rdemming

The N64 is slightly better as the C64. The N is a bit further in the alphabet than the C. But then the C128 is of course almost twice as good as a N64 because 128/64-C/N is 1.77.

You want a more serious answer? Although they both are 64-bits, the architecture very different. The Jaguars 64-bit graphics system (object processor) can be considered as the ultimate sprite system. Everything you see on screen are freely movable and scalable bitmap objects. In addition it has a 64-bit blitter to do various graphics manipulations at pixel level (moving, copying, shading, deformations, etc). All this is driven by a 32-bit RISC processor. Consequently in 3D games, polygons are calculated in software and rendered to a bitmap which is displayed by the object processor. The blitter is used for filling and shading of polygons. So the Jaguar graphics is 2D based. Although with clever programming you can do 3D games, the graphics system is not truly 3D. The N64 on the other hand has a graphics system that is based on rendering 3D polygons. The N64 64-bit graphics chip consists of the RSP and RDP. The Reality Signal Processor (RSP) is a MIPS R4000-based 8-bit integer vector processor which is programmable with micro-code. It handles the processing (transform, clipping and lighting calculations, triangle setup) of polygons which are then rendered by the Reality Drawing Processor (RDP). So in effect, everything on screen are rendered 3D triangles. In addition it has a NEC VR4300 RISC general purpose processor that is internally 64-bit but connected with a 32-bit databus. But 64-bit operations were rarely used (you don't need 64-bits for storing the high-score ) So the Jaguar and N64 are both 64 bits, they can't be compared because the architecture (working principle) is very different. The Jaguar was the last console of the 2D generation while N64 together with the PlayStation where the first of the 3D generation (architecture wise). Robert

That's what your girlfriend told me Pssst, don't tell my wife

Try the finger fix Here is a small video of my problematic U1MB without the resistor fix applied. If you look carefully at the screen you see that the self-test menu is not correct. All entries are orange and you can't select another option. But with a light touch at the resistor, the problems go away and you will see that the menu shows correctly one blinking orange line and three blue lines instead of 4 orange lines. If you look carefully at the video you will see that the menu colors change every time I touch the area of the resistor. This only works when I use my finger. Using plastic or a screwdriver does not work. The conclusion is thus that I have a magic finger But your problem seems indeed something else. Robert http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTCXheuBiIQ

Here they are As you can see I attached a 3K1 resistor between pin 1 (5V) and pin 10 (A15). The value of the resistor does not need to be exact 3K1. This solved my problem but I still want to try it with another cable. Maybe the resistor only compensates for a problem elsewhere on the bus Robert

There are two things to update. First the flash rom with the firmware which can be done in system with a flasher program. But the flasher program is not yet officially released because it is not yet user friendly and fool proof. You can also program the flash chip by pulling it from the board and program it in an eprom progammer. The second thing to update is the Xilinx CPLD chip (programmable logic chip) which is more difficult. For that you need a JTAG cable to be connected the the small header on the board and programming software on the PC. I believe FJC is working on a how-to guide but he is very busy so we have to be patient. The CPLD needs to be upgraded for the SIDE PBI emulation support. I wonder if the new BIOS would work without upgrading the CPLD chip with new logic. Robert

I believe it was A14 or A15. I will check later (and make a picture of it). I did not yet try the old unit with the new cables as I have to desolder the resistor then. But I will test it later as I want to be sure which combinations of cables/boards/800XL work. Atari8warez said that the problem seems only with 800XLs. In my case it was, the U1MB board that had problems in my 800XL did work correctly in a 130XE. You must have bought the complete stock of your local InterToys store when they were dumping 800XE machines for very cheap after Atari's demise I got a three of them too but because of the bad GTIA chip in them I used them to get the 14MHz crystal needed for my VBXE boards Robert

Maybe ask Mr. Atari. His old MyIDE bios first didn't work correctly with IDE2SD adapters but the later versions work perfectly with them. Robert

No, it doesn't. Mad Bodies came out after the Skunkboard. Indeed, it is probably the other way around. It is easy to detect if a program is running on a SkunkBoard and stop working. And you don't even have to test explicitly for a SkunkBoard. You can also test if the cart is 16-bits wide instead of 32 bits. Or have a different start address than $802000 and the program will not work on a skunk too. Robert

You forget the SkunkBoard. Since the SkunkBoard has its own 16bit processor, Jaguars with an inserted SkunkBoard have an extra 16 bits of awesome power Robert

