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SmileyDude

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Posts posted by SmileyDude

  1. Posted

    Also, the GBA technically is not totally superior as the Lynx has more colors, a bigger screen, back lighting and better scaling.  Also, is the quality of the Lynx library better as a whole?

     

    How many colors does the lynx have?? the GBA has a palette of 32,768 colors, of which, all can be potentially displayed at once (in bitmap mode). In your normal tile modes, you can get 256 colors for the tiles, and another 256 colors for the sprites... and that doesn't even take allowance for raster effects which can still be done.

     

    Bigger screen? Are you talking physically or number of pixels? Pixelwise, the GBAs resolution is 240x160 -- I don't have the specifics, but I know that the Lynx doesn't have as high of a resolution -- you can see the screenshots of the Lynx emulator on the GBA, and the games have a huge border around them.

     

    Better scalling -- I'm not familar with the scalling abilities of the Lynx. What is better about it than the GBA? I'm not doubting you here, I just want to see some hard facts as opposed to generalities.

     

    Backlighting -- I agree completely that the Lynx has a better display because of backlighting. But, where some people call it a benefit, not having to change your batteries (2 AAs) until you've played for 15 hours is a benefit. Personally, I wouldn't mind a backlight on the GBA -- but I do want the ability to turn it off when I don't need it.

  3. Posted

    Hi,

     

    I'm looking for a high quality version of the Lynx logo to use in a project of mine -- I'm going to scale it down, so it doesn't have to be too big -- but I do want to make sure that it looks good :)

     

    Also, I know you can get the fonts Atari used on the 2600 carts -- was there any particular font that was associated with the Lynx (either in the carts, boxes, or manuals) and is available in truetype form on the web?

     

    thanks!

  4. Posted

    A friend of mine was given a 5200, so he passed it along to me :)

     

    Saved me from having to either beg my dad for his or buy one off ebay :P

     

    It's a 4-port, but it came with box, 2 joysticks (one broke -- oh well), and 6 unboxed games -- now I can start seriously buying games for the system (I already have 3 NIB games that will remain NIB :) )

     

    Looks like I'll be playing Atari tonight :D

  5. Posted

    Smiley, I know with the sheer quantity of titles and the superior hardware of the GBA, there is going to be some games superior to the Lynx.  My problem is that there shoulda been so much more. The fact that it took Ninetendo 10 tears to get a color system superior to the Lynx is an indictment enough.

     

    I'm pretty sure Nintendo could've come out with hardware to match the Lynx earlier -- but, that's not what the game is about. It's about making something that you can market, sell cheaply, and make a huge profit. The Lynx failed at all three.

     

    Part of being cheap is also making it so that you don't need to buy a battery factory just to feed your portable game.

     

    I remember the Lynx and the GB when it came out. I drooled over the specs of the Lynx. There was an article in Analog magazine (I think...) that talked about developing for it. It was so cool.

     

    Then, when I went to go buy something, the Lynx wasn't cool in other areas -- battery life, physical size, and price. At that time, the games wasn't that big of a deal, but you could still see that Nintendo had a better footing on the market than Atari did. So, I got the Gameboy... while still wishing that I could've gotten the Lynx instead.

     

    So, Atari beat Nintendo on the technology side, but as so many companies have learned (and Nitendo being one of the best to learn this), technology doesn't win you customers. That's why the GBA is still limited compared to what it could've been. That's why the GameCube is so limited compared to the Xbox.

     

    Anyway, this isn't going to be very productive. For the techies, the Lynx is a great machine. For the game players, maybe the GBA would be a better choice. There is nothing saying you can't get both :)

  6. Posted

    If they ever come out with a version with back-lighting, then I'll reconsider, but they'll have to lose Mario and Poke'mon first too... :twisted:

     

    Well, without Mario and Pokemon, the GBA would have just about as much market as the Lynx does -- as I recall, Pokemon pretty much saved Nintendo on the handheld side. At the time it came out, the Gameboy Color wasn't even out yet. Pokemon ended up selling loads of GBs and GBCs for them.

  7. Posted

    How do you load the emulator amd roms on the flash cart on a GBA? How much memory does it have?

     

    With a device called a linker that connects to your PC (via Parport or USB) and you plug the cart into that to program it.

     

    The cart sizes are measured in megabits, not bytes. So you have to divide by 8 to get the size in megabytes. I have a 256 megabit cart, which is 32 megabytes.

