leech

March 5

27 minutes ago, 8bitguy1 said:

I like the XE styled mouse.

Seems more XL styled you mean? Where does that come from? Looks pretty cool!

March 5

4 minutes ago, ivop said:

I always wanted my monitor on top of the drives, but apparently that wasn't a good idea BITD with CRT monitors Nice setup!

I was wondering what he found that lets them sit at the perfect height so cables can be routed under. That is a really clean set up on that 1200xl.

March 5

On 3/2/2021 at 10:31 AM, jefffulton said:

They did Millipede. It's pretty good. They also did Joust, Battlezone, Missile Command, Star Raiders, etc as Blue Box 1986 and 1987 USA releases. I don't think they were afraid of classic Atari games on the platform. I think they just put their budget were it was best used.

To be fair, I think Star Raiders is a requirement. Joust isn't actually an Atari game, though they probably did the ST port.

March 5

On 3/2/2021 at 6:42 PM, Gunstar said:

Not my most current "set-up." but the way it was when this thread was started. It's basically the same now, just things rearranged. And certainly not all of it, I'd need a panoramic shot or more pictures. But I've posted many pictures in threads here and in an album on Atari Owner's Club site: https://atari-owner.com/club/media/albums/m-d-bakers-xl-command-center.5/

March 4

10 minutes ago, phoboz said:

Kings of Edom is approaching release, so I thought I might give you an update showing a little bit what the final game will be like:

Jag needed one!

March 2

2 hours ago, universal2600 said:

I just need another 256k and a side3, 448k should be plenty

this was one of the first production run xl's, serial #36,381 early-mid 1983

i hope i can say the same for my xbox one in 2050

I should check the 3 I have. Get a U1MB in there. Lots of cool uses!

March 1

9 minutes ago, Matt_B said:

Pretty much all of the ones that'll let you install Windows on them. Alienware Alpha, Steam Machines, GPD Win, Aya Neo, etc.

Sure. If you look at the majority of those they are usually stripped down bioses like laptops. I am honestly shocked the VCS has as many opinions as it does. Only other motherboards that have that many are usually really old, or the eXtreme Gaming with RGB and overclock all the things! ones. Though for sure they tend to have pretty interfaces for them.

March 1

58 minutes ago, Matt_B said:

Congrats to Atari for promising to eventually do the right thing here, but can anyone think of another computer manufacturer who doesn't give you access to the BIOS settings?

And sure, it's possible to brick a computer by putting out of range values into some of the overclock settings. However, when the entirety of the consumer laptop market seems to be able to live with this possibility, I'm not sure why it's a big deal.

Flip that, can anyone think of a console maker that allows you into the BIOS?

February 28

Awesome. As weird as it sounds to all the people that keep refusing to believe the VCS is a thing that exists and somehow even managed to be a bit better than what I thought it would be, Atari does seem to be making things 'right' or at least very much attempting to.

February 25

2 hours ago, xefned said:

I'm sticking with #TeamAlbert

One of your past tweets indicated that less that 50% of people who received the GD had even bothered to use it (as indicated by the # of people who had downloaded their corresponding firmware.) People oughta stop chomping at the bit for something that's no real rush.

Also, I like the original label better than the Stone Age one.

Ha, yeah I mean I have been waiting years for it. Oddly if I hadn't also been waiting for Adventure, I would have gotten it at roughly the same time as I got the VCS.

February 25

3 hours ago, PeterG said:

Yeah Hyperforce is far from a great game. I tried to like it, couldn't. You want it to be good, it just isn't. Interestingly enough that makes it even more dull than a total trainwreck like Trevor MCfur or something where at least you can marvel at the fact that they bothered to release such a desaster.

I liked Trevor McFur, it wasn't such a disaster. It was at least pretty.

February 24

21 minutes ago, Albert said:

Yes. I won't start taking pre-orders for the next batch until they have been shipped and I know how many I'll be receiving.

..Al

I think mine is still waiting for Adventure II XE.

February 24

7 hours ago, ParanoidLittleMan said:

Funny to say that Atari corp was not for publishing games for ST, while there is plenty of them published right by Atari.

Maybe they just did not want that Atari ST serve for very simple games like Centipede, Pong ...

