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On the other hand, if Albert had not been contacted by Atari, it seems sooner or later he may have shut down AtariAge due to higher costs and labour than he can afford, even with the subscriptions. So in that case, it was either a buy-out or a shutdown. Both may lead to members leaving the forum and start up something else, scattered around the Internet.

🤷‍♂️ Overreacting and drama, why do people always need to "announce" their departure like an Airport? But of course: LAST VISITED 1 hour ago 😝 Really, what is THE WORST that happens if people don't jump ship? Like maybe just wait and see how things play out instead of making assumptions? What exactly is lost by staying in a community one has enjoyed, I assume up to now? Even IF in the end, things turn out exactly as you are guessing and it all crumbles anyways what have you gained by leaving so soon? It's all very weird, I am admittedly a glass-half empty as skeptical-as-hell type of person and even I see these as overreacting, but whatever, do what you feel you have to do......

Robot City (2020) got started in 2006, where the 1K version won the Minigame Competition. It is based on an Odyssey 2 prototype. Real life interrupted development for many years until a ZPH show finally motivated me to complete the long planned 4K version. Robot City (2020) (Thomas Jentzsch) (NTSC).bin Robot City (2020) (Thomas Jentzsch) (PAL60).bin

Let's start with my first game, Thrust. There were 3 releases: Thrust (2000) (original release), Thrust+ (2002) (added driving and booster grip controller support, no ROM) Thrust+ Platinum Edition (2004) (added great music and SFX by Paul Slocum) Thrust (2000) (Thomas Jentzsch).bin Thrust+ Platinum (2004) (Thomas Jentzsch).bin

Updates: 1-19-21: New to-do list. Completed or dead projects can be found in previous lists. 1-19-21: Added Qix, Lady Bug Arcade and "Historical Documentary" (code-name). 1-18-21: Game graphics for Champ Sports Baseball are now in-progress. 1-15-21: Frantic, Gorf Arcade, RobotWar: 2684 and Zeviouz have all been nominated for Best Work-In-Progress (Port) for the 3rd Annual Atari Homebrew Awards.

Updates: 3-18-23: Rough artwork approved for Boom!, Elevator Agent, Turbo Arcade and Zeviouz. 2-25-23: Elevator Agent won Best WIP (2600 Port), in the 5th Annual Atari Homebrew Awards. 2-25-23: Gorf Arcade won Best Music + Sound (2600 Port), in the 5th Annual Atari Homebrew Awards. Congratulations to Bob Decrescenzo, who also won the Lifetime Achievement Award. Well-deserved! 2-15-23: "Historical Documentary" status changed to "Early development"

Whole lotta Updates: 2-11-23: Added new Homebrew project: "Calidac's Revenge" (code name) 2-11-23: Gorf Arcade, Qyx, Galaxian (7800), Pac-Man Collection 40th Anniversary Edition (7800), UniWarS (7800) all moved to Completed Homebrews. 2-11-23: Boom!, Elevator Agent, Turbo Arcade, Zeviouz entries all updated to reflect packaging artwork in "early sketches" phase. 2-3-23: Elevator Agent nominated for Best Work-In-Progress (2600 Port), for the 5th Annual Atari Homebrew Awards. 2-3-23: Boom! nominated for Best Work-In-Progress (2600 Port), for the 5th Annual Atari Homebrew Awards. 2-3-23: Gorf Arcade nominated for Best Homebrew, Best Graphics and Best Music + Sound (2600 Port), for the 5th Annual Atari Homebrew Awards. 2-3-23: Qyx nominated for Best Homebrew, Best Graphics and Best Music + Sound (2600 Port), for the 5th Annual Atari Homebrew Awards 1-23-23: Gorf Arcade, Qyx, Galaxian (7800), Pac-Man Collection 40th Anniversary Edition (7800), UniWarS (7800) are all now available in the AtariAge store. 1-13-23: Final Gorf Arcade ROM now available for purchase at Champ.Games. 1-13-23: Final Qyx ROM now available for purchase at Champ.Games. 12-31-22: Elevator Agent demo ROM now available for download at Champ.Games.

