intvnut
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Posts posted by intvnut
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Have you ever seen 20,000 screws? This is what 20,000 black #4 wood screws look like. I needed to order more screws to make LTO Flash (and my other cartridge orders) happen:
This box was f'ing heavy, and they just wrapped 20,000 screws in... paper??
No worries. I had the heavy duty plastic bag the previous batch had come in, and a nice glass jar for that bag to sit in.
This f'er weighs like 15 lbs. (I haven't actually weighed it.)
Because that jar is so heavy, I keep a smaller dish of ready-to-use screws that I keep refilling:
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How I notching the USB connector hole.
First, remove the "skirt" where the connector will be:
Now you have a nice flush surface to cut the notch out of in the thicker portion:
Next, get the nibbler, and make a couple nibbles:
Don't let the nibbler "bite" you! (The handles have a tendency to pinch.)
Clean up the notch with an X-Acto:
It should look about like this:
And fit about like this:
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Circuit boards in anti-static packaging...
Depackaged, waiting for some firmware...
Getting some primary firmware...
Getting some secondary firmware and some stress testing...
ZOMG so many boards!
And... some have manufacturing flaws.... (Look at those garbaged up pins!)
Lots of testing...
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I had to notch a lot of plastic... The circuit board below was a failed unit that I used for size-checking.
Yes, I personally cut the USB connector hole in each unit.
A big box of carts waiting to go to Michigan where the rest of assembly will commence:
Another 10 can fit in that box, laid out as shown below. I wasted no space.
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18 minutes ago, Intellivision**fan said:So this list. I've been waiting for the lto release since I missed the other by a week or two. Someone I know got his within that time frame of 2 weeks. Sucks to miss it and possibly again. Please to the developer, would take either option you have available. Will purchase today. Thanks!
Well, you're not going to miss it this time, I reckon. You're on the list. 😀
I have >100 names on my AtariAge list, but >200 programmed up at the moment, in shells, with boxes, more or less ready to go. (Not all are shrink wrapped yet, but enough to handle the initial surge, I hope.)
I still need to go through my Gmail list. I doubt I have >100 unique requests there that aren't already represented in my AtariAge list, but we'll see...
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14 minutes ago, DZ-Jay said:Perhaps the format or type in the clipboard on your PC was missclassified during import. You may need to attach them -- or maybe try again, copying the images from another source program in order to coerce a standard format, like PNG or JPEG
On my wife's PC (Firefox) and phone (Android/Chrome), we see something even different: A large light grey box with a slightly darker grey version of the do-not-enter symbol in the center. i.e. a grey version of this: ⛔
Right clicking on that and "view image in tab" showed the same grey box/do-not-enter symbol. The URL for the image pointed back to a "googleusercontent" domain.
So there's either a permissions issue, image format negotiation issue, an image size issue, or an unsupported version of the image format itself. I think I have seen this problem before with inline images. When I get around to reposting them, I will post attachments.
The more motivated among you can snoop the EXIF data to figure out when and where some of these steps took place. This has stretched over months, with some concentrated sprints.
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1 hour ago, Hastor said:Based on this, are we supposed to be saying which edition we want now? I figured you'd ask upon contacting, but others are saying which now. Also as it sounded like the special editions were very limited in quantity, I would hate to say I want the special edition, then find out it sold out, and that there are no more standard ones available either because special editions were done later or something. Just wanted to be sure going for the special wouldn't cause me to potentially miss either!
There is currently no waiting list for Special Edition.
I have taken note where folks have mentioned that they're interested in the SE only, so I can gauge how many orders to expect for the regular edition. I will still contact everyone that has said they're interested in any edition, in order to get the word out that regular edition is back in print.
I am focused on handling the LTO Flash! regular edition backlog, and will contact everyone who expressed interest in any edition to let them know it's back in print and how to order.
The Special Edition will have only 25 copies available. I will either need to run an auction or some other mechanism to sort that out when the time comes. I am pretty sure more than 25 folks have expressed some degree of interest in it.
