rdemming

It also says: "Secondary Programer: Gary "Rybags" Ryan (Australia)". That must be Rybags from this forum. Maybe he knows more. Robert

Here is the developer manual for the XE super carts: http://www.atarimax.com/jindroush.atari.org/data/acarts/xegs_docs1.jpg http://www.atarimax.com/jindroush.atari.org/data/acarts/xegs_docs2.jpg Robert

Does it include an emulated stereo SID or do I need the sound board for that? And can it be combined with the sound board in the future if it does not contain an emulated SID? I take one but unfortunately I have the coming months no time to spend on Atari Yes, it will be emulated in FGPA thus no extra Pokey chip needed. Robert

All black Jaguar Controller for the Gothic fans. Seller claims these were prototype controllers but $450 is way too much I think. Robert

Amiga sprites and blitter object are two separate things. The Amiga has 8 sprites that are 16 pixels wide (and screen high) and have three colors. Two sprites can be combined in one 15 color sprite. Sprites are on the fly rendered together with regular bitmap graphics. Thus sprite do not affect display memory. And there is support for hardware collision detection between sprites and bitmap graphics. Blitter objects on the other hand are pieces of data that are copied to the display memory by the blitter. These thus change the display memory and when the BOB changes/moves the background has to be restored. BOB are more flexible because the amount of BOBs you can make is not fixed like sprites but are limited by processing time. And BOBs have variable dimensions. But collision detection has to be done in software. Atari ST with blitter can also have BOBs but the Atari ST's blitter is less flexible than the Amiga's and can't run in parallel with the 68000. Robert

Thanks, now I finally understand why lots of C64 games need a joystick in port 2 instead of port 1. On the C64 it was always a gamble in which port to plug in your joystick for single player games. Robert

All the 800XEs I've seen were 130XE boards with 4-bit memory chips. And those boards are not much different than the 1-bit memory version except for the area with the memory chips. (in addition there are also at least two variations of the 130XE board regarding the clock crystal type used). So the pictures of the 130XE installation posted earlier in this thread should be usable for the 800XE as well. For the signals, three of them are taken directly from the Freddie chip and the HALT signal is taken from the E-MMU chip. The 800XE does not have a E-MMU chip but HALT can still be taken from the same location. Robert

Mmmmm, you could indeed say they cheated by cleverly reducing the amount of data they have to scroll. But this has nothing to do with "using unchartered regions of the st hardware or failing that, software based hardware trickery" (I suppose you mean sync-scrolling with this). I suppose if they had made Giana Sisters a scrolling game, they also would have resorted to reducing the scrolling area of the screen. Maybe similar to Turrican that also uses a smaller screen by cutting pixels from the left and right. Robert

The silky smooth scrolling of Steve Bak games are done using "data reduction". For example, "Return to Genesis" is ultra smooth but it uses scrolls only half of the screen. Then the ultra smooth GoldRunner has also a big status panel at the right reducing the scrolling area and the scrolling is also only 2 bitplanes (4 color background). Jupiter Probe and Leatherneck also have a massive status panel reducing the scrolling area to half of the screen. Only StarRay has a status panel that does not cover half of the screen (but it is still pretty big). And his 4 way scrolling game (James Pond) does not scroll as smooth as his other games. But Steve Bak is not the only one who used the "data reduction" trick for scrolling, there are many other examples. Also Wayne Smithson's Anarchy scrolls only 2 bitplanes to achieve smooth scrolling. Robert

LOL. Even without the scrolling, the ST version of Giana Sisters is still a great game. Better flip screen than bad scrolling

One of the best (IMHO) games on the Atari ST, "The Great Giana Sisters", is about to come back on the PC. There is a KickStarter project by former members of the now defunct "Spellbound Entertainment" (known for GianaSisters DS and founded by Armin Gessert, the creator of Giana Sisters on the C64) to make a remake. The game seems largely finished and they seek additional funding to polish it. The release date will be October/November 2012. It is in a 2.5D style (3D viewed from the side like Trine for example) and it looks awesome. For the music they brought back Chris Huelsbeck who is working together with Machinea Supremacy. So I believe that will result in a soundtrack that is worth the game price alone Oh, and if you donate $10.000, you get the only original boxed Atari ST version of "The Great Giana Sisters" too. I knew the game was rare but this must be the most expensive game on the ST. Robert http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWxvJoEIZwo

My two 800XL Rev D boards don't have wires except the wires I added

That must be the chip that is buffering the PHI2 signal Maybe the replacement 74LS08 you used has faster respond times than the old one.