Aardvark (2019) is another cooperation. Oscar started the development, recreating an unreleased Anteater prototype. Then I joined development and got Nathan into the project too. Together we greatly improved the game, even over the arcade version. Aardvark (2019) (Oscar Toledo G., Thomas Jentzsch, Nathan Strum) (NTSC).bin Aardvark (2019) (Oscar Toledo G., Thomas Jentzsch, Nathan Strum) (PAL60).bin

Star Castle Arcade (2014) is the result of a cooperation with Chris Walton (Nathan Strum did the graphics). Chris started the game and I finalized it. Star Castle Arcade (2014) (Chris Walton, Thomas Jentzsch) (NTSC) (Harmony).cu Star Castle Arcade (2014) (Chris Walton, Thomas Jentzsch) (PAL) (Harmony).cu Star Castle Arcade (2014) (Chris Walton, Thomas Jentzsch) (NTSC) (Stella).bin Star Castle Arcade (2014) (Chris Walton, Thomas Jentzsch) (PAL) (Stella).bin

I'm doing ok, everyone. thankfully, I had a very mild case. feverish and achey for a few days, then it subsided into sore throat, congestion, headache and fatigue. my quarantine ended two weekends ago and I called a doctor friend of mine to ask what that actually means? was I free to ride the subway maskless? Am I now immune and super powered? he basically said that a) no one really knows but, b) it looks like infection does not necessarily prevent from getting reinfected and that c) the virus is mutating so even if one is immune, one might not be immune to a particular strain. and since this is all over the place, it's worse than the flu. So the recommendation was to continue to avoid potential exposure, meaning continue to spend most of my time at home. I went into work once last week and may go in twice this week, but am probably going to keep it down at that level for the rest of the year. and I still get tired really easily...I can sleep 12 hours a day without any problem so spending time up to do work or schoolwork has been a challenge. but thank you, everyone, for your concern and just remember...

*Hugs*Bob*Hugs* People leave a legacy, Bob. Perhaps not one written in the history books for all to read about, but the good done in their life, the positive brought, has moved and motivated others in ways we may never fully know. You're an outstanding person. Donald's sister and other loved ones will no doubt be strengthened and comforted by your presence, and in turn, may you find strength, comfort, and peace as well. Warmest thoughts and great sympathy for all impacted.

Interesting reading, Kris. While I agree with all three of your points, point 2 particularly interests me. The debug version of the Atari ST emulator Steem, with its Boiler Room debugger, has been a great aid to much of the productivity on that system over the last, well, it's quite a few years now. If the Jaguar had something similar - a highly accurate emulator with advanced features, put simply there would be a lot more going on than there is today. Let's hope subqmod continues to work on his emulator in the limited time he has available these days. Virtual Jaguar is also something to keep an eye on, Shamus posted news of a potential update a little while ago. As for your throughts and feelings as a whole, you echo the thoughts of plenty of others I've had contact with over the last couple of years, albeit more often private contact and not in an open forum. People who genuinely enjoy their Jaguar want to see good things happen, but not at the expense of flame wars and dividing the community into factions. Time will tell - openness, the free sharing of information and discoveries and new releases both freely and for a fee - those things all have a positive impact. Many of the things you mention would do likewise. It's good for the majority of Jaguar fans that the two major forums are now in a much healthier and positive phase of existence than they once were. If other more secret but active forums keep their actions internal/out of plain sight, I don't see that any real harm can be done - it keeps the majority of the community and the public perception of it in a much tidier and healthier place and thus somewhere outsiders may feel they want to participate without fear of a verbal beatdown. Maybe their secrecy and sense of belonging will help spur them on to be more productive, so maybe some good can still come of it. OTOH, radicalising an already small and diverse community, forcing people to comply or leave by the nearest exit, however well intentioned the conception of such a place... well, I can't see that having much legs. Anyway, thanks for taking the time to work on a piece like this - progressive, informative and well conceived.

