playsoft

I don't think you'll get that working because it is using a new cart RAM banking scheme which is specific to DragonFly. This has allowed me to include the POKEY music without having to remove anything to free up RAM. The DF cart RAM banking scheme is very similar to the "bankram" scheme, but I have no way of testing that. I will generate and PM you a "bankram" build to see if you are able to run that on CC2.

Notice how some characters are OK? On the title/high-score screens, the character set is in cart RAM, the corrupt characters have their ids in ROM and the clean ones have their ids in internal RAM. In-game, the only characters are the score and high-score digits, the character set is in ROM and the character ids are in internal RAM. So, here it looks like an issue when Maria is fetching ids from ROM and character data from cart RAM.

I also created an "Extended" build for DragonFly owners who don't have the YM module. If it doesn't detect the YM it will use @miker's POKEY music. 1942ex.a78

Over the weekend I received an excellent POKEY RMT version of the C64 music by @miker - many thanks! I've included it in the "small ROM" build so that Concerto owners now have some great music while playing (I couldn't get it to work in Prosystem alas). 1942sr.a78

I would much prefer everyone play the full version, but I have been able to build a 128K "small" ROM of the game which only includes a single background (the island graphics). It also lacks the YM music, but you wouldn't get that anyway. It appears to run OK on RetroArch and Prosystem. Concerto owners can also run this build while waiting for the firmware update. It seems to run OK, other than interference on characters in the title and high score screens. 1942sr.a78

Thanks for playing and the feedback. It is intentional and the same as the arcade game.

I downloaded both Retroarch and Prosystem for my PC and I get blank screens on both, even running the special build I put together for JS7800. I then tried some other games and found that 128K and 144K ROMs were OK (well, they loaded - I did notice a lot of corrupt graphics on Pengo), but anything bigger always gave a blank screen. So, I don't think there is anything I can do to get the game working on those emulators, sorry.

That is good news - the running on CC2, not the dying! It was DF and Concerto that got me interested in the 7800, I hadn't even considered that it might run on the older flash carts. The .bin is attached. 1942.bin

I don't know if it could have the same issues as JS7800? The YM2151@460 bit in the cart header causes JS7800 to select the wrong bank switching scheme. It also does not support the YM2151 timer functionality which is needed to detect if the YM is present. I really didn't want to start debugging emulator issues, but I made a special build for JS7800 as we used it a lot during development.

I am using 13.0.1. I have a vague memory I selected something to start my 30-day evaluation but can't say for sure. However, it doesn't matter as the 30-day evaluation is for compilation support which you don't need. Just select the option below and then update DF as per Rafal's instructions.

I wonder if you can still use it to program devices though. Mine has expired too, when I run it the first option is to buy the software, but the second option is to continue using the software without compilation support. If I select that I am able to open the programming screen, select the USB-Blaster, add the dragonfly.pof file, check the program/configure/verify/blank-check boxes and press start. It looks like it probably would program my DF if I connected it.

We have made the last few finishing touches, so please find the game ROM attached. TL;DR... Currently you will need a DragonFly to play it on real hardware. If you have not already done so, I highly recommend applying the CPLD fix, otherwise there is a good chance you may see issues when running the game. These can include graphics corruption, lock ups, crashes or stack dumps. In the @ZeroPage Homebrew show there was a stack dump at the end after playing the game for quite a long time, but issues may well occur sooner. The CPLD fix will improve compatibility with other games too. Details of how to update your DragonFly can be found here: https://forums.atariage.com/topic/310150-dragonfly-my-version-of-the-atari-7800-sd-cartridge/?do=findComment&comment=5109304 Currently Concerto does not support 256K ROMs, but I am informed this will be added in the next major firmware release. You should then be able to run the game without the YM2151 music. During development an early version of the game was successfully tested on the forthcoming 7800GD. You can keep track of its development here: https://www.retrohq.co.uk/ The ROM will run on A7800 with the XM module for the YM music. It will also run on BupSystem but without the music. I had to make a couple of minor tweaks for it to run on JS7800, so rather than release two ROMs @raz0red has kindly added it to the list on built-in games. I am told it runs OK on MiSTer but there is a large difference between the TIA and YM audio levels, so you may want to select the audio option for music only. A good playing guide can be found here: https://strategywiki.org/wiki/1942 I think most of the options are self-explanatory. There are 3 colour sets available. "TREBOR" is generally best for running on real h/w and "TIX" for emulation. If you have a very dark picture on real h/w, then "DARRYL" may be your best choice. In the audio options (C64) is the C64 music and (OG) is the original game music. The game supports both the High Score Cart and SaveKey in port #2 (it must be present when the game boots). The game was written for NTSC but supports PAL. The slower refresh rate makes it easier, so it defaults to the hardest difficulty setting on a PAL console. A big thanks to @TIX, as ever it's been a pleasure to work with you. I would also like to thank everybody else who has contributed to this: @darryl1970 @Trebor @wongojack @ZeroPage Homebrew @Jaden (JRH) @-^CrossBow^- @sramirez2008 @RevEng @marauder666 @juansolo @Eagle @rj1307 @SainT and Agermose (developer of the 1942 Amiga conversion). 1942.a78