Jack famously didn't want really to sell games initially, which is why the 7800 was delayed. But yeah, Star Raiders was done on the ST as well, but were they all coming out in 86 after he decided his original non-games idea was found to be not a great decision?

February 24

5 minutes ago, oky2000 said:

What's so odd about that? Who would buy Centipede for the Atari ST by Atarisoft for 20 bucks in 1986?

Only a handful of people worldwide were interested in Centipede by 1986 that's why, don't blame the god of all computer company founders for Centipede being past it's sell by date by end of 1984 even on a VIC-20 on tape for 5 bucks lol

Ha, well someone wanted it badly enough themselves to make a release. It isn't like they couldn't have made a 'classic arcade games' release.

February 24

Someone pointed out to me that the ST never had an Atari made version of Centipede for the ST. Anyone know if this was just a case of Jack not wanting it to be a games machine? There is a version in PD, but no official Atari version. Is it one that went with the Arcade division?

February 23

Question. Would it not be better to just solder up some pins so you could just jumper it on the future?

February 23

So, based on what we're finding in this thread, we pretty much have 400-800 / XL / XE variants of color artifacting? UAV seems to do the XL style, but there's also the potential for inverting these colors (Like Ultima IV has an option built in for such). I'll create a separate thread for listing games. And I'm guessing maybe we should make another thread specifically talking about maybe designing a composite pass through device that can switch between the three? Though maybe we'd need a 'source / destination' style input / output. So you can say the source is coming from an 800xl and say you want the 800 color scheme?

February 23

7 hours ago, _The Doctor__ said:

as to the color clock artifact being off, well that might be a firmware and or component fix. I'd like to hear from Bryan and see what thoughts he might have on it. I was able to affect artifacts on the 800XL messing about. But you are only interested in the 800 for now. though they are all built from the same origins...

Well I have some 800XLs I'd be curious to mess around with the artifact colors on. I have been meaning to make a catalog of games that used artifacts to make colors, and well I guess I'm going to have to do that, then we can make a list of which one it looks 'correct' on, based on what they look at on their originating platform, perhaps.

February 22

A modern laser printer that has a centronics interface that works with the Atari is the Samsung ML2571N, but I agree, FujiNet is required for so many reasons! I still find it odd that the 1200XL is the only one where they didn't hook up all the voltage to go out the SIO port. My first one already had the modification, the second one doesn't. Though now one of my 800s is being flaky and having a similar issue (no power out on the SIO port, I'll have to take a look at it..)

February 22

9 minutes ago, TwentySixHundred said:

Bought a Pi4 and with everything for a full setup was $200, not a bad price however they're no powerhouse. They choke when it comes to N64 and PS1 not only that i can notice SNES and Genesis emulation isn't the most consistent either. Framerates are a bit all over the place and it doesn't really like to render full screen 1080P as it just doesn't have the raw grunt to do so. Good idea as a gift for someone to play around on, but not really ideal for those who take emulation seriously.

I really don't want anything past N64-PS1 and the real killer is BSNES to be honest. Is Snes9x good enough? Well yes and no... Once you use BSNES for a long time it's really easy to notice the difference in emulation accuracy. I have an 12 yeah old tower PC rigged up to the TV and she served well over the years. It was lightening fast when i built it but starting to age compared to the current market.

So where im at is got a new 4k TV but the dinosaur PC is starting to become the weak link. My laptop is fast and does whatever i want in it's sleep but not ideal for the setup i want. Having said all that for double the price of the VCS ($650AUD) i can buy a new rig for the TV. It will run BSNES along with any of my other emulators without even a stutter at full screen and consistent frames. It will also run basically any new AAA titles if i wish to do so. Even though it's double the cost, i will probably be better off in the long run and i know it will run all my emulators without an issue whatsoever.

Didn't BSNES get replaced by Higan?

Computer prices have become stupid, so building even a basic machine seems pretty pricey.

February 22

5 hours ago, TwentySixHundred said:

Edit: Actually i retract my statement, just had a look at PC builds and for the same price i can have something that's near double the speed. Im going one step further and spending double the amount for something that will play anything i can throw at it. I understand the VCS could be a viable option for some, but really after looking around im finding alot more power for cheaper.