Well if you have Diabetes and chose NOT to do anything "special" about it then be prepared for a lot of problems in future. With all the issues related to diabetes you risk everything from heart attack from high blood pressure to possible blindness etc. So suck it up, grow up and take charge doing what you need to do, or be tough, suborn, in denial or whatever this nonsense is and accept the inevitable health consequences. Now, I been a diabetic for some years fortunately though through diet changes, medication, lifestyle changes etc, I've kept my numbers excellent and have avoided having to take insulin injections and buddy, believe me, if you can also avoid having to go on insulin you will avoid a whole other level of risks and health issues. So make your choice but be sensible about it or you may end up on insulin sooner or later and you will have only yourself to blame.

Yay! We all know the hobby needs more concentric cylinders.

So... many... updates: 1-20-22: Qix nominated for the 4th Annual Atari Homebrew Awards: Best 2600 Homebrew Port (Work-in-Progress). 1-20-22: Turbo nominated for the 4th Annual Atari Homebrew Awards: Best 2600 Homebrew Port (Work-in-Progress). 1-20-22: Lady Bug Arcade nominated for the 4th Annual Atari Homebrew Awards: Best 2600 Homebrew (Port), Best 2600 Graphics (Port); Best 2600 Music and Sound (Port). 1-20-22: RobotWar:2684 nominated for the 4th Annual Atari Homebrew Awards: Best Packaging; Best 2600 Homebrew (Port), Best 2600 Graphics (Port); Best 2600 Music and Sound (Port). 2-13-22: Turbo won Best 2600 Homebrew Port (Work-in-Progress) in the 4th Annual Atari Homebrew Awards. 2-13-22: RobotWar:2684 won Best 2600 Homebrew (Port); Best 2600 Graphics (Port); Best 2600 Music and Sound (Port) in the 4th Annual Atari Homebrew Awards. 2-25-22: Elevator Action moved back to "active development" - rebooted as a CDFJ project. 2-25-22: Boom! moved back to "active development" - rebooted as a CDFJ project. 3-5-22: "Historical Documentary" moved to "on hold". There are plans to continue this game, but other projects are a higher priority. 3-5-22: New project added: "Champ Sports Shot Put"* *code name

The reason they won't tell you why is they don't know why themselves. They have a neural network they've "trained" by feeding it a bunch of posts marked "bad" (and hopefully some marked "good") until it correctly marks another bunch of posts. The more similar your post is to the "good" training & testing posts, the more likely the AI will mark it correctly. But if your post is more like the "bad" training & testing posts, then the AI is going to mark it incorrectly. And there's no way to ask the AI "why is this post "bad"". Modern AI is a big black box - garbage in - gospel out.

Life is great without (un)social media. Trust me!

Updates: 7-31-21: Gorf Arcade label artwork concept approved. 7-31-21: Lady Bug Arcade label artwork concept approved. 8-2-21: Galaxian 7800 label artwork concept approved. 8-2-21: Pac-Man Collection XM 7800 label artwork concept approved. 8-2-21: UniWarS 7800 label artwork concept approved. Off to a good start! I have roughs of all five labels in various stages (all but two have color), and they're far enough along to show John and Bob the direction I'm heading in. Fortunately, they liked all of them! Although if they hadn't, I suppose that would've let me off the hook for working on them. Maybe I'm doing this wrong... Anyway, as long as I've been doing this, it's always a pleasant surprise when the programmers like the labels, especially if they're for known properties, but the labels don't resemble the original game artwork at all (admittedly, Pac-Man is still Pac-Man, and Galaxian is at least a nod to the original). Of the three 7800 games, I'm having the most fun with UniWarS because it tells a story, but if I can pull it off, Galaxian will look the coolest. For the 2600 games, I solved the Gorf problem of trying to represent all five stages, basically by only representing one. I'm having the most fun with Gorf out of all of these, probably because Gorf is a big, goofy, space gumdrop that shouts insults at you. And the Lady Bug Arcade label turned out much better than I was expecting. I'm really quite pleased with it, and I think it's an appropriate upgrade to an upgraded game. Maybe this time around I won't spend the next 15 years regretting drawing this one. Next, I have to actually execute the final illustrations. On a difficulty scale of 1-10 (1 being super easy, barely an inconvenience, 10 being insane), I'd give them: Gorf Arcade: 4 Lady Bug Arcade: 6 Galaxian 7800: 10 Pac-Man Collection XM 7800: 5 UniWarS 7800: 8 I'm probably going to be wrong on all of those.

