Leaderboard

All press is good press? https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kvkx9/dont-piss-off-bradley-the-parts-seller-keeping-atari-machines-alive There's a nod to AtariAge in it. I do wish it included an interview with Bradley, I would have enjoyed hearing from him.

I also had no idea of this option. I'll get subscribed, it's worth contributing to this site.

I read it. Not sure I agree with the negative stuff said about him from the perspective of others who got blacklisted or whatever. Always two sides to a story and I haven't heard his. Anyways, he's always been nice and super helpful to me and my business throughout the years.

Well, when one makes a mistake, admit it, apologize, and fix the problem. It's the most efficient way to proceed.

Great article, and a good guide if you want to order from best. I do really hope people won’t start harassing Bradley now, in my experience he has been nothing but a great person and he probably has more than enough stuff to deal with already.

Inspired by PG's cover of Kraid's Lair, I covered Brinstar just for fun I mostly went on the accurate transcription of the NES tune, while adding some of my own little touch into it, the filter worked really nicely for it I think! I think it's a good time so share the progress of my tuning adventure too. So I got the entire set of tables redone, might still need some improvements and there will be in a near future. I also finally decided it was good enough to patch RMT 1.30 with some of my changes. So now there's an acceptable output happening in real time for making music using it, without having to convert over and over with RMT2LZSS to hear how the tune sounds like. RMT Vin Tuning Patch V15: - Redone all 3 main 8-bit tables to match my newest "Alternate Tuning", that aims at being compatible with as many things as possible, while improving the tuning. - Replaced Distortion 6 16-bit Bass to Distortion A 16-bit tables, with matching tuning. - Changed a few text strings to match the changes above, mainly the 16-bit part. - Replaced H- to B- for the notes, this was something that sort of bothered me for a while and so I see no harm editing it. - Added an extra .exe which replaces Sharps to Flats for the notes. This is purely visual, otherwise both versions are virtually the same. CustomNotesTables V26: - Redone most of everything already in there, some things were moved around, and some notes were also moved between octaves, so modules will need to be adjusted if they make use of the extra tables. - Based on my most recent Alternate Tuning calculations, with hopefully better pitch accuracy for most things I was able to calculate mathematically. - Added a couple extra tables such as Distortion 2 64khz, or Reverse 16-bit 64khz, some more things like Poly9 Noise were calculated in the spreadsheet but not ported over yet. - May or may not be better than the last version! Use at your own risk. Reminder this is all experimental stuff and it's hard to test everything properly, I'm only 1 person and there's so much that could be done! Atari Frequencies and Ratio v13: - Added numerous calculations for several frequencies and modes I figured out with very precise resulting frequencies. More might come as I study how the POKEY works and understand how to calculate the frequencies! - Added offset columns for calculations, very useful for fine tuning (no pun intended) several tables, as well as picking up "valid" values for the several distortions being calculated. I haven't found a better way to do it currently... - Added a simple but efficient automation process for making up tables for RMT2LZSS, simply copy and paste and edit if necessary. Less risk of making a typo somewhere! - Added Calculations by Ratio, based on Ivop's previous set of spreadsheets, very useful for finding constant patterns! Will be useful someday for tables based on musical keys... - General improvements of the entire set of sheets for calculations, Playground and Known Values Dump sheets may still have useful rambles to look at... I hope you all have a good day! This is a lot of fun Metroid - Brinstar Final.rmt Metroid - Brinstar Final.xex CustomNoteTables v26.txt Atari Frequencies And Ratio v13.ods RMT Vin Tuning Patch V15.zip

I don't think you can blame the pandemic for the pricing, seeing as it was $389 for a pre-order as of July 2019. Let's face it; they just racked up a massive overspend on getting it developed, and lack the confidence to sell it in sufficient volume to make that back.

I'll get your coat ?

Yes, never had a bad experience. TBF, the author of this article offered to interview Bradley, but, well, anyone who's called recently can imagine how much time he has for that. He's not Amazon, he's an independent businessman trying to meet a ridiculous level of demand, all the while charging reasonable prices for things others are gouging enthusiasts for on eBay, and everything always arrives in pristine condition. People's expectations need to change, not Bradley, IMHO.

just found in my pc these old pictures taken on November 2015: That was a different time indeed, even before Hotel Bunny was released.