Even if I just do "First Come, First Served" for the SE, I won't start that list until shipping is imminent.
So, everyone, let's stay focused on the regular edition for now.
By the way, I only went back to page 68 or so in this thread to construct my list. I didn't look much before the time frame where LTO Flash! sold out in 2019.
If you had expressed interest while it was still available, but didn't actually buy it, I might have missed adding you to the list.
Now's your chance to get on the list. Speak up now if you don't see your name on the list.
(And yes, I know there's already a small handful to add since last night.)
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5 minutes ago, intvnut said:I am not sure why the photos are not visible to everyone. I pasted them as inline images (rather than attachments) from my Google Photos account, using the most recent Firefox on my 2017 MacBook.
I think the issue is that I pasted these as inline images, and rather than upload the image, the forum has linked directly to the copy at Google Photos.
I will have to redo these as attachments, and that will have to come later when I am back at my desk.
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4 hours ago, Games For Your Intellivision said:I can't see the photos. Anyone else having trouble?
3 hours ago, 1980gamer said:Same
3 hours ago, DZ-Jay said:I can see the on my PC browser (Mozilla variant), but not in my iPad (Safari).
3 hours ago, 1980gamer said:No go on Firefox or Edge.
Do I have a copy of Netscape Navigator around here?
3 hours ago, Fierodoug5 said:No go on my phone, Google chrome
3 hours ago, Intymike said:Nothing to see on Firefox either.
3 hours ago, Illtiger1 said:Can't see the pics using Chrome on my PC or Chrome on my phone
2 hours ago, DZ-Jay said:Well, admittedly, my browser is called InterWeb, a variant of Mozilla, custom built for older Mac OS X versions. Essentially, I use it to access the "modern Web" from Mac OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.6), which has been locked out by almost the entire WWW when they switched to TLS 1.2 a few years ago.
I guess it works better than I expected: the LTO Flash! pictures look great.
-dZ.
UPDATE: Confirmed that PaleMoon (from an old fork of Firefox build for old machines) does not show the images.
4 hours ago, 1980gamer said:Same
4 hours ago, Games For Your Intellivision said:I can't see the photos. Anyone else having trouble?
I am not sure why the photos are not visible to everyone. I pasted them as inline images (rather than attachments) from my Google Photos account, using the most recent Firefox on my 2017 MacBook.
I can also see them just fine (although squished, in some cases) from Chrome on my Android phone.
I can try to repost them later. However, since I don't know why they currently don't work for some folks, I am not going to prioritize it. I have a gazillion emails to attend to for some reason. 😉😉
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1 minute ago, DZ-Jay said:Hmmm ... I didn't know you were actually keeping a list. Can I be added as well?
Added.
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Some other random photos...
This guy had the master factory firmware for this build:
This is what a ton of boxes and manuals look like, boxed up and ready to go to Michigan, where they'll get folded and glued and assembled. These shipped ahead of the boards and shells.
A bunch of carts, waiting for their other half...
Time to get a label!
I couldn't do this without an electric screwdriver. I did my first 500 - 1000 carts with a screwdriver many moons ago. I switched to electric and don't regret it.
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Yield fallout... Not everything you build or ask to be built will work correctly. For example, the plastic shells like to curl outward sometimes:
Earlier, I showed this board whose CPU wasn't soldered correctly:
I ended up with a handful of boards that failed for various reasons...
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Have you ever seen 20,000 screws? This is what 20,000 black #4 wood screws look like. I needed to order more screws to make LTO Flash (and my other cartridge orders) happen:
This box was f'ing heavy, and they just wrapped 20,000 screws in... paper??
No worries. I had the heavy duty plastic bag the previous batch had come in, and a nice glass jar for that bag to sit in.
This f'er weighs like 15 lbs.
Because that jar is so heavy, I keep a smaller dish of ready-to-use screws that I keep refilling:
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Notching a USB connector hole...
