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Propane13

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Posts posted by Propane13

  1. Posted

    Well-- what a day it's been.

     

    I had just opened a beer, started to check some Atari posts online, and then... I came across this particular doozy.

    I live on the outskirts of Philly. So, I had to make a decision. I decided to put my open beer in the fridge, and go check this out.

    I think I'm the closest Atari 2600/7800 guy in the area (at least based on the map function in Atariage).

    So, I thought I'd go check this out-- it's about a 20 minute drive for me, which isn't bad. This is even closer to my work, which is cool too.

     

    The thrift shop itself is pretty good; I've seen a few of them in the area; many have creepy old-lady-clothes, and dolls and weird plates and stuff.

    This place has some class to it; I saw the Atari, a Nintendo Power Pad, and some old-school board games that were in pretty good condition.

    He also mentioned that he had some TurboGrafx stuff. I'd probably stop in there again just to see if the place had any new swag.

     

    Here's what the store looks like:

    post-151-0-33170400-1345411059_thumb.jpg

     

    I had a nice conversation with the cartridge owner-- he seems like a pretty easygoing guy, and seemed excited about his find.

    He's actually a Nintendo collector, and told me the story about how he had once as a kid gone to a flea market and found a Tengen Tetris available for really cheap, and decided to pass on it since he already had the Nintendo version. A few years later, Tengen Tetris became known as "the rare Tetris"-- I can remember when those prices skyrocketed. The owner was thrilled that this is the second time in his life that a rarity has crossed his path.

     

    He has read the full threads on atariage, so he knows the story pretty well about the "other" Red Sea Crossing.

    He hasn't tested the game yet (he was missing a few parts to connect an Atari to a TV), but he says that will happen in due time.

    I'm sure that most of us here (myself included) would be willing to provide any necessary parts if needed.

    He has had a few offers already, so if you're reading this, note that you're not the first guy to call. :)

     

    I asked him if he'd be ok with me taking a picture of the cartridge, so I did:

    post-151-0-05047400-1345411069_thumb.jpg

     

    That was kind of him, as he doesn't know me at all (even though people here know me as a homebrewer).

     

    He said that the plans are for the cartridge is going to go to a safety deposit box for awhile-- at the moment, he's interested in getting a little bit of publicity for the store.

    And, I can't see a problem with that-- it's a pretty good little thrift store. The Atari 2600 that's there has some commons, but a few slightly rarer games (such as Pigs In Space and I think Star Trek). I think it's like 15-20 games or so; he's going to sell them as a lot, if anyone's interested.

     

    Now, with that being said, if anyone does make an offer, I'd be willing to try to offer help with the transaction, since there aren't a lot of collectors in the Philadelphia area.

    But, that would be up to the seller and buyer. Additionally, if the seller has any questions / needs help testing the game / wants help getting local publicity, I'll volunteer my services there as well. Pretty much, if I can help anybody here, I will. I just think it's a neat story and a fun piece of history.

     

    Anyway, I'd like to thank the current cartridge owner for his time today.

    I was pretty excited when I entered the store-- just to be able to see a rare cartridge like this is a real treat.

    And, he was quite personable for someone who has now been thrust into our little community.

     

    I'm really curious where this will go. :)

     

    Regards,

    -John

    • Like 8

  4. Posted

    Seems like a pretty fun game.

     

    Score:12,825

    Nice score. Your platform gaming skills are improving. :thumbsup:

     

    Thanks, Liduario. Unfortunately, I can't get anywhere on the sewer level. I jump off the pipe, land in the muck, and repeat process until time runs out :D

     

    However, I did join the 20k club. New score: 26,700

     

    Have you tried the Scrapyard Dog maps? ;)

    They're not just screenshots-- there's some detail in them about passages that you can take to avoid the hard jumps.

     

    -John

  5. Posted

    If it hits 60 days, I'll consider donating 10 bucks to the cause of getting him a new cart.

    There's always a possibility that we're being scammed (just so he could get 2 carts), but I am hoping that is not the case.

