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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......

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.

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

Some more updates: 1-14-24: New revived project code-named "Zombie Project (does not contain any actual zombies)" added to to-do list. First pass at new graphics complete. 1-14-24: New project code-named "WIP It" added to to-do list. Graphics are in-progress. 1-14-24: "Two-Fer" is on hold. "Historical Documentary" is back to being a stand-alone project for now. 12-31-23: First pass at graphics for "Hoosegow" complete. 12-18-23: First pass at graphics for "Space Mona Lisa" complete.

The heading of your post reminded me about a Swedish sci-fi novel from 1969 by pseudonym Carl Henner, titled "The Future Machine". The story begins in 1997, when some guy named Ken gets to try a time machine that transports him to year 3025. He quickly learns that the year is 993, as the count was reset in 2031 when the World Union was created with London as its capital. In this time, they have a giant computer used to predict the future, and which can print small notes about everyone's future. Ken gets to see the machine, and it gives him a note that says "You will not exist much longer. Within a week you'll be gone." which he and everyone else interpret as if he's about to die, and all sorts of action takes place. Eventually he takes his time machine and returns back to 1997, when the scientist who created the time machine tells him about his newest invention, a computer that can make predictions about the future. They both read the note, and he realizes the machine was correct: he no longer exists (in 3025). Ken attempts to put the blueprints for the computer on fire, but the scientist has kept an extra copy in a safe.

Don't forget, the Inty has 10-bit memory, therefore 4 would be ... well, it'd still be 4. But that 4 is 25% better!

Outstanding!

I have not had a credit card in 15 years, and my bank is really good about charge backs and covering fraud (only happened once in 23 years.) There is also a difference in coverage (including benefits) if you process a payment through the Visa or MasterCard network and not the debit system.

Artie's index has been updated. I guess I'm making up for lost time - I've posted more strips since September than the previous three years combined!

The "sale" is for a limited time only.

I have to update that I purchased the 2/3 size Arcade1up machine of Defender (with 11 other games). It almost hit the spot. For now I'm going to replace it's control panel with one that more authentically represents the arcade and stick a raspberri pi in it so it is closer to the actual arcade machine in how it works.

Many thanks! I just updated my VecMulti without having to hunt for a PC. You made my work this evening much easier.

The Alfasud had this problem on top, because the government forced Alfa to build it near Neapel. Where they did not find enough educated workforce, which on top was on strike 700 times over the Alfasud's lifetime. The result was a miserable build quality there as well. Which is a shame, because the Alfasud was designed very well. Great engine, great ride and spacious for its size. Three years before VW Golf/Rabbit, it paved the ground for the hot hatchbacks.

Not only Fiat was affected, in the 1970s and 1980s almost all European cars were affected by the cheap Soviet recycled steel. For example, the first VW Golf (Rabbit) had serious problems with rust, as did Mercedes and BMWs. However, the most famous is the Alfasud, a great small car, but it started to rust during production.

Also funny cuz in print, They say things like, there it is in 'black and white'...And my above comment was printed...So... Aren't tiny letters wonderful? Sometimes it's the little things... I crack myself up HAAAaaa

That's true - I forgot about the T-shirt thing. I don't recall the details - I think the T-shirt website itself flagged it as an off-limits IP. But however that was done, Atari is still behind it. And I don't think that instance had anything to do with the Atari logo. The ZPH awards is a little more understandable though, since they weren't actually "Atari" awards, and the logo was the dominant feature of it. It implied they were from Atari, rather than for games for Atari systems. I think they should just be renamed the ZPH awards, and make the award look like the ZPH logo. Then James would be free to do what he wished with them. (They're sort-of that way now, but it's really a ZPH production, and I think it should be identified as such.) It would be nice though if Atari wasn't so immediately dismissive of fan projects. But they're a corporation, and they're protective of their IPs. Not their fans.

That's just silly, I can barely even hear myself think at PRGE. ..Al

Good luck.

Glad you decided to get it checked and taken care of!

