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Missile Command Arcade is another new game utilizing VBXE! Missile Command Arcade uses disassembled code from the arcade version of Missile Command. Combined with VBXE, this allows for a (near) arcade perfect experience on your Atari 8bit computer. Since the internal timing for the arcade version of Missile Command is 60Hz, this runs best for NTSC systems, as it will run slower on PAL, including sound effects and trackball response. I do not have a VBXE for my Atari 800XL, so I have only tested this with Altirra. If somebody with a VBXE, NTSC Atari, and trackball would like to help with testing, please DM me. You can change default settings in the menu screen using the Select button (F3 in Altirra) to choose which option to change and use the Option button (F4 in Altirra) to choose which option you would like to use. Note that if you choose trackball, you will need to use a trackball or else movements will be unpredictable. You can use the fire button (on a joystick or trackball) to fire from the base closest to the cursor. You can also use keyboard keys Z X C for firing from the 3 bases individually. In order to run with Altirra, you will have to configure a few things: 1) Go to System->Configure System. Set your system to NTSC by going to Computer->System->Video Standard. Next, go to Peripherals->Devices. Then click Add and scroll down to "Internal Devices" and select VideoBoard XE (VBXE) then OK. Keep the default settings (Core version FX 1.26 and Base Address of $D600-$D6FF) and click OK (Missile Command Arcade also works at $D700). Then click OK one more time to exit the setup for devices. 2) Missile Command has a resolution of 256x231 and Altirra normally cuts off the display at 224 lines (or so), so you will have to extend the display to see the bottom scrolling text and the "LOW" and "OUT" messages for the bases. Click View->Overscan Mode and set it to Extended (or Full with Blanking if the bottom scrolling line is cut off). 3) You have the option of using a trackball, so you will optionally need to also configure a trackball in Altirra. Under Input->Input Mappings, click Add. Then rename the default name for the mapping (it should default to something like Input Map XX) to Trackball. Then double click on the Trackball mapping that you just added and you will get a pop up for Edit Input Map. Click Add Controller. Under the Controller pulldown, choose Trak-Ball (CX80) - it's the last choice. Leave the defaults for Port 1 and click OK. You will then be at the Edit Input Map popup. Double click on Axis 1. For Source, select "Mouse Move Horiz". For Mode, change to Relative. Next move the Speed slider to 10 and leave Acceleration at 0. Click OK. Next double click on Axis 2. Change the source to "Mouse Move Vert" and the Mode to Relative and once again change the Speed slider to 10. Click OK. Now change the Button 1 assignment to a key for the trackball fire button. Double click on Button 1. For source click "Key: Left Ctrl" (or whatever key you want). Click OK twice. Now unselect any input devices that may have already been selected and check the box next to your next Trackball Input mapping. Then click close. Attached are .XEX, .ROM, and 16K .CAR versions of the game. Enjoy! Eric Anschuetz, Robert Anschuetz, John Weisgerber Missile Command Arcade.car Missile Command Arcade.rom Missile Command Arcade.xex

@kiwilove and I worked on this quite some time ago, but it was sidelined for various reasons. We've picked it up again and hope to make something playable from it. Your task is to destroy all the turrets on the dreadnought, collect a hostage and return to the launch bay. This is complicated by a host of different enemies attacking you. Use the joystick to move your ship, left trigger to fire and right trigger to flip direction. If you destroy a dragon, it will be followed by a pickup that you can collect: S = Shield boost P = Protector W = Weapon upgrade The game finishes when your shield is fully depleted. There will be 7 dreadnoughts in total, but I've only sequenced the first 2 so far. ttda_0.1.a78 ttda_0.1.bin

Caterpillar colors: 77 plus src Atari8man_Pal_Caterpillar.xex Atari8man_NTSC_Caterpilla.xex

All, @InsaneMultitasker and I contacted Custodio Malilong who developed the Nano PEB and CF7 devices for the TI-99/4A to check what his current state was on development for the product. Custodio has given his permissions to release the source files to the Nano PEB as he is no longer working on it or making updates. So it is with great pleasure that Insane and I release the files we obtained from him to help anyone wanting to develop or improve or just see the method behind his madness. Enjoy! nanoPEB.s nanoSIO.s T16C550C.zip

So my console and games arrived yesterday and I have never seen my son so excited - not even on Christmas. This morning, I go to the lounge to find this: The funny thing is he hasn't shown a massive interest in games until now. He does like to play whatever I'm playing (which is kind of annoying, lol) but this is the first time he's actively booted up a console to have a go himself. LOVES Mr. Run & Jump!

