Gunstar

I agree, in as much as I want games that can be made to work better with Rapidus, but I don't think it has a large enough audience, especially programmers capable of hacking/fixing such games. My guess is there are less Rapidus installed than even VBXE. So just the fact that they work right at all, if a bit too fast, is pretty cool to me. I still think I would be able to play SCR with Rapidus with little difficulty learning to control it. And if it's faster than the Amiga original speed, good, even 16-bit 3D games suffered from lack of enough FPS as far as I'm concerned (though I'm one to always except them and enjoy them for what the are anyway). The game is new to me, I have no history of how it "should feel." so I can accept it for what it is, too slow or too fast. But SCR isn't a simulation that comes to mind for being too slow, the A8 version I think teeters on the edge comfortably at 1.77MHz even. On the other hand, Flight Simulator II always looked ridiculously slow to be bothered with on the 8-bit and I think I might be able to actually enjoy it with Rapidus, assuming it works. I'm surprised there aren't more Rapidus videos showing what it can do for old vector/wire-frame 3D games instead of showing mostly 3D demos and games that really don't need the increase or they become unplayable, like videos of Karateka I've seen. I found this video below, showing Choplifter!, Racing Destruction Set and F15 Strike Eagle. Choplifter! is far too fast, and I'm not sure about F-15, but RDS actually looks much better and possbily playable! I expect that wire-frame simulations that have more happening on-screen at a time, like landscapes and buildings in Tomahawk, FSII and Mercenary might work better than F-15 too.

Yep, plenty to choose from with background DLI's.

There were several games back in the day, especially pre-1985, that used more than the base colors. H.E.R.O was one, Alternate Reality is another, The City more than The Dungeon, though both used more than standard colors on-screen. Though it's more down to developer rather than publishers, as many other Datasoft titles just use base colors; Bruce Lee, Zorro, Goonies, etc. But most of these games, while they may have multi-colored sprites, generally it's still just a few and instead of DLI's they just use multiple P/M's for multi-colored sprites. H.E.R.O does have some creatures that use DLI's within the sprites. After '85 what little software the Atari got were ports from the C64 or just quickly done with no concern or time for presentation, and they only bothered to use base colors, like a couple of the Datasoft titles listed above. Another game that makes good use of DLI's within the sprites is the great shooter Callisto.

It's my understanding that Rapidus can be set for several different clock speeds up to 20MHz, is it only 20MHz? But watching that video, it looks perfectly playable to me, the guy playing just sucks at playing it. It sounds like he's using keyboard controls too, a choice I would never personally make as a racing game enthusiast. I know I could properly control it at that speed and it would be AWESOME. Now I know I need to get a Rapidus when that US stimulus hits! I did just go looking at Lotharek's site again, and there is only mention of 20MHz. I mainly want one myself for the older 3D simulations like Tomahawk, Flight Simulator II, Mercenary and other simulations to hopefully make them more playable. Has anyone tried these titles or others like them with Rapidus?

From my memory, it seems to me that all XEGS cartridges were price the same, or you had two tiers of pricing for more standart and then "Super carts" like on the 7800. But I don't think the 128K+ carts were much more, maybe $10-15, IIRC, so really one was overpaying for the cartridges not using banked memory or as much. In any case, I think it averaged about $40-50 for a NEW game XEGS cartridge, maybe some of the classic re-releases were discounted.

As for better color depth art on our Atari 8-bits, there are quite a few decent graphic arts apps that make use of software graphic modes with interlacing and other tricks for better perceived resolution using modes like HIP, TIP, etc. They can display, at different resolutions, anywhere from 16 to thousands of colors, but the issue is flickering. Otherwise the only other option is using G2F on a PC which allows you to create art using many of the same assets and restrictions that Rastaconverter uses to convert images. I've been meaning to get back into real art creation on my Atari myself, using some of these software graphic mode apps. I'd like to see threads like this one for art created by users on Atari's using these new modes and legacy apps like Rambrandt and Technicolor dream. I need to start on my own and maybe get the ball rolling.

There are plenty of Atari games and graphics that use DLI's in the background (or rolling foreground) graphics, but the actual graphic objects are still just 4-5 colors just like those cityscapes zooming by in this video. It's these graphic objects in a game's foreground that don't use DLI's, etc. to create more colors in on screen objects like Albert uses; these games are ultra rare.

