e5frog

If you've got a Checkers cart to trade with I can fix one, otherwise you have to wait until I gather the money to buy materials to build the carts from scratch.

Not any more Just traded one set . I do still have 3, The other one I had bought sealed, seems some retailers were self shrinkwrapping these games and a few have re-surfaced over the years. Thanks again I am happy to add this special edition #27 to my collection it looks great BTW nice job and attention to detail. Now I just need to talk you into building me a Multicart Lucky you! Four of these has passed your domains, I've only ever seen one before! I updated the first message in this thread, I hope someone has got a #19 for trade also. About a Multi-cart, if you've got a SABA#20 left over I might be able to do that as well in the near future.

As there is no signal to time the screen refresh this would be very difficult. That's also the reason for the moving objects flickering, the frame update isn't timed to screen update. I have tried experimentally to shift a small block between red and green and gotten something of a brownish color. As the green and red aren't pure colors the blend between them will not be pure yellow either. Even when doing this to a single block and nothing else there is synchronization defects that makes a wandering line move through the block and occasional red/green flicker. I would be very impressed if someone could pull that off while doing everything else that is required in the game. In a static picture it would probably be feasable, but hardly in a game using almost all cpu-power all the time.

Here's Pac-man running on a PAL version 2 unit, unfortunately my old Pinnacle hard-/software makes the sound go out of sync more and more...

Looks good, I'll take it! You actually have all three that's on your page? No wonder there's a shortage...

I have only had one, I think I got it from a guy in the UK... It was the colored box version, in very fine condition.

Nä men välkommen!

I've been thinking of taking up payments for pre-orders, but I'm not that keen on having that pressure on me, but I guess I could need the money to buy the stuff needed. I could need some help on finding a good and cheap place to make the PCB:s, perhaps I should order 50 of them initially, if I was going to get 50 of the necessary static memory interface circuits these would cost $400 plus shipping and also taxes if I can't avoid that by sending them via a friend in the US... Currently the economy is pretty poor, maybe I should build a pair of Pac-man carts and auction on eBay or something - however Namco Bandai might be sensitive about that...

I'm thinking of making the world's third Pac-man cartridge for Channel F, it will look like this: The first one (in the picture) was sold at Retrogathering 2008 in Sweden last weekend, the second one was swapped for a #20 cart (see below). I'm not interested in money this time, but I thought I could use it as a trade, you see, I'm missing carts #19 and #20 in my collection. If you have a complete #19 - Checkers or #20 - Video Whizball, the colored box version, and would like to trade I'll make one of these for you and even put a personal dedication on a back label. Let me know. Edit: Updated after getting a #20.

I think the biggest problem is that there are very few people interested in this system, both collecting and programming... I'm not a programming wiz' nor have I done much extraordinary work. I've always wanted to be able to program assembler on C64 and make those cool demos, but I guess this level of programming is more of a match to me. I'll definitely release these games on cartridge eventually, as I've said before it's mainly a matter of money, buying circuits, make PCB:s and such. I could put together another Pac-man cartridge tomorrow if I'd like to, but then I'd like a complete #20 or #19 for trade, colored box versions, maybe I'll put in an add...

I read you can use video RAM for general pourpose, the VRAM is bigger than television screen, that is, you can use some bytes from most right and these bytes aren't displayed. Here you find information about channel F hardware : http://veswiki.com/ I've studied the schematics and there's no way to read back anything from VRAM, it's write only. Thanks Kurt for the YouTube-video, unfortunately that's how awful it sounds on a standard Channel F or the official MESS emulation. Playing it on a Channel F II or the modified MESS available from http://veswiki.com gives a lot better sound, I'll see if I can record from MESS 0.80.1 directly otherwise I'll show you a recording of the game from a PAL machine, though it runs almost 25% faster which makes the music and all sound effects a little faster than intended (faster than the arcade machine).

I'd like to get an Atari Hockey pong to practice for Swedish Pong Championship of 2009... One of these: Not Pong and not Super Pong. Let me know if you've got a spare one, I might be able to repair it if you've got a faulty unit.

About the signature: .byte "28i.2" can be removed as it is only used to indicate build number of Pac-man. The Multi-Cart data (last seven bytes) is only needed if program size is 8k, as those bytes are needed to make sure the program continues if the latch changes somewhere in the middle of running it... it's a fail-safe. And ofcourse, it's not needed at all if it's not included on an autoswitching multicart. The .byte 0,0,0, 0,0,0, 0,0,0 is only a filler. You can put your signature at the last bytes and just remove the number of bytes that your signature has: org [$800 + [prog_size * $400] -(signature size) ] if signature is "NWNPNPNW ·B00daW· 2008" that's 22 bytes, you can write: org [$800 + [prog_size * $400] - 22 ] or org [$800 + [prog_size * $400] -$16 ] if you don't like mixing hex and dec. ... or fill around it with any characters or hex-bytes you like to make it look good in a hex-editor. Great work, I look forward to hearing more nice music!

