Gunstar

Both the 7800 and Atari XEGS 8-bit versions have similar "tween" graphic animations too. The ones for the 7800 (IIRC) are similar in coloring to the C64 version pictured above. The A8 version is also similar to the C64 and 7800, except that the skin coloring makes your character look African-American, which is fine, but in-game your character still looks "white." Speaking of the Intellivision Commando in particular, when I first read this thread topic it brought back memories of the day, back in 1987. So let this old man tell you a tale, a tale of my teenage years, a video game fan and fan of my Atari 2600 and 8-bit computer who had money burning a hole in his pocket. I went shopping for an Atari 7800 at Toys -R- Us. I'd seen the flyers and the graphics looked good, and compatibility with my 2600 was a plus. Commando was one of the titles I bought with my 7800, also Ikari Warriors and Tower-Toppler to round off my first games that I experienced on the 7800, including the pack-in Pole Position 2. Anyway, while looking through all the current consoles for sale, just giving myself one last chance to buy a system other than a 7800 I had my heart set on, I realized my eyes had just glimpsed something I had never seen before, and I did a double-take, and there among the NES, Sega Master System, Atari XEGS (I already owned a 130XE, so I wasn't interested in the XEGS) 2600jr and 7800, was an Intellivision III unit, in a new, smaller even than the Intellivision model II, white case that was very pleasing to the eye. EDIT: apparently this old fogy had it wrong and it was actually an Intellivision II I just described, as the model III that I just went to look at on wikipedia is larger and looks close to the model I in design. However, it was indeed the System III that caught my eye that day at Toys -R- Us, as when I saw the photo, my memory cleared up a bit, and not the Intellivison II I described. The Intellivision III looked pretty damn cool, and I was surprised to see it, as I thought Intellivision systems quit being produced with the video game crash of '83/84. I had no idea at the time that INTV Corporation was created in order to save the system, I thought Atari stood alone, from the old guard pre-crash companies, still selling game consoles (technically Atari and INTV were new companies, but still selling compatible systems). thought it was a next-generation Intellivision, and not just the old Intellivision in a new re-designed case (which is exactly what it was as I learned years later) and just above the system was a poster for the Intellivision III advertising the inclusion of Commando! And the graphics for the Intellivision Commando on the ad screen shots looked better than anything I ever saw on the original INTV, to make me think the INTV III was a next-gen system like the 7800, NES and Master system. If it weren't for also wanting Ikari Warriors and Pole Position II on the 7800, and the 7800 Commando back-of-box screen shots looking even better than the INTV Commando, I would have considered getting the INTV III. Of course I would have been hugely disappointed once I found out it was the old INTV in a new skin. (NOT that the system is bad, it's good, just that I wanted a next-gen console, not it and not a 2600jr either)

Thanks, my guess is that the crystal on the CPU board is merely for the colorburst then, and I need to replace the motherboard crystal too, which I guessed would be the case all along, but didn't have one on hand and so tried without it, hoping against better judgment, that the crystal on the CPU board was somehow enough. That's probably all I needed to know, if I'm miss-remembering about another wire to the CPU.

As the title says. I purchased a NOS or refurbished 800 PAL CPU board, I don't recall which, from MyAtari, but it had all the latest versions of the main IC's on it; 6502C and XL/XE PAL model number GTIA & Antic (they all have Atari's genuine replacement part holo-stickers on them as does the board) on the board. I installed it when I was installing the Incognito board, and since the Incognito works with either PAL or NTSC systems, and the fact that the PAL CPU board had a PAL crystal on-board, I figured that would be enough for the conversion, but I still get a black and white only picture through my S-video-to-VGA converter that is both PAL/NTSC compatible (and works great with my 1200XL that I converted to PAL), so was that wishful thinking on my part? I know the 1200XL (any XL/XE) conversion for true PAL need both PAL GTIA and Antic and the extra circuitry on the PAL GTIA board (Dropcheck's), and it has a PAL crystal on it too. But the motherboard crystal must also be PAL. So I believe I have to also still replace the crystal on the NTSC 800 motherboard as well for the PAL color to work properly? I also think I might vaguely remember mention of a line that might need to be connected between the motherboard and a CPU pin to possibly? I can't seem to find anything on it in searches done in this forum or on a browser search engine. In the mean time I had re-installed the NTSC CPU board and was just going to wait for the release of the Sophia 2 board. But I have decided I don't want to wait any longer, especially if I just need another PAL crystal, and a wire to convert to PAL now. I about to do some more upgrades to my 800 right now (connect Turbo Freezer 2011 to Incognito PBI for one), so I figure I might as well do the PAL conversion at the same time.