Updates: 7-4-21: Lady Bug Arcade label artwork in progress. 7-4-21: Gorf Arcade label artwork in progress. 7-4-21: Added Homebrew Label section, to separate out games I'm only creating packaging artwork for: 7-4-21: Galaxian (7800) label artwork in progress. 7-4-21: Pac-Man Collection XM (7800) label artwork in progress. 7-4-21: UniWarS (7800) label artwork in progress. And yes... I'm working on five labels at the same time. I must be insane or something. However, I'm not creating the manuals for the 7800 games (Bob does that), just the artwork. The manuals are the time-sucking, soul-draining monsters that make life a living misery, so I think doing just the labels is manageable. Plus, Gorf is months down the road. I should note when I say "labels", that the label artwork also gets repurposed for the boxes and manual covers (and sometimes posters). They all get cropped to slightly different proportions (thanks for that, Atari), so the layout has to be somewhat flexible, and to do that I try to keep each element split out on separate layers. For Lady Bug Arcade, I wanted to completely re-do the artwork from the original release. I've never been happy with it, since I didn't do proper research on insects and just kind-of faked my way through the character designs (one of these days, I'll add a blog entry about it in my Homebrew Art series). The new artwork will still be cartoony, but completely different. I've been researching insects a lot this time, and I've got an all-new appreciation and fascination with ladybugs. I'm pleased with the results so far, although anyone expecting just an update of the original Champ Games version, a Coleco-style label, or an homage to the arcade artwork... prepare to be disappointed. For Gorf Arcade, I've been struggling mightily for months trying to come up with an idea. Actually, ideas. I'd thought about doing something elaborate like a classic Star Wars poster (think Gorf as the Death Star with two superlaser dishes as eyes), but the execution just wasn't working. Ralph McQuarrie I'm not. Plus, it was looking too much like Draconian. Other failed ideas and sketches came and went with no luck. I think the idea of it being five games in one was really intimidating me, or at least getting me hung up. But as I was researching "groovy 70's graphic design" the other day, I came across a really simple set of stripes that finally triggered what I think is a keeper. It's still an early design, and it's very different from anything I've done before, but it appeals to me in a way none of the other ideas did. Plus, I may be able to do something with it that would be kind-of-fun for collectors, although Albert would probably kill me. And for anyone expecting an homage to the CBS or arcade artwork... prepare to be disappointed. Bob (PacManPlus) DeCrescenzo originally asked me to work on... was it Pac-Man Collection XM? Or Galaxian? I forget now. Pac-Man, I think. Anyway, this was many months ago, and I was already committed to working on Zoo Keeper and Venture Reloaded, so I suggested he might want to find someone else if he wanted it done in a timely manner. Later, he asked me to work on Galaxian, which I said I could do, but not until later. Well, now is later, or perhaps "later is the new now" as the kids say (I'm assuming they probably say that, on their YouTube TV shows or whatever). Mostly because I'm on vacation for the first time in a year-and-a-half. Fully away from being stuck in my apartment, away from work, and with time to just sit and be creative with no pressures (except the looming deadlines of getting these labels done, of course). But I've found I can't force myself to be creative. If I'm stressed-out, it just doesn't work. So if you're wondering sometimes why games may not