oky2000

Yep, that's because the joysticks are wired to the same CIA registers as the keyboard. If you had to read joystick inputs along with a lot of keystrokes (e.g. for a complex flight sim or something alike) you would first have to read the joystick without reading the keyboard simultaneously and check if some of it's switches are closed and thereby could cause interference with some of the keys you want to test, and then skip the scanning of any interfering keys depending on the joystick readout. Or, for a less complex control setup, just use some of the 24 keys that never interfere with joystick inputs This is not true, there are three different addresses to read for 1. Keyboard presses. 2. Joystick 1 activity 3. Joystick 2 activity. Yes if you have a joystick in port 1 you can make the number 2, a "<=" and [sPACE] characters on the screen BUT if you are reading the correct registers with the PEEK command they are totally different so that is a misleading post. There are two registers: $DC00, DC01. The paddle controls and joystick are overloaded on the keyboard matrix reading. I know from my early Basic coding that checking for key presses for writing your own synthesizer using the qwerty keyboard has it's own peek address for all keypresses that you can use and this address has nothing to do with checking the joystick ports 1 and 2 so it is a third address for checking ANY keypress edit: In fact I remember this because I had to write a complex algorithm at the age of 12 to convert those keypress values into something useful to play musical notes on the SID for each keypress as the number range was eratic and in some strange spiral pattern.

Hmmm... I'm not sure if I'm reading you right, but interlaced images on the c64 aren't interlaced in the traditional PAL/NTSC sense. They're usually two separate MC images, offset horizontally by one hires pixel. Also, because the image outputted from the Atari/c64/NES etc isn't interlaced, the two alternating fields are positioned directly on top of each other and so effectively function as two separate non-interlaced frames, which means they can display true 50/60 fps movement (depending on whether it's PAL or NTSC). What I'm getting at is that it's incorrect to say you are just making use of what the TV is wasting every other scanline. In fact you are literally animating between two discrete frames at 50/60 fps, which means you are going to get a certain amount of flicker, depending on the degree of difference between the two images/frames. Interestingly enough, Rybags from this very forum was exploring a method to get a true interlaced image from the Atari. See here. It's pretty cool. The interlace thing, I was merely trying to explain as best I could from a TV engineers perspective. I can't really vouch for NTSC in detail but PAL or Phase Alternating Line as its name suggests can not display the full resolution of 728x576 without displaying the image as two discreet alternating lines of 576/2 @ 50hz. So essentially the even and odd scan line pixel on the C64 will always be the same as they encompass 2x2 actual screen pixels on the TV/Monitor screen. So to not do anything to modify the image between each field refresh (not frame) is a waste as the display is just showing two identical fields in succession otherwise to build up the full PAL resolution @ 25hz. So the TV/Monitors of the time (and Amiga/ST days too) are always displaying an interlaced image, it just happens to be the same two identical images for each field on a C64 or Amiga/ST in low res, and no the C64 doesn't generate and interlace signal in the true sense, only the Amiga does that, which is why hi-res flickers so much, it is unnatural looking to have alternating white and blue pixels from a digital RGB source unlike a TV analogue RF picture fed from a channel broadcast....although weather maps always flicker on TV programs if you look same as the Amiga's hi-res. I did see those interlace examples and they are cool as are most tricks to beef up static images I am not knocking what is possible with static images using all the CPU and custom hardware to make the best possible images on a screen, it's all a lot like when Newtek took the Amiga's HAM mode and improved it using the copper to maximum effect to pretty much eliminate the 'HAM fringing' by changing the 16 HAM base colours every scanline and thereby making images on screen possible that VGA PC owners could only dream of. But these weren't really good for games. Ditto ST and Spectrum 512 and Quantum Paint.

Of course it does. You're a rabidly biased Commodore user in an Atari forum. Let's begin with that. What the hell are you doing here? What is your purpose for being here? It is to antagonize others and flame war. EVERYBODY knows it. Once again, YOU ARE IN AN ATARI FORUM. There is, simply stated, SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU for coming here to do that. Well, yeah - this is ATARI AGE. There's something wrong with you for being here. I will say it again and again. Actually, I ordered (and paid!) for a 1541 Ultimate and I am getting a Commdore 64. I appreciate both. I still wear the Atari glasses when I am at Atari Age. When I'm at Lemon64, I take them off. I should be expected to. Otherwise I'd appear just as big of idiot as you do here. There's something wrong with you for being here. No YOU are being a bit of a dick then and a stupid one at that really. Just because you are on a machine specific forum doesn't mean you should substitute blind loyalty for INTELLIGENCE you know What a stupid argument, the brand of the machine the forum is dedicated to should dictate your decisions and thinking...really? How stupid. If I am shown an impressive bit of coding on ANY machine then that's good enough for me. If I am getting theoretical responses with no practical results to insist something must be better [ignoring all the fanboy idiocy too] then that is just a sign of low intelligence and you only make yourselves look bad. I have openly stated which games are better on the A8 at Lemon and given the exact reasons why that should be because I have a brain not a brand loyalty sticker in my head. I suggest if people did this regardless of where they post a lot less insults and a lot more code that is impressive on both sides would get noticed As I stated I own every console and computer from the early 70s to today that is compatible with PAL systems and I can appreciate them all for what they do, but that doesn't mean I am a fan boy, for the record the C128 was an absolute waste of onboard components...A 2mhz CPU that is locked to 1mhz with an identical VIC-2 chip as the C64, a Z80 co-processor that can never be used with the 6510/8502 8 bit cpu together, identical CLUT tables, identical sound, a 64k VDC chip that is crippled by the design to only be accessible on an exotic RGB-I signal blah blah. None of this changes the fact though that not only has not one piece of game coding as impressive as Enforcer II been shown nor one single waveform, ie not sample playback, sound as impressive as an electric guitar sound on SID been posted in response. Just wave after wave of fanboy noise which sadly makes those posters look neanderthal in intelligence levels. As I said it's ALL a compromise, there are machines with more on screen colours for a given resolution than the C64 out there, there are machines with even Yamaha DX7 style sound chips available, machines with more sprites....but the simple fact is at least that for you standard early 80s type 2D arcade games the C64 is the best compromise. No need to bitch and moan about it and defend it with the utterly stupid response of 'I am on an Atari forum so therefore the Atari MUST be the best even if it makes me look like a dick' More astonishing examples of game graphics and sound videos and less bitching please!!