I have another Rev D 800XL board with OKI memory chips and that one has the same problems with U1MB as the first one. The U1MB with problems is from the first batch. But I also have a U1MB from the 2nd batch and this one works perfectly in both 800XLs. There was a suggestion that it might be the cables but it doesn't matter which cable I use. U1MB batch 1 has problems with both sets of cables and U1MB batch 2 works perfectly with both sets of cables. So I believe that there are some variations in some of the components of the U1MB/800XL and that the combination of those variations causes an important signal to become just out of spec. Adding my resistor fix or touching some places on the PCB somehow stabilises that signal. Robert

I have MT chips and printend on the top-right is: A024807 REV D Etched on the bottom side: CO 61851 REV D OPC 1298A 45-84

I've tested to connect R/W and PHI2 directly to the CPU but it did not solve my problem. Connecting only R/W or PHI2 directly made things a little better. Connecting both made it a little better than before but actually worse than connecting only one. So it seems my resistor fix is still the way for me. I hoped this would work since the resistor fix and not so nice in my opinion. Robert

I looked at the Atari's original 800XL schematics and Candle's connection points for the 800XL. HALT and RESET signals are directly taken from the CPU. But the R/W signal on the PBI bus is taken from a 74LS375 chip and not directly from the CPU all other chips and the cart port take the R/W signal directly from the CPU so I'm curious why only the PBI R/W is latched. Also the PHI2 signal is indeed buffered by a 74LS08 chip and that signal is used by the ANTIC, GTIA, etc and the PBI bus. So by taking R/W & PHI2 directly on the CPU instead from the PBI bus you could get your U1MB to work? Maybe this is also the solution for mine and Atari8Warez problems. Both mine and A8W U1MB do not work out of the box in a 800XL, but they work in a 130XE. Checking Candle's connection points for a 130XE, I see that there the R/W and PHI2 signals are directly taken from the CPU. PHI2 is thus not taken from the 74LS08 buffer chip as on the 800XL but the ANTIC, etc use the buffered PHI2 signal on a 130XE just like on a 800XL. So these differences in connection points might explain why my and A8W U1MB did not work on a 800XL but do on a 130XE. I will try to connect my U1MB board directly to the CPU's R/W and PHI2 signals to see if that makes any difference. Thanks for your insight. Robert

Here are the 800xl pics on Candle's website: http://www.spiflash.org/atari/ultimate/800xl/ Robert

I didn't. When reading the topic description I thought it was about a device to connect USB sticks/mice/keyboards to the Atari. Anyway, what are the advantages of this one compared to the SIO2PC-USB that I have on Candle's IO-board and other standard FTDI based break-out boards/cables? Robert

Yes, I believe so too. SIO2USB is usually considered a device so the Atari can access USB devices like USB sticks. This is connecting to a PC and I would call it SIO2PC-USB version as AtariMax call his. Robert

The schematics I saw of incongnito use a 29F040 which has a 64KByte sector size. So how is it 4k for incognito or did you change the flash chip? Robert

I voted 1. As default name I would take the file name without the extension. If your files have good names then you don't have to change the name afterwards. Robert

Maybe these will help then

Space Harrier must be flashed in an AtariMax 8MBit Flash cart which are available here: http://www.atarimax.com/flashcart/documentation/ Best value is a 5 pack and then you can flash the other 4 as multi-cart. Robert

There are various U1MB related files here: http://www.spiflash.org/atari/ultimate/ 600XL pics are here but without the four extra wires: http://www.spiflash.org/atari/ultimate/600xl/ This is the page with how to do the wires and the two resistors on the 800XL but it seems no reachable by any menu. I just guessed the URL: http://spiflash.org/block/21.html And here the page for the 130XE. Also the URL guessed: http://spiflash.org/block/22.html Robert