Thank you for clearing that all up for me. I've always known that Rastaconverter has to work within certain restrictions that can be processed by the Atari when displaying an .xex image file, I just never realized that there were such huge fluctuations in processing cycles to make the changes from left to right on the screen. Not being a programmer, I wasn't aware of these facts in these timings within the screen kernel, etc. and that Rastaconverter had to work within them as well. Thanks again! I am learning to program, in assembly, little by little, and I know of the basic concepts of the 6502 and other Atari processors now, including memory mapping and Registers, Accumulator, Stack, Stack Pointer, and programming kernels, etc., but am, as of yet, little more than aware of their existance and why they exist. Basically, I read the Hofacker paperback 'How to Program Your Atari in 6502 Machine-Language' but have yet to study it and other books and put to practical use and practice... I also have Compute!'s 'Machine Language for Beginners' and ZAKS 'Programming the 6502' and 'Advanced 6502 Programming' as well as the usual Atari-only suspects like Mapping, De Re, etc. for learning and reference.

So a mirror-image flip and not upside down, and leave it as a mirror image for the .xex...OK, I understand all of it now, thanks. And thanks for the tip @drpeter ! I will start using this process in my conversions that need it.

Now this I can understand, but then how do you flip the image back to correct orientation for proper display on the Atari with the created .xex file, and if done, wouldn't that totally screw up the DMA timing and you would get garbage on screen or the Atari would crash or freeze or when what was created on the right side of the screen is then flipped so it is back on the left for proper viewing? Or are we just supposed to view images that are flipped for Rasta to better handle the color changes upside down?

I don't quite understand why the 6502/Antic would have anything to do with the actual creation of the conversion since Rastconverter is a PC app running on a PC when it creates the image that an .xex is produced from. The only time the Atari and 6502/Antic is involved is after the image is completed on a different (PC) computer and then the .xex image is merely displayed on the Atari. This would make perfect sense to me if Rastaconverter was an app running and converting images on the Atari itself, but it makes absolutely no sense to me since it's all done on a modern PC computer. I'd would think could only show up as some sort of corruption when the image is displayed on a real Atari and would still occur once the image is flipped back the right way anyway. I also don't see how you could get the image flipped back to it's correct display orientation to create an .xex image that isn't upside down or mirrored? I can only think that I must be completely misunderstanding you or the way the PC Rastaconverter app works or something here, or you are...

I feel the same way. I'm in no hurry either. Often I'll order something like this and it will sit on a shelf for six months before I get around to installing it anyway! That's the way it was with my Incognito. I've had the Turbo Freezer 2011 in my possession now for weeks and it's still sitting on a shelf, along with parts for an SDrive Max that have been there a year. Two 4-in-1 OS boards from Dropcheck I've had for about a year still sit on a shelf too. But I am starting to catch up on my back-log. As to pre-orders, the only reason a pre-order should be first-come, first serve would be if they are being released as numbered collection editions. Otherwise a pre-order, to me, is merely a reservation of the item, making sure that one or more copies will be available for you personally to purchase if you still choose to do so at the release time. I've never expected to receive the item before another person just because I asked for a reservation before they did. I assume that a large percentage, if not all pre-ordered copies will be manufactured at the same time, and none shipped out until all are finished (if being hand-assembled) and all made will be shipped out at once and where you live in the world relating to the shipping origin and how long service take to your part of the world dictates who gets it first.

For those who liked the lost-and-found .xex I posted a few pages back pages back of Star Trek's Gorn Commander, I found a later and superior conversion of it. Sorry, again there is no output.png image to accompany it. GornCommander2.xex

