Propane13

Hi John what is the"Frankenstein/Lazarus-board "?Is it a special board for the 7800? I never heard that name before. greetings Walter I'm guessing he means that he hacked up a Jinks cart like the rest of us. Mitch Yep! At my company, we sometimes call board hacks "Frankenstein boards". And, sometimes something will go wrong (and a resistor will burn or something), and the board will die, so bringing that board back to functionality gives it the nickname "Lazarus-board". It would be pretty cool to see mockup art of a 7800 Lazarus board. -John

I believe the diagnostic cart is worth $25. Paying any more would be pretty insane--- because I'm pretty sure there's still a place you can get them for that price. Unless their stockpile has run out (which is possible). -John

Ditto. I'd love to have a copy. I still have the Frankenstein/Lazarus-board that I used to get Possible Mission working, but to have an "official" cart would be awesome. -John

I hear a lot about the KidVid Smurf games, but I've never seen them in action. Has anyone ever thought of making a vid of game action to "show them off"? There's like audio and stuff (on the tape) that is gameplay related, right? -John

I thought it was--- what's the real story? -John

I have boughted this game. I thinks it is a good game to be boughted. -John

How was this determined to be a Pac-Man hack? Looks really, really different. Was it with a code-commonality check or something (i.e. 80% of the same code as Pac-man)? -John

So, do we have a confirmation on this? Or do we just have second-hand confirmation of this existence? -John

Actually, someone did make a ROM that I thought was extremely accurate (tested over a 24-hour period). This was years ago. http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archiv...9/msg00044.html -John

Aha! I checked atarimania first, but the title didn't come up. I have learned to put my trust in Rom Hunter's amazing database of super-information. Are you planning to add this entry? -John

@Crazy climber-- What is Air Battle? According to the Intellivision website, it was never released: http://www.intellivisionlives.com/bluesky/....html#airbattle -John

Does the opening screen show a full name (first and last)? Or, just a first? Thinking about 6-digit displays and all, if the last name was an option, but it was Swazzerfajisinski-Romanov, they may not have been able to display it. -John

So, Al, what's this I hear about a Toyshop Trouble video? I think you mentioned it in another post. -John

Squeeze Box has an ending? Does this mean when the guy gets squished? Or, is there a good ending? -John

Is Quest for Quintana Roo an RPG? Never played it. -John

How do you cheat? -John

The following are games I believe have an ending, but take an investment of time to get there: - Double Dragon - Secret Quest - Solaris - Fatal Run (but maybe it doesn't end, according to an article I read?) - Dragon Stomper - Sword of Saros - Escape From the Mindmaster - Survival Island Which ones have people gotten to the end of (c'mon, be proud)? Which ones are worth the time to get to the end? How much time does it take to "know the strategy", "gear up", practice, and finally able to make it to the last moment? -John

Dropped so he could spend more time with his band, which sounds like it's doing quite well. Oh, and it's Homestarrunner. -John

Ok, next question. Are there "max levels"? I remember getting to the town, not having enough money to buy very much for the journey, and then getting to the cave and dying almost immediately (after playing for linke 15-20m). So, is there a "max level" for certain things? And I still don't understand how you can beat the game without killing the dragon-- isn't that the point? Does it give a different ending? Is there an ending, or does it just loop? Want to make sure it's worth it if I'm gonna invest the time. -John

The pile-ups and things make me think of Klax. -John

Perhaps you're thinking of Canyon bomber? Or Submarine Commander? -John

Tod Fries? -John

How long does it take to beat? -John

Ok, so this idea of a JSR to capture the PC intrigues me. What if there are 2 banks of code (i.e. an 8K cart). Bank one is all a JSR to the bankswitch code <START> ORG $F000 JSR SOMEWHERE JSR SOMEWHERE .... SOMEWHERE: LDA $FFF9 ; jump banks JSR SOMEWHERE JSR SOMEWHERE .... <END> SOMEWHERE could be defined as NOOP opcodes (i.e. $EAEA). If this were the case, then when the pause switch is executed, the bank is hardware switched to the new cart, and is suddenly in this new code. It will either hit a JSR or a NOP. Almost 1/3 case: JSR SOMEWHERE Almost 1/3 case: NOP JSR SOMEWHERE Almost 1/3 case: NOP NOP JSR SOMEWHERE I say "almost" because there is a chance that the cart happens to be at location SOMEWHERE. That's what makes things a little unreliable, but with quite a low probability. So, to mitigate this NOP issue (which gets us close to the PC, but not possibly off by one or two), there could also be a timer circuit to determine how many commands are run on this 4K bank before it gets switched. Based on that number, one or two could be subtracted from the PC. Once in the new bank, save operations could happen to internal RAM on the chip or something (to save a register or the accumulator value), and some graphics could go on screen that say "paused". Or, maybe there's a way with hardware to force a JSR on the data lines, regardless of what's on the PC's address lines. That could force a JSR. Or, maybe I'm just crazy and don't understand hardware too well. Comments? -John

How hard would it be to make a "pause-button" cartridge for the 2600? Something that goes between the cartridge and the system, with a switch on the outside. Seems that the 2 things necessary to do would be: 1) save the current state of the program counter 2) start a counter in internal HW, and poll INTIM repeteadly; see if it changes, if so, then save the amount of time that it ran until it timed out 3) Loop and waste time (some crappy kernal that displays "pause" When the pause switch is flipped again: 1) Restore INTIM to its value 2) Restore PC 3) Go! Seems that paddle information (cap charges) don't make much sense to pull. Not WSYNC/scnaline info, as worst-case, there may just be one screen flip before the next VSYNC-- and that's 1/60th of a part of a frame that's lost. Would something like this even be architectually feasible? Or is my hardware skill lacking? -John