Cherries colors: 60 plus src Atari8man_NTSC_Cherries.xex Atari8man_Pal_Cherries.xex

Sun King colors: 41 plus src Atari8man_PAL_Sun_King.xex Atari8man_NTSC_Sun_King.xex

As some of you are aware, each year the french RGC association organise a few conventions. Las WE, it was the AC (formerly known as Jaguar Connexion and for a very brief moment Atari Connexion, now it is just AC where the A means what you want to read : Atari, Amstrad, Amiga, Alternative, Avocado, ...) And each year since 2009, during the AC, there is a speed coding contest, open for every retro coder. The goal is to make a game in 24 hours, on an old console, with a given theme, and a given constraint. This year the theme was in relation with the 20th birthday of the RGC association, and we had to make a Party Game, the constraint was quite obvious : including at least one member of the RGC team inside the game. The speed coding last a bit more that 24 hours (minus the time for eating, sleeping, discussing with nice people and other useless activities). I chosed to code for the Jaguar, with the awesome JagStudio. To be compliant with the theme, it is a 8 players game (after all, the more we are at a party game, the best it could be), with some mini games inspired by board and card party games. So it requires 2 Team Tap (fortunately I have them) and 8 jagpads (fortunately, @Zerosquare and @RadiATIon lent me 4 of them for the public demo). The theme is to collect the biggest amount of video game cartridges (= points), and all games are retrogaming related. Sorry for the bad picture quality, they are taken from my old CRT TV. To be compliant with the constraint, I chosed to make a tricky selection menu (which was probably a good idea only on paper, as it took me lots of time to implement). There are 20 physical cards, where each one represent a RGC staff member, of a usual speed coder. Each card has the pseudo, a number to enter with the num pad, and should have a special power to activate in the game. But I did not have time to implement the special power part (hence the bad idea), so it is just drawinf a physical card, and entering the code to associate Jagpad with the avatar. I will give during the post the kind of super power that were expected. Of course, there is a leaderboard screen. I expected to code 2 or 3 mini games, I finally have 3.9 of them (the 4th one is just missing the end condition and points display), which is not too bad in 24 hours. So, here are the games, with a 2 players game (which is not a good idea, being 3 is probably the minimum as with 2 players, games 1, 3 a 4 will give same amount of points to each player): 1/ The compatibility test The games displays 9 randomly selected retro consoles, and a theme. Each player must chose the 3 consoles that in his opinion fits the theme the better. Right now, themes are in french, the one is the exemple is "Forgotten ?" Each time 2 players at least have chosen the same console, they get points. Of course, the more players chose 1 console, the more they will get points. In the exemple, Odie and Icemen both think the PCFX is a forgotten console, so they get 20 points. (note the nice 70's tablecloth ) 2/ The Congis sur Thérouane Flea Market The whole team is going to a flea market, and they visits stands one after the other. There are 2 types of stands: ones that have cartridges, and threats. The threats represnet events that occured to the RGC during during these 20 years : Atari Advocate (they got a kind of C&D letter to not use the word Atari inside the name Atari Connexion), the diseases (SARS, Covid) that led to cancel some conventions, and the city hall letters, because from time to time, relations with city can be hard (the date of a convention had to be postponed, ...). After each stand, the players chose to leave (they secure their loot but will get nothing more) or continue. Players who chose to lease also share the leftovers cartridges. So, if the stand is full of cartridges, they are shared between remaing players, and the rest is put aside-in this exemple, there were 5 cartridges, so 2 for each player and 1 put aside): The game continue until all players have left, of 3 threats of the same kind are encountered. Players that are still active lose their loot... In this example, Odie is leaving (and will get his 10 cartridges + 2 leftovers) whil Icemen is brave and decide to continue, even if 2 letters from the City have been encountered. If a third one occur, he will lose everything. (special power power could be to be immunised to the 3rd threat of a kind, but still vulnerable to the 4th one) 3/ We are all friends, let's make gift distribution One again, 9 random consoles are displayed, and each player must chose the one he would like to receive as a gift, and the one he really don't want to receive. Then every player will secretly offer 1 console (and can offer a given console only once) to every other player. And gifts are revealed, if someone has offer to another player his preferred console, both will get 10 points, if he offered the unwanted one, they get -10 points (one speaical power would be for a compulsive collector that get 5 points even if people offer hime the unwanted one). Here, Odie has offered Iceman a Jaguar which is obviously the gift of choice for every tasteful collector, they both get 10 points. As the 4th game is not completed, here is the "final" leaderboard. AS Iceman lost everything in the flea market game, Odie won(as said before, they can only get same amount of points in games 1 & 3) 4/ The pixel drawing game One player is randomly selected as the designer, he chose a keyword between 9 displayed on screen and must represent it on a 8x8 pixels grid, and 4 colors (white, default background, Red for C button, Blue for B button and Black for A button) Other player have only 1 try to find good answer. What do you think Icemen tried to draw in these examples ? So, what's the status of the game, it is barely playable as we manage to make a 8 players games during the convention. There are some flaws and enhancement to do before an eventual release (from the most important to the less urgent): - 4th game needs to be completed, - timer pause between actions are probably too long, especially in the gift reveal phase, - the character selection screen is not appropriate and need to be reworked, - rework assets definition (to save time, everything is in 16 bits which is a pity for memory but a big time save) - interface in mini games can be greatly enhanced, - adding sort in the Leaderboard, - adding option to freely play only 1 mini game, - adding kind of hub (think of the boardgame part in Mario Party) - probably change all assets as right now, if features Sony, Nintendo, Sega, Microsoft, Atari, ... consoles, games & characters. Not sure this is a good thing. Also, it is very RGC team related so not everyone could understand relation between name and avatar. This is far more job than the initial 24h run.

