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Hornpipe2

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Posts posted by Hornpipe2

  2. Posted

    Sold my (untested) Sega CD to Nathan Allan - he's a great buyer, very communicative and honest, and even though I shipped stuff before receiving payment he got me payment in full. Would sell to again.

  4. Posted

    You can build your own EPROM programmer (driven by PC parallel port) for way cheap: http://outflux.net/software/pkgs/EPROM/mirror

    This only burns 27C801 EPROMs, and no 2600 boards support these.

    Oh right. Well that's for my multicart anyway : ) The page links to the EPROMR2 which burns 2764 up to... well it's not listed but the software shows at leats 27512. Mostly the same design, different hookups. Evidently the software needs a slow PC. http://www.zws.com/products/epromr2/

  9. Posted · Edited by Hornpipe2

    I made the change as suggested. From what I can tell, one scanline is dropped from the title screen. (Actually this game is weird because it doesn't keep a constant number of scanlines anyway - at boot it is normally 257, then it switches to 256 after about a second or two, and during gameplay it is 260. With the hack it becomes 256/255 -> 260.)

     

    I wonder if this game rolls on real hardware as a result of the lack of consistency, and if that is what the reported FB2 problem is (as opposed to an unsupported illegal opcode). I always want for testers : )

    Airlock__1982___No_SAX_Hack_.bin

  10. Posted

    I'd love to see more detailed info about the 'fixed' games you mentioned, how I can do it, etc. Also have read tidbits about getting some games to work by getting "true 5V" to the cart, but just little tidbits of info in barely related posts...

     

    What I mean by 'fixed' is: some of the ROMs for these games have been hacked for other reasons and those hacks may end up working on the FB2. If you have an EEPROM programmer and a soldering iron on hand, you could build working versions out of those ROMs. Specifically I mean Activision Decathlon (converted to F6 Bankswitching) and Activision Robot Tank (converted to F8). Check the compatibility list as I have added downloads for the two ROMs.

     

    Someone with free time might be able to hack other broken ROMs and fix them to work, as well. Again you'd need to burn the new fixed ROM to play it. Right now I'm looking at fixing Airlock here: http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=139505 - by recoding the game to remove the SAX opcode, it may fix the screen rolling problem.

     

    As far as the 5v thing: I've seen a few reports on it, notably from jsoper here: http://www94.pair.com/jsoper/flashback2.html From what I remember, putting more voltage on the cart doesn't actually help anything. I suppose the 4.24v is within the acceptable range for the ROM chips.

     

    Hope that helps. I was a little bummed to find out about the compatibility issues myself, mostly because of the SuperChip games, but since I don't actually own any games or a real 2600 this does help to limit the potential size of my collection : )

  11. Posted · Edited by Hornpipe2

    Jungle Hunt cart works fine on my modded FB2, although list says it doesn't--killer game by the way.

     

    I pulled the info for Jungle Hunt from Digitpress: http://www.digitpress.com/eastereggs/pnpflashback2.htm

    Jungle Hunt (every time you jump on the cannibal scene, the scene resets, but the timer keeps running)

     

    So that may help you identify where the supposed bug is. If this isn't happening to you as described, then I can update the table to "conflicting reports", it could be that the original tester had a bad cart. Also, do you know what revision your FB2 is?

     

    EDIT: There have been a couple of games listed here that have been "fixed" - that is, someone has hacked out the illegal opcodes or adjusted the bankswitching to make games run on FB2. I think I will update the list to include download links to the ROMs where available.

  14. Posted

    What kind of technical documentation is there for the AtariVox / SaveKey? I am thinking of adding support for both to my game when it's played one-player, but for some reason a search for "atarivox" in the Atari 2600 Programming forum didn't turn up anything useful.

  15. Posted

    What is the highest level at which Video Chess is known to play an actual playable game? Just curious. I'm not a chess player, so the 2600 can probably beat me on level 1 anyway.

     

    I believe it is level 5. (6 and 7 are bugged. 8, in Atari's infinite wisdom, is actually the easiest level)

  16. Posted · Edited by Hornpipe2

    Yeah, I poked around with a better Chess a year or two ago, but didn't make much progress. More RAM would have been handy to let the VCS look further ahead when making moves. The biggest advantage I saw would be making the cart bankswitched and storing a 1-4k Opening Book in the extra ROM space - this would help the VCS get to a good early position instead of making haphazard moves at the start.

