JamesD
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Posts posted by JamesD
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Rime $0.89
https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/rime
I played through this one. It's a good game, but a little short at full price, but for $.89, it's a good deal.
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On 1/12/2020 at 9:32 PM, adamchevy said:To misquote Mr Bill Mensch jr. ,” I’m not sure why my competitors didn’t make a superior product? They could have, but they didn’t. It was 2 to 4 times better than the other guy. Did Wozniak know that? I don’t know. When you make something the best you can do it, and nobody can do it better. You know that. We did the best possible Architecture at 8 bits, and we knew that.”
Pretty sure Bill is biased.
2 to 4 times better how? In clock cycles vs Z80, or in number of additional instructions required vs 6809.
The Z80 works differently, so it's normally clocked at least twice as fast because a lot of the clock cycles are internal. Pretty sure Bill knows that.
As has already been mentioned, 6809 code is around 30% smaller.
And ask Bill why everyone else added a hardware multiply on later CPUs, but he never did. The 6803 had multiply, and it supposedly first reached customers in 1977.
This, originally 2012 thread seems to get resurrected every two years by first time posters we'll probably never see again.
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The Duck... I mean Dragon from adventure
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On 12/31/2019 at 11:36 AM, AtariLeaf said:You could also replace the current 512k upgrade with one of cloud9techs triad 512k upgrades which supposedly runs 90% cooler than the original upgrade that I'm guessing this coco3 had. It's 50 bucks though. I had one on one of my coco3s and the thing barely got warm
Boysontech also has 512K, and 2MB upgrades. 2MB requires desoldering the CPU to install a socket.
He can do the work for you (recommended), and you'll also get a 6309 CPU with the deal.
https://boysontech.com/marketplace/
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Epic has Darksiders (remastered), Darksiders II, and Steep for free right now!!
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Fans aren't really needed unless there's some odd 3rd party stuff in the machine that generates a lot of heat.
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I bought a PC4 over 10 years ago. I think it was $15-$20, but I'm not 100% sure. When they show up on ebay, they tend to be over priced.
A guy in FL was selling PC5s. He was trying to sell them as school machines. The PC5 has a larger screen if I remember right.
The PC4 seems like a decent little machine, but the display is smaller than the Tandy 100, and I've never found any software for it.
The BASIC seems pretty standard from what little I've used it.-
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The White CoCo 1s included the "melted" keyboard, which feels a lot like a laptop keyboard. It's almost exactly like the keyboard on a Gateway I had.
The CoCo 2 has at least the melted keyboard or better on every machine. -
Origin has this bundle right now:
Order Summary 
Battlefield™ 1 & Titanfall® 2 Ultimate Bundle PC Download Origin Great Game Guarantee: Eligible See individual items for redemption and download instructions. Subscription start date:
Payment plan: ,
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Payment Method:$11.99 Qty: 1 
Titanfall® 2: Ultimate Edition PC Download Origin Great Game Guarantee: Eligible See individual items for redemption and download instructions. Subscription start date:
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Payment Method:Included 
Titanfall® 2 Deluxe Edition PC Download Origin Great Game Guarantee: Eligible To download your game just visit the "My Games" section of Origin. Subscription start date:
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Titanfall® 2: Underground R-201 Carbine Origin Great Game Guarantee: Not Eligible Your content will be available for use the next time you launch your game. Subscription start date:
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Titanfall® 2: Jump Start Pack PC Download Origin Great Game Guarantee: Not Eligible Your content will be available for use the next time you launch your game. Subscription start date:
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Payment Method:Included 
Battlefield™ 1 Revolution PC Download Origin Great Game Guarantee: Eligible See individual items for redemption and download instructions. Subscription start date:
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Battlefield™ 1 PC Download Origin Great Game Guarantee: Eligible To download your game just visit the "My Game Library" section of Origin. Subscription start date:
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Battlefield™ 1 Premium Pass PC Download Origin Great Game Guarantee: Not Eligible To download your game just visit the "My Games" section of Origin. Subscription start date:
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Battlefield™ 1 Heroes of the Great War Bundle PC Download Origin Great Game Guarantee: Not Eligible Your content will be available for use the next time you launch your game. Subscription start date:
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Payment Method:Included Subtotal $11.99 Tax $0.66 Total Price $12.65 -
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Best price I've seen for Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. $10.19
https://www.gog.com/game/hellblade_senuas_sacrifice_pack
On another note... please bring back the ability to remove formatting from text -
6 hours ago, rdemming said:Not games and not strickly Atari but probably still interesting for a lot of us, some Fusion Retro Books PDFs are currently free (Ocean, US Gold and Olivier Twin History, Amiga, C64, ZX-Spectum in Pixels):
https://fusionretrobooks.com/collections/pdf
Robert
Did you mean to post this under a different area? Not sure Modern Gaming > PC Game Deals is going to give it the right visibility. Perhaps Classic Computing would be better?