Yep, that's because the joysticks are wired to the same CIA registers as the keyboard. If you had to read joystick inputs along with a lot of keystrokes (e.g. for a complex flight sim or something alike) you would first have to read the joystick without reading the keyboard simultaneously and check if some of it's switches are closed and thereby could cause interference with some of the keys you want to test, and then skip the scanning of any interfering keys depending on the joystick readout. Or, for a less complex control setup, just use some of the 24 keys that never interfere with joystick inputs This is not true, there are three different addresses to read for 1. Keyboard presses. 2. Joystick 1 activity 3. Joystick 2 activity. Yes if you have a joystick in port 1 you can make the number 2, a "<=" and [sPACE] characters on the screen BUT if you are reading the correct registers with the PEEK command they are totally different so that is a misleading post.

There is a lot of talk of disk drives and DOS on the C64 but ho hum not one Commodore user has mentioned the technological marvel that was the Commodore SFD 1001 drive which you could purchase from Commodore dealers with a C64 interface board. And just in case nobody believes it was released, this 1mb (yes 1024kb!) capable 5 1/4" disk drive with lightning speed is on ebay, in the flesh, for real here. AMY was an awesome chip I agree, I think from memory it was a wavetable based soundchip so something like what is in the Super Nintendo (SNES) console yes? I'm sure it was part of the Rainbow chipset etc for the 68000k super workstations though not meant for the 8bit line (which Atari could never get to work with the XE range so the XEM was canned as all the research staff from AMY were let go during the acquisition of Atari) Eventually AMY was sold to a 3rd party which never did anything with it either as far as I know. Everyone knows the DOS on the PET is more than up to the job, but to keep the licencing costs down that version of Basic from the PET was not used on the C64 hence why some people find the commands limiting/strange for DOS because it was only Basic version 2.

Few "ugly" c64 image with his "ugly" palette. Finally... i think i like what is ugly! It's this kind of "self lying". "120" colours do not suite the C64's original graphics. They put interlace in it, add some "probably PAL artefacts" , then press it through a graphics tool that is calculating it to one "fixed" image. Suggesting people more than the original really is. Not true at all, and no different to the tricks used on the A8 just to try and get 4 colours per 4x8 pixel block @ 160x200 or try and make up for the lower technology player+missile Vs Sprites on the C64 etc using zero extra CPU time. We get the odd bit of flicker you get either scanlines or pixels the size of dinner plates Anyway you can download a program that just takes a 320x200 bmp/jpeg and runs many different options on it to create pictures in different modes...just like Ham+ and Dynamic Hires by Newtek in Digiview on the Amiga improved the existing screen/colour resolutions per scan line it's nothing new at all. There is no PAL artefacting, it is simple interlacing...and on a 320x200 image on a TV it will only display at 30/25FPS anyway because ALL TVs use interlace to display a picture and do 60/50 FIELDS not frames per second. Each field is identical usually on 320x200 rez so you are just making use of what the TV is wasting every other scanline. One program creates an actual executable .PRG you can run on a real C64 or a 100% accurate emulator to display them so I know they look great even on a real C64 on a real TV. Here is a simple picture I really like of real life subjects And the C64 Hires FLi program I was talking about is called Mixcol Hi Fli (Windows only) and it outputs a standard C64 executable you can load up. These modes mean little on either system as you can't write an arcade game with them. As I said I am yet to see anything as impressive or colourful as Enforcer II level 2 or Mayhem in Monsterland or the electric guitar sound using SID waveforms on the game Wizball. The 6510/6502 has very little bearing on the speed of either machine, it is specific differences between the DMA/IRQ blah blah and VIC-II versus Antic GTIA combo. As for overscan Crest have written a demo with 50 pixel wide unexpanded sprites (so 100 pixels each in x-expand mode) AND have managed to get 9 sprites on the same scan line. All in the border....which is plenty enough for overscan images in the borders. Most games use sprites in the border too, it's a waste not to do that as the VIC-II is otherwise just wasting sprites/scanline if you don't there is no serious hit to the CPU. Demo is called Krestage III (PS the C64 already has 2 hard disk interfaces using laptop IDE hard drives despite what somebody claimed before as it being an SIO only thing)