be released right away when the programmers declare them "finished", it's because they ask artists like me to create artwork for them, and sometimes that's where the delay comes from. Some artists are better at "on-demand" artwork than others. I'm not one of those. I don't even keep track of how much time labels, manuals and boxes take to create, because it would probably just end up turning me off from ever doing one again. Anyway, although hopefully not related to that, the other artist slated to work on Pac-Man XM is apparently a no-show, and Bob also needed artwork for UniWarS, so he asked if I could do all three games. And since Bob has almost single-handedly doubled the 7800's game library, is one of the nicest and most talented guys on the planet, and I've never done a 7800 label before (save for a few failed contest entries), I thought I'd give it a shot. Also, I was still stuck on Gorf at the time, and hoped working on something else would un-stick me. I started with UniWarS, since I didn't have any preconceived notions about it. It's an obscure Galaxian-style shooter from back-in-the-day, and I figured it would be the one that I could be the most creative with, since it's pretty-much the opposite of iconic. The flyer and arcade game art are nothing special, but I did get inspiration from one of the flyers and the backstory of the game. So I'm using the story as the basis of the label, and telling that story from the point-of-view of the poor, oppressed aliens who you have decided to arbitrarily exterminate. I like the way it's turning out. Again, it's different from the arcade artwork and flyers, so if you're a fan of those (if there are any of you out there)... prepare once more to be disappointed. For Pac-Man XM... whew. What to do with that? It's Pac-Man, fer cryin' out loud. You can't go too far off the rails there. I didn't want to re-hash the previous Pac-Man Collection artwork though. So if you're a fan of that... well, you should know the drill by now with the preparation and disappointment and all that. Rather, I'm mixing my own cartooning style with Namco's official version(s). I don't want to just outright ape Namco's artwork. It needs to be my own, or at that point I'm just copying. I may mix a few different styles in there, because of the different games present in the collection. But it took a surprising amount of time to be able to knock-out versions of Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man that I'm happy with. If I don't like what I'm doing, that will be reflected in the artwork. Maybe nobody else will see it, but I will. If I like what I'm doing, that will be reflected as well, and the end result will be something that I've put more effort into, and hopefully the programmer will like as well. I've got the characters and concept figured out for this one, now I have to work on the layout. It's going to be tricky, because it's not just going to be one Pac-Man, one Ms. Pac-Man and maybe a monster or two. Nope. Think more along the lines of a Pac-Multiverse. Galaxian, on the other hand, borrows pretty heavily from the arcade flyer, cabinet artwork, and 2600 artwork. I like the flying-bug spaceship, as weird as it is. Like Pac-Man, it's iconic, so you kind-of have to use it, or at least give a nod to it. So I'm giving a nod to it. However, it will not replicate the look of any of the above mentioned artwork, because I'm taking it in a different direction. Again, I don't want to just copy. There's no fun in that. So if you like the flying-spaceship-bug-things as seen on anything mentioned above, it'll be there. But if you want it to look exactly like the other versions of it... once again, prepare to be disappointed. Then I'll be five-for-five. Always happy to be of service.