My reason for a 7800 project was to do something different and the YM2151 presented an opportunity for that - and has been great fun. The game is complete now and I'm not going to add POKEY to it.

If CAPCOM ever notice, I hope that's how they see it. Oh, that could be the filename! I have added it as an option, as there were enough people asking for it. I did play around with the film score and managed to get it sounding reasonably OK but we decided against it. 633.a78

No, it will just be a free ROM release. As has already been pointed out earlier in this topic, it is CAPCOM's game, and no permission has been sought for a 7800 conversion. I'd guess other titles sold in the AA store (and elsewhere) are also done so without permission, but CAPCOM are still actively selling 1942 as a CAPCOM Arcade Stadium title today.

You will recognise the sound effects! Also, the P38 loop sound effect was generated by sound2tia. Thanks!

Thanks a lot Matt. Back in the day I went from the A8 to the ST and missed out on the 7800, so I had no preconceptions. I mentioned to a programming friend that I was going to try and do something on the 7800 and his immediate reply was "oh, no scrolling then!". So, there is some sort of misconception out there, as I think the 7800 has great scrolling capabilities.

The original background music is present, but it is only used on the title screen and the % and point up stages. I don't want to add any new options, but I could extend the audio options to include this. The original background music is the weakest of the .vgm conversions. I tried so many different OPM instruments, but I couldn't find one with the raspy whistle of the arcade. All the whistles and pipes were too pure, making the music difficult to tolerate! We settled on one called "pan_flo" (some sort of pan pipe/flute?) which sounds more like morse code than a whistle, but it is a lot easier to listen to.

The music uses the YM2151 with a really simple player, just a list of delay (frames), channel and note. I was able to generate this data from the arcade/NES .vgm files and the C64 .mid file. The OPM instruments were taken from the fb1_factory collection, I only use 6 different instruments but really liked JOrgan1 so that gets used a lot!

Thanks @Trebor for starting the thread and thanks @ZeroPage Homebrew for previewing it on your stream. It was good to see you enjoying it!

Even if they had used the same multiplexer chip, they might have routed the signals differently - depends on whether they did their own design or copied the original.

Yes, that is the Atari pin-out. The megadrive pin-out looks like this: If you haven't swapped 5 & 7 around, when plugged into an A8 your controller will be drawing power from the paddle B input - which is what you want to connect the 3rd button to.

Could I reserve $19,$42 for 1942 please - Thanks!

I have limited h/w knowledge, but this is how I converted my Mega Drive controller for joy2b+ use: https://forums.atariage.com/topic/278884-2-button-joystick/?do=findComment&comment=4410098 The first step was to swap the wires coming from pins 5 & 7 around. The A8 provides +5V on pin 7 but the Sega controller expects it on pin 5. Also, pin 5 on the A8 is the paddle B input, which is what the third button uses. It was easy to swap the wires on the Mega Drive controller as they are numbered on the pcb. You can't see them in the after picture but the green and light brown wires in 5 & 7 are swapped around.

I've just started looking at the high score cart and that diagram was really useful thanks. I did wonder what the index table is used for and I think it might be an age table, so in the event of the cart becoming full it overwrites the entry that was used the longest time ago. From the disassembly in GameSearchLoop it looks like it's maintaining the eldest value and index in zAA and zB6. If the required entry is found, these are overwritten with the values for the (found) entry. If it's not found, InitializeGameSaveStructures overwrites the eldest. In both cases the code at e35A1 resets the entry to age 0 then loops over all the entries and ages (increments) any which are younger than the original age. The net result should be the entry has an age of 1 with the other entries having greater values reflecting their age. I have not tested the HSC full scenario but I can see the index values changing like this when playing games and looking at A7800's hiscore.nv. Start with a blank HSC, play Galaga and it gets an index value of 1. Play Asteroids, it's 1 and Galaga is 2. Play Galaga again, it's 1 and Asteroids is 2.