I spent probably half the price of the VCS on fan replacements to get my PC quiet enough to hook up for a console...

I use Linux on mine as I am a Linux user, but emulators run fine, though obviously it depends on which systems you want to emulate. PS2 / Gamecube level ones seem to run quite well. Something the Pi would completely choke on.

February 22

Ha, what the hell is the iPhone doing to correct the colors on those pictures?

It does seem all of those games are designed with the 800 colirs in mind and any newer machine displays tgem incorrectly. Guess I could hook up one of my 1084S monitors and have a play there, but it is rather odd that the SCCC 'upgrades' the 800 to XL palettes. It is even stranger to me that it isn't a variant GTIA as you are using the same chip. This means if someone were so bold as to figure out what needed to be changed, we could 'patch' the XL and XE line if we knew what to patch it to.

Only artifacting game I know of that has been patched in various ways is Lode runner.

February 22

38 minutes ago, Krenath said:

I have located an LCD TV with color/tint settings that let me display LucasArts splash screens in brown and gold.
I'm currently working on calibrating the colors according to Faicuai's LucasArts/Star Raiders/ColorMap benchmarks.
Once that's done, I should be able to grab a metric ton of photographs of the screen using both the original A800 CPU card and the SCCC/UAV. (Something I should probably do in a separate thread instead of continually dumping into this one.)

I fully expect to see that, no matter how perfectly I adjust the color/hue/tint settings to match Faicuai's standards between the LCD TV and the Atari itself, none of that will remedy the artifact settings from these adjustments alone.

To get an Atari 800 with an SCCC card installed in it to render the Atari 800-style artifacts that an Atari 800 owner very likely expects, the SCCC delay pot needs a hardware mod to create a larger effective adjustment range.

All of my testing has been through Retrotink -> AV.io HDMI capture device and OBS / VLC.

February 22

56 minutes ago, Krenath said:

YES. ABSOLUTELY.

I have been trying to steer the topic back to this subject since the beginning.

Yes. It's all about the artifacts phase.

Yes, that's what I want to modify ON A HARDWARE LEVEL IF I HAVE TO.

And I'm QUITE sure I will have to.

I have been aware of this from the start.

This side trip into hue/tint adjustments has only served to muddy the purple waters.

Even if I dug up an old CRT that perfectly rendered LucasArts' splash screen in brown and gold and Star Raiders' shields in gray-blue and Band $01 in Colormap the precise shade of yellow-gold, the SCCC/UAV artifacts would still be XL-style purple/green and not XE-style red/blue nor the desired 800-style blue/green.

Any machine the SCCC or UAV is installed in will currently be forced to display XL artifact colors, but the delay can be adjusted until it gets close to XE-style artifacts.
The delay pot (not hue, not tint, not color pot) currently cannot be adjusted far enough in either direction to create 800-style artifacts, and THAT is what I want to change.

This is a hardware issue that will only be solved by a hardware mod to the CPU card. Which I am trying to get to.

So wait, which is the delay pot vs the color pot?

Also side note, was using the ATR disassembler to see if I could find anything about swapping colors on U3 like U4 has. Just for fun, found this.

February 22

3 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

It breaks some and fixes others... all in all it's a wash.... using the inversion pot combo get you in the neighborhoods....

if you fix it to 800 colors then jingle disk is wrong if you fix it for flight sim then ultima is wrong... and around and around you will go... so the only other step possible (which discussion surrounded) would be to provide for all 4 artifact possibilities plus inversion... this was opening up a can of worm as most people couldn't get through the choices provided... someone would scream about having to put a switch on or opening it to change it and this and that.

I personally like the idea of switching through them all... so who wants to shoe horn this out of the uav or make the UAV 2/SCCC 2... but don't forget that the whole of it needs to be checked for NTSC as well as PAL.... good luck, I can't wait to see what you make!

Ha, yeah maybe have a key you could hold down on power up for it to load a different palette... not sure what would be easier, patch the games for different colors, or create something that can do it in hardware. Seems to me it depends on when the game was made, to which system displays the correct color. It is sort of madenning. Does any other system suffer from this?

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