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rdemming

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Posts posted by rdemming

  2. Posted

    Hi Rayik,

     

    Great write-up. I didn't read the text in detail yet, but I've found a small error in the text below:

     

     

    The verification header of $2000 length consists of:

     

    • RSA hash from $0- $28A (which is 1,046 bytes) (Note the first byte at $0 will always be $F6)
    • Identification as to how wide the cart is at $400 for four bytes: 04 04 04 04 this means that the image is for 32bits cartridge (2 chip carts); 00 00 00 00 means the image is for 8 bits cartridges (4 chip carts)
    • Run address starting $406 (I’m not sure how long the address is but from $416 to $41B the code is: 80 20 00 00 00 00 00)
    • The remainder is blank ($FF) from $28B - $F3F and then from $410 to $1999

     

    The contents of $400 (4 bytes) does indicate the bus-width of the cartridge. This does NOT specify the number of rom chips in the cart. The value $04040404 indicates a 32-bit cart which can be physically one 32-bit wide ROM chip, two 16-bit wide ROM chips (most games) or four 8-bit wide ROM chips (some games).

     

    The value 0$202020 stands for a 16-bit wide cart. This can be done by one 16-bit wide ROM chip or two 8-bit wide ROM chips. The SkunkBoard for example is 16-bit wide and I believe also the ROM board used by Orion for the Elansar game.

     

    The value $00000000 stands for a 8-bit wide cart. This is done by one 8-bit wide ROM chip. The CD-Bios, Atari Flash cart BIOS and MemoryTrack BIOS is 8-bit wide. Thus the value $00000000 is not used for 4 chip cart but for carts with one 8-bit wide ROM chip.

    The value from address $400 is used to fill the MEMCON1 register. Bit 1&2 for the rom width. According to the docs, value 6 is also possible for 64-bit wide rom but the cart slot does not support that. Also bit 3&4 could be set for the values at $400 to specify the rom speed. 0 = 10 cycles, 1 = 8 cycles, 2 = 6 cycles, 3 = 5 cycles (less cycles seems faster ROM).

     

    The start address of the card is at $0404 (not $0406) and is 4 bytes long. Ussually the start address is $00802000.

     

    The value at $0408 (4 bytes) determines if the spinning cube is shown at stafrtup. If bit 0 is 0 then the cube shown. If bit 0 is 1 then the spinning cube is not shown. The CD-BIOS and FlashCart bios have here bit 0 set (value 1). But the MemoryTrack has here bit 1 set (value 2) thus it seems bit 1 means something special as well.

     

     

    Robert

    • Like 4

  3. Posted

    Thanks for all those wonderful ST conversions :thumbsup: . Some I missed back in the days so it is a fun discovery. Unfortunately my Jaguar is still somewhere in a box at the attic as I did not had the time to setup my retro stuff after moving house. I'm still too busy with DIYing around the house. But if you convert IK+ I will immediately dig out my Jaguar to play it :grin:

     

     

    Last one for a while. Don't want to burn out! Please, NO MORE requests, here, via email, or via PM.

     

    Oh, never mind about IK+ :P

     

     

    Robert

     

     

    IK+IK+IK+IK+IK+IK+IK+IK+IK+IK+IK+IK+IK+IK+IK+IK+IK+IK+IK+IK+IK+IK+IK+IK+IK+IK+IK+IK+IK+IK+

    • Like 4

  4. Posted

    Another soundtrack remake now on Kickstarter. This time is Matt Gray famous for the C64 music of The Last Ninja II. I'm sure there are more Atari ST fans lurking here that also like SID music. So those who would like the complete Last Ninja II soundtrack on modern sound hardware and many more tracks (Tusker, Dominator, Driller, Bangkok Nights, Vendetta, etc) now on 4 CDs can pledge on Kickstarter.

     

    Robert

  5. Posted

    Tape verison, could you make a .cas of it?

     

    The one on Atarimania does not work for me, in fact only the Red T verified cas images work for me. Almost all the blue T cas images fail :(.

     

    I don't think I already dumped it because the one attached (probably from AtariMania) seems the same as my original tape. It works for me in Altirra. When you set it to 800XL with 64K it works, when you change the memory size to 128KB, it hangs after loading.

     

    Robert

    Tail of Beta Lyrae (The).zip

  10. Posted

    Recieved both my 64Mb and 128Mb cart... will try them soon... thanx looking great...

     

    I thought there was now only one version, the 128MB one. Did you arrange a prototype :P

     

     

    My package is posted at december 13th, and it is still not here in the Netherlands. Anyone else still waiting and waiting and waiting?

     

    It is sent with DHL, and that is Selektvracht here in the Netherlands. The most useless shipping company in the world; by far!

     

    I hope it will show up at last, but I'm afraid this will be another package lost in space due to stupid Selektvracht.

     

    I got the "you cart is sent" e-mail the 24th of december and received the cart at the end of december. But it was just in my post-box even when it had the registered mail sticker on it. You would think I had to sign for the package but those mail delivery guys don't want to come again when there is nobody home so they try everything to "loose" the package at the first delivery attempt.

     

    Robert

  11. Posted

    Do you have a difference in how the game is displayed with the E and non-E Raiden carts in PAL mode?

     

    The 'E' version of Raiden displays more lines on PAL so you don't have the black borders. Therefore the Raiden logo on the title screen is also on a different position. Further it is pretty much the same except that the 'E' version also works on a SkunkBoard.

     

    Robert

    • Like 2

  12. Posted

    My "E" Trevor McFur cart is also black. But my "E-2" Raiden is grey while my non "E" Raiden is black.

    I also have a black "E-2" Cybermorph (2MB version) and a Grey "E-3" Cybermorph (1MB version).