As I said in the other Jag thread, if you get past what some of the games look like and just take a note of what they are doing and how fast you can use a bit of lateral thinking to apply them to arcade games of the time. Riding Hero on Neo Geo Massive difference in the size speed and number of sprites being scaled on screen between the two, and you can easily see that an arcade perfect port of things like Power Drift or Turbo Outrun or Afterburner is quite possible on the Jag for sure, in fact they would look damned similar to the Sega Saturn ports of their old arcade sprite scaling games I'm sure. You could pretty much do Mortal Kombat/Super Street Fighter II as well, the issue is work ram for frames of players etc probably not the speed of the hardware to display them. The Neo Geo is pretty much like an Amiga with a 4mhz Z80 and hardware sprites (which the Amiga hasn't got any worth mentioning, they're pretty crap trust me). Doom on Neo Geo at best would look something like Amiga Doom on a stock Amiga A1200 but with less colours (which is worse than the 32x version). The NG had some great games though, Viewpoint was a lovely game and the controllers were pure class for it The Jag was competing with the CD32 (haha) 32X+Mega-CD and 3DO. Need for Speed on the 3DO is quite damned impressive as is Doom too. Going back to the SNES well duh! It has a 2.68mhz 65816 8/16bit CPU and that's it. Even the SuperFX 2 chip (which is a really good chip produced for Nintendo by the guys who did Starglider haha) is pretty crippled as it basically renders stuff in a buffer in the cartridge and then transfers this image down to the SNES via the cartridge port for the SNES to display via the hardware like a slide show! The Saturn needed the RAM cart simply because it has limited on board RAM and it was a CD based system. (I think it was 128kb not sure) anywayyyyyyyy the Saturn was an absolutely awesome sprite scaling machine second to none that's for sure but I digress. I don't rate Tempest, it looks too much like well...Tempest from the early 80s jazzed up a bit...not very 64bit looking. Also Rayman isn't really doing much on screen for me so it's not that amazing to look at for what the machine is capable of. I would love to see an optimised version of World Tour Racing though, another 5FPS and it would be a pretty much there and not really much worse than the few Saturn/N64 Formula 1 racing games released.

Most N64 games were 320x200 (320x256 PAL but most conversions just showed a letterbox type image for the extra 56 pixels) so it's just a matter of how you create your 3D models and render them surely. Pixel/2D games though well...that's a problem to support two image aspects unless there is a native 16:9 resolution on the Jaguar. I appreciate all this pain because I wanted to do a widescreen version of Gauntlet on a machine that had no native 16:9 resolutions at all just pure 4:3. No way to easily support both without doing all the graphics twice if it's a bitmapped graphic game.

What a load of blind deaf and dumb trolling rubbish. C64s have 16mb memory/32bit CPU upgrades something nobody has ever managed for any Atari. C64s have SID2SID stereo mods and players BUT also with the ability to drive one using the output of the other same as a real synth. C64s have 512mb memory expansions. C64s have full on analogue synthesizer bass station modifications like Prophet64/MSSSIAH that are used by many professional composers C64s have about 4 or 5 IDE or MMC/SD card loaders that emulate the original disk drive and do more just like the SIO ones. AND I have yet to be even shown a SINGLE VIDEO CLIP of a piece of code more complex and elegant than the Enforcer II level 2 demo or electric guitar sound achieved without sampling demos I posted and yet the debate still rages which hardware is better PS I just wanted to add on a side note, I actually picked up a Sony Betamax player a few years ago (ok 10!!) and recorded a few things from cable TV and the difference I can assure you was NOT 4$ At the time I owned a Panasonic top end VHS player that was regularly awarded the most praise in A/V publications and the comparison was amazing. The grain/noise was noticeably less on Beta The picture detail level was higher on Beta The colour resolution was a lot better and more stable on strong colours. The freeze frames and slow motion on the Sony Betamax were almost digital in quality. The sound quality was noticeably better (this is HiFi/Stereo sound track I am talking about on both with Dolby B & C on the Sony Beta) It was very easy to see the difference between the two as looking at the logos for various channels like the Sci-Fi channel were instantly a lot sharper. VHS won simply because both machines and movies were available for RENTAL on VHS not Betamax. Technical specs on paper are meaningless unless you actually used two top of the range machines of both formats and compared them side to side. The difference sure as hell isn't 4% just like a 2megapixel digital camera with a Carl Zeis lense will out do a generic wallmart 4megapixel camera every time. The results always speak for themselves. Also EVERY video machine be it beta or VHS could both playback and record via direct phono inputs for sound and video which is worth bearing in mind and the only way to really compare machines