First, remove the "skirt" where the connector will be:
Now you have a nice flush surface to cut the notch out of in the thicker portion:
Next, get the nibbler, and make a couple nibbles...
Don't let the nibbler "bite" you! (The handles have a tendency to pinch...)
Clean up the notch with an X-Acto:
It should look about like this:
And fit about like this:
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I had to notch a lot of plastic... The circuit board below was a failed unit that I used for size-checking.
Yes, I personally cut the USB connector hole in each unit.
A big box of carts waiting to go to Michigan where the rest of assembly will commence:
Another 10 fit in that box, laid out as shown below. I wasted no space.
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Some photos collected over the last few months, manufacturing LTO Flash...
Circuit boards in anti-static packaging...
Depackaged, waiting for some firmware...
Getting some primary firmware...
Getting some secondary firmware...
ZOMG so many boards!
And... some have manufacturing flaws.... (Look at those garbaged up pins!)
Lots of testing...
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Howdy, all. I just spent the last several hours going through this thread and my AtariAge inbox.
@raven9000's complaints notwithstanding, I think I have found everyone in this thread and in my AtariAge inbox who has expressed interest. I will send personal AtariAge messages tomorrow. In the meantime, this is my list. If you do not see yourself on this list, and would like to add yourself, comment or message now. If you are on this list and want to be removed, let me know. And if you're on this list but I misspelled your AA handle, comment and let me know so I can fix it.
This list is sorted ASCII-betically, and does not account for "Special Edition only" vs. "Regular Edition." I will contact everyone on the list below to confirm interest and quantity, and will provide ordering instructions.
- 128Kgames
- 1980gamer
- 4cade
- Amb47uk
- Atarius Maximus
- BBWW
- BiffMan
- Bill Loguidice
- Cruiser133
- Daniel_Doyce
- David Alexander
- DoctorMikeReddy
- Fadest
- First Spear
- Greg2600
- Guitarblast
- Gunnder
- Hastor
- HatNJ
- HunterZero
- ITAdvantage
- Illtiger1
- Inky
- IntyFanMatt
- Jay Forster
- Jeffrey Bouchard
- JoeM_Intellivision
- Kamikazi26
- KylJoy
- LimitZer0
- MMarcoux66
- Machine
- Midnight Rider
- MonsterSky
- Morpheus
- Nibunnoichi
- Papa Pete
- Retro_Game_Lover96
- Scathe
- Sega CD
- SiLic0ne t0aD
- Sinjinhawke
- SmakyTaky
- SpotAnime
- Sprout
- TandyVision
- Tavi
- TrickyMoon
- Ubbe
- Utopia
- Vincehood
- Vonskii
- Warren Wuschenny
- abeckett
- ahofle
- alortegac
- billtv1
- boxpressed
- cmadruga
- cmart604
- cssgary
- davidcalgary29
- dinnerbytes
- drunkpitbull
- emmanuelf
- funcool
- gar0u
- gibs
- grifter
- grips03
- gunoz
- holygrailvideogames.com
- jcalder8
- jfng
- jimj
- jirkoo
- jmbrissie
- jschaw75
- koolmoecraig
- ls650
- mario64
- marioweezer
- mathewbeall
- mattyv316
- metzger130
- mojotv67
- nightwing
- nikoskon
- nurmix
- pasticc10
- patb1au
- paulderr
- poconojo
- raven9000
- rietveld
- sanman
- squidnik
- sramirez2008
- tuf
- ubersaurus
- ultramecha
- vazquezrick
- wolfy62
- wongojack
- z3k3
1 hour ago, tuf said:Who's the US distributor for these btw?
I am, nominally. Also, I am working with Good Deal Games to distribute LTO Flash! cartridges. I've already sent a small batch to GDG, more than they'd asked for, and it sold out in less than 24 hours. I'm sending them more.
I cannot accept PayPal. Other sellers may have different policies. I want to be sure I can get these to everyone who wants one.
For Canada, contact @Steve Jones. For Europe and abroad, contact @scalpel, aka. Pascal Bernard. If either sell out, I will ship more to them. I think it works out better for everyone if I ship wholesale bulk to Steve and Pascal than for me to send individual units abroad.
