Hornpipe2

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

Well this probably explains why the screen rolls with Airlock on the FB2: http://kennedy.greg.googlepages.com/fb2compat.html Interestingly it sounds like someone could bang out an FB2-compatible Airlock. I may try it here in a bit.

If I had friends, this game would never leave my Atari.

http://www.richard.hutchinson.dsl.pipex.com/new_page_6.htm # 0E 0380 - 03BF Karate Master (Greg Kennedy) Now to finish it! LOL. I've got two main branches going on with my code right now and I'm stumped on both ends, which explains the lack of progress. On the menu front: The biggest issue I am having is that it is hard to justify the ~2k expense on an elaborate menu system if I only have two options on it - "one or two players" and "choose player color". Some more options would be a plus (I'm presently considering things like player handicap, etc) but I have not yet figured out how it would work. Suggestions for more menu options are welcome - as this also helps drive the feature set in the game! I think overall though I will be replacing some of the font (text) with something smaller and less "flourished" (i.e. more readable), cramming a few more options on the page, etc. Probably will make the "Record" display a highlighable option when the SaveKey is present, and clicking that takes you from a Top 1 to a full-screen Top 16 (3 bytes score + 1 byte color). I may also see about making use of that System Settings page on the SaveKey. Character heights are as high as I can get them, so PAL folks will be playing with shorter (and slower...?) fighters, but I may be able to make up the difference in lines through a little bit of letterboxing and enlarged background images. But how do I work this around players who don't have the SaveKey? Drat. On the gameplay front: How in the world am I going to tackle collision detection?! For the frames that are "dangerous" (i.e. should be checked for hits) I've defined a "dangerous point" corresponding to a fist or foot. But now how do I rig up the vulnerable locations on the opponent per-frame? I've considered adding up to three or four hitboxes to be checked, but don't know if that will be enough or not, and the space of that (2 bytes/coord * 2 coords/box * 4 boxes/frame * 42 frames = 672 bytes) what a waste!! This stopped me cold last time and I haven't figured a better solution yet. Thinking... perhaps I can get a collision handler that is capable of reading the gfx data. Since the info is already there it would be pixel-perfect and probably not so expensive.

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.

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

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....

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 : )

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!

I sold my 1040ST to STGuy1040 - very helpful to deal with, got payment to me quickly, and very communicative. Thanks a lot!

And a kickass soundtrack to boot!

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.

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 : )

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.

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 )

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)

Do I need a disk in the drive or anything to make it work? I have no ST disks...

A nice lineup of systems taken from my garage. My camera sucks and couldn't cope with the mismatch of room lighting so things may look more yellow than they actually are. I'm located in Conway, AR. Make an offer by PM... I am wanting to sell "entire pictures" i.e. no splitting the Genesis and the Sega CD : ) An Atari 1040ST (sold!) Sega Genesis (sold!) Sony PSX (sold!) Nerf Wii Sports pack (sold!) -- I also have a non-working Macintosh LC and an old Mac monitor, keyboard and mouse. It has some kind of RAM and VRAM upgrades but the system will not power on (not PRAM battery, more like bad PSU) so I can't tell what all is inside.

So... how can I see my high score? It seems the game throws it away as soon as the games over, and I can't get a screenshot! EDIT: I got it. Wait until after you see the Ram-It logo, but be quick, because eventually a new demo will start and you'll lose it. ALSO: Shoot the right side first. There is a bug where if you shoot a bonus bar on the right but the left side is cleared, the bar will reappear on the left at half (or full) length. Shooting a bonus bar on the Left while the Right is cleared does not cause this problem. 38,990

First read this: http://www.atariprotos.com/2600/software/grover/grover.htm Then try out the attached ROM (it's an older proto)... and see if it sounds like Michael Finnegan! ( Skip about 30 seconds into this video and you can hear it: ) Thoughts? Grover__s_Music_Maker__Monkey_Music___Kid__s_Controller___Children__s_Computer_Workshop___12_29_1982___Atari__Stephen_Keith__Preston_Stuart___CX26106___Prototype_.bin

One other thing I wanted to throw out there: Surf's Up [a] is not playable - the bankswitch locations are backwards so the thing never starts. Maybe the two halves of the ROM were somehow put together in the wrong order?

I disagree. Zipping up a folder works great for me, because on Linux I always use commandline tools to unzip/unrar/untar/etc, and so without the top-level directory it would throw 1784 files on my desktop or cwd. Please leave it as-is! Thanks to everyone for your hard work on this collection! I know so much effort went into this.

18725 I've been out a few weeks. Also probably won't put more time in this as I am officially sick of Christmas for the next 11 months : )

[email protected]:~/src/atari800-2.0.3/src$ telnet localhost 9000 Trying 127.0.0.1... Connected to localhost. Escape character is '^]'. Connection closed by foreign host. I tried this several times. Finally it managed to connect. R1: Listening on port 9000... R1: Serving Connection from localhost. R*: Negotiating Terminal Options... Entering 'mode char' I think caused Ice-T to change from "Dialing..." to "_CONNECT 2400". Now I can pop back over to the Terminal window and send messages back and forth between telnet and Ice-T. Neat! I suppose I can fix up sock_pipe.pl to link port 9000 with the IGS web address and go from there.