In 2012, after almost 10 years of development, Andrew Davie and I released Boulder Dash. The game was licensed by First Star Software for a 250 copies release. Unfortunately we are not allowed to the release the full ROM. So here you can download only a demo version. The good news is, that we are currently working on an unlimited re-release. Stay tuned... Boulder Dash (2012) (Andrew Davie, Thomas Jentzsch) (Demo 2).bin

Oh yes... I still pull these out once in a while to chuckle over the typos and grammatical errors. So far I've got nine of these T. Cooper boxes, and all are glorious in their own way, whether it be the artwork or the grammar.

I wasn't interested in this product when I first heard about it, as I think a PC running Stella and connected to the TV can basically do the same thing (and much, much more). USB adapters for original controllers already exists as well as a vast selection of USB controllers from arcade sticks to d-pads, and cartridge dumpers have been produced for other systems and are possible for the 2600 too, if one really wants the "illusion" of playing the original carts (There have been examples of DIY projects like this one: https://atariage.com/forums/topic/212299-atari2600-cartridge-reader-play-your-real-cartridges-on-an-emulator/). That said, I admit that given the small form factor and low price, I might consider buying one in the future IF the software side is improved to solve the severe issues Thomas mentioned in the review. As Nathan said, it shouldn't be a shipping product in its current state. I overall like the design, although it looks like the buttons and switches are placed without much thought: I would have preferred to have the original 5 switches (TV-TYPE, LEFT and RIGHT DIFFICULTY, SELECT and RESET) all aligned on the front panel, with the same labeling and order as in the original 6-switch console, and separated from the emulation related buttons (save/load, aspect ratio). The TV-TYPE switch on the back is an issue for any game using it for gameplay. I also would have preferred toggle switches for difficulty and TV-TYPE (I think it would be trivial to modify Stella to support them), while a soft power switch would have probably been better, allowing the CPU to finish write operations before shutting down thus reducing the risk of corrupting the files on the SD card. Oh, and the cart port is backwards!!!! I'm disappointed that Hyperkin didn't correct this even if it was pointed out after the first prototype was shown. It has been speculated that it was an intentional choice for people not familiar with the original console, but I find it a questionable choice neverthless because, in this way, both the end and main label are upside down when the cart is in the system. In order to convince me to buy this console, it NEEDs to have the following features: - Stella 5. There's no going back! - CRT effects, phosphor emulation, TIA interpolation (I'm not a fan of a raw TIA image displayed on a 50+ inches TV with big flat square pixels. It really detracts from the experience in my opinion) - File browser with support for directories, no limit for number of files and long file names (8 characther DOS-style filenames? C'mon, the Harmony cart displays full filenames on a 40 years old console!) - The Cart dumper should work with all the classic bankswitched carts. It's more a novelty for me and not something I' would likely use very much, but since it's there, it should at least play the original games as advertised. I know it could never play everything (compumate, supercharger, flash carts, modern homebrews using coprocessors, etc) but Batari wrote code for the harmony cart to work as a dumper years ago and it autodetected correctly many classic schemes, so we know it is possible to make it work. It would be also nice if you could save the dump on the sd card, there are still a few dumps of classic games missing, and revisions of already dumped ones still to discover, but the current solutions to dump games are not user friendly and tipically also require soldering skills. (I know this is outside the scope of the product, but I think it would be a nice addition and probably easy to implement) - It would be nice if the controller ports could support other controller types (at least driving controller and keypads should work. Adding Trackballs, Genesis pads and maybe the booster grip would cover almost every game ever released). I know autodetection could be problematic or even impossible for some of these, but a selection menu would be prefectly fine (autodetection could be reserved for paddles and joysticks that are the most common ones).

The forecasted crest for the Brazos river was lowered from 59' to 57.5' which makes a huge difference for my neighborhood. I posted details here. I slept well last night for the first time since last week.

Ha Ha you guys are funny (thanks for the compliments) I am *really* looking forward to trying this out. The more developers, the merrier! We can create a *huge* library for this overlooked system.

Thomas is doing a great job at optimising my code, so the next version should be even closer to the arcade. The plan is to release it as a regular home-brew title through the AA store. Chris

Speaking as one who sells Jag stuff I can see and admire aspects from both sides. Personally I like the interaction of a group of enthusiasts and being able to contribute since i am not a coder or hacker. However I do respect intellectual copyright, if someone has worked on something they MAY want something back for it. So we should respect that. I also enjoy the new hardware hacks that come out for Jaguar, and look forward to a replacement for the CD. Overall a well thought out and considered article, much better than some of the "guff" we have had in the past in JF2 and AA Kudos to you Sir Nick Harlow

Well put together post! nice one, agree with you completely. I do believe a lot of the 'piracy' stuff is mainly aimed at trying to keep the price of games high, more feeding others pockets than helping the community. Although personally I would respect the wishes of someone if they put time into producing say a new game on cart but asked that it not be dumped and spread for free, as you say that is their wish and it is technically their IP to do with as they wish. Personally I prefer the free release of ROM/ISO backed onto a physical release of a cart for any who want them. I hack at my jag for the kudos, the beer and the buzz. Hopefully this renaissance will make the place friendlier too, meaning I don't get sick of it and start playing wow instead.. again

I experimented a little more with the full color version. This one doesn't just color a rainbow, but also links the coloring to the displayed plasma shape, while slowly changing the base color. So it is a mix of my original coloring and the one based on @SvOlli. 294 bytes, incl. color Plasma_FC_V2.asm Plasma_FC_V2.bin

Least exciting episode of ZPH ever: James (reads comic strip on livestream): "Well, that wasn't very funny." Aerlan: "Dude, you totally missed the juxtapositioning of anthropomorphism with the human condition. It's a biting satire of how people find meaning in pointless emotional attachment to material things. F___ yeah, man!"