I am disappointed that this article is very one-sided and doesn't interview people whom had much different interactions with Bradley/Best. Yes, buying from him is "different" than people's expectations these days, but if you understand that and work with Bradley, it can be a very pleasant experience. I for one, have order lots of items from Best, and there are times Bradley would tell me I would need to break up that order over a period of months (ordering ICs and motherboards for my Atari Portable project), and so that's what I would do. The results? He would respond right away to emails, I would pay right away, and the next day the package would be in the mail, well packed and perfect when it arrived. I understand that other's might have had different experiences, but I don't believe I am one of the few that have had great results.

SIDE3 owners: don't forget that a PDM (Fujiconvert) player is now built into the loader, which will auto-sense Covox with PokeyMAX 2 and 3.

Hoe. Lee. Kow. https://ebay.com/itm/362913282202

With the help of Photoshop in a second monitor and Altirra, after 36 years I finally finished Gemstone Warrior. ? My map begins with already having 4 pieces of the gemstone.

I’ve been using this old thing for my external DVD drive on my VCS! The old Xbox 360 HD DVD player finally found a use for it back in January when my VCS arrived lol. I’ve got lots of stuff hooked up to my VCS I love the freedom that it’s not tied down like the other systems can definitely make it your own little set up.

It's $30 per year or $50 for two years. This nets you a longer post edit window, more space for your private messages, the "Subscriber" badge, a 5% discount in the AtariAge Store, and other benefits. I won't hide any important functionality behind subscriptions. They do help cover the considerable expense in running AtariAge (about $500 a month), so they are greatly appreciated. I haven't really pushed them very hard, but I should probably make them more visible and a bit easier to find. I just don't want to bash people over the head with them. ..Al

Here's a sneak peek at some screenshots of the game that plays when no cartridge is inserted. I'm now at the point that I've run out of room to fit a few more features in, but I'm working on it. Please remember that this will be an 8K game, so it won't be as 'involved' as some other ones: Hope this one turns out ok. I will give it to @ZeroPage Homebrew to review once finished. It will be exclusive only to this BIOS. Thanks, guys

I happened to find this 10 year old article about Rescue on Fractalus and Lucasfilm which makes for interesting reading, (especially about the piracy issue). Check it out: http://www.electrondance.com/tomorrows-promise/ Fav quote from the article: "He took an Atari 800 home, learnt 6502 machine language and experimented. A few days later, Carpenter demonstrated a working prototype of a navigable fractal landscape running on the Atari’s puny 1.79Mhz processor." Puny! Incidentally the reason I came across it in the first place was two fold. Firstly I was trying to find if anyone had ever tried to remix/rework the RoF music using the new techniques and approaches that the likes of Emkay, Vinscool, Rensoup and Miker, among many others on AA (and elsewhere), have employed in their A8 music? Also given I've seen lots of instances on AA of classic games being hacked to improve graphics, interfaces, title screens, etc etc - I started wondering if anyone had turned their attention to perhaps reworking the cockpit graphics in RoF? I know the processing of the landscape generation must take up considerable resources and it might not be at all feasible - but I had wondered if it were possible nonetheless. Given you spend time in the cockpit for the entire duration of gameplay it would be cool for it to look... well cool. Just a thought. As I type this I can see out of the corner of my eye my own boxed 1987 copy of RoF. Classic title.

Here you go:

There are no completed CIO drivers for the DC that I know of. I posted a start that handled UDP and did things similar to the FujiNet, such as OPEN "I:UDP:192.168.0.1:44044" and so forth, but no one really continued it and I ran into real-life issues that took up all my time. The main difference between DC and Fujinet is that DC uses an on-cart cypress chip and direct memory transfer, whereas FujiNet uses an intelligent co-processor board with it's own TCP stack communicating across SIO. I had started off with a similar attempt, but I found the line delay of SIO to be too limiting for fast action games using UDP, which was really my target. DC has some support from a different OS...I forget the name right now but it's a linux-y multitasking OS that has a TCP stack that works with DC. Altirra has DC support, but just the hardware, not the driver stack. Anyway, FujiNet is a great piece of work, especially for TCP and anything that doesn't need really fast response. DC can theoretically outperform it but it's a moot question at this point, FujiNet is the way to go. If anyone feels like working on the DC drivers I had, just let me know and I'll send them to you. It's all in CA65 and supports extended memory for buffers, but as i said, UDP only. There's a TCP start but that's when I got sidetracked. So thats a lot of words to say : No. Looks like a great game, by the way! Nice.