FYI, for units directly ordered from me: Units ship from Michigan. I enlisted family to help. Specifically, my mom is actually assembling, shrink wrapping, and shipping these. I'm collecting the orders, generating the shipping labels, etc. It's a team effort. I couldn't manage all this myself, and so I've offloaded a big portion of it. But, that also means I don't actually have physical units here with me in California, either. This is a nontrivial endeavor.
In my next post, I'll share some "manufacturing porn."
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On 8/2/2020 at 2:53 PM, ITAdvantage said:I get it that this is a small operation, but I agree with you on this. My impression was the LTO was going to be a perpetual thing, not a limited release so when they said they weren't available it was a surprise. I thought the idea was to satiate the thirst illustrated by the CC3 on ebay going for hundreds and that this would solve this issue going forward but I guess I misunderstood. I'm not putting anyone down, I get it that it's a difficult, time consuming operation that is done in someone's spare time, I just thought it would be like the other retro items that are sort of always available for purchase. Especially now that they're releasing LTO only ROMs it makes less sense to have restricted hardware availability. But I'm just a common idiot so what do I know.
LTO Flash! cartridges cost quite a bit more to manufacture, and take a lot more time to program and test, as compared to regular cartridges.
This isn't my $DAYJOB, and unfortunately, my $DAYJOB and regular life kinda sap what energy and time I have to bring these to everyone. The last couple of years have been especially difficult due to some personal circumstances. Like I said, this isn't my $DAYJOB. On the plus side, I've managed to keep JLP boards flowing into many different homebrews this year (over 1500 boards JLP boards the last 9 months). It's tricky balancing everything.
If I'm not mistaken, LTO Flash! has outsold (or is about to outsell) the sum total of the full runs of both Intellicart and CC3 combined. I believe is on track to outsell any single existing homebrew title. I think one of the DK variants is currently ahead of LTO Flash!, but I don't know whether that'll last. This really is unprecedented Intellivision homebrew territory.
I honestly thought I'd sell 250 of these, maybe 500 tops, back in 2014. There's over 600 of them out there now, and more coming.
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On 11/22/2020 at 5:44 AM, DZ-Jay said:That's not what I heard.
UPDATE: (For clarity, not this year, but the future is not written yet.)
Hey, I have boxes, boards, labels, overlays, etc. Let's talk.
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On 11/30/2020 at 2:35 PM, Steve Jones said:
By the way, I did send a bunch of carts Steve's way, and I think they're already sold before they get there. I'm quite happy to send him more. If you're in Canada and want LTO Flash, please let Steve know, and I'll get another batch sent his way. USPS and Customs take their time, but I have carts for folks.
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15 hours ago, DZ-Jay said:Thanks for confirming this. I may have missed it if it was mentioned already, but since there are no hardware differences, what then makes it a "Special Edition"? Is it that it includes new features in the on-line launcher or special games?
There will be some firmware differences, and there will be a number of additional items that come as part of the overall package. For example, the plan includes matched serials between the board, manual, box, and shells (plural), extra replacement cart labels, and additional packaging around everything. It will truly be a deluxe experience.
So, the circuit board won't be different. But the package as a whole will be.
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I can confirm there's no hardware difference on the circuit board for the Special Edition. The firmware will report itself a little differently, but games will play the same.
I've started to fan out units for sale at 3rd party vendors, including Europe and Canada. In the next couple days, i will contact everyone who has expressed interest in LTO Flash.
Merry Christmas, everyone! LTO Flash is back in print.
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jzIntv has a built in debugger, as already noted, and comes with two disassemblers: a "dumb" disassembler (dasm1600) and a "smart" disassembler (dis1600). I provide both because the "smart" disassembler sometimes makes bad decisions.
But really, it sounds like you're looking to write a game that makes use of the hardware scrolling capability to present a scrolling maze. You don't need a disassembler to learn that.