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The CoCo can come with 64K of RAM, and there are some interesting upgrades on the way.
More RAM, run in high speed mode all the time, and there's already the CoCo VGA which gives a really clear display as well as adding some new features.
And then you can also drop in a 6309 cpu which several games have had some optimizations written for.
Machines with socketed parts are easy to modify.
If you want to play arcade games with an Atari type joystick, there are adapters.
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Don't forget to use
POKE 65495,0
to put the CoCo into high speed mode when you are using BASIC. Just remember to turn it off by typing
POKE 65494,0
before you try to save your program. Not sure that it matters on the CoCo SDC, but it does with cassette, and the regular floppy drive. -
"After 35 years the TRS-80 Color Computer will get a faithful port of the classic game ‘The Oregon Trail’"
https://vintageisthenewold.com/after-35-years-the-trs-80-color-computer-will-get-a-faithful-port-of-the-classic-game-the-oregon-trail/
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Not really demos, but some quick plays of some CoCo games that have been patched for the 6309
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On 11/10/2019 at 12:23 AM, bluejay said:I think it's the computer's fault.
I was experimenting, and found out that 5 seconds after entering the CSAVE command, it automatically ends and prints OK, even though I haven't even pressed record+play yet. Also, it's the computer that keeps shutting itself down in DoD.
At this point, I dunno. I can't find a cheap Coco compatible disk drive(hell, the interface card alone costs $60!), which I really want, and I now have to save money and sell my crt to get a computer that I actually planning on using to get work done; the Apple IIe.(well, come on. There's not much you can do with a 16k CoCo 2 or a VIC-20, with barely functional cassette drives and no printer)
The computer doesn't know when you've pressed the RECORD & PLAY buttons.
It just assumes you've already done that before you type CSAVE.
Get a COCO SDC interface instead of a floppy drive. -
Check the belt on the cassette, it's probably in bad shape
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On 10/28/2019 at 1:57 PM, bluejay said:Now that I have a VIC-20 and a chance to get a CoCo 2, it wonders me; what would you rather use, a VIC-20 or a CoCo 2? The CoCo seems to have better graphics than the VIC, but it doesn't have composite output, as far as I know. The cursor keys seem terrible in both system, with the CoCo 2's keys being slightly better. The CoCo's bright green screen kinda hurts my eyes, and I can change the VIC-20's screen color, but not that the default colors are bad. Anyways, what do you prefer?
It depends on what you want to do.
If you want to program, EXTENDED COLOR BASIC on the CoCo 2 wins hands down.
If you want to play games, the VIC has a better cart library, but the CoCo has a lot of good tape & disk games.
Since you already have a VIC I'm sure you are familiar with it's game library.