     

    If there is truth to this story, and this cart really is lost, I would want to help. I'll bet a few others would chip in, so that Al wouldn't have to eat the cost of anything.

     

    -John

  11. Posted

    I have a question for the 7800 programmers out there.

     

    What happens if at the end of a bunch of DL's, a condition arose where there are no "0,0" items?

    Will DMA keep processing them indefinitely ? Or, will DMA give up and move onto the next line?

    I think I may have a race condition such that DMA is interrupting DL-generation while it's not yet finished being written.

     

    I've never tried that on real hardware to see what happens, so curious.

     

    -John

  12. Posted

    You should name the diamonds John Locke, Jack, Kate, Hurley, Charlie, ect. (*Rim shot*) :)

     

    When people crash the game on the real system, do you know where/what they were doing?

     

    Maybe people should record while they play to show you how to reproduce the problem.

     

    Amusing-- I only started watching Lost this year at the prodding of some of my friends; that's a fun unintended reference. :)

     

    Very cool, how soon can I buy a cart?

     

    I still have a few things to do, but anyone who is on this thread or PM'd me will be contacted when the time is right.

    I've got an annoying major bug hurdle to clear; after that, things could get back to normal.

     

    Cool game!!

    The final version will have lives or time limit?

     

    Also cart version is a must :)

     

    The final version should be about the same; I think if I limited the lives, nobody could ever finish it.

    Especially, since the author knows every trap and where everything is, and died 109 times. ;)

    I am looking forward to people doing death-free speed-runs though.

     

    Propane any tips for the green area underwater filled with ?s. I was playing your game for around an hour last night and it seems that there are gems that are impossible to get to.

     

    Yes. For those who have no idea what this is, don't bother reading the spoiler below-- it could give you too much information that you may be able to figure out on your own.

    Hint 1 is subtle; hint 3 is more direct (with 2 in the middle).

     

    Hint 1:

     

    First of all, try perserverence. All gems can be obtained, but you may need to take a more circuitous route

     

     

    Hint 2:

     

    Pause the game and "look carefully"

     

     

    Hint 3:

     

    If you'r really, really stuck, there's a subtle difference between the ? blocks that you can pass through, and the ones that you can't. It's only a pixel difference, but it's enough to take note of the different path you need to take to get some of the gems.

     

     

    Thanks!

    -John

  17. Posted

    Hello all,

     

    I've been programming a 7800 game called "Get Lost" (there's info about it in the 7800 forum), and I've hit a point where I need to do some debugging on actual hardware.

    Since the 2600 and the 7800 are very similar, I thought it would make sense to query all of the hardware gurus in this forum about what would be required to hook up a logic analyzer to the 2600 / 7800, and if anyone has ever done this. I'm guessing that there might be a bigger knowledge base here, since I've seen tons of weird 2600 hardware projects come out of this forum.

     

    So, to start, I found this interesting ppt:

    http://www.atariarchives.org/dev/CGEXPO01.ppt

    Seems it was written awhile back, and the presentation mentions that back in the day, a HP-1600 logic analyzer was used (which I assume supports 6502).

     

    For all of you hardware folks out there:

    1) What type of logic analyzer would you recommend me purchasing / scrounging in order to test on an Atari 2600 / 7800?

    2) How does one hook these up to "sniff the cartdridge"? Do I need to make a special connector between the machine and the cartridge? If so, how would one recommend doing that?

     

    Any help would be appreciated; I'm not sure if anyone has done something like this before.

     

    Thanks!

    -John

  19. Posted

    Wow; I can't believe the outpouring of support.

    Honestly, I was not expecting anybody to keep commenting on this thread. It seemed pretty much done, in my mind.

     

    This kind of support is leading me to think that maybe I could try to fix the "big black screen bug"... but I'd need help.

    Does anyone here have hardware expertise that could help me to figure out:

    1) specs for hooking up a logic analyzer to a 7800 cart? I can solder, but directions help

    2) What kind of logic analyzer I'm looking for?

     

    I don't think I can solve this just by looking at my code. If anyone can help me to climb hardware hurdles; I am willing to try to meet halfway.