Gorf, Gyrus, Time Pilot, Defender, Galaxians there were quite a few, some even by Atarisoft themselves. Some were quite good, they are very different machines though. There is a really good unbiased review of 5 pages long comparing the machines and their games directly with screenshots out there still I think. I liked both systems, I don't have a 5200 as I am not in the habit of buying ultra expensive NTSC only consoles and paying $100s in shipping, but let's face it the 5200 is an Atari 8bit so I have those and that's me sorted anyway so not too much need (PS the Coleco weighs next to nothing but its power supply could be used as a deadly weapon if there are no rocks conveniently to hand haha)

... whereas you should have said that it was intended as irony Behind the scene some wonder why it seems to be a common attitude of C-64 fans to come to other fora and attempt to initiate flamewars (aka "debate that C-64 is better than your computer", as it could be put more exactly). I haven't done any research on that, but it seems so to me also; mainly because some time ago (2-3 years) I was browsing various fora and usenet groups for 8-bit computers, and what I have seen: in ZX Spectrum group there was a flamewar between locals and such incoming C-64 fans, in the Amstrad group there was a flamewar between locals and such incoming C-64 fans,... also on PL atari newsgroup there was a flamewar between locals and incoming C-64 fans etc. What happens here repeatedly, we all know. I haven't seen a flamewar between Amstrad fans and ZX fans on ZX group. So, I missed this, or it is really so that C-64 guys like to "debate" so much? What a load of poppy cock, here we have bias, in the ST section we have bias, on both the Amiga only groups I am a member we have bias, and on the C64 forum we have bias. Are you stating that people join just to make trouble? Amstrad owners are few and far between, we don't see VIC-20 owners joining in with Spectrum owners to debate things either, doesn't mean that there aren't VIC-20 owners who believe they have a better sound chip or keyboard or multicolour mode blah blah As for the previous comment about standard hardware, well a 320K XE wasn't possible in 1985 nor was a 320k Atari 800 in 1980 either because some of the components certainly weren't around when Jay Miner deigned it SO IT IS VERY RELEVANT Also I don't see anybody using a stock Atari 800 as a webserver today either hmmm and yet such a task is undertaken by a C64 with no modifications hmmmm funny that. The simple fact of the matter is that apart from the fact that a time machine doesn't exist to take back a copy of Enforcer II and run it on a real prototype C64 on display in 1982 there is no reason this game could not have been written and sold as a launch title for the machine. So it is VERY relevant to the whole issue. The C64 only has one game that requires any kind of extra add-on (Metal Dust) and it is not even as stunning to look at as Enforcer II except for some streamed music samples most people would agree. For the record two of Jack's great successes (PET & C64) were designed by people not directly in his employment, the Commodore Amiga was the only success for Commodore after Jack left. There is a pattern there if anyone cares to look. The simple fact was Jack did the best he could with what he had available, and the budget left over for the task of rebuilding Atari. If the STE was launched at the time of the ST as it should have been things would have been a lot more bloody in the Commodore boardroom haha. I have much respect for Jack, it doesn't matter which company he was in charge of, he always did the best he could with the tools he had available I believe. Atari died a slow horrible death only because Commodore bought the Amiga as he was trying to bankrupt them and get the technology for a lot less, a gamble too far but probably not by choice as if he had the money to give them $1m I'm sure he would have done that. (and I am a member here because I own many VCS, XL,XE,Lynx.ST,7800 as well as every other 8bit computer ever made that outputs a PAL signal NOT to defend anything. If people can't work out what is and isn't impossible to do on multiple machines when evidence exists for one and only horseshit is shown for another that's not my problem really)