I am confused by your code. I can correct it, but I think you will be better served by my code, which uses two VDP address writes for each row roundtrip to/from scratchpad RAM at FAC, whereas your code is still using two VDP address writes for each and every byte, which does not change the code’s inefficiency. By using FAC as a RAM column buffer, you are only saving 24 VDP address writes for each left or right roll of the screen. Since there is, practically, only enough room to buffer one row in scratchpad RAM, it makes the most sense to me to do multibyte transfers, one row at a time, from VRAM to RAM and back. This involves only one VDP address write for each direction. For left and right rolls of the screen, there is no need for a column buffer that requires 24 VDP address writes each way because the column roll can be effected with each row transfer using only three VDP address writes: Copy next row to FAC (1 VDP address write). Copy rolled-out byte to rolled-in column (1 VDP address write). Copy 31 bytes to new column offset (1 VDP address write). Repeat (1) – (3) for each row 23 more times (69 VDP address writes). Sum of above = 72 VDP address writes). For up and down rolls of the screen, the rolled-out row needs to be buffered for as long as the remaining rows are processed. Since there is no room for 2 rows in scratchpad RAM, we lose a little efficiency by needing to use a VRAM row buffer: Copy rolled-out row to FAC (1 VDP address write). Copy FAC buffer to VDP buffer (1 VDP address write). Copy next row to FAC (1 VDP address write). Copy FAC to next row offset (1 VDP address write). Repeat (3) and (4) for 22 more rows (44 VDP address writes). Copy VDP buffer to FAC (1 VDP address write). Copy FAC to rolled-in row (1 VDP address write). Sum of the above = 50 VDP address writes. ...lee

If you're more interested in playing than collecting, you may also want to consider purchasing one of the in-production multi-carts: Concerto DragonFly With one of those, you can download Trebor's Pack, to play a huge list of the original retail 7800 games, hacks, homebrews/demos, and trial versions of for-sale homebrews. Of course, you can always buy latest homebrew games on-cart, right here at the Atari Age store.

I thought they were a ripoff when 99er was selling them for $5 or so. Don’t really care about the cheesy gold colored sticker.

Several folks have tried to sell one of these in the past--for similarly stupid prices. None of them sold. This guy may have just found the last one and considered it a comparable price, so that's what he used. No one will buy it, as it is maybe worth $5, including shipping. . .

It's been 40 years, time flies!

this is becoming a mess that doesn't need to be, please test each cartridge type on the real actual cartridge... not emulated on an a multi cart emulation cartridge device... please test each on real Atari manufactured Machines only... lot's of homebrew Atari replacement pcb/remakes etc out there have their own issues... if you use the latest maxflash studio to create the maxflash image... it will normally make an atr flasher that handles the bank 0 / 127 thing on it's own... using older tools usually fails to do this as do some newer third party creations that don't take this into account... additionally it's only sometimes will you need to change your actual projects code if it is not following the guidelines set out by Steve. If software works on the real devices/carts/Atari machines... but fails on newer romcart emulation device or on some such mini Atari remade machine... then those devices and re-machines may very well need some work or fixes.... It would appear the SIDE 3 wasn't doing something correctly and new firmware fixed some of it... telling the developer all the cart types are failing or this or that type fails has them going in circles when there really isn't a problem with the cart type at all... it works on the real cart and real machine. This may also explain why so many say it works across the board on the actual specific devices and machines while others claim it's all bad and doesn't work for the same list as the latter are not running the hardware on the list at all... it's emulated by another device or run on a homebrew machine. Let make sure it works on all the direct and real hardware first and solve the problem an emulation device / remake board has later... since their issues have little to do with the program itself and more to do with their own firmware implementations and quirks. That normally ends up being a fix from their respective creators/and collaborators and not within the scope of the software developer. If it's not an issue on the real thing... the problem isn't in their code.

Whomper Stomper: 29,450

Getting low on a few, so I am going to bump this up again. DO NOT MISS OUT! All 21 Activision patches for sale ($6 each): Misc. Atari Patches($6 each):

By the end of 2020, Robert Jaeger shared a teaser with the upcoming complete final version of the game: https://bit.ly/3gB5S02

I wouldn't worry about it. It's too small to make any real sense of it unless you expand it... and if you haven't figured out what you're doing by that point, you can just close it down. So unless someone is REALLY stupid about what they are clicking AND has a photographic memory to the point the map will be instantly committed to their memory with no way of forgetting it, I think it's safe enough.