Innermost Secrets Of TI-99/4A by Randy Holcomb This was originally a series of articles in the Computer Shopper, and it was reprinted in booklet format, and I didn't see any good copy of it on the Internet, so decided to test out my Canon MF3010 scanner in seeing how well it makes a PDF, as I have a number of printed items, including some of my own source code only in paper format, so I wanted to do a test run to see how well I can scan a number of pages and do an OCR if possible on them. Looking forward to any experts out there on suggestions on what are good settings or software to use for the equipment I have which currently is just a Canon MF3010 and sadly can only manually do one page at time. In the meantime, enjoy this PDF of this booklet which is good beginner guide to using the VDP and file DSR for assembly language programmers out there that want to get started coding on the TI-99/4a computers. 🥰 TI99-InnermostSecrets.PDF

I made a youtube video of it in action:

I think this is one of my best ever. I can't wait to go view it on the 20" PVM. 53 Colours Stephen_BlueButterfly.xex

55 colours - 1 Billion iterations Stephen_BluePhoenix.xex

Hi everyone. I've been working in this game but not for making a cartridge. It's one of the games that will appear with full source code in my next book Stay tuned for more info!

Been BETA-testing the new (unreleased) firmware I can confirm: No more failed USB transfers (Hooray!) An EEPROM save is now created correctly when a file is sent via USB (Hooray again!!) and.......

Alien Commander colors: 44 plus src Atari8man_Pal_Alien_Comander.xex Atari8man_NTSC_Alien_Commander.xex

Just a heads up if anyone needs a reasonably priced replacement power supply. www.atarirepairparts.com has them for $15.

Portal Colors: 58 plus src Atari8man_Portal.xex

Each new image is my new favourite (do I even know how favourites work?!?)! Wow - am I happy with this one. 64 colours. Stephen_SaguarosAtSunset.xex

Heres my receipt for shipping 4 items... $334.35 1 box shipped to California, 1 box shipped to Canada, & 2 boxes shipped to Italy. *Winner is bretthorror with a guess of $350!.. only $15.65 difference. I honestly thought noone would even be close. I will be contacting winner for prize. Thanks everyone that participated!

Work In Progress Demo 3 of Time Wizard Deluxe has just arrived This time the following features have been introduced: Added on/off buttons. Previously there were buttons only for turning on or only for turning off. It helped me to simplify this horrible level 11 from the original game. Added buttons with timers. Now it is possible to use buttons which turn on or turn off something but for specific period of time up to 5 seconds. These buttons are time resist it means that you can use time manipulation to speed up your movements and be on time before the timer of the button will come to its end. Added following enemies. There are a little more smart enemies which follows your movements and try to block your passage. These new enemies are time resist, so you can cheat them by rewind or fast forward your timeline and be faster than robots. I hope that these new features will make the Time Wizard Deluxe more interesting than before. The updated level editor will be available soon.