     

    I always thought black carts were used for the earlier releases and Atari switched to grey carts in later releases and production runs. But if there are grey non "E" versions of TMcF which should be an earlier release than the black "E" versions, then that is not always the case.

     

    Also both my "E-2" and non "E" Dino Dudes are grey while you would expect the non "E" version is an early release that should be black.

     

    Robert

  14. Posted

    Only these are true SECAM conversions:

    http://www.atarimani...ormat=4&step=25

     

    8)

     

    Wow, only 5 true Secam games. And none where from Atari. It makes me wonder what Atari was thinking when they made the Secam 2600 and released it in France without Secam 'optimised' games.

     

    I found some more Secam 2600 info from a French AtariAge user in this topic. Interesting read. It seems that the BW/Color switch was hardwired to BW. This makes games that use this switch for other reasons than color selection (like space shuttle) not working correctly on Secam machines. How many Secam 2600s were produced before they switched to the 2600Jr with Scart output. They should have had a 2600 with Scart output from the beginning (like the 7800 Scart version) instead of bothering with outputting a Secam RF signal. But TV's in France had only Scart from january 1980 while the 2600 was released there in 1981. So the potential user base for a Scart 2600 would be too low at that time.

     

    Robert

  15. Posted

    This talk about Secam games make me wonder how Secam 'optimised' games look like. The Secam version of the TIA chip had only 8 colors. This made PAL games on Secam look terrible like in these videos:

     

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dXoOo8DzVU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CB08VroVCw

     

     

    But I couldn't find any videos showing a Secam version of the game. I suppose the colors were adjusted for the Secam TIA palette but they must have dropped many colors in games that used 'color gradients' like many activision games (Barnstorming, Chopper Command, Decathlon, Dolphin, etc. that used gradients for the sky or Presure Cooker that used gradients to give the player more color). So it would be nice to see some screen-shots of Secam 'optimised' games compared to the PAL version on a Secam 2600.

     

    How many games were converted to Secam anyway? Seems not that many. It looks like Atari did not release a Secam 2600Jr in France but released a PAL 2600Jr with Scart connector instead so you could play PAL games in France with the proper colors like this video shows:

     

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9MHv917VsU

     

    Robert

  16. Posted

    Is there a way to use these codes with Altirra?

     

    For Altirra you need to activate the debugger ("Debug->Enable debugger" menu). This will open some debugging windows. Make sure the console window is open ("Debug->Windows->Console" menu). Click on the emulated Atari screen and press <F8>. This will stop executing the current program. Click on the "command line" of the console window. Now you can enter debug commands. The command for changing memory localsions is:

    e <$address> <$value1> <$value2> ...

     

    Thus for infinite lives type:

    e $1f74 $ea $ea

     

    Then press <F8> again to resume the game.

     

    Robert

     

     

    Note: The "1a" value in your example is not the offical opcode for a NOP but an undocumented 'NOP' instruction. Thats why I used the version with "$ea" (from the first post) for the official NOP opcode.

    post-119-0-83256700-1375124876_thumb.png

    • Like 1

  18. Posted

    Forgive my ignorance... but how can these POKES be used in emulators / real hardware?

     

    On real hardware you need a Turbo Freezer to freeze the game, enter the codes in the debuger and then resume the game.

     

     

    [quote name=Sub(Function(:))' timestamp='1373976744' post='2793035]

    That's one crazy "cool" 800xl you have there :)

     

    Thank you, it is a wonder that it is still working with all that soldering inside. While I nowadays have an XE with VBXE, U1MB, covex and stereo pokey, this machine still has a special place in my heart since it was my first computer. When I was about ten/eleven I bought it together with my dad and brother. And when it was the birthday of my dad, we gave him an Atari game but of course me and my brother were the ones who played it the most :-D

     

    Robert

  20. Posted

    > is a little big to flash with an Atari

     

    The!Cart Studio and the related flash software are designed to support automatic incremental flashing and POKEY divisior 0 with 8K SIO blocks. Full programming of 64MB would take about 30min with an Atari if I remember correctly from my prototype but you would hardly do that.

     

    Only 30 minutes is fast. I was expecting much longer since flashing an AtariMax 1MB cart takes already several minutes.

    Incremental flashing is a great feature even when you are not changing the contents much. I'm certainly getting one when they become available.

     

    Robert

  22. Posted

     

    Frankly, I've see a LOT of projects like this and I don't see how any of them are going to become THE standard.

    I think the developers would have to port more machines to the hardware.

    If you can just stick in an SD card to boot as Amiga, ST, C64, Atari 8 bit, VCS, Colecovision, Apple II, VIC 20, CoCo, Spectrum, etc... then you start pulling away from most of the other projects which only have one or two machines running. There are at least a dozen other FPGA machines out there as well but going from 90% to 100% complete on new hardware is a lot of work.

     

    What about the FGPA Arcade. This one aims to be a multiplatform FGPA board including Amiga and ST.

     

    Robert

  23. Posted

    Hmm that's a nice offer but how to I get it in MOD format ?

     

    I ony know mod players and atari internal midi player (but that one never used before)

     

    Any MP3 to MOD convertor around ?

     

    If you are working on a CD game, you can always use it as CD-audio :P

    For cartridge games, MP3 files are indeed not much of use as they take too much storage space (if there would be a DSP MP3 decoder).

  24. Posted

    Man, a blast from the past. Geraldo and Al Capone's vault. Yeppers, I watched it live too. I would watch this dig live if it happened that way. I love being disappointed!

     

     

    Then you probably also enjoyed watching the live broadcast on National Geographics a few years ago where they put a small camera in the door they found in the great pyramid shaft only to find there was another door behind it :-D

    • Like 1
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