Yeps a real failure on the main market. With 18 million sold units... And with C128 selling another 4 million. May I mention that the entire A8 line sold just about 4 million too? Vic 20 a mostly non starter, Not C64, what can I say, the public often is not too bright. Sorry I don't know commonsore terminology. To me a vic means vic20. Your original statement was that the VIC was an utter market failure in the US. Sorry, but you got that wrong. VIC20 was the first computer to ever sell 1 million units. It was absolutely not a technical breakthrough, but more people could afford it than Ataris. If I remember right from the C= Book "on the Edge" VIC20 was originally a few weeks own hobby project of Bob Yannes ( SID designer). He just wanted to build a computer around the already existing but unused VIC-I gfx chip for fun. But when he showed it to one of his bosses, the machine got eventually made it to be seen by Jack Tramiel who instantly ordered it to be manufactured Sorry, you are wrong, it never got market penetration and most who bought it found they could not do anything much with it and there was little to no software and what little there was was very hard to find as nobody carried it. With Atari you could go lots of places like Sears,Service Merchandise, Burdines,Lazarus and most major retailers. Also I still hate SID sounds, really grates on my nerves. Sorry, you are wrong. The first computer to ever sell 1 million units had market penetration, and is/was a market success. Total flop and wholly unsupported at the consumer level unlike Atari. I know a few people back in the day that bought one as it was cheap. They however did nothing with it and could not find software for it. Yeah.. that a real success VIC20 was the first computer to ever sell 1 million units. It was a huge market success. Say it all you like. Still wrong. Here in the US. (main computer market) it was a flop. Success generally means that people dev for it and it's available easily to the public. It was not. Kind like the Virtual Boy, sold a bunch, no software, flop. Actually I think Virtual boy did better Most of those machine sold here were never used. It was a novelty based on price.It was the cheapest machine around and people bought it. People wanted to be part of the emerging "computer age". Not understanding anything about machines they chose the cheapest one. Besides the machine sucked. Give me an Atari 400/800 anyday.Heck at that time a 2600 was a much better choice. Consumers at the time were buying machine for games mostly. Commodore had no great license games and really nothing to offer even if you could find software for it. It's only thing was that it was cheap. Made a great doorstop,closet liner, landfill filler, take your pick. We had neighbors who had one setup on the coffee table. They showed it off. When asked what it did they turned it on and we all looked at it. I asked what they could do with it and the answer was that they had no idea. They never did. What most people, even Commodore fanatics, don't know is the VIC-20 was merely a stalling tactic specifically created to throw off the Japanese companies from creating anything that would threaten Commodore's plans. Jack Tramiel was absolutely convinced the Japanese were his biggest threat to ruining his plans for home computer market domination so the plan was... 1. Create something quite good for a low price that the Japanese will dissect for 6-12 months to work out how it works and how much it costs in order to gauge the competition. 2. Whilst the competition is busy looking at the diversionary tactic that was the VIC-20 Commodore complete the more advanced successor to this machine. So there you have it, there was nothing wrong with the VIC-20, it was NEVER meant to be taken seriously just simply a sacrificial lamb that laid its life down for the C64. By the time the Japanese (and Atari and Apple etc) worked out the VIC-20 the C64 was pretty much finished, so it served its purpose, the factories were eventually needed to produce the C64 not the VIC-20 once capacity was an issue so it was discontinued. By the time anybody worked out how the C64 was done for the low price AND that unless they owned their own chip designing and manufacturing company like Commodore it was not possible to compete. Why do you think all the components are similar like printers,drives and interfaces, tape decks, ports,casings,keyboards, power supplies.... The rest is history as the C64 is STILL the worlds most popular single type computer ever sold, and this is all documented in books by people who worked on designing the machines or directly worked with Jack on business strategy. Don't bother disputing this fact it is all confirmed by researchers involved in some notable books from the man himself...cunning old Jack (the only man in the world to ever come out on top in any dealings with Microsoft btw) The VIC-20 served its role perfectly, Commodore never expected it to be as successful as it was which is why the original idea of a cheap all in one machine was toyed with....the 264 series. A 16k machine like the Commodore 16 was intended to be launched for $50 by Jack...but he left Commodore before it was finished and then the remaining idiots there beefed it up and ended up with a competitor to their own C64 as well as an overpriced and underpowered Commodore 16 as launched.

That's fantastic, many thanks for the help I'll give that a try tomorrow afternoon

Ahh I have the Automation disks somewhere, got them on a DVD from some guy on ebay a couple of years ago but thanks for letting me know which one it is The noises are because the Atari is alive and has a soul...we don't notice it anymore because we use soulless PCs I haven't had a chance to try to record any just yet but hopefully this weekend, too much stuff to do for work

I was wondering if anybody here knew of a utility to convert an ST disk image (.ST variety specifically) using a program on the PC preferably that can write back the .ST image used by an emulator back to a real 720K 3.5" disk to use on a real Atari machine? I have had a look for a good half an hour or so but all I see is a utility for .MSA files not .ST files. Thanks

Even if it didn't work (but glad it does work now!) the case condition looks really nice and it's a lot harder to find one in that physical condition than just a yellowed one that works so I would have kept it and just bought a very yellow dirty old one to swap the motherboard for a few $ I prefer the keyboards on the 800 and XL to the XE too, much nicer machines.

yucko Care to elaborate? I'm betting neither of you used anything other then the 1.x releases, and they were still much more feature rich then the TOS 1.x, Windows 1.x or any version of Apples system prior to 7. Yes I know this is an Atari board, I'm a fan of the Atari consoles and a big fan of JMs work, but that doesn't mean I can't prefer other computer operating systems that weren't designed to run on Atari hardware Sure the first set of icons were a bit simple looking on 1.x Workbench but they are just .info files for every file you want to show up in the window and every directory and you can make your own anyway it's not like they are in ROM or anything. I think the blue/white thing looks fine to me and the disk full/empty gauge on each disks top level window is a fantastic idea that no other OS bothered to put on there. You couldn't change the ST icons really, exe/folder/datafile/trash that was it all burned into the TOS/GEM roms forever. Looks nice in hires sure but there was no variety or animation on icons just negative/positive image of same monochrome graphics of icon when you select it too. Anyway it multitasks very efficiently, and it ran graphically faster than the ST's clumsy GEM A-Line routines...did you see the colour clash/scroll effect as you scrolled black text on a white background in GEM word processors full screen? Without a software blitter running GEM was pretty poor on the eyes used with serious software because of this weird colour scroll/clash effect