It's amazing what one can optimize out of a game if necessary. I spent a lot of RAM tracking enemies through the world map in Dragon Chalice. Eventually I scrapped it all and just gave enemies greater or lesser chances to appear per region. No one noticed the difference

Jesus, so dramatic. MAYBE just wait and do some research. Eat salads for the rest of my life - WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? I have a well rounded diet, including all the nice things and even indulgences. Oh I don't sit around all day drinking a 2L bottle of soda in one sitting but hey guess what? I eat pretty much whatever I want within reason. If it turns out you have type 2 diabetes consider yourself lucky because not much will actually change to maintain safe numbers, oh perhaps a single pill of METFORMIN per day and again, just being reasonable with your diet and by that I mean a diet that would benefit anyone, mostly just reasonable cutting back a bit, perhaps getting a little more activity etc. It's hardly a death sentence or changes that will make you miserable (unless you are determined to be) but DAMN you seem to be going for the worst possible outlook and result here when clearly you know little about being diabetic. I drink beer whenever we go out I have a couple pints, we go out weekly, again I eat pretty much whatever I want just reasonable portions for someone my age / weight etc. Maybe just calm down and wait until you see your doctor, discuss what change need to take place to combat whatever turns out to be "wrong" with you and deal with it, who knows? IF you are lucky like me you will find whatever changes you need to make benefit you in other ways, I've slowly lost weight over the years for example improving my blood pressure and stamina as well. Life is what you make and FYI I am the farthest thing from a "positive" person overall but you you seem to be taking a miserable outlook to a whole new level so that has been my only reason for chiming in thus far, stop being so negative, or don't, this is my last reply here either way because if you are determined to come to the worse possible conclusions well then good luck.

You're welcome! The documentation to look at for those 6 bytes is for the 6507 processor. The 6507 is a member of the 6500 family of CPUs, so you can find that at 6502.org. Click on Documents in the top-right corner Click on Books Download mcs6500_family_hardware_manual.pd Download mcs6500_family_programming_manual.pdf The documentation is quite detailed, so I'll try to summarize it. If an external event occurs the CPU needs to be informed about it so the event can be handled. An example would be if you were calling a BBS with a modem. The chip that talks to the modem, known as a UART, had limited resources so after it receives a byte of data it must hand it over to the CPU right away before the next byte comes in. It does this by flagging an interrupt to the CPU. Some chips in the system can have a timer, such as RIOT in the 2600. When the timer runs out an interrupt will be flagged so the CPU knows about it. FFFA-FFFB = NMI vector These 2 bytes point to the routine that handles a Non-Maskable Interrupt. The CPU cannot ignore an NMI, you'd use this for the UART because if the CPU ignored the byte of data it could be lost by being overwritten by the next byte that's received. When an NMI occurs your program is temporarily halted while the CPU runs the NMI routine. FFFC-FFFD = RESET vector These 2 bytes point to the routine that handles a Reset. This occurs when the system is initially powered on because the state of the hardware will be unknown, such as the Accumulator in the CPU will contain a random value between 0-255. The reset routine is used to initialize everything to a known state. The reset can also be triggered on systems that have a dedicated reset button* FFFE-FFFF = IRQ vector These 2 bytes point to the routine that handles Interrupt ReQuest. The CPU can ignore an IRQ, you'd use this for things like the timer as it's not critical that the timer is handled right away because the CPU can check if the timer ran out at any time. When an IRQ occurs your program is temporarily halted while the CPU runs the IRQ routine. This can also be triggered by your program via a BRK instruction. The 6507 is a 6502 that's put into a reduced package, it only has 28 pins instead of 40. This reduces the cost of the CPU. Some of the missing pins include those needed to signal the NMI and the IRQ, so those cannot be triggered on the 2600 by external events. The IRQ can still be triggered by a BRK instruction as that happens inside the CPU. I had that occur on accident in Medieval Mayhem. BRK can be used as a space saving way to call subroutines, though this is an advanced technique. @Thomas Jentzsch explained this in the old Stella mailing list. * the red button on my Mega-Cart is an example of a reset button. After playing a game I can press that button to reset my VIC20. This lets me select a different game to play without having to power cycle my VIC-20.

Well, Bubsy appears to be alright with this.

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

Just remember that the person who graduates nursing school with the lowest score is still a nurse and the same for doctors. Sounds like a rough ride. Glad you made it through. My girlfriend just had two of those addressed on her back. The dermatologist did it outpatient and put her on a course of broad-spectrum antibiotics.