That one is from the masters K&R themselves. It is very good but not the easiest to read. The O'Reilly's in a nutshell series is excellent too: C in a Nutshell Robert

Or 1.6

Page 3 is correct. It says "software configurable to appear as either 2 banks of 4MB, or a single bank of 6MB, always mapped at $800000". And a developer can say which of those two 4MB banks is active. If you skip to page 23 you can see how: Thus it is very simple for a running program to switch between banks. You only have to make sure that when you are switching, there is nothing executing from cart space. Robert [edit]Tursi was just a bit faster in answering your question [edit]

Why only 6MB? The SkunkBoard v2 has two banks of 4MB. A game specially written for the SkunkBoard can swap between those two banks and thus use both banks to get 8MB cartridge space. Robert

RAM on a cartridge is possible but not with the cheap DDR-3 ram chips of today. You need the expensive SRAM chips. The Alpine development cart uses SRAM. The linear address range of the Jaguar cart is 6MB but it is not a hard limit. Using bank-switching you can have in theory multiple giga bytes on a cart if the costs would not make it prohibitive. Even the 4GB limit of 32-bit Windows is not a hard limit. Many processors support Physical Address Extension (PAE) which makes it possible to give each process its own logical 32bit address space in 56bit physical address space. B.T.W. The Jaguar chipset supports 4MB of DRAM (2 banks of 2MB and the Jaguar uses only one bank). However adding a second bank of DRAM to the Jaguar is not an easy solder job. Robert

In my opinion, Obsession is also worth its (3) disk space. Also Zero-5 is an STE only game I would recommend to check out. Robert

64KB is too little memory for a console based on ST hardware. The screen memory takes already 32KB and since there are no hardware sprites and hardware scrolling you need at least double buffering taking all the memory for the screen alone. Enchanted Lands used special tricks (sync-scrolling, pre-shifting, more than 2 screen buffers, electron-beam precise sprite drawing so you can draw on the same screen as which is displayed without tearing) to achieve smooth scrolling. And because of the technical difficulties of those tricks it is very hard to use it in a game and therefore Enchanted Lands is a technical masterpiece and a one of a kind. And those tricks need far more memory than the 64KB you want to put in the ST game machine. And the CPU says not much about the graphics performance of a system. The Intellivision had a 16-bit CPU but the graphics was not much better than a 2600. And the PC engine had a 8-bit CPU and was in the same league as the 16-bit SNES and MegaDrive. It is the graphics chip that makes the difference. Robert

Here a list of "STE enhanced" games on Atari Mania. However I doubt that many of them do more than just use the enhanced color palette. From head: WoD & Lethal Access: ADMA, BLIT, (EPAL?,HWS?) Stone Age: ADMA, (EPAL?) Stardust and Substation is STE only. Robert

According to the Fast Striker webpage the cartridge is 1560 Megabit thus 195 Megabyte. Compare this to the maximum 6 Megabyte address space of a Jaguar cart (of course extendable by bank-switching). With that amount of memory, it seems €439 for a cart is cheap. I wonder what kind of memory chips they are using especially since the cart can be updated via USB. Robert

Any news on the new Turbo Freezer? Or are you thinking about eliminating the 3rd PCB by doing a 4 layer board? Robert

Here a webpage with transputer installation disks and documentation. Maybe it is useful. The transputer was developed by a British company called Perihelion. Besides financing I wonder what Atari contributed to its development. Robert

Thanks. It is a fun game. The buying of ammo and building of the castle makes it more interesting than all those similar games that only have the shooting. Robert

Looks fun. Any link to the ST version? Robert

Duh, of course I meant MegaSTE, regular STE don't have a VME bus. Sometimes I write faster than I think I didn't know STacy's had a place on the motherboard for VME looking port. Robert

The Multiface ST was a Freezer. The ST hardware is indeed much simpler than the Amiga's one (most (all?) registers are read/write so you don't need to shadow registers to create a safe-state) but the cart port was also (too) simple and that is why it didn't work well It depended on the monitor interrupt which can be disabled with one instruction thus generally games and demos couldn't be freezed. For a good working freezer you need full access to the processor bus (like the Amiga had), be invisible when not activated and hook yourself into some NMI interrupt vector only when you press the button which is not possible with only the cart port. The STE/TT had the VME bus which maybe could be used for a good working freezer but most people had an ST/STE without VME bus. For those interested, you can download the Multiface ST manual. Robert