     

    There are already a few emulators out for the GBA -- a couple of Spectrum ZX emus, a couple of NES emus, and a few more that really aren't at a usable state yet.

     

    As far as specs on the GBA, in addition to the cart ROM/Flash, you have 3 blocks of internal RAM -- a 256k block, a fast 32k block, and a 96k block for video. The GBA actually supports loading code over it's link port, and executing out of RAM -- there are a number of commercial games that support this, and one of the emulators also supports this (PocketNES).

  8. Posted

    Here's my take -- the Lynx was definetly the best of the handhelds back when it was released -- and, it stayed at the top for quite a long time. But, it has been passed by the GBA now, no doubt about it. The GBA has much better specs than the Lynx, and it has an incredible game library to go along with it (GB, GBC, GBA). Add in the fact that you can easily get 15 hours of gameplay with 2 AA batteries, and the GBA is way ahead of the Lynx.

     

    As far as game prices go, the most I've paid for a GBA game is $30 (US) -- and I have about 12 games. I find that most of the games when they come out are usually on sale at one of the big chain stores (Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target, etc, etc). I got Sonic Advance for $24, and Mario Kart for $22 (with a free 2-liter of soda). The deals are there. I've also found that some of the earlier 3rd-party games are discounted heavily at places like Target and wholesale clubs (Sams, Costco, BJs) -- I've gotten a few games for $8 a piece, new in the box.

     

    Also, you can always buy GB/GBC games -- they are much cheaper, and there are some pretty good ones out there. Not Lynx quality, but still fun.

     

    BTW, for those who love the Lynx and the GBA, there is news of a Lynx emulator being worked on for the GBA -- it's slow right now, but the coders working on it have a lot of optimizations planned for it. Go to http://www.geocities.com/psx_nemesis/ for more info (no downloads yet).

  9. Posted

    The GP32 is a neat box, but I personally think it's a limited market -- it's gonna get the homebrew support, but that's pretty much it.

     

    Don't count the GBA out for Atari 2600 emulation -- I'm pretty sure that it's possible, and at a playable speed.

     

    I personally prefer the GBA over the GP32 -- it's got commercial games, and better hardware support. Programming for it is similar to the consoles of old, but with a modern CPU :)

     

    The GP32 is more like programming for a PC -- the hardware isn't very capable on it's own, so you have to program any and every effect yourself. For example, the GBA has hardware rotation and scaling -- the GP32 doesn't. The GBA has transparency effects -- the GP32 doesn't. The GBA has the ability to do 4 layers of tiles, plus sprites -- the GP32 has a framebuffer that you draw into yourself.

     

    To understand the big difference, with the GBA, moving a character around on the screen is as easy as updating a register or two. With the GP32, you have to erase the old copy of the character, and redraw it in the new position. This means that a lot more of the CPUs time is spent updating the screen.

     

    So, while the GP32 might have a more powerful processor, a lot of it's advantage is erased by the very poor graphics support.

     

    Now, put the GBAs hardware graphics in a GP32 with the bigger screen, faster processor, and SMC support, and I'll buy one in a heartbeat :D

  13. Posted

    It's probably Haunted House.  At one point Haunted House was known as Nightmare Manor.

     

    I just confirmed it -- it is Haunted House. Good call on that one :)

     

    So, now my question is that when in Haunted House's life was it known as Nightmare Manor? And, would a group of people pirating Atari games have known that it was called that?

     

    This find is becoming very interesting -- first, it's not just EPROMs, but ROMs as well. Second, one of the games is labled with it's development name and not the release name.

     

    I'll check the two unlabled ROMs next -- who knows what those two will be...

  14. Posted

    eeprom - Electronically Erasable Programable Read-Only Memory (not used in Atari 2600, AFAIK)

    eprom   - Erasable Programable Read-Only Memory. These are erased by a strong light , (UV?) shined in a small window on the chip.  

     

    I would be surprised if they are ROMS. If you remove the labels, you will see likely the windows.

     

    Yeah -- I've figured out the terminology now, I'm so used to newer tech that I had forgotten about EPROMs and mistakenly called them EEPROMS :D On the ones that are labled EPROMs, you can feel the window -- on the ones that are labeled ROMs, it's completely smooth under the label.

     

    I'm reasonably certain that the ROMs are really ROMs and the EPROMs are really EPROMs -- I still don't get why they just wouldn't put the ROMs back into the cart they came out of after copying them?