Ignoring the troll like comments (SCPU for C64 makes NO CHANGE to VIC-II or SID graphics which is why it is a waste of money for gamers like I always said and mainly to run a graphical OS like GEOS which makes it like an ST with GEM to use in lo-res with at least 512k ram, using the full screen scrolling feature found in VIC-II you can scroll the entire screen memory from any width to 320....it is in many demos and also used in the game Mayhem I.M but the feature you are talking about is already explained it is the border controls to hide the screen redrawing which is optionally set by a single register., and 128 colour Atari games yeah right what using 1 or 2 colours per line like rasters? You can't make a game with 16 colour graphics per line in 160x200 AND run it as smooth and fast as uridium on C64 dude...if it was possible it would have been done already but all I see is DL colours in background like Attack of the Mutant Camels FAIL) Right back to your post ......In 1986 I drew an arcade perfect version of level one of Nemesis/Gradius in Neochrome on the Atari ST...nobody could make it move like the original arcade game which is the problem you will have and why a STATIC PICTURE means NOTHING unless you can multiplex about 200 player missile graphics in 4 colour mode Just so I don't get accused of trolling I will explain in detail your picture is meaningless even though I posted videos of NOT LEVEL ONE which is what you have drawn a picture of (with about 150 sprites/bullets/scenery objects missing from your scene...maybe like the first 3 seconds of the first level of the C64 game) Just so everyone else reading knows what you are trying to replicate here is a This is a better quality video of the same level. Anyway looking at your piture let's break down the actual engine you are trying to show with a single static picture NOT a piece of code running at super slick 50 frames per second all pixel scroll quality so was a bit of a waste of time for you to do shame. 1. Your asteroids are only 2 colours, on the C64 game they are in Multicolour mode and can be anything upto 2+1 to 12 colours. because they are made up of upto 4x3 multiplexed sprites of 24x21 pixels and each sprite can have 1 unique colour and 2 global multicolour colours assigned so 2+4 = 6 colours. So you will need to produce a player graphic in at least 3 colour and at least 96x84 pixels. 2. You need to put 6 of those asteroids in atleast 3 colours on the screen OVER a Yellow AND white background not just 1 colour as you have drawn. The asteroids are all transparent and mask over the background perfectly so they must be player/missile graphics only no rubbish soft sprites as they are in different colours. 1 & 2 need to be done 50 fps with NO GLITCHES and single pixel resolution movement so no character blocks or rubbish like that. 3. Each asteroid also has additional sprites connecting as they have lines of pipes connecting them, about another 8 on screen minimum so thats another 8 sprite sized graphics you need to add too in 3 colours again. that is just the parallax scrolling background and transparent hmmmm and the top layer with asteroids/rocks going over the starfield can almost cover two thirds of the whole screen...thats way too much PM graphics to be multiplexing, never seen anything like that on an A8 EVER not even the most sophisticated games use that amount of pixel coverage via PM graphics multiplexing 4. Your ship is only 2 colours but is atleast 3 colours on the C64 minimum and dont forget when you upgrade your ship new sprites are overlaid onto it for shields and bigger weapons so even more 3 colour player graphics. Your ship can fire upto 20 bullets and 4 diagonal missiles so that's 20+4 missile graphics you need to multiplex ontop of the asteroids/rocks foreground layer you are already multiplexing so they appear over and above them, easy enough on C64 with sprite/char graphics priority PER INDIVIDUAL SPRITE but you need to do the same and the PM system and Atari screen modes mean you will just have to do it the hard way via PM multiplex or it wont look the same. 5. The enemies are something like a total of 10-15 together on the screen with one missiles each and EACH enemy is too large for a missile graphic so that's 10-15 players multiplexed and upto 10-15 missile graphics multiplexed so 30 MORE objects for you to multiplex. We are almost at well over 200 objects needed to be multiplexed in various combinations of player and missile already and so your picture doesn't even begin to explain the simple level one demo you are trying to copy! So when you have written a demo code to show it properly exactly like the video for me then we can talk about LEVEL TWO which is even technically more impossible for you to do with its THREE PARALLAX OVERLAPING LAYERS thats THREE 320x200 sized screens that have three layers of actions (arranged as follows .... background, foreground, ship+enemy ships+ bullets+obstacles) and all are complete transparent and overlapping and still about 100 free moving objects or sprites on the top layer via sprite multiplexing/sprite priority and char graphics. Drawing pictures is easy but I KNOW enough about the A8 that you picture doesn't prove much sorry mate

Thanks for the suggestions. I will give Saint a try with some of the games I am thinking but I will first have to find Gauntlet 1 on a crack disk or something as disk one is still protected and only STeem loads that format I think. Getting out the real machine and finding the real game is a lot of hassle even though I do have about 400 boxed ST games so I'm not a pirate but my laptop would not be great for a TV capture card I don't think anyway.

Although the SC1224 will look no better for viewing than a good CRT (think Sony Trintron) with a SCART lead to connect it up. However I do have an early SC1224 and it's really nice looking setup with my Mega ST for playing games As for the ST condition is everything but I still think $100 for the whole lot is a little too much probably. Offer $75 if it is in excellent condition, if it looks yellowed at all then just get a nice one off ebay What really annoys me is all the cool stuff you never see on ebay anymore like the AT-Once PC hardware card for the ST they used to sell which I never got to buy or the 16mhz accelerator cards (what I need on Guantlet 1 judging by some testing in STeem emulator haha) hell I still remember that fateful week I was broke in 2002 when a Commodore 65 (not a typo!) sold for £300ish ... I so was going to get that.... the last one seen sold for something like £1200 and it didn't even power up properly!!!

