Trebor

That is so cool! Excellent work!

👍 The first picture does appear to be the C300633 Universal motherboard for PAL, and rj1307 does hail from Poland. It would be crucial to have this tested under at least one NTSC CO25233-001 and one NTSC CO25233-002 motherboard. The experience and compatibility may differ quite greatly.

Correct. 100 carts were made available 6+ years ago:

Question, as specified above, is picking four games (not four cartridges). 😉🙂 However, if going with the notion of four carts (alphabetically): -30th Anniversary (16-in-1) Multi-Cart #1 -30th Anniversary (8-in-1) Multi-Cart #2 -Bob DeCrescenzo Collection! (8-in-1) Multi-Cart -MCP DevCart with POKEY (To play practically any game included and not included in the other three carts). *EDIT: Then again, the most logical four carts to pick that were manufactured, published, and widely distributed to cover as much of the library as possible: Cuttle Cart II, Mateos Multi-Cart, MCP DevCart with POKEY, Rikki & Vikki (There is not a multi-cart that supports it). It's a tough choice to pick only 4 published games that would work best for me as a sell. Reviewing both retail and homebrews, the following would have the most appeal to me, presented alphabetically: Gun-to-head, so to speak, having to pick four, knowing my preferences and overall things I enjoy most, the above four are the ones that won out. Nonetheless, there are a great number of excellent games for the console, especially reflecting on the homebrews released (Just visit the store, you practically can't go wrong), and games in development. It's a fantastic time to be interested in the 7800 with much thanks going to past, present, and future developers.

Duly noted, Giles. One of the things I enjoy about the community is the team effort and spirit, as well as generosity in providing and assisting one another. The result here made what I previously considered a game that I do not need another copy, to an alternate graphics version in which I would be interested in another copy.

👍 Seconded.

Definitely, the Scraps hack. What you did with original version hack looks great too. The updated Louie is awesome. However, the game really 'feels' considerably different with the Dog as the protagonist. Coupled with the possible title screen name change (and placing it in green), it really completes the 'hack', IMHO. Agreed; on both accounts. I wish the original was called Scrapyard Lou (Or Louie) instead. My reasoning is in conjunction with what was mentioned above. Then again, maybe, just add Roman numerals "II" or the number "2" somewhere in the title screen. Maybe "Part 2"/"Part II" (?) My perception is that it needs something different from the original game title name (In addition to the color change). Part of me feels some credit or change to the copyright stamp or date is in order for the work that went into modifying the game. Nonetheless, point understood and of course respected.

Hey James, That's actually "Captain Comic" based on the MS-DOS game from 1988. 😉🙂

The only other item - and this is strictly speaking from the easier said than done section - is changing the title to SCRAPYARD LOU. The "O" is already in place. It seems the "D" can be modified to make an "L", a lot easier than the "G" modified to "U". Though, I'll leave the possibilities up to the experts. Also, (C) 1990 ATARI CORP -> (C) 2020 KEVIN MOS3 (maybe?) "Scrapyard Lou" (In green of course), I'd definitely buy that.

Impressive, as usual, Kevin! IMHO, the green text title should be the definitive 'final' version to make it stand out further from the original. Regardless, excellent work!

Thanks to @Mitch for hosting. Note: "Maps and info courtesy of Mord and John K Harvey." See the attached below. Curious with this hack @KevinMos3, were the three possible newspaper endings (Thanks again to Mitch for hosting) updated too?

For those curious of the sound difference, attached is a brief sample of both TIA and POKEY. There is just one note that really sounds off for the TIA version during the background/main melody. Otherwise, overall it is very good: BEEF DROP TIA.mp3 BEEF DROP POKEY.mp3

👍 Thanks for clarifying for us, Al. It is appreciated.

Per Ken (R.I