Maybe @ZeroPage Homebrew could stream the unboxing.

If you mean not in a box? Yes. Artie will return as a proper 2600. I have one or two left in this series, then we'll start unboxing Artie and some of the rest of the cast. I'm a bit preoccupied with some other projects right now, so there may be a bit of a delay before that happens.

Nope. I decided to revert back to black and white (as Artie originally was) for several reasons: Traditionally, daily newspaper comics are black and white. Since moving back to Seattle, I get a newspaper here (a real printed one). There are some comics in the paper that clearly started out as full-color web comics, and they don't translate to black and white at all. They didn't take into account the limitations of newspaper printing when creating them, and they end up a blurry, illegible mess. I like the clean, simple look of a well-designed black and white comic strip, and wanted to go back to Artie's original inspiration and appearance: a newspaper comic. The color strips (even as copy/paste as they are) are a bit of a pain to produce. I wanted to simplify things so I'd be more inclined to produce new strips. I wanted to change the look of the strip, and try some different approaches to creating the artwork. This is in part because I've moved, therefore Artie's moved, and this represents an opportunity for a clean break between then and now. But also, I'm always looking for new ways to create art, and hopefully come up with techniques and approaches I can use in other projects. I'll get one or two strips out of Artie's meta commentary about how everything is black and white.

The NMI and IRQ vectors are described in any and all documentation about the 6502. These are addresses that are jumped to, when these events occur. The 6507 does not connect the NMI or IRQ lines to anything meaningful, so other than the BRK instruction in code (which generates an IRQ), the NMI and IRQ vectors are meaningless. The only one of any merit on the VCS is RESET, which is the address the 6507 jumps to when the processor is reset. -Thom

THANK-YOU! This release has made my day. It is just wonderful. I never dreamt I'd every be able to play one of my favourite arcade games on Atari (hyperkin) hardware. Bless you.

Last night I wrote a bash script that: extracts the DPC+ drivers from games found in Games/ saves the drivers in Drivers/ using the MD5 value as part of the filename. This way only 1 driver file is created for each version even if multiple games have the same driver. extracts the 29K of game code from the 3 test games merges each driver with each 29K of code, saving them in Test/ with the MD5 value as part of the filename. I then put the games from this blog entry, and some ROMs from my projects, into Games and ran the script. It found 4 DPC+ driver versions and created 12 test ROMs. I then ran each test on hardware on both the regular and the Encore version of Harmony. Initial results: 17884ec14f9b1d06fe8d617a1fbdcf47 Jitters Encore Compatible 5f80b5a5adbe483addc3f6e6f1b472f8 Stable Encore Compatible 8dd73b44fd11c488326ce507cbeb19d1 Stable Not Compatible with Encore b328dbdf787400c0f0e2b88b425872a5 Jitter Encore Compatible Next is to scour around AtariAge to see if I can find any other versions of the DPC+ driver. After that see if I can nail down dates for each version. Script and all the files: DPCplusVersions.zip

I don't like beer because I spent years working for a janitorial company, cleaning it up from the other end. And it smells exactly the same.

