, unfortunately. A Worms match and we tried out Xeno Crisis, going to try and get some more online gaming in soon, hopefully.

It's a PT hovercraft! Those pesky rebel scum better run...

anyone can pick the challenge ? ... I created the project in Magellan (background and sprites) but I don't know to use with XB ... Is anybody can help me? GS_basic_data.xb GS_basic_pgm.xb GS_XB256_pgm.xb GS_XB_pgm.xb gunsmoke_bckg.mag gunsmoke_sprite.mag

This is now in and working. E.X.O. now supports High Score Cart, SaveKey and AtariVox for saving and provides 3 save slots for saving your progress. Formatting on some of the text needs some work and the "lives" display needs a little fix, but you get the idea. (picture from my PAL unit).

Soldier Blade (PC Engine) 35 mins Gunhed (PC Engine) 15 mins Bomberman '93 (PC Engine) 17 mins Lords of Thunder (PC Engine CD) 14 mins Nexzr (PC Engine CD) 9 mins Seirei Senshi Spriggan (PC Engine CD) 12 mins Legion (PC Engine CD) 10 mins - The English voice overs are cool but since they start during gameplay it is very distracting. Hellfire S (PC Engine CD) 18 mins - My first time playing any version of Hellfire. I like it. The weapon swapping the directions of fire reminds me of NanoStray on DS, though this is horizontal instead of vertical.

So I've had this sign for nearly 30 years, and I love it. I went to sleep for many years when I was a kid listening to it hum away in my room and watching it's soothing lights. But now it just lives in my garage, and it kind of seems like a waste, somebody might have a much more fitting game room that's calling for this thing. I've seen a few people post WTB posts about these signs, looks like most of them finally found one. Anyways, I'm not in any hurry to sell it, it still keeps me company when I'm working in the garage. But if you're looking for one, shoot me a PM or an offer, because I think I'm about ready to find a new home for it. Currently located in Dallas, TX BTW.

When the C=64 was my main computer, I absorbed just about every contruction set, level editor, and game creator I could get my hands on. I made about 30 games of varying quality on the Games Creator, which require Games Creator to run. A lot of my work on that was about just trying out ideas and seeing what worked or not. Then I moved on to Garry Kitchen's Gamemaker, for which I produced about 6 .. ish... stand-alone games, and a bunch of animations, and even an unfinished virtual aquarium. After that, I produced three stand-alone games on the SEUCK (Shoot-Em-Up Contruction Kit), the third of which is pretty slick. My final Commodore game was a really nice SEUCK game on the Amiga 500. The Amiga isn't working right now, but I managed to get a 128 to boot in 64 mode to take a look back at these old games. Here are some photos, if anyone is interested. I've been stuck with just 2 of the games I made (which will remain nameless for now), for which I surprisingly found roms were made of them, so I grabbed them for emulator, so I was pleased to see that the data on the disks was still intact after all these years for the games I had never tossed out to public domain on Quantum Link. Is there any interest for this sort of thing these days?

Duo alone is cheaper than the SHDS3 (which also requires having a PC Engine/SuperGrafx/TurboGrafx to attach it to, so you also need one of those if you don't have it already = more money required if you don't), won't take 6 trillion years to get through Andorra's customs and reach your decedents long after after you die of old age, will have better resolution options for HDMI, has a built-in receiver for wireless controllers if you want that, and it looks cooler, which is of course the single most important part. Only real advantage of the SHDS3 is that I think it can simultaneously output HDMI and an analog signal without needing extra equipment like a DAC. Maybe PC Engine + SHDS3 is smaller than the Duo is, but I don't know and if it is, counting it as an advantage is really pushing it unless you live in a capsule hotel room or in a cardboard box or something.

Yes, both Gamebase 64 and the people at CSDb tend to be interested in previously unreleased stuff. Graphically your entries look promising, and with a solid engine in the background they probably play well too. Personally I only tried one of the earlier game makers once, but spent a good amount of time with SEUCK. Nowadays that tool exists in a modified version that allows you to create horizontally scrolling games instead of vertical.

FINAL Beauty and the Beast Update: CPARSLEY GRABS THE BNTB VICTORY AND WINS SEASON 14 OF THE INTV HSC!!! 12.9 - 31,500 - CParsley [+13][+2][+3 SET NEW RECORD] 6.9 - 19,050 - Spartan [+12] 6.9 - 18,050 - PlayerOne [+11] ------------------------------- 6.1 - 14,850 - Lupovax [+9] 5.9 - 16,600 - Biffman [+8] 5.5 - 16,250 - Rickster8 [+7] 5.1 - 14 050 - Popsicle [+6] 4.8 - 13,800 - Wolfy62 [+5] 4.0 - 9,550 - fakecortex [+4] 4.0 - 8,800 - ClassicGMR [+3] 3.1 - 7,700 - Mangia-Boy [+2] 1.9 - 3,850 - JBlenkle [+1] FINAL STANDINGS AND SEASON WRAP UP TO BE POSTED TUESDAY NIGHT!!!

Project idea of the moment: wire an NES Power Pad (or a dance mat) to the Atari 5200 for Decathlon or Track 'n' Field.

Found a bug in my bankswitching code that's been in the code since the first day (going back to 2018). It didn't surface until now, because the bankswitching routines were in the same offset location, so they worked by accident.