I wouldn't think Rastaconverter for VBXE is necessary. The entire reason we need it for standard Atari's is to allow the maximum colors while working within many restrictions imposed by the hardware. VBXE already has the possibility of displaying millions(?) of colors and direct imports should be possible, as easy as loading a .jpeg and saving it as a .png image or vice-versa. It's only a matter of format and not rebuilding an image from the ground up like Rastaconverter. What VBXE needs is an actual graphic art program so we artistically inclined users can make use of it's graphics. Maybe a G2F "light." (running on a real Atari+VBXE)

The difference is and the reason I choose PAL on all my machines instead of having both NTSC and PAL is that the vast majority of NTSC software plays fine on PAL, with only minor speed, tempo or color issues, the reverse is most definitely not true; there are hundreds of PAL games that just won't work at all or very poorly with corruption and crashing when played on NTSC machines. I choose PAL because of a much, much larger library of software available to use of both PAL and NTSC. I'm willing to live with the comparatively trivial downsides to PAL.

The case looks wonderful! I made a case for Syscheck 2.1 out of a cassette case and I made on for Syscheck 2.2 XL out of an old Vic-modem case I hacked down to size. Now I have a 3D printer though, so I think I'll be wanting to make one for at least the 2.1 version. I can finally leave the old-school case manufacturing behind and use those skills only for restoration.

I've known of Cygnus X1 since I got my first Atari UK pirated software in the 90's. Though I always thought it was more of a rip-off of Sega's Buck Rogers than Stealth. I enjoy a game of it occasionally, just because it's so unique to have background graphics in APAC mode. But it was always a bit dull looking due to the alternating color and grey-scale "scan lines." That washed-out color has been just a distant memory ever since I did the SV 2.1 video upgrade, 1200XL edition, with the fixed chroma boost circuit. And, of course, interlaced or RGB rapid page-flipping 256 and 4096 color modes and all standard graphics are much more vibrant. I'm still waiting on a replacement Sophia 2 to see it's RGB and DVI color facilities in person on my 800.

More Chesley Bonestell. Chesley B. 3. 46 colors. Chesley B. 4. 40 colors. ChesleyB3.xex ChesleyB4.xex

I'm sure I've seen this image or one very like it on the Atari before. I think it might have been a G2F creation, but it might have also been a rendering in one of those other software graphic modes like HIP or TIP, etc. Possibly an earlier Rasta conversion done of a C64 version of this art?

The art of the 'father of space art,' Chesley Bonastell. I have a few of these I'm working on, had 6 completed and decided to redo them, they weren't good enough conversions for Chesley's work. Here are the first two of those redone so far. Liberties have been taken with cropping, mirroring and color saturation before Rastaconverter as images were of sometimes old and faded sources and to best work with Rastaconverter. Chesley B. 1. 21 colors. Chesley B. 2. 57 colors. ChesleyB1.xex ChesleyB2.xex

I switched over to Antic PAL hybrid about 15 years ago, and finally went full PAL on my 1200XL four years ago after my 1084S monitor stopped working. I then got an 800, and it was going to be my NTSC machine. But my 1200XL was down for repairs and I realized how limited I was with my NTSC 800, when many of my favorite games these days are PAL. So I converted it to PAL as well. I was thinking about turning my 1200XL back into an NTSC, but there are only a select few games that the slight bump in speed helps, like the Lucasfilm games. But I'd already gotten used to the slightly slower game play on PAL, and when I played them again in NTSC, I really didn't notice a speed increase so much. It was more drastic seeing it slow down when I converted to PAL than the other way around. Bottom line is, it's not enough to make me go back to NTSC, not with so many devices and monitors that support both these days. I've gotten used to the letter-boxed look of the non-overs-canned window and I use over-scanning (with Rastaconverter 240p) too much these days to want to lose it on any Atari. Everything now looks to stretched for me on NTSC screens. That being said, and to stay on topic, I'm enjoying all the amazing art and color of Albert. I know the graphic shading techniques are limited, but I often wondered why they weren't used in Atari games more often, just far too little use of DLI's in the 80's. Or other Atari tricks for additional colors. Games like Space Harrier, AtarBlast! and The Last Squadron, and now Albert, are proving how good Atari graphics can be when it's hardware is used properly (in other words, ingeniously). Of course there have been others too, Crownland, Demo's Dungeon, etc, hopefully just the beginning of a continued evolution in Atari graphic art.