I don't know, in theory it should has you have an extra 3mS between VBLs but in reality there is only so much you can do during a VBL and so the programmer probably wrote their code in such a way that it can do everything it needs to within the time of NTSC VBL. The original poster did not state how much memory their STf had, if it was the stock 512K I don't thinK that was enough as IIRC Frontier really needs 1Meg, I had 2.5Meg in my STfm and AFAIK it run fine on that. I don't know how people can tell what the frame rate is but looking at the screen but I am sure even I would have noticed it slowing to the 2-3 fps as that must have been really jerky. I have turned up an original NTSC copy of Elite in my collection...and I remember I hacked a PAL version to make my own colour pallette for it (you could edit it in Neochrome ) so if I find that hack I made I could try them both and see now which would be interesting.

On some emulators there is a built in function to capture the output as an AVI file with sound which is great for my youtube uploading. Now I was looking for quite a few ST games on youtube and it has less gameplay videos than most of the other machines like C64/Spectrum/Amstrad/Amiga etc. So can anyone tell me a simple way to capture some gameplay footage from an ST emulator like STeem so I can upload more vids for the ST. It's terrible that something as awesome as Starglider or Gauntlet 1 or even TNT(great chiptune!!) isn't up there really.

You know what, if someone did give him a Jag CD unit he would happily review CD games for it. And to be honest there is VLM on the CD unit, and then there are some quite impressive CD games for the time like World Tour Racing and then he might not have such a stick about Cybermorph Vs SuperFX SNES stuff because there is no way you could do that game even on a Falcon I bet. He doesn't really care about the systems, he only cares to show you bad games and he has shown plenty of bad games on various Nintendo machines from NES to Nintendo64 too. PS it's his own place and have you seen his wife? PPS I'm sure that is peanut butter mixed with something haha