A couple of new scores... Hazard Run (Hell's Canyon): 65,717 - didn't finish Whomper Stomper: 29,950 Bug Off: 10680 Equestrian (Horse 1, Course 1): Score 6:26, Time 3:06.7, Faults 28 Equestrian (Horse 2, Course 2): Score 7:05, Time 2:48.4, Faults 43

I'm currently dealing with the care of my 83 year old mom who is fragile and senile for several years now, and the house-hold and my business. I too, know what it's like. Luckily my brother moved here to help a year ago, allowing me to be able to focus more on my business, but issues with mom still pop up and get in the way of the rest of my life, but for all the trouble she can be, I still hope to have her around for a few more years, but hopefully not so long that I'm old and fragile too, which isn't too many years away, most likely, hopefully I've got a couple more decades in me though.

Looks good! These are the "Spinal Tap - None More Black" Special Edition versions, right? I'm pretty proud of that label design - my first and only!

This game is still in development but has been put on hold until I learn how to make players be able to jump on platforms. I always said the next Eric game should be a platform game of some kind rather than Pitfall with different graphics. It'll be along sometime this year. Got a few projects under way at the moment. One of which, is an Atari 2600 title.

I could not find the exact launch date of the TI-99/4A beside June 1981 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Instruments_TI-99/4A) and I waited until June 15th (half-way June 2021) to create this video. The TI helped me to go into IT . 40 Years (June 1981-June 2021) - The TI-99/4A Home Computer and I still use it every week. See the comments below the video to experience it yourself in an online emulator. #ti99 #homecomputer 40 Years TI-99/4A Home Computer. It was launched in June 1981 and it is still operational. #ti99 Want to experience a TI-99/4A yourself? * Online emulator - js99er.net (select button Software - More - TI Invaders) Direct link: Munch-Man - https://js99er.net/#/cart/munchman * Windows emulator - http://harmlesslion.com/software/classic99 * or install it on your RetroPi (Raspberry)

It's clearly a hit.

I'm not quite ready to share the binary yet, but Space Raiders is a game I started two weeks ago. I was thinking I could use it as the basis for a set of beginner tutorials on 7800 Basic. It started ballooning, and now and it is about 70% complete. I played with pallet manipulation to get some fades and with animated sprites to simulate scaling. Also, all levels formations are created with bits from random numbers copied from the right side to the left so the formations look symmetrical. I'm fairly certain this will be my actual first "finished" 7800 homebrew, and I still might do the tutorials if there is any interest. My other idea is to add this game to "Last Stand" and "Into The Void" and make a multi-game "space game pack" or even something like Gorf (Forf/Vorf?). Here is a video: Space Raiders Atari 7800 Homebrew 2021 - YouTube again, binaries soon, but not until I work-out power-ups, proper leveling, pokey music and high score support and decide if I'm going to create a boss-battle or not.

I used non other than the awesome language AtariBasic, the game jam ends in 13 days. This only took a couple of days off and on, maybe more efficient way to do this but it is what it is. Luckily they allow abbreviated lines or no way I could fit it under 72 bytes per line. Feel free to play, critique, and oh yea.. vote. The code is stored as a .txt file on itch, it can be downloaded and pasted into Altirra if the urge is so felt. Thanks. https://eflake.itch.io/depths-of-venus

I wouldn't hold my breath for a crash to happen. In the video game market collector items tend to head upwards rather than down. What was once an undesired system is now rising in popularity. Because they're rarer due to not many units sold the prices tend to incline very fast. You just need to bite the bullet while you have the chance before they become out of reach. I was in the 90's a huge fan of grunge, not so much nowadays as i hardly listen to much music anymore. Even still i will say the grunge songs are really suited towards the 90's style and gameplay. Road Rash 3D on PSX and N64 is probably the only title i wasn't a big fan of. The original Road Rash versions on PSX and Saturn were awesome aswell IMO. I just feel many expected the Sega CD version to be like those and were disappointed. Im sure the framerate would have been terrible if they attempted it so im happy it's more like the original 3. As a massive fan it was nice to have a new Road Rash to play after completing the first 3 countless times over.

As a huge Soundgarden fan, this is my favourite Road Rash as it's the only version that plays the soundtrack while you race (so very weird that they kept that feature out of the Saturn and PSX versions). I would say if you like Soundgarden and 90's music in that vein to the tune of giving it a 4 or 5 out of 5 rating, you got, got, GOT to play the Sega CD Road Rash. If you're less into Soundgarden type music, then maybe you can skip this version. But I just freaking love it, and love cranking it. Gets me really pumped and just fits the funny little videos and ridiculous biker mentality perfectly.