The hardware itself is really very simple: There are a pair of hardware registers that will shift the screen by 0 to 7 pixels in the X and Y directions. There are a pair of hardware bits that will block off the leftmost 8 columns and topmost 8 rows of the display.
The rest is done in software. You have to shift the BACKTAB to scroll by more than one card's width in either direction. The best way to do that depends on how you architect your game.
So... let's dig into that, shall we?
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1 hour ago, intvnut said:One detail is that IntyBASIC outputs the CFG variable "ecs = 1", which jzIntv interprets as "ECS is required."
One additional thought: The reason jzIntv does this is to retain backward compatibility with existing CFG files. INTVPC (used on the Intellivision Lives! CD-ROM) used voice = 1 and ecs = 1 to turn Intellivoice and ECS on, respectively.
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Part of the problem is right here:
ERROR: Could not read ECS ROM image 'ecs.bin'Ordinarily, jzIntv requires the ECS ROM image in order to enable ECS support. If you supply an ecs.bin file, jzIntv will fire up with the ECS enabled, just as the game requested.
However, it sounds like you would like to fire up with ECS disabled, to hear how the ECS-enhanced music would sound when the ECS is absent. What you really want is ECS disabled, and so the complaint about ecs.bin is really a symptom, not a cause.
So, how did the game request the ECS? Why does jzIntv say the ECS is required?
jzIntv looks at the metadata in the CFG file, and/or .ROM files to decide whether to enable the ECS. Older versions didn't do that. Over the last few years, I've been trying to make jzIntv "smarter" in this regard.
One detail is that IntyBASIC outputs the CFG variable "ecs = 1", which jzIntv interprets as "ECS is required." Unfortunately, there's only two values for that variable, 0 or 1. There isn't a third state, "optional." So, I defined an additional variable, ecs_compat, which has four possible values:
- 0 means incompatible. Pac-Man, for example, conflicts with ECS.
- 1 means tolerates. ECS present or absent makes no difference.
- 2 means enhanced by. ECS present enhances the game, ECS absent doesn't break it.
- 3 means requires. The game won't play without the ECS attached.
So, you could add this at the end of your IntyBASIC program, and it'll probably help:
ASM CFGVAR "ecs_compat" = 2See also jzintv/doc/utilities/as1600.txt, which describes some of the CFG variables. Or, if you prefer a fancier document, I also describe them in an appendix of the LUIGI doc.
With ecs_compat set to 2, jzIntv will fall back to "no ECS" when 'ecs.bin' is missing. It'll print a message saying it's done so. (Thanks to @Lathe26 for suggesting the feature.)
You can also explicitly override jzIntv's heuristic by adding the flag -s0 to the jzIntv command line. If the game says "ECS required", it'll print a warning that you're overriding that setting. If it's merely "ECS enhanced," it won't warn. Either way, it will proceed with out ECS.
@nanochess: Enhancement request for IntyBASIC: Could it output "ecs_compat = 2" rather than "ecs = 1" when you use the ECS music features?
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LTO Flash! - Intellivision Flash Cartridge Information
in Intellivision / Aquarius
Posted
Repost of #2116.
Yield fallout!
Not everything you build or ask to be built will work correctly. For example, the plastic shells like to curl outward sometimes:
Earlier, I showed this board whose CPU wasn't soldered correctly:
I ended up with a handful of boards that failed for various reasons. The eagle eyed will spot that one of those is a customer return, actually.
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Repost of #2117.
Some other random photos...
This guy had the master factory firmware for this build:
This is what a ton of boxes and manuals look like, boxed up and ready to go to Michigan, where they'll get folded and glued and assembled. These shipped ahead of the boards and shells.
A bunch of carts, waiting for their bottom half:
Time to get a label!
I couldn't do this without an electric screwdriver. I did my first 500 - 1000 carts with a screwdriver many moons ago—back in the Space Patrol era. I switched to electric and don't regret it. I bought this cute little guy when I moved to California, just for the original release of LTO Flash!