I find your post to be bizarre, because it's completely at odds with how things work at my house (I'm not saying there's anything wrong with your post; I have no doubt it's accurate relative to what happens at your house). At my house the RF cable doesn't matter. I never see even a single speck of "snow," not even in a picture taken of the screen, not even with the stock RF cable (which I connect directly to the TV's tuner with an RCA-to-F adapter). That applies to all six of my Atari 2600s (four 6-switch models and two 4-switch woodgrain models) and to my Atari 7800. Also, the RF cable's proximity to the AC adapter's cord makes no difference whatsoever; they can be all tangled together or separated as far as possible and I get the exact same picture either way. Using the stock RF cable or using far superior RG6 given to me by a cable TV installer (which he had leftover after installing cable at my house many years ago) results in the exact same picture too. I do get some RF interference but it's never in the form of white specks ("snow"), but rather, it's in the form of faint/shadowy diagonal lines on the screen, which are in constant motion, and they continually vary in degree of visibility. They also vary depending on the colors being displayed. They are most prominent with certain shades of green, and they pretty much disappear with certain other colors. If you watch the attract mode in Space Invaders for example, you can see them instantly come and go at the color change points. Here's a picture of the diagonal interference lines on my "heavy sixer" (it should be opened at its original resolution [800x600] to eliminate the moire effect caused by the forum software resizing it to embed into this post): My 6-switch models are the worst in that respect (but they have the best colors by far); the 4-switch models have less of that type of interference, and my 7800 has none at all. Here's what that same screen looks like on my 7800: The cleanest RF output I've ever seen is from my frontloader NES; it's nearly as clean as its direct composite video output, and that's using it's stock automatic RF switchbox, which has a very skinny coaxial cable, even skinnier than the stock Atari ones. I would love to know how to eliminate those diagonal lines on my 6-switch models, especially my heavy one (because I use that one the most), but I have no idea how. Like I said, the type of coaxial cable and its proximity to the power supply's cord have no effect on it whatsoever. It must be possible though, because my 7800 has a very clean picture by RF standards, almost as clean as my NES's RF picture.

Perhaps there is some logic you could use to spend two 16-bit variables for a 32-bit score that goes up to 4,294,967,295 points. Or simply lower your scoring objects by a factor of 10 and just add an extra zero at the end of the display to make it look like a higher score than it technically is. I believe quite a few games work with scores that internally are stored as 1738 while you'd see 173,800 on the screen, and that you never can increase your score by less than 100 points at a time.

Another great product review.

I'm using GBDK-2020.

I never ran across that bug myself that I can recall? Interesting! But I am also curious of course to know what additional changes you might in store for the Koffi redux? And while I haven't really the tools or time to design any sprites I'm happy to test anything you want where I can record and document anything I find and ideas. Another thing is that with Koffi being a unique IP that belongs to you, I think a redux release on cartridge would be nice and include some of your grid paper designs in the manual or as a separate "Making of" booklet that would be included?

How cool would it be if there had been a Japanese Bubsy Manga?

Thanks! Looking back, was some fun folk I worked with on a lot of that.

Hi thanks alot for mentioning this👍

@atari2600land, you need to read the original Grimm Brother’s version (or a translation from the original German) Apparently, the Prince and Rapunzel conspired for the Prince to visit her nightly. The Prince would bring along a strand of silk that Rapunzel would weave into a ladder. Apparently, the plan was working fine (the Prince getting some action, since Rapunzel ends up with twins after their nightly encounters), but Rapunzel opens her big mouth to her step-mom complaining about how fat her step-mom is compared to the Prince. I don’t think Rapunzel could jump, since the tower was supposed to be 60 feet up. If the Prince was more keen to rescuing her faster (bringing more silk per night instead of just a strand), or Rapunzel cut off her own hair and tied it off (as the witch did later) so they could both climb down immediately, the ending might have been happier (although unlike most Grimm fairytales, this story wasn’t that dreadful).

Draconian final ROM is in this blog post. By this: I assume you mean the Flashback Portable? Draconian uses an ARM in the cartridge as a coprocessor, I don't think the Flashback supports that. The Harmony Cart has an ARM processor in it and supports running Draconian on a real Atari. To see what version of the firmware you have hit FIRE on the line at the top with [.] that'll take you to a credits screen which displays the firmware version at the top. Mine is running v1.06: You need to have at least v1.05 for Draconian to work. If your Harmony is lower then go here for the latest firmware and instructions.

Nope. Not the Arcadia. Nice obscure reference though! I suspect this isn't nearly as obscure, but since it's not exactly related to classic gaming (depending on your definition), it would be pretty unlikely for someone to figure it out.

I'm assuming this is a topper for a controller?

Hope your day has/had been "towel-riffic", and you made a clean get away. XD.

Something valuable and never to leave home without? How nice of you to say!

Hooked up my Laserdisc player. Hadn't used it in years as the discs wouldn't spin up; however, if I push the drawer as it closes, it works. Widescreen content doesn't look so good, but is watchable: 4:3 content looks pretty good: Most of my 4:3 content is anime:

The parts arrived Tuesday. The vinyl wrap was a bust, didn't work well on the wood. And I didn't even get around to trying it on the curved pieces, which I suspect would be a hassle. So I picked up some Krylon and painted them yesterday. I let them sit overnight and will put the stand together this evening.