Roman Art colors: 23 plus src * Converted with RastaConverter Beta8R2 * Atari8man_Roman_Pal_Art_1.xex Atari8man_Roman_art_NTSC.xex

70 Colours Stephen_Monarch.xex

After following the amazing VBXE Popeye port by @woj, I was inspired to try to port the actual arcade disassembly of my favorite game growing up: Missile Command. Missile Command came out in the arcades in 1980 just before my brother and I received our first Atari 400 computer while we were in high school. Most days after school, we would walk home to stop by the local arcade. Missile Command is a difficult game, but two 30-something players were by far better than everybody else. While most people were struggling to get 100,000 points, Larry and Bob would play doubles and regularly score between 300-500,000 points. One day, Larry had an amazing game going and had everybody in the arcade watching. He was nursing a single city until he reached 810,000 and all of a sudden he had seemingly unlimited cities. None of us had heard of this bug before then, but eventually it became known that if you reached 810,000 you could effectively play forever. While Robert was becoming great at Galaxian and John concentrated on Battle Zone, I practiced Missile Command every day and soon I also achieved 810,000. I could do this regularly, and once I played long enough to score 6,000,000 points and then walked away while it was still playing. Of course, Missile Command was one of the first Atari cartridges that my brother and I bought with our paper route earnings. The original developers did a good job, but definitely the graphics were lacking. Paul (@plee) did an amazing job modifying the original code in Missile Command+ to add three bases, a title screen, a demo attract mode, and "THE END". I used his disassembly for help with the trackball code. When the Missile Command arcade source code appeared on the internet a few years ago, I looked into seeing if I could get it running on the Atari 8bit. The fact that the resolution was 256x231 in 8 colors was one stumbling block. The other was that the code used some PDP-10 assembler with a lot of Macros, so I didn't even bother trying to get started. I looked at it again after seeing the Popeye port done in VBXE. I knew that at least I could get the graphics running in VBXE. Then I stumbled on Andy McFadden's amazing disassembly and detailed description of how the actual arcade hardware worked at this site: https://6502disassembly.com/va-missile-command/ The assembly language that was used was very similar to the MADS assembler that I use in the perfect WUDSN development environment from @JAC!, so I first got the code to compile binary perfect to the arcade ROMs. From there, I took a quick crash course in VBXE programming. I found a great introduction by @Yaron Nir here: Of course, none of this would be possible without @phaeron's amazing Altirra emulator and debugging environment. I don't even have a VBXE, but Altirra provided a perfect test environment. Finally, special shout out to VBXE's developers Tomasz Piórek and Candle`o`Sin and distributor Lotharek. I probably am using only 10% of the capabilities of this amazing daughterboard. I hope that Missile Command Arcade will inspire more developers to program for the VBXE. I can only imagine telling 16-year-old me playing Missile Command at the arcade and then going home to play it on my Atari 400 that one day I would be porting the actual arcade source code to run on an Atari 8bit computer - I wouldn't have believed it. I'm glad that it all worked out!

Nanorobotics Colors: 63 plus src Atari8man_Ntsc_Nanorobotics.xex Atari8man_Pal_Nanoroboticst.xex

Red Wine colors: 80 plus src Atari8man_NTSC_Red_Wine.xex Atari8man_Pal_Red_Wine.xex

Bird - 105 colours. I did not mean to let this one run so long. I fell asleep and my poor machine was jamming away at 100% overnight. Stephen_Bird.xex

This is a faithful conversion Gacek to C64, created in about 2 weeks and currently does not have any sounds . It works on emulators, but has not been tested on a real one. gacek.prg

Saw this posted in the BASIC group of FB programmed in Tektronix 4051 Basic and it looked like turtle graphics, so I thought I would try @apersson850's turtle unit and see if I can reproduce it. Here's the original image: Here's the UCSD Pascal code using the turtlegrahics unit: program spiral; uses {$u turtleunit.code} turtlegraphics; var a, w, r : real; begin page(output); grafmode; pen_mode(none); a := 0; repeat w := (a / 240) * cos(3.14159 * (a * 5.5) / 180); turnto(round(a)); r := 3 + a / 22; moveto(127, 99); move(round(r - w / 2)); pen_mode(draw); move(round((w * 1.5))); pen_mode(none); a := a + 4; until a > 1920; repeat until false; end. Not bad, considering the significant resolution limitation on the TI Classic99 QI399.065 2024-04-20 20-12-33.mp4 turtle.dsk PWORK.dsk

33 Colours Stephen_PurpleButterfly.xex

83 Colours - RedPanda Stephen_RedPanda.xex

Cats colors: 76 Atari8man_Cats.xex

Fractal Nightmare Colors: 39 plus src Atari8man_Fractal_Nightmare.xex

Alien Conversation colors: 73 plus src Atari8man_NTSC_Alien_conversation.xex Atari8man_Pal_Alien_conversation.xex

That's what happens when you remove so many games from the store at once... I'm just glad people had an opportunity to buy them, but, damn, the number of games sold was just nuts, far exceeding what I was expecting! I'll go into some details soon about the various things I'm actively working on to greatly reduce the amount of time it takes me to get orders out. That's not really going to help with the Last Chance orderes, but as I mentioned above, the goal by this time next year (or earlier, really) is to ship 95% of orders within a week's time. ..Al

Hacker II colors: 57 plus src Atari8man_Pal_Hacker_2.xex Atari8man_NTSC_Hacker_2.xex

Here are all seven volumes—no calendars: YesterdaysNews.zip ...lee

I am going to leave this thread pinned for a week to make sure people see it and can pay their respects should they wish*. The FP will be updated to include a link to the thread. * Not having done so in the past, I feel, is an oversight and I wish to do this going forward for our comrades when we lose them. Preferably, not frequently.