More non-factual theorising stated as fact. How do you explain those c64 games that multiplex sprites together to create large enemies without any glitching? Reading through some of these posts, it's clear that the way some of you guys perceive the c64 is actually quite different to reality. ... You have a mentality like Oswald taking things out of context to construct a straw-man argument. You can create large enemies because you only have to update the Y-position/shape ptrs during the raster interrupt, but in the case of image enhancement using a mulitcolored overlay-- you need to update x registers, y registers, and shape ptrs which won't fit in one scan line time. Oswald is a superb demo coder...what have you done on the A8 yourself for the world to see? Because in both of those cases the C64 version was written a year after the machine was released and the Atari version over three years. If two years more experience with a machine hadn't resulted in them getting the sound effects right i'd be worried. ... You are changing the subject. Pacman Atari is better than Pacman C64 (perioed). NO excuses. Remember we're comparing games as one of the topics here. >>With the right software control, POKEY will outflex SID anyday. >That's a different comparison, if it's just SID versus POKEY without the CPU getting involved then the SID is more flexible but if you're wanting to bring the CPU in to help the SID can also gain benefits from that extra push. Yeah, sure CPU can help both sides to some extent, but ultimately hardware support is better in this case as 4 multifrequency DACs cannot be made up for by software. >The C64 has twice the horizontal resolution for smooth scrolling, games like Io or Slayer move at half a multicolour pixel per frame. Biased answer. If you want to talk scrolling hardware, Atari wins-- it can scroll horizontally and vertically on per text line/graphics line basis with pointers. And it's not so bad to set up two buffers to simulate half color clock scrolling. Your scroll hardware basically is just a 3-bit value for horizontal and vertical and rest is upto software. we are NOT comparing games we are comparing the C64 and A8 hardware capabilities. Pac-Man badly written or THE BEST VERSION EVER POSSIBLE is still only 25% of what the C64 could do at best so just because some dickhead at Atarisoft produced some shovelware hmmmm it's funny that Pac-land on the C64 was done by a non Atari company and is almost arcade perfect and yet Atarisoft couldn't even do a 20 not medly on the SID let alone the graphics hmmm ok. Even with Atarisoft, why does the Buggy look like a squashed turd on the A8 Moon Patrol? That must mean from your argument I can no longer look at any other PM graphics on any games ever again because Atari did such a crap job on your own computers hmmmm...see my point? I could code Pac-Man arcade perfect in a week in a specialised version of Basic if I really wanted to It's not rocket science anymore! As for scrolling well the VIC-II can do megadrive style full screen scrolling ie no character writes after 7 pixel smooth scroll..just moves the memory the same like the megadrive or the Amiga. Mayhem in Monsterland is a classic example of this technique in action and it is no less smooth than any other possible hardware screen scrolling system on any 8bit in any country. This thread'll die eventually, it's just a matter of time - but another will rise to take it's place, they always do!! [Muahaha!! cough, akk, splutter] i've waved the idea of a forum hosted elsewhere that is dedicated to these sorts of discussions (and more, Amiga versus ST, SNES versus Megadrive, you get the idea) but nobody seems up for it.... shame really, because it sort of seems like a good idea since every 8-bit board or USENet group could greet similar threads with "you want to be reading this site" and those with more delicate sensibilities/blinkers on could stay away. If you REALLY want this just say so and I will make it so. I have spare PHPbb 2.0 hosting I don't mind contributing at all. If anyone wants to suggest topics for it that's fine with me too, I could have it up and running in days. For some odd reason, C64 people think it's better to just POKE a register and set a graphics mode rather than have a coprocessor let you set various graphics/text modes on a scanline basis and thus save CPU time and memory. They have less CPU time to begin with and they still prefer not having that option. It's that river in Egypt again. I have never said that doing things by CPU alone is better than a dedicated Co-Processor to do it. This is why the Amiga is awesome compared to the ST hands down. IF the A8 had SID and Sprites AND ontop of that had 256 palette and DL too and 1.75mhz CPU and modifiable loading roms for disk/tape that would be fantastic. That is a perfect machine that didn't exist. EVERY 8bit machine was a compromise from the PET to the SAM Coupe/Amstrad 464plus range (first and last 8bit). The C64 was the better compromise, that is why it is STILL the worlds best selling unique computer model ever sold by a long shot. But the CPU is only used for multiplexing sprites, which as TMR correctly states is NOT time critical and the VIC-II will complete 'drawing' of any Sprites on screen so you can issue the multiplex at 4 lines from the top of the sprite position vertically speaking. So that really just leaves removing the borders and raster bar type effects which are hardly going to strain the machine. End of the day both the A8 was a compromise as was the C64. I have seen code that makes me decide 16 col 160x200/1mhz/SID+Sample/VIC-II Sprites+scrolling was a better compromise for games of the 80s. I was hoping to see some more gaming examples to make me go 'oooooh' like when I saw A8 Space Harrier but all I get is talk of manky old Atarisoft games and theories about GTIA/Antic modes etc. PM ok for 1979 but not updated and will never be as powerfull as Sprites on VIC-II, so was no 16 color (NOT hues) 160x200 mode. Pokey is alright but only bias can ever describe 1 less channel (although 4 channel sound is normal on SID 3+Samples) on a true analogue synthesizer on a chip with a more feature rich control set and higher frequency range than Pokey with 4 channels and no filters/ring modulation/synchonisations etc is just mad. Doesn't mean the chip is bad but you have to accept Bob Yannes the inventor of Ensonique synthesizers genius. I recognise Jay Miner's genius in 3 machine despite two of them having Atari logos on the box (hell make that 3 Atari machines if you include the Epyx Handy that became the Lynx which was like a mini Amiga) This is indeed futile I should have left this thread to rot as I will now. Just so you know I not only own a lot of this Atari hardware but actually own some pretty damned rare stereo Pokey games too that I choose NOT to flog on ebay but play myself on one of many machines I own. The reason I didn't get a 65XE as a kid was simple..Atari brought out the ST and I wanted to play with Neochrome and because of many hours doing pixel artwork I now work in web-design most of the time doing pixel art for sites. Some people take it far too passionately, and ultimately I agree this thread will never be resolved by the majority. Shame really as you are all stuck with rubbish Winblows now anyway no Atari and no Commodore!!

load "*",8 return ready run press 'a' insert disk grrrrrrrr....... open 4,4,25:print #4 load "*",8 run hold down c= and run/stop for fast load one more time I am going to have to smack my head against the c64 keyboard real soon now! edit *** did you here that thwak thwak thwak ---------the keyprints are now on my forehead! To autoload a disk insert the disk first (derr) and then Type load"*",8 ONLY then move cursor to the "L" and press shift+runstop Not exactly hard really...... As for arcade games well...that's funny because nobody bought the Falcon really, the ST has no smooth scrolling horizontal games, Uridium 2 on the Amiga is not even as fast and smooth as Uridium on the C64 and well there is no decent Uridium like game on a A8 at all..there was a Uridium rip-off...called Thunder-something...it was terrible, really horrible Green Beret definitely sounds better on the C64 than A8, and looks slightly better and scrolls fine too hmmmm. Ghosts and Goblins is more like the arcade version than the Spectrum/Amstrad/MSX/ST version. There were plenty of excellent conversions on the C64 like that and Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands and Buggy Boy for some different types of gameplay too etc. All slick fast smooth and lovely sounding games of ALL types. If programmers do a bad job don't blame the hardware Even Salamander on C64 was better than the MSX version which had extra custom chips in the $40 cartridge it came on BUT the C64 game was only £12 disk and £9 tape hmmmm smoother and better sound and just as good graphics pretty much. Space Pilot is another fantastic 8 way scrolling Time Pilot clone too again for a few $ on tape. Sure SF2 is impossible to do nice on C64 compared to say Sega Master System but it is impossible on A8/Amstrad/Spectrum/MSX/ST/Amiga to do nicely either so who cares get a SNES for $99 maybe instead (cue death of home computers by Nintendo/Sega)