The modern criticism of this game is completely fair. There absolutely ARE many 2600 games that are more fun to play now than this one. But the game really was a revelation to those of us who played it in 1982. Up until this point, the 2600 had generally been giving us good (If rarely great) copies of games and play styles we’d already experienced via arcade games, board games, card games, etc. But it hadn’t yet given us something new we hadn’t yet tried elsewhere. But with Pitfall! we now had something we hadn’t played before... a graphically excellent action adventure game across a huge environment. Yes, in a real way, Adventure had done something similar earlier, and I would never want to take anything away from that outstanding achievement. But instead of icons that mostly only vaguely looked like what they should, nearly everything in Pitfall! was actually easily identifiable and animated. Pitfall Harry himself was amazingly well represented compared to previous game characters, and unlike Adventure’s square, he could run, jump, climb and swing on vines - yawn-inducing now perhaps, but amazing in 1982. No criticism of this review is intended... it’s looking-back approach to an admittedly now-dated game is right on target. Just wanted to give a back-in-the-day perspective to why this game was so popular and groundbreaking back then and remembered fondly by us old folks today, despite gameplay that doesn’t stand up quite as well as many of its contemporaries.

If nothing is better than the Intellivision, does "Atari VCS" win? Because it's literally nothing.

Artie's index has been updated. Today's episode was #350!

One thing lacking vs the arcade is the robots won't collide into each other in the 2600 version. I'm starting to feel the urge to work on Frantic again, which has this feature. Before I do that I need to update SpiceC to use the new CDFJ version of CDF. CDFJ adds a second Jump Datastream for John, which allowed him to free up ~450 bytes in WoW which he'll be using for sound effect data.

I'm disappointed as well, but I'm not really surprised. I think that the process would be intimidating to non-programmers. If I didn't know how to lay stuff out in Photoshop and convert it, I don't think I could wrap my head around it. That said, I would've hoped with all of the programmers that hang out on AtariAge, some of them would've stepped up and submitted ideas. I hadn't planned to enter, but maybe I will now anyway. I have a pretty-good shot at winning. I understand your frustration though - and hope that you won't step back from other projects because of it. It would be nice, of course, if more people participated in things like this when invited to do so. But it's something that can't be counted on. And this never got onto the official AA contest page, or an announcement on the front page. So I don't think this got a lot of attention, especially due to the time constraints. A lot of people have said a lot of positive things already about Draconian. You've already got two of the top five games in the AA store, so people are looking forward to this game, and I expect Draconian to climb its way up there as well. Hang in there! You make awesome stuff.

Actually I would have been surprised if there were a lot of entries. Many people around are typical consumers only. And then the time was very short. So no reason to be disappointed, IMO. And I am sure you can fill the gaps easily.

I dunno, Feargal Mac sounds more like a death metal cover band that sings only Fleetwood Mac songs.

Interesting tidbits here: https://www.arcade-history.com/?page=detail&id=320 Like us old farts would be good enough players to succeed in this: "Bonus for no-miss clear (completing a round without dying) - this bonus is given only when the game is set to auto difficulty : multiplier x number of bases, the multiplier starts at 100 points and increases by 100 points each time you get the bonus up to 1,000 points."

That's so cool!!! I kind of wish that I had played Bosconian 'back in the day' now so I could appreciate this more... @iesposta: Thank You! ...but "Was"? I'm not dead (yet) I can't wait to get back to 7800 programming.

Amazing! unbe-freakin-lievable! This will also make Frantic spectacular. Then we should collaborate on Astro Blaster 2600 -- it's a "talkie" where speech in-game is more important than Bosconian -- because I have permission to take Bob's 7800 movement routines (which equal the Arcade but need tweaked for 2600 screen compensation, as was done for the 7800 amounting to only one divide by 2), and the TIA audio is already there (like Scramble 7800 to 2600). I myself could do a decent batari Basic DPC+ kernel Astro Blaster using AtariVox+, but CDF with samples and less canned kernel constraints would be so much better. Also, like DK Arcade 2600, I can do the Graphics, Sound, Speech Samples, Layout, but game logic and C programming are out of my wheelhouse. If only we could all be as productive and fast as Bob DeCrescenzo was!

Just got done with lesson one, and I find lesson two is already out! Wow, I'll have to print it out after work tonight. Thanks!

You can't make it right for everyone, so I stopped trying. Now I just make it right for me.