Starcat

Yes, it was cool. I think only Duranik could finish Native. Unimportant who else would do it, it wouldn't be the same. Duranik are actually two people. Roland (Coder) and Johannes Graf (Graphics). But I think they were indeed really great at what they did. Yes. Why ? Just because he states his opinion doesn't mean that he is a troll. Oh, yeah. Great. Just say that I'm responsible for everything that is bad in the world No seriously, I dont understand what your problem is... If somebody here is a troll and gets annoying he'll be banned. Btw, normally trolls won't register to get access to a forum. That makes AtariAge already a much better and safer place than JI2. Regards, Lars.

Hi Robert ! I have neither BS Gold nor Prot SE. So I can not calculate a checksum. What I would need a different way to check what cart is used. You are right. I need to do this because of saving. Regards, Lars.

Hi Thunderbird ! Can you tell me if there is a way for a homebrew game to detect what CD Bypass solution is used ? Can you detect is BS Gold / JUGS DD or Prot SE is used ? Maybe a text string or so at a memory location in the BSG cart that can be checked to find out if BSG is plugged in ? Regards, Lars.

Hi Stone ! I'm sure if there is really a reason to be sorry for not getting HIS alpine... He once sold me a Jaguar that had "one pin missing on the boot rom" according to him... I thought it was easy to replace the boot rom with a BJL rom. When I got that Jag I had to find out that the a lot of parts were missing, the board was scratched and fried throughly at one spot. (at the power regulator Chip). The power connector was also missing :-( The whole board was completely useless. If he said that his alpine was in a good shape, it might mean "if you've luck you'll get it to work". Regards, Lars.

Hi Guys ! Thunderbird, I think what Tyrant means is not talking about your products in general, but talking about your products when it is almost off topic. Somebody who asks how to get the BJL feature in Prot SE working shouldn't get the answer "Buy JUGS", but he should get infos on how to build a BJL cable. Cool. Yes, all that stuff needs a little tweaking... The Ball bounces slightly different from the player. (but obviously too slightly) The bouncing from the blocks isn't random either, but needs tweaking as well. I'll think about the multiple ball powerup again. I'm sure there is a better way to implement it. Yes, no PC mouses can be used on the Jag, but ST mouses can. In fact I already have built an "ST Mouse to Jag" Adaptor. It works fine.

Hi Guys ! I don't know how it is in the USA, but here in germany you can get a Jag easily and save modded to BJL. Just go to a tv repair shop and ask kind if they desolder the original boot rom and put in a socket. I did exactly that. It took less than 5 minutes from opening the Jag till closing it again and I have a perfectly clean and working BJL. The BJL cable costed me about $5 though. So I just had to buy a Jag and spend $5 to get a BJL dev kit :-) I think no other dev kit can top that. Thunderbird, I don't want to hurt your feelings and I respect the big effort that you put into BS and JUGS, but from what i have heard and seen on the €-JagFests the upload results are better with a professional BJL kit and BJL is also faster. The BJL uploads on my BJL Jag almost never fail, even for big games like Slam Racer and Native. Tyrant, you can be sure that there are still tons of things future Jag coders have to struggle with. The differences between the BJL and JUGS are such a tiny problem compared to those others that it is not worth to think about it. The BJL -> JUGS problems can be fixed with the correct upload commands, I think. However a big problem for newbies still are the different startups, PAL / NTSC problems, CD coding and many other things. I often get mails asking how to get those things done correctly. Somebody should try to create standard librarys for newbies. Regards, Lars.

Hi Tyrant ! Thanks for the suggestions about the gameplay of ball game. The idea of rotary controllers would be nice, but I neither have code for rotary controllers, nor a rotary controller to test the code on... :-( Your 486 or pentium doesn't have a bi-directional parallel port ?? That is really strange. Doesn't it have an on board parallel port connector ? Usually from 486 66 MHz and up all PCs have that... If you have such a on board controller and you still have the problem, try changing the parallel port settings in the bios. (I'm not really sure which one the correct one was, but I think it was EPP.) Regards, Lars.

Hi ! $350 is indeed quite cheap for an alpine. Did you pick it up for that price ? Regards, Lars.

Hi Glenn ! Thanks for teh hint. I have already added it to the site. Btw, what do these start numbers stand for ? (If I knew that I could maybe solve the problems in the future...) Regards, Lars.

Hi ! It's only a collectors item. If somebody is serious about Jag development the early dev kits are not the way to go. In the dev manual they say "if you are still using one of the old dev kits contact atari dev support immediately to exchange it." All hobby dev kits are a much better solution if you want to code and the alpine is the best solution, but quite expensive and rare. Regards, Lars.