I noticed Alan was browsing the thread the other night when I was browsing.

Yes, I was one of the very few that had the real Diamond 3.0 cart back in the day, unfortunately lost with all my original software when I made a move in the mid 90's. I've already talked to @kenames99 about getting one from him to replace my lost one. It will be fun to see if I can make it work in my pass-thru chain with SDX and MyIDE II. Has anyone used Diamond 3.0 with the newer 4.8/4.9 versions of SDX? Not a big deal if it doesn't work with them, I'll just set up another partition using Sparta 3.2/3.3 and MyIDE II without SDX if I have too.

If anyone is looking for modern SDX carts, @Dropcheck is still selling the boards on her site, which can be flashed with the latest SDX and they also have battery backed RTC on board too. I've had one for several years and I love it. I use mine with MyIDE II piggy-backed on it and with FJC's MyIDE HDD driver it works great, which also allows one to use another cartridge, like OSS languages mounted in flash on MyIDE II instead of using that for SDX. Only one left in stock currently, but she accepts back-orders. https://www.bitsofthepast.com/?product=super-spartados-pcb

More precisely mine reports 4.757V. I've not encountered any issues with power to peripherals that are using power from my Atari, I'm guessing that I'd get the same voltage readings from my controller ports and PBI which I use with non-external powered devices all the time. But as @_The Doctor__ says, I'm apparently on the bleeding edge. I really didn't think a half volt less would hurt either, but I concede to _The Doctor_'s assessment.

The 4.7V should be perfectly acceptable; my Fujinet page shows SIO 4.75V on my Incognito 800 which has a 31VA (~3.4 amp) PSU (actual voltage on it, IIRC, was about 10.5V). I do have an external PSU plugged in for my Fujinet though, and if I were to put my multi-meter on it I bet it would show a similar real voltage. Voltage ratings for PSU's, etc. are rarely spot on and most devices are perfectly capable of coping.

I have my own flat-keyed keyboard very similar to the one you pictured here, and I'd love a do-it-yourself kit for it(I'll repaint the base myself to match as well). And German or English is perfectly fine with me. And, I just realized this was another old-bump thread...so probably never mind. I really have to pay attention to dates more on these threads! Oh well, still posting just in case there's an outside chance. Apparently this thread was first started just before I pulled my 8-bit stuff out of storage and got back into it all after a 4-year hiatus.🤕

I thought about it myself, as well as other female images posted, but the response to previous horizontally processed pictures didn't seem very enthusiastic so I haven't done any more. Good luck though, I enjoy these images myself and look forward to your conversion!

Wow. No replies to your request for help. I wish I could, but I'm not a programmer yet at this time, still learning basics of BASIC and Assembly. I'd be happy to help with any testing if anyone does step up.

Yep, I change the color settings too, at boot-strapping, though I have them in an autoexec.sys on the HDD partition I have config.sys boot to, but either way will work. I do this because I have several floppies with config.sys that boot to different partitions that I have set up for different things, and a different autoexec.sys on each partition using a different color scheme so I know I'm in a particular set-up. I do this with Incognito HDD partitions too, and of course different colors in the Incognito BIOS for the different machine configurations I use.

I've been using config.sys on a Sparta D1: boot floppy for years and have never updated it on CAR: because it's much easier for me to just update the floppy disk config.sys when ever I want too, with no re-flashing hassles at all. But then I like to use my floppy drives still (which are all upgraded for HSIO as much as possible anyway). It's just my preference and for my convenience. I do it with SpartaDOS X cartridge with MyIDE II piggy-backed on my 1200XL with 32-in-1 OS instead of U1MB (I also use alternative extended memory options) and I do it for my Incognito so I can use some older stuff that only runs on SpartaDOS 3.2/3.3, like ATOS, so I can bypass SpartaDOS X and still make use of my HDD CF. I'll be doing the same with Snapshot if it won't work with SDX, though I haven't had time to check it out yet. U1MB and Incognito are great, but U1Mb is not the end-all be-all of upgrades, for XL/XE's, to me anyway. On the other hand, Incognito is pretty much the end-all be-all for 800 owners who want to enjoy what XL/XE owners can do with upgrades. I enjoy my MyIDE II and SDX cart and alternate OS and memory upgrades every bit as much as my Incognito and they work, in their own way, every bit as well, for me.