If I want to use one of the plot-colors red, green or blue I can only choose one of the background colors lt. green, lt. blue or lt. grey. If I set the background color to black all plot-colors turn white. I could have choosen a lt.blue background as well, it would have looked like this (also the grey one to compare with, and a black/white version): I might be able to add some code so that the player could choose any background color they prefer - like a lot of VIC 20 games offer the ability to do. Changing the background color quickly while plotting the screen and thereby being able to use black background with color plot is perhaps possible but not really feasable, it might work for a static picture but not in the game. The lack of a vsync signal will also make it extremely hard to time with screen refresh. Perhaps the built-in timer in the 3853 SMI could be programmed to interrupt at the right pace to make this effect or perhaps play more sounds in the game... that is yet to be explored. There is very little known data about the timer in the 3853 SMI (the memory interface circuit in a SABA#20 and some other cartridges).

Monzamess was right about the text being fully justified (both right and left edge of the block of text is straight) - just like the original ones. I might add some text about Namco (Namco-Bandai) if I get their permission to release it... The cartridge sold for 1250 SEK in the auction, but I got 1270 when the winner paid, in todays currency exchange rates of 6,77 SEK per dollar that's about $188... not too bad.

Nope, not that. I'll let you know on monday.

A friend of mine noticed a slight difference between my label and the originals that I hadn't thought of before, so I re-did it. I'll leave the old ones above, see if you can spot the difference: When we're talking about classic games, don't forget Pong - the built in "Tennis"-game. BTW: There's the "Swedish Pong Championship" at Retrogathering tomorrow... hold all thumbs for me.

Background color is chosen for each line, grey, lt blue, lt green or black, there is no default color, screen memory is usually filled with garbarge from start if you haven't cleared the screen (by plotting background color to whole screen). If black is chosen all three colors (red, green, blue) turn white on that row (that's all eight colors). I guess lt. blue could have been an option, maybe I'll add that as an option in any future update, changing the background color by pressing key 4 at the startup screen or something like that.

Here are some better screenshots, saved from MESS and then resized with "Paint" to get a more accurate aspect, sorry for the slight pixel-shadowing: I'll make a youtube-video from the real thing next week, last time I tried the sound was time shifted a little, but I'll give it another shot. The downloadable Pac-man (link above) is best played with the MESS version 0.80.1 that is downloadable in the Development package on the first page of the VESwiki.com. This version have improved sound - like a Channel F II and also a more true color palette (that is also editable by the user). Here are the pictures from the finished product, the carts 25 and 26 are originals and are there so you can compare the labels: The last picture is an example of how the back-label will look on this particular cartridge, it will be finalized at the Retrogathering-auction with the real auction winner's name.

Yes, eventually, it's mostly a matter of money, I'm hoping to make a batch - say 10-20 of them by summer of 2009... If anyone would like to make a donation feel free to do so via Paypal: [email protected] It would help speed up the process. I'll post some new pictures when the final labels are attached.

I'm selling this homebrew Pac-man cart at the auction of Retrogathering 2008 in Alvik, Stockholm, Sweden the 27th of September. ( http://www.retrogathering.se [in Swedish]) The unofficial Videocart 27: Just wanted to let you Fairchild-collectors know what is coming up in the future...

I have a gap in my collection that I'd like to fill. I miss carts 18, 19 and 20 (strangely enough I have managed to get hold of 21-26 plus the Democart ! ). I'd like them in colored boxes ( can be seen here: http://go.to/channelf ). If you've gotten tired of your own carts or have any spare ones, please let me know and we'll discuss the price. / Fredric

I'm looking for #16 in the SABA series of System Fairchild (Channel F), it's the only one I'm missing in the SABA part of my Fairchild collection... It's called Rat'mal (I think it means "Guess again") and it's a modified version of Hangman (Fairchild #18) with German word-list and modified graphics (no scaffold, noone gets hanged). There are pictures of it in my Fairchild System gallery: http://go.to/channelf Click SABA and then look at the row "SB 16". Hope you can help. / Fredric

I've tweaked the plot delay time for the MultiBlit-routine, I managed to lower it from 35.5 cycles to 12 - an amazing cut of 23.5 cycles per plot:ed pixel! Latest test-version (only differs in speed from previous version above) : http://w5.nuinternet.com/s660100106/files/...f/IK-test_5.bin

I still need help in perfecting the mod, maybe I'll remove the RF-shield and see if I can find isolate a better point to tap the composite video.