I’m sure many of us have seen ads like these, but I just stumbled across these comics at my dad’s house...

It feels like the release was so long ago. I've been digging into a few cleanup items that have been on my list for a while. @9640News - I added some more RS232 debugging to the SCSI routines and noticed that when a warm restart is initiated, the batch file processor seems to be looking for a file whenever the ampersand "&" is used alone. (Using the ampersand like this performs a simple reset with no autoexec). I suspect the batch file processor is trying to process the directory, ie., if you are in "SCS1.FOLDER1." it is looking for "SCSI1.FOLDER1" as a batch. If you have time to look into this let me know. Secondly, the SCSI low level routines are in need of further rework. Each device's parameter array needs to be invalidated whenever SCSMAP changes the ID, this will stop the OS from accessing the device with the previous parameters (this was on my radar) and there is at least one sector parameter read that if still active, could under certain circumstances could randomly read or write a sector in place of the actual sector 0. I worked through some of the HFDC low level code to track down a lockup condition that mizapf was experiencing in March. Information has been sent to him for review. Lastly, there are a few enhancements like fixing the SCSI ID activation routine that starts ID 0 during every IO call; they need to be documented and added to the next release. This week will be busy for me so I don't expect to do any more programming until the weekend at the earliest.

I fixed your heading font.

May 23rd was a week ago.

We should probably do a group project to put together an ultimate ROM-based diagnostic cart that anyone can burn and run... we can probably come up with at least one test for each peripheral

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

the1jerkman, which is coincidentally Rev's stage name at the message parlors.

My 2021 club package arrived! Very pleased with the package and club card. The games look great I will try them out this evening including the snes game now that i have an snes. Its not clear where to access the club section on the website. Did you mean the link sent in the email to the rom pack? Box quality has really gotten good. Nice jobs guys!

Up to recently my little toolbox could only follow the "files" on Synapse disks and output the sequence of their sectors. As part of my effort to create a file-version of Syncalc I refined it. It now writes a second file in CSV format which for each sector also includes the number of actually used DATA bytes and where in RAM it will be loaded. The ATR contains all source codes and a readme.txt. Synapse21-102.atr README-from-ATR.txt The CSV file can then be sorted by the RAM address and voilà, you have an exact list of memory blocks used by the title. Inside the below ZIP archive you can find the output for the 1983 and 1985 Syncalc releases (sc8##.CSV), as well as files sorted by RAM address and showing the start and end of the full memory blocks loaded (sc8##-sorted.csv). The last digit of the filenames is the on-disk number of the file (1=48k/Axlon, 2=52k, 3=130XE). Synlist-Syncalc.zip The CSV's fieldnames are: NUM reading sequence SEC sector number on disk OFFSET to linkage (=# of used data bytes) ADDRESS RAM target address END RAM end adress of this sector HEX same in hexadecimal HEX END BLOCK identifies beginning and end of continuous memory block in hex I did not write a tool to dump the program code directly from disk, but instead set a break point in Altirra to the location when everything has been loaded and decrypted and issued .writemems to extract the data. The memory blocks for the 48k/Axlon and 130XE versions are identical: $0700-$130C patched DOS2.0S $1A00-$1AFF loader $1E00-$2E04 main code part 1 $8000-$C020 main code part 2 (yes it loads until $c020) The 52k version uses a different layout: $0700-$1345 patched DOS2.0S $1A00-$1B1E loader $1E00-$6E5C main code All versions load the VC/SC converter to $7800-$7DFF. Having these lists, I found out that my 2017 documentation of the sector "linkage" from above is not correct. Correct documentation: The state machine uses five bytes of each sector (16-bit values are hi/lo byte) as "linkage". This block comes right behind the actual data bytes of the sector. Bytes 1-2 are EORed against a zero page location to define the target RAM-address for this sector. The inital value of this zero page location differs from title to title and is needed for my tool in decimal. Bytes 3-4 are EORed against the current sector's number to find the next sector number to load. Byte 5 is the offset into the next sector for the next 5-byte "linkage" block. The "linkage" offset of the very first sector of a file is always $78 for the titles I have cracked so far. Most sectors contain 112 or 123 data bytes and then the "linkage" really can be found within the last 16 bytes of the sector as stated in 2017. But there are also sectors with down to only 4 bytes of data.

Yet another tight poll! Compiled into columns, it currently looks like this: TETR SPAC AMER WATE OUTD 2021 AtariSphinx x devwebcl x carlsson x x x fakecortex x x x Tron04 x x Sikor x x therealbountybob x x x x x x MrTrust x roadrunner x 8BIT 1337 x x x chevymad x x x tompateus x x Deteacher x x x Champions_2002 x graywest x x Yautja x x RedThunder x x McKong x Note that exactly two participants exclusively voted for Mega Space Blastathon II while everyone who voted for The Great Outdoors has some alternative vote as well. Since votes anyway are not weighted/prioritized, it doesn't matter much.

Ok I'll admit It was me! It was meant as a joke but got out of hand. Some of my other "humorous" suggestions "Hey, why don't we make the 5200 joysticks non-centering? That would be innovative!" "You know what E.T. really needs? Pits! Then it will be popular like Pitfall!" ?