  17. Posted

    What is the game called "Nightmare"?

     

    Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

     

    To be honest, I haven't tried it yet -- I might give it a try sometime in the next few days -- since I have the Atari connected to the TV all the time, it's a bit easier than it used to be :)

  21. Posted

    These are pirated eproms ( EEproms came later). People burned illegal copies of games from ROM dumps. They usually had a PCB or two with a Ziff socket in order to play. Remember games were $40 at the peak. Every once in a while' date=' a collection of these shows up at auction and few people get excited and overbid. Not really worth much, IMHO, but kinda fun to have anyway.[/quote']

     

    I understand the EEPROMs (EPROMs?) -- it's the ROMs that I don't understand -- I haven't pulled the stickers off, but they look pretty much the same as the two loose ROMs with Atari copyrights on them -- I might pull back the stickers on them if I feel brave enough :)

     

    Anyone have any idea why someone would have a bunch of ROMs (not EPROMs) loose? Is it possible that there was a black market of sorts for loose ROMs? Maybe the company that actually made the ROMs for Atari leaked them out the back door?

  23. Posted

    Hi,

     

    When I got my two 2600s earlier this year from my Dad, there was 3 boxes with loose EEPROMs and ROMs in them -- are these typically worth anything?

     

    I thought it was kinda bizarre to find an EEPROM version of Combat in there (wasn't this bundled with the 2600 originally??) Also, all of the ROMs/EEPROMs are listed as either 16k or 32k -- I'm assuming this means kbits, which gives you the normal 2k and 4k when you divide by 8.

     

    Almost all of them are labeled, but there are two ROMs that aren't labeled:

     

    B226MM

    52132KHX/N

    C012009-19

    ©ATARI 1981

    and
    B209MM

    52132JRR/N

    CO12055-19

    ©ATARI 1981

     

    Also, the third box appears to be all EEPROMs, but they have a holder that allows you to snap the chips into the cart without worrying about bending the pins. The other two boxes just contain the chips.

     

    Here is a list of the ROMs (not including the two un-identified ones above):

     

    Pinball - J

    Chess

    Checkers

    "Devils And Diamonds" - P -- I'm assuming that this is Demons to Diamonds

    Chess

    Beserk

    Casino

    Soccer - J

    Backgammon - P

    Nightmare

    Space Invaders - J

    2 Pac-Mac -J

    Superman

    Dodge-Em -J

    Breakout - P

    Football

     

    The second box is EEPROMs:

    Sking - J

    Tennis - J

    Slot Racers - J

    Boxing - J

    Canyon Bomber - P

    Blackjack - P

    Skeet Shoot - J

    Surround

    Space War -J

    3D Tic-Tac-Toe - J

    Kaboom - P

    Surround

    Basketball - J

    Laser Blast - J

    Freeway - J

    Bowling - J

     

    The third box appears to contain all EEPROMs, and they are in the holders I described above:

    Bridge

    Basic Programming

    Super Challenge Football

    Super Challenge Baseball

    Pac-Man

    Code Breaker

    Brain Games

    Concentration

    Unnamed -- but, it has AG-010 on it

    Baseball

    Combat

    Football

    Othello

    Backgamming

    Super Breakout

    Frogger

     

    I don't know what the Js and Ps are on some of the labels -- I thought it might be PAL for the P, but what would J mean?

     

    Also, the whole package came with two carts for the EEPROMs and ROMs -- one is a modified Space Invaders cart, the other looks like some kind of homemade board, no case.

     

    One thing that puzzles me is that I can see why someone would have a bunch of loose EEPROMs, but not why they would have a bunch of loose ROMs -- wouldn't it be better to keep the ROMs in the original carts??? Hopefully someone can shine a little light on this mystery for me :)

     

    I'll try to take some pictures later on and post them, but I don't know when I'll get the chance.

  24. Posted

    i know that eventually they used atari 800's to make games

    for the 2600 there is a photo of HSW working on a 800 the caption

    somewhere is talking about him making a 2600 game

     

    that info may be unreliable so dont say "well jess said," :P

     

    It's a shame that the 800 and 2600 weren't more compatible (like the 5200 and 800) -- sure, with the ANTIC chip, you wouldn't normally want to drive the CTIA/GTIA chip, but it would've allowed game development to go a little more smoothly -- just assemble, and run on the development machine. Then, you could occasionaly test on a real 2600 -- just to make sure that you didn't use some feature of the 800 on the 2600 :)

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