It's not very slick, but I think this works, but I found a bunch of pretty serious bugs I introduced in the last few days trying to fix other bugs. For example, in fixing the AI code for the enemy wizard getting 'stuck' on the trees, I accidentally made the statue enemies move at maximum speed, which was kind of funny. When you got close, they came to life and swarmed on top of you like a homing missile and killed you right away. That was a good one. In adding the level select, I occasionally stomped over the room with the stairs, so if you started on levels 3 or 4 there was no way to win. So... I fixed everything I know about. I tested new games on each level, continuing after dying, starting a new game after winning, etc. 6/15/21 - added level select - press SELECT on the main menu to cycle through starting level. You'll see a treasure icon in the lower right: Blank (default) - Level 1 (magic bolt level 1) Gold Coins - Level 2 (all weapons at level 1) Gem - Level 3 (all weapons at level 2) Treasure Chest - Level 4 (all weapons at level 3) This only applies if you start a New Game. If you Continue a previous game after dying, you will continue on whatever level you died on. This seems most logical to me. - fixed bug w/ statue enemies moving too fast - I added one pixel to the "knock back" effect of lightning, making it a bit more powerful - tweaked enemy speed and spawn chances, so hopefully the earlier levels are a bit more challenging Literally 0 bytes left in ROM. Fixing some of the bugs I caused required a bit of hackery. It's getting precarious in there. The code looks more like spaghetti each day. Let me know if you find anything serious. I don't think I can add any scoring changes for level select. I know the wave spell (previously arrow) gets stuck in walls occasionally, that's been there a while, but I think I'm going to have to mark that bug "Known Shippable." I might look through the bounce code and tweak a few things but no promises on that one. wizd_210615.bas.a78

I don't have anything against collectors wanting to own rare carts like this, but after playing Air Raid on Stella, I feel I owe Mythicon an apology for having called Fire Fly the worst game published for the system during its initial run.

My collection of Atari 2600 games. 92 of them some brand new in the box never opened all tested and work Also included is atari 2600 6 switch system with power adapter joysticks paddles All work CASH ONLY PICKUP ONLY (Joppa, MD 21085) $260 Here is a link to the list of games https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MWlqPMs5Zg-s_Xk5nk7E14bkVIi1MmpGxe4i9Q9vw3Q/edit?usp=sharing

Still have a couple of kinks to be worked out, but I'm going to continue the break for another day or two. Sometimes it helps to step away for a bit and come back to a problem with a fresh set of eyes. In the meantime, the manual cover is mostly done save some scaling and touchups. I would love to have gotten the chance to actually paint an illustration to really give it that early 80s 2600 look, but I'm not really good enough to do that without a lot of effort, and there's only so much free time. I feel like we have a mid-to-late 80s vibe that kind of works, though, right down to the bad composition and goofy mish-mash of fonts. Hopefully when it's finished it will make a nice companion piece for the final version of the game.

If you want a retro PC experience, it's probably best to just get your hands on one. Anything else will likely be a pale imitation. In my view, FC has immensely enhanced the functionality of the TI from a file management perspective, particularly when coupled with a TIPI. That said, there is no hiding the TI pedigree here...

@arcadeshopper Maybe a mention in the subforum FAQ?

SEXY brushed aluminum.

The 8.8.3 is out with all changes described above. Enjoy the new look and feel with HiDPI displays. Follow the advice in the changelog and uninstall your previous version first before you download and install the new one. Don't worry, your user settings will remain untouched. I just don't want you to have mess in the program directory.

Tested out some reverse 16-bit stuff original rmt module by PG This test confirms my maths for calculating the frequencies for this mode were correct This is also matching my Alternate Tuning, so the bass sounds pretty nice there. Metroid_-_Kraids_Lair_VinEDIT5.xex

I can't understand any reason for all this stupid stressing about xbios and loading time. What's the problem? If you want to play the game, on 40 yo machines, you should have the time to play AND also the time to load the game. How many times ppl want to load the whole game in one gaming session? One fucking time? Maybe 2 times. The haters should be thankful for xbios, POP and all the other A8 stuff, developed by ppl as hobbyists. If the haters could do it better, so why the haters don't do it better? Some ppl would like to load from tape, some from disk and some from cart. I'm just thankful for the stuff as it is. I can't do it better so I'll take it as it is.