    I'm just frankly not very hardware savvy; if that's someone's cup of tea, I'd be much obliged.

     

    Plus, solving this issue may lead to some new "best practices" that could help other programmers to not encounter this type of issue.

    So, this may be good for everyone in the long run. Could anyone help me to get what I need, and to give me instructions for how to hook it up?

    This is just not a road that I'm used to driving on, so I think it's time to see if anyone knows what to do here.

     

    Again; thanks to everyone for commenting and for the kind remarks.

    I made the game to try to make people happy, and to try to close out a very long journey.

    This community is awesome. :)

     

    Regards,

    -John

  20. Posted

    So, I'm thinking of how to debug without proper hardware.

    One thought I had was to ask a question about emulator support.

     

    Does anyone actively code for ProSystem?

    I think that one of the things I'd like to do is see how many cycles over I'm going per screen.

    i.e. I'd like to get a cycle count each time I pass into my main loop.

     

    I'm definitely over by a little for my frame, but I really need to figure out how much I have to trim.

    That trimming could end up being the difference between a game with an occasional screen glitch, and a version that is glitch-free.

     

    I'm just not sure if this functionality exists, or could exist.

  21. Posted

    Honestly, I haven't even thought about it. The source is proprietary, and I've never programmed for other systems (except the 2600).

    Are you suggesting that others may be interested in porting this game to other systems? If so, I'd love to hear from those guys.

    I'm sure an arrangement could be made.

     

    Of course, I'd like to finish on the first platform first. :)

     

    -John

  22. Posted

    Haha... well, I do know the actual number of gems, but, part of the fun is letting you guys figure that part out. :)

     

    Somebody else sent me a PM and mentioned the "black screen of death" on this build, so I think it's still in there somewhere, but maybe not as pronounced as the last build.

    I didn't really do anything to fix it, except that I guess the timing of some things changed due to more code added.

     

    That's why I suspect that there's some sort of thing that happens during DMA accesses where it can return in a funky state.

    If I had a logic analyzer, I could try to drill down, but I don't really have one, nor the hardware to hook it up.

    I'm guessing GroovyBee may be the only one that has this setup-- do any others have any systems set up like that?

     

    -John

  23. Posted

    Hi Guys

    How many gems did you collect?

    I got 45

    greetings gambler172

     

    That's pretty good! I'd say you're on the leaderboard.

     

    Propane how many Gems total are there? If you collect all the Gems, does the game stop?

     

    At least 45... ;)

    There's definitely an end to the game if you collect them all.

    That ending will be improved a little later.

     

    -John

  24. Posted

    yeah, played it for 3 hours last night with one of yurkies modded ball knob prolines and all new dome contacts in it, perfect for that game. love the underwater valcanoes ... very nice touch. really wanted to get some long playing time using a 7800 with stock controllers. this game is pretty huge and what a great game. cant wait to see if you can come up with a nice catchy tune for the game.more to come

    Thanks for the feedback. I haven't written any music in awhile, so I'm going to take my time and try to put something good together.

     

    Very nice John! I finally had a chance to sit down and play it last night and enjoyed the challenge. Nice to see those old demos I tested many years ago finally coming to a finished form.

     

    Mitch

    Took awhile, but I hope the end result is worth it. :)

     

    Does the hardware help with collision detection at all? What's your collision solution look like?

    For collision-detection, I'm doing some sort of "overlapping square" comparison.

    Consider the player a square (8x16) and each object an 8x16 square.

    If any corner / edge overlaps a spike / fire / bat, it's checked X-coordinates first, then Y-coordinates second.

    It's all done with some greater-than / less-than comparisons.

     

    That's actually why the bat looks a little funny-- I wanted his corners / sides to be pretty much straight lines so that collision detection looked effective.

    The only issue where you could feel an unfair detection is if you're falling down away from a spike-- there's a space behind the player that can touch the tip of a spike.

    It doesn't look like a collision, but it technically is. I only get that problem a handful of times when playing a full round, but it doesn't seem too bad.

    I'd be curious as to if people feel like the detection is unfair.

     

    -John

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