Hi Thunderbird ! If he already owns Protector SE, making a BJL cable is a much cheaper way. Regards, Lars.

Nice to hear that :-) Aren't you aware of the BJL upload featue in Protector SE ? I think it is one of the coolest features of Prot SE. However you need a BJL cable to send the games from your PC to your Jag. More infos on the cable can be found here: http://home.t-online.de/home/Matthias.Domin/bjlmod.htm You can find the diagram to create the cable at the end of the text. Regards, Lars.

Hi Al ! Yes, that's right. If you have any questions about the usage of the file tell me. Suggestions and the levels that you create are welcome as well. Regards, Lars.

Hi Thunderbird ! No Problem. But please keep the correct URL in mind. Regards, Lars.

Hi Guys ! Maybe I didn't say it clearly enough in the previous post... The current level script version of "Ball Game" is already available on the Starcat Developments Page. In the "Ball Game" section. Download it and have fun ! Regards, Lars. The URL is : http://www.atari-jaguar64.de/starcat/ball_...game/index.html

The url: www.atari-jaguar.de is outdated. The correct URL is http://www.atari-jaguar64.de since some months. Regards, Lars.

Hi Guys ! I'm happy to announce a new project by Starcat Developments. It's only a small side project, though. It's a breakout clone. The interesting thing is however that there is a level script included that let's the user easily create his own levels on PC, link the binary again and upload the new binary to the Jag to play his level. If you created a cool level you are very welcome to send it to me. The best levels will be in the game later. If you have any ideas for powerups or other features for the game, feel free to tell me. The Game also needs a good name badly. This is YOUR chance to help keeping the Jaguar alive. YOU can make this game something really cool and special. You should always keep an eye on the project page to see if there is a new version of the level script with more features. Feedback is very welcome. You can find more infos at : http://www.starcat-dev.de/ball_game Regards, Lars.

Hi Darren ! It's full of screenshots and infos about all kind of games. There is one screenshot of Star Alliance in it, if that was what you meant. It can be ordered at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/007...1582710-8721735 Regards, Lars.

Hi Glenn ! That address is outdated. Meanwhile it's http://www.atari-jaguar64.de Just wanted to let you know. Regards, Lars.

Hi ! Besides Star Alliance only some of the the good official games were mentioned... Like avp, atari karts, tempest 2000 etc. Regards, Lars.

Hi Guys ! I ordered the book High Score ! Illustrated History of Video games and it arrived today. In the Jaguar section there was a nice surprise for me: Star Alliance was mentioned in the book. However they wrote that it was in development by a company called "JDK". Although I told them that it was in development by Starcat Develoments :-( But I'm happy that it was mentioned after all. :-) Regards, Lars.

Hi Thunderbird ! Yes, I'm only rarely loading 2MB files. Today AMD has processors that imply higher clock speeds, but a few years ago that used the actual MHz count... My Athlon 700 is already a few years old. So it coul be possible that today it is a real problem to get an alpine working on a high end PC. After all they are many times faster than an Athlon 700. Anyway. I'm still completely satisfied with my current PC. And as long as it doesn't brake I won't sell it. So I don't think that I will have problems... Regards, Lars.

Hi Thunderbird ! Well, all I can say about alpines and newer PCs is, that I'm using my 2MB Alpine on my Athlon 700 without problems. Maybe it's different with 4 MB alpines... Regards, Lars.

Hi ! So why do you think it doesn't work ? The Jaguar "sees" a rom as one big chunk of data... And it is not like sound, graphics and code were seperated in a special way. The Jaguar does not know about code, sound or graphics. For the Jaguar it is all just DATA. It would be a chance less than 1 in one billion that only the parts that contain the sound data are corrupted. It's such a small chance that I highly doubt something like that can happen. And if it was just bad cartridge contact it would run at all. I think it is more likely that it is your console. Even though personally I have not had problems with this, there are people out there who say that some production runs are really bad because they are even more buggy than the others. Maybe you have such a buggy version that can not run theme park correctly. Maybe there are also other games that wouldn't work and you simply have the luck that the games you own work without problems. Theme Park worked on your old Jag until it broke. Now you have got a new one and it does not work correctly... what other reason could there be ? If you have already tryied to erase the cart memory and it didn't help, the only way to find out what is wrong is trying it on a different jag or buying a new copy of theme park I think. Regards, Lars.

Hi ! Atari Karts is cool. Although they should have added more race tracks and more powerups / weapons. Regards, Lars.