One thing I have learned over the years and possibly hundreds of Rasta conversions, is that quite often, instead of trying to get Rastaconverter to convert an image as close to the original as possible, it is far better to tweak the original image, before and within Rastaconverter (mostly just within Rasta personally), to better fit the Atari's resolution and color palette. Allow Rasta to make the best use of the Atari's palette. What you end up with is a conversion that is a version of the original image, not necessarily a close-as-possible copy. Maybe a once blue sky ends up green on the Atari but so what, you now have and image of an alien world instead of ours, but it looks damn good and clear and the audience has no pre-concieved notion of how it is "supposed" to look and accept it for what it is. Only the person converting the image knows how different it may look from the original, the community only see an image that looks good on the Atari. Unless you post the original image too. GreenPool Glade came from an original Amiga color-cycling image where you can choose the time of day and all the colors change in the image, the image gets brighter or darker, etc, but the original shapes of objects are still intact. What I do to make the best use of the Atari's strengths when converting an image is a similar process in some ways. I don't approach a conversion this way every time, much of the time I am attempting to make a copy of the original image, but if Rastaconverter is unsuccessful in it's attempt, then I change the image to better suit the Atari and Rastaconverter is more able to produce a better image. They become unique Atari images. These are usually the images that people comment on the most as being very well done and looking like it were made by a pixel artist on the Atari or even a superior machine (like was commented about The Depository image). I never use masks because, as is intended, Rastaconverter give more attention to that area. Unfortunately it then falls short and struggles more outside of the masked area, so quite often you are trading detail in one area at the cost of the rest of the image. I want the entire image to have the best detail it can, so I fix the image instead, to make it easier for Rasta to capture more detail from it.

With all my practice I can usually get a good conversion in three to six attempts on average. IIRC, my final attempt for 'The Repository' was the fifth or six. Some of my images I redid dozens of times before I was satisfied with the quality to post it. And probably only about 50% of images I attempt to convert make my cut, the other half I give up on and they are deleted and I move on. Most of the images I post I have worked on for a week or more, starting the conversion process, let it run for for hours and hours, or overnight, come back to it, and if it isn't coming along as well as I like, I stop it change settings to what I think will work better than the previous, based on the results, and start it again. Rinse and repeat until I am satisfied with the results. But I can tell, if I come back and catch it soon enough, if an image will come out good by 50-100 million evaluations, which takes my computer an hour or two to get too, and I can stop it and start over at that point and not waste too much time. But the last few images I've posted were running all day or night before I can get back to them and see the results, as I've been busy with business lately as people get used to dealing with the pandemic and realize that life must go on and you can't just hide from the world forever. After all, there are plenty of ways any one of us could die every day, even just by crossing a road.

Thanks, it was only about a dozen attempts to finally achieve close to what I hoped for...

Greenpool Glade. 60 colors. GreenPoolGlade.xex

There have definitely been quite a few times for me already when I really wished it had a pause, as much as I've been playing it (a new favorite). This game is the only reason I finally decided to do a Joy 2B+ (Joy 3B on my Sega controller) mod to my Genesis pad. Of course I've been enjoying many other Joy 2B enhanced games now too. How about a space bar pause and also a button 3 pause option for those of us with 3 buttons or more.

The colors were a bit different on my old 130XE which had the usual two artifact colors appearing more blueish and orange-red than the purple and green my current 800 and 1200XL show, which look pretty much the same as the pictures here. The yellow and pink was still there, on the 130XE, as I recall, and blue and greens, but I think there was a second shade/tone of blue too, and there was an orange color...and of course the different patterns had different colors mixed in too.

I I found the program on Atarimania, though they only have an ATX image of it. It's Graphic Master by Datasoft 1981. It has a color and pattern page that the PDF manual says has 50 colors and patterns. I remember many more colors than I would ever have thought possible from use of artifacting. It also came with ready-made screens of electronic symbols to use the program for circuit design. Anyone have an ATR or file version of this app? http://www.atarimania.com/utility-atari-400-800-xl-xe-graphic-master_15920.html