You can see a lot of the games that are available for the CoCo here:
http://www.lcurtisboyle.com/nitros9/coco_game_list.html
Some of the games I like for the CoCo 1/2:
Zaxxon
Time Bandit
Donkey King (Donkey Kong clone with all 4 levels)
Rommel's Revenge (Good Battle Zone clone)
Pooyan
Sea Dragon
Lancer (I thought this Joust clone felt the most like the arcade)
Dungeons of Daggorath (this one takes some practice)
Galagon (Galaga)
Lunar Rover Patrol (Moon Patrol)
Robotack (simplified Robotron game play)
Speed RacerDemon Attack
Mega-Bug
Project Nebula (a Star Raiders knock off)
There are a lot of others -
Final Fantasy VIII remastered
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16832166385?cm_sp=GameCrate-_-Article-_-GamingDeals-_-091719 -
2 hours ago, ChildOfCv said:He has said in other videos that his electronics expertise isn't great, and that might explain his squeamishness somewhat. But he's also enlisting the help of people who have more experience, so it's still kind of a head scratcher. I like that he wants a computer that can be understood from a hardware standpoint, but it wouldn't take long to explain to him how the needed electronics work.
I also understand that he didn't like the idea of a board populated so much by FPGA's. Certainly, if you want to make a computer Ben Eater style, you're going to use commodity parts that have definite purpose. Then you can point to a chip and say "This chip is responsible for this function." If you know the system well enough, then when something stops working you can often zero in on the cause instead of doing a blind chip swap until the problem disappears.
But a counterargument is that if you want a tinkerer computer, a FPGA makes sense because it can be easily updated or reprogrammed, so you don't need a huge cache of logic ICs and you don't have to redesign the PCB for a simple circuit change. For instance, if he was willing to concede to an FPGA for the glue logic, it could house the multiplex logic needed for the CPU, the address decoders for special I/O, etc. Of course then he'd have to learn Verilog or whatever the preferred language of the manufacturer is, and that may be more than he wants to do for a toy computer. But in my case, learning itself is often the end goal of any of my projects, since I have no imagination for what to actually apply that learning towards (other than helping other people achieve their goals).
Anyway, my point boils down to, he castrated the address space over some logic that he didn't want to add, and ended up adding more logic to make up for the deficiencies. If he wasn't already preparing for a "final product", and if I had any sway in his project, I'd definitely be making that objection known.
Small FPGAs aren't that expensive, but as the number of pins and/or LUTs go up, so does the price.
The multiplexed circuit requires 8 inputs (D0-D7), 8 outputs (A16-A23), and a trigger line.
The video chip is going to need the data input lines anyway, so it would only need 9 more lines to add that... but it might only make $$ sense if there were already that many unused lines.
If I were to build a machine, I'd probably go with all FPGA myself, but as you say, he seems to want something where you can point to the CPU, point to the sound chip, point to the graphics chip, RAM, FLASH, etc...-
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11 hours ago, JamesD said:I'm pretty much regurgitating his argument.
My argument is that it's his project, so he can do whatever he wants. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
Since you know so much, make your own. If your's is better, maybe more people will buy it.
That sounds way harsher than I intended.
If you have a lot of experience, this may look pretty easy, but keep in mind, he probably hasn't designed a computer before, and I'm not sure exactly what his electronics background is either.
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1 hour ago, atariry said:I watched part 1 and more recently part 2. I think that using a FPGA for video and audio makes most sense. I was also surprised that he was having problems getting it to run at more than 4 or was it 8MHz? That's a good reason for kicking into touch the old 8 bit I/O chips and using the FPGA to emulate them. I have a number of projects part-completed (😁) in which I use 1) a real CPU 2) a large SRAM (non of this DRAM complexity) 3) a FPGA to implement I/O. One is my attempt at an Acorn Atom (with 16MHz Western Digital CPU) [working but incomplete], another my Atari-ST clone [which runs/boots EMU-TOS but lacks I/O such as keyboard or mouse at present], and another is an Atari 8-bit project.
Anyway I look forward to seeing where this goes, but since it is heavily Commodore, my interest ends there.
--Atariry
I wondered about why he was having problems with 8MHz myself.
Maybe one of the parts on the prototype was too slow?
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How to fairly compare the 8-bit Atari with their contemporary computers, speed-wise?
in Atari 8-Bit Computers
Posted
When you run benchmarks in BASIC, you aren't just benchmarking the CPU, you are benchmarking the BASIC.
But a lot of people bought machines to use BASIC, so it is one of many things benchmarks should consider.
Most BASICs aren't built for speed, some are just slower than others.