hardhat

Ha ha! In honour of AdamCon this weekend, I have a second batch of Flora and the Ghost Mirror CIB now available. For a video and pictures of the product, check out: http://www.adamcon.org/cartridge.html You can even order it from there via Pay Pal. Dale

I found a good Flash based one and I've been evaluating a few HTML5 based ones. Somehow I never managed to switch over so far though. I may end up with an IRC based one. That might make sense to me. We shall see I guess.

I think the sparkfun one looks better. But I'm not clear on what size it is relative to the other things you've drawn. The other two buttons have their uses I suppose. On PSP, PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4 games for example they seem to get good use. But I guess those controllers don't have the numeric keypad. IDK. But maybe having those other two buttons as shoulder buttons could be interesting too.

Just my luck, and I was thinking of doing a Smurf Kombat game, where you can one on one battle it out for the ultimate "Finish Him" game play. Well on Dracula I've been waiting for the right opportunity to work with Luc on the sprites, and also I'm not yet happy with the gameplay. I'm sure with the right inspiration it will be a great game. I showed Luc my interpretation of Sword and the Sorcerer (I have a game design based on the prototype). A movie I really loved back when I was 12. Cheesy or not. I've been experimenting with a possible game engine for skiing based on first person perspective. I did some tech tests in September, but I wasn't yet fully satisfied. Perhaps it is a SGM/Adam only title. That would make it a lot easier to do. Else has kind of disappeared, and really I'd want a horse racing game that is true to the Intellivision game that the catalog description is clearly based on. Mr. Turtle really intrigues me. It has a strong potential to be like the PS2 Finding Nemo or the PC based Shark's Tale games that my son used to really like. Those are really sexy Super Turbo screenies, but I don't see how that could be sustainable fully animated. But maybe. But like my Mist Maid 4k game, I'm into it potentially. But I'd cruelly require the driving wheel expansion module I guess. Meanwhile I need to finish Super Action Bowling and Reckless Wizard. But I can dream right?

And for making graphics, check out NewColeco's indispensable tools like ICVGM or CV Toolkit. I find they make my way more productive than I ever was before they came out.

We're not worried. Just thinking aloud I guess.

That power supply and a volt meter should be enough to get you going. Usually +5 is red, and ground is black. On the Adam side, either use a printer cable you already have or just a brand new DB9 will do the trick. Here is the Adam side information from the Adam Technical Manual: Printer/Memory Console Interface Cable The printer/console interface cable consists of 7 insulated wires and one uninsulated drain wire. Pin Color Voltage/Description 1 Brown +12L VDC + 0.508 V - 0.6 V 2 Red +12I VDC + 0.497 V - 0.6 V 3 Orange +5.075 VDC + 0.079 V - 0.255 V 4 Yellow -5.15 VDC + 0.25 V 5 Green Ground 6 Blue AdamNet 7 Violet Reset 8 -- Drain 9 -- No wire Power Supply Output to CPU (via Printer/Memory Console Interface Cable) Voltage Full Load Current +5V 2.75 A -5V 0.2 A +12VI 0.6 A +12VL 0.3 A

Very nice -- looks like a fun play. It doesn't look like death is implemented yet? I'm hoping you'll make that status bar across the top have icons for the various stats to make it easier to take in with a glance.

Well, when I was 10, skill level 1 was plenty challenging for me. But on favorite games I'd learn the skill level 2 through 4. Yes there are game elements that are missing or less deadly on lower skill levels. Now, I am more skilled as a player and I usually pick 3 or 4 for serious progress.

One thing that many people don't know about on BlueMSX is the symbol table loading, which I find really helpful. I don't use tasm, so it'll be up to you to create a symbol table in the appropriate format. But when you load up the symbols everything is so much clearer I find.

Hi, I have made the changes in NewColeco's dev kit, but it is up to him when he publishes it next. In the mean time, I've attached the new start up code (crtcv.s) for lib4k. I will be using lib4ksa on my next project, but the changes are similar to the start up code. I will post them on request. For the moment I haven't tested them so I'll save that for a later post. To build from source, you put that in the lib4k directory, you can run build.bat (or on Mac/Linux build.sh) to make a new crtcv.rel file. Then put that rel file in your project directory to use with CCI3 as appropriate. But the best way might be to just take the two files in the attached zip (the crtcv.rel and the cvlib.lib) and put them in the project directory with CCI3. crtcv.s lib4k-sdcc3_3.zip

Hard to tell. He hinted to me that he'd like to release an enhanced gameplay version. That sounds like sequel country to me.

Well an inexpensive way to start might be to use grips03's PCB to start with. I'm not sure if he has space in the next batch but maybe check out his thread: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/220366-any-interest-in-a-colecovision-arcade-controller-pcb-for-diy-builds/

There is a pretty detailed explanation in the original spec document: http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~sedwards/papers/TMS9918.pdf

Well I haven't had any trouble with my homebrew games or SD cart. But I bought two games at a local store last week and they look grimy, dusty and have signs of spider webs and neither read. So cleaning would probably go a long way. The contacts look like they are perhaps copper. Anyway I'll try some non-intrusive methods I suppose then I'll ask them to clean them since they are guaranteed to work for 60 days.

Some good advice in that thread. I have some isopropyl alcohol spray that I'll try next.

Sprites can be layered if you're careful. But you can layer 2 or 3 or 4 sprites at a time. There is a rule that you can have at most 4 visible sprites on each scanline. In graphic mode 2, each 8x8 tile can have at most 2 colours per horizontal line. But every tile is independent of all of the other tiles. In mode 2, you can have a different char set for each 1/3 of the screen, so that means you can do pixel art that has a bitmap 256x192, if you want.

So I bought two games from a local store this week (Omega Race and Star Trek) and they looked a little grungy inside. But the store gave me a 60 day defective guarantee, so I bought them anyway. I get them home and they don't work. So I'm looking for advice. I know I don't want to pull off the labels. But maybe applying something on the exposed contacts to clean them off would work? I seem to recall NIAD mentioning something about 90% rubbing alcohol perhaps. Or maybe an Adam newsletter suggested a pencil eraser. What works for you?

ICVGM requires the visual basic 5 runtime environment. I believe it is available at Microsoft at: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/180071 And it is a tool worth using for sure. Sometimes limits can make you excessively distracted, but sometimes they can be exploited to make great art.

Ah. Maybe that's why I couldn't get MSX-emu to do ColecoVision. Thanks for that.

payment sent.

Or audio or video questions may be possible?

I've converted a few PC ATX power supplies. You'd think I would have documented what I did. Maybe I can take some pictures of one I did, and that'd get you started.

Well joystick buttons 1 and 2 are independent. So it is 3 and 4 that can't be used together. That means that 3 and 4 should be opposite on a d-pad if you want to make them into a d-pad. But since most games use F1 and F2 in the cluster, they are probably well positioned.

Yeah, I was thinking about MouseTrap myself. You need to operate the doors with 1, 2 and 3. And change into a dog with 5. So that game is an important one to support when thinking about a new design for a joystick.