This update is worth mentioning - file system fix. It's a gotcha. Classic99 399.069 This fixes a detection issue accessing DF128 headerless on FIAD if any part of your disk path contains a period (assuming an extension exists, which isn't allowed). It was checking the entire path instead of just the filename. Note you can always bypass that restriction using the ".?X" option (ie: DSK1.?X.WIN.EXE would allow opening an exe as DF128). Also: mute "Skipped 0 sentences on shut up" message (we don't care if it was 0) fixed case of DLL load on FilterDLL.dll and hq4xdll.dll for those running from case sensitive filesystems. (If you renamed the DLLs, you may have to rename them back). emit a warning in the debug log if loading a DSR to an invalid CRU base correct address wraparound in the 9901 address mapping add interrupt pin warning to debug log in the 9901 emulation (Classic99 does not support 9901 hardware interrupts) don't spam the same debug statement repeatedly to the log (note: no timeout. If you NEED to see a repeated statement, force another one in between. For instance, press Control to get the speech clear debug) also note the external debugger (debugview) is NOT filtered this way, so that you have best visibility there Given that bug has been in there since I first added DF128 headerless support, it's probably a pretty obscure case. But there was no help in the debug log when it happened, so worth fixing. As usual, the web site may require 24 hours to update but the download zip is uploaded (edit: looks like I got in right before the update ran ) https://harmlesslion.com/software/classic99 (Regarding the 3 uploads comment from way back, yeah. I had to push to git, then ftp the zip to my server, then go into my database update tool and write the update there. Now I just push to git and everything else is automated. )

Medieva Jester Colors: 23 plus src * Converted with RastaConverter Beta8R2 * Atari8man_Pal_Medieva_jester.xex Atari8man_NTSC_Medieva_jeste.xex

Ai Exoskeleton colors: 42 src: n/a Atari8man_NTSC_Ai_Exoskeleton.xex Atari8man_Pal_Ai_Exoskeleton.xex

Behold! I am VERY pleased.

Nanorobotics Beetle colors: 83 plus src Atari8man_NTSC_Nanorobotics_Beetle.xex Atari8man_Pal_Nanorobotics_Beetle.xex

Creepy Skull Colors: 34 plus src Atari8man_Creepy_Skull.xex

Well, just like I was surprised by last year's Switchblade II release by Piko, it appears there's another Atari ST port that was released at MGC this year. Limited to 200. Available from JJ Games here.

Got these in the mail today from @bent_pin

Cool idea. Thanks for the suggestion! The roms I do sell supports the site. For those that download the free games, I just hope they play them and enjoy them. An email saying they enjoyed it would be the best payment. I can dream

Panda Colors: 49 plus src Atari8man_Panda.xex

Eventually there will be an updated cart, but the original carts will still be available. Here is a picture of the board that came in the other day, to show the size comparison. Some things needed changing so there is a new revision coming in a week or so.

And finally the port is complete and it runs really fine. Current version is V1 Beta, I will not add anything more for the moment but fixing bugs if I found any. The game misses the possibility to add new hiscores, this could be an easy addon taking the code from other games of mine but I don't want to see a full working digital rom shared on warez sites 😉. I'm not going to release the game now, I will only share it with some friends of mine that will help me to test it and with James of @ZeroPage Homebrew, just in case he wants to play the game again on his twitch channel. I kindly ask who will receive this game to not share with anyone else the rom.the game. As a precaution I added a disclaimer in the title screen, it should be enough While waiting for the possibility to acquire a license from Epyx I'll work on an alternate layout of the game that could allow me to release or sell the game without copyright problems. If I will get an official license the new graphic could be added as an alternate version of the game. This is a quick mockup of how the new gfx could look:

Egyptian Art Colors: 31 plus src * Converted with RastaConverter Beta8R2 * Atari8man_Pal_Egyptian_Art1.xex Atari8man_NTSC_Egyptian_Art1.xex