     

    I think it would be a niche project that could benefit from a little redesign and expansion. Throwing a SuperChip and 32k at it probably approaches the Land of Diminishing Returns.

     

    EDIT: There COULD be other neat features that would make it a worthwhile purhcase though - even if the chess engine is not so hot, I could imagine a VCS joystick-port network that would let two players battle it out, and it would be theoretically possible to route that online through a PC such that we'd have an online VCS board game.

     

    Hmmm.... :ponder: ;)

  17. Posted

    Because of the bankswitching logic PLD, the original ROM's had the logic in the chip, EPROM's do not.

     

    BTW, it's probably too late for this idea to be useful, and it's probably not practical anyway, but I may as well suggest... would it be practical to make a daughterboard that would plug into the space occupied by the ROM on an Atari cart?

     

    I wonder also: could one of those homebrew bankswitch PLDs be modified to include the 128 bytes of Superchip RAM? That way you would take a new EEPROM and a new PLD and solder them both to a new board - no need for donor chips?

     

    I am not certain of the cost to source old Superchip games but I imagine at some point they will be converted to new uses and it would be more cost-effective to design a chip like that : )

  18. Posted

    Will Cave In and I guess by default Superchip games work in a Flashback 2? Its my only machine right now and it does have the cart slot mod. Thanks for any info! I'm thinking about getting the game as it does look sweet!

    http://kennedy.greg.googlepages.com/fb2compat.html

     

    Unfortunately all of the Superchip games Al listed above are shown on this list as "not working". Too bad as I only have the hacked FB2 and was planning a Superchip multicart... ah well, saves me the trouble of building the darn thing!

  21. Posted · Edited by Hornpipe2

    The VCS strikes me as the ultimate casual gaming machine - one joystick, one button, most games played in five minutes or less. Most 2600 games that strike out towards some kind of intricate plot or cram a bunch of stuff in end up lackluster. It only takes a solid, simple mechanic to be polished into the greatest end result.

     

    That's not to say a score is *always* necessary [Adventure] - and it certainly is not good gameplay in itself. But as a layer on top of already solid gameplay, it provides an additional level of challenge and replayability for those who want to play at that level. As a player who breaks out the VCS (or emulator) almost exclusively for the HSC, games that don't keep score just don't get played.

  22. Posted

    Something that nobody has mentioned yet: I like all my games to keep some kind of score, no matter how silly it might seem to do so. The VCS doesn't have the power for fancy FMV endings or intricate plots, but it's still endearing because it perfectly captures that high-score driven arcade mania of the 1980s.

     

    Plus it helps to ensure longevity thanks to the weekly High Score Challenges hosted here : )

  23. Posted

    If you're not particular about actually owning the carts and just want to have a lot of games at your disposal to play on Real Hardware™, you might consider some of the Multicart options (Kroko Kart, Supercharger, hand-soldered EEPROM, etc). They would allow you to cram a bunch of games on one cartridge, the really nice ones let you swap out ROMs for new ones and support lots of different bankswitch schemes.

  24. Posted

    I'd been sorting out originals by hand - for the most part it is pretty straightforward, but I can see a couple of areas that are going to lead to head-scratching:

    * What about PAL games released by one company (e.g. BitCorp) that make it to NTSC in the form of several pirate variations - which one is the "original" NTSC?

    * What about different versions from the original company which are not technically a "bugfix", just different revisions (e.g. Missile Command / Missile Command [No Initials], Space Shuttle / Space Shuttle [F8 Bankswitching], etc)?

    * Games where it is hard to determine PAL / NTSC region (scanline counts way off)

    * Prototypes which are completely unplayable even in the most finished form

     

    I can't think of others right now, but I am sure they will come up when it comes time to sort out the originals.

     

    Not saying I am opposed to doing it - just that I think it will be more work than some imagine. ( Then again so is putting together a 1784-ROM set so I guess you're probably up for it :D )

  25. Posted · Edited by Hornpipe2

    So the TV Out is RF, not RCA! I found an old and barely functioning RF adapter and managed to hook it up - after chugging at the empty floppy drive I was presented with a green desktop. So the ST looks like it will work fine.

     

    As far as the Genesis - I went to test it out, but it turns out the AC adapter I have is only for the Sega CD and not the Genesis (as I had originally thought). Darn. Back when I actually HAD the adapter, the Genesis worked great. I got rid of it before picking up the Sega CD though so that one is kind of an unknown (it came from Vintage Stock and my understanding is they test the hardware out a bit before reselling it, but that was two years ago)

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