I would agree as far as games go. However I have used and seen one high-resolution paint program (it's been 30 years since I used it and I'm not sure which one it was and don't want to guess wrong so I'll search for it) that far a more impressive artifacting color palette could be achieved, and the artist didn't even have to work at the pixel placement by hand, a pattern screen was set-up to choose from, which were a rainbow of different artifact colors and dither patterns giving illusion to even more colors from mixing different artifact colors, when viewed via composite (best) or RF. I couldn't believe my eyes the first time I saw that color/pattern screen as before then, with high-res art and games I'd only seen black &White and 2 other colors depending on the machine: a blue/orange on my 130XE and on an 800XL or 800 they were purple/green. Of course all the artifact colors created on that pattern page were different depending on the machine too. But these patterns weren't just for fills, you could choose a pattern and a brush type and draw in decent detail freely while the pattern chose kept the color the same anywhere on screen. It was a mode 8 high-res only graphics program. There may be others that do the same but I'm remembering one in particular. Though I suppose, being 30+ years ago that the graphic art program might have allowed to choose between 2 or more graphic modes, including 8, but I don't believe so. I think it was a dedicated high-res program. In any case, some images that came with the program, done by the developer's in house artist(s) had far more colors and were far more impressive than I've seen on any computer using high-res artifacting, including the Apple II series. I often wondered, back in the day, why more of these pixel patterns that created so many more artifact colors (blues, greens, yellows, oranges, pinks, and more) weren't used in games or graphic text adventures. Many more colors than the usual 4-5 in medium resolutions on-screen, even if from a vastly more limited palette. Of course the use of brush patterns to maintain the created artifact color means some colors allow less visual pixel detail than others, but a good artist could work around the limitations pretty well. If I track down this graphic art program I will edit or quote this post depending if I locate it soon enough.

This is what I did with several of my Atari peripherals and computers, if they needed replacing, some are still good. But I did replace all the feet on the devices I fixed. I picked up the clear silicone ones from ACE hardware, the ones I got fit the feet spots perfectly, but they have all sizes and types. They even have the black rubber ones that look like the originals and red rubber, cork and felt...what ever you prefer, in all sizes.

'The Repository' is a zoom-in and crop from a much higher resolution and vast fantasy landscape image from The Elder Scrolls universe. The original image when reduced had far too little detail on distant objects in the much larger panoramic view. So I decided to zoom in on certain areas of interest or focal points to capture much more detail of, in this case, my self-named 'Repository' as I wasn't sure exactly what type of structure it is supposed to be and made an educated guess from my art history studies in college and this type of Greco-Roman architecture. I'll probably do a few more close-ups of other areas in the original image, as the original artwork is fabulous anyway in piece or whole. My next conversion that is running right now is another Amiga color-cycle image 'Deep Forest' that has 147 colors in the seasonal/time-of-day setting I chose. I did much more pre-processing to it than I usually do to my usual Rasta images with gamma, contrast, brightness and saturation for maximum color transition after attempting unsatisfactory results with no pre-processing several times. It looks promising so far, but it's only at about 100 million evaluations at this point and some ways to go yet on reducing the normal distance.

This one is quite stunning. This one is actually quite stunning, the more I look the more I like it.

Maybe it would be asking to much, but I'd like to expand on MrFish's Expansion requests: Super Bombs like in Raiden that can take out a large radius or motherships. Now I realize that might seem to be asking the impossible with the A8's P/M graphic capabilities, but I think it would be something cool to have even if the explosion was just made larger with quadruple wide pixel versions of the double-wide explosions used in collisions, or, if they are already quadruple-wide sprites, maybe just using four of those collision explosions clustered together. even if it's still a fraction of the size of Raiden Super-bombs, it would still be a very cool effect, but maybe only granted one super-bomb if you manage to take out 100% of several consecutive enemy formations in a row or hidden targets like the extra life flags in Xevious, maybe both ways. Giving an extra incentive to players not to miss any targets and an extra game play "wow" factor. As to MrFish's suggestion of alternate gun shot types, I'm always partial to the 3-way expanding type.

I was imagining mode 9, still, myself, as I think a town (or cemetery) background would work well being similar to your "high-chaparral" natural stone monuments and rolling desert hills. Just abstract silhouettes of buildings or tombstones/crypts fading into the distance. As far as playing the game, I understood your initial description here, and, in fact, I played it for about 20 minutes last night, taking me about a dozen games to finally win one. I can type fast, if I know what I want to type, but seeing, comprehending and responding was tough to do in time by the third shoot-out. It's just the first time I loaded the game, was off the ABBUC disk without bothering to read the accompanying text/info file first, and assumed joystick use, but gave up quickly, planning to try again later after reading the file. But I learned from you here, before I had a chance too. It's quite fun and lovely looking. But I do spend half the time just listening to the cover tune on the title screen.

The Repository. 60 colors. TheRepository.xex

Ok, I just thought it would work as-is since there are one or two other A8 games that are programmed to work with it as-is. (though I don't recall which ones off the top of my head)

Strange...I attempted to use my original Genesis/Megadrive 3-button controller with the game and only one button worked. So I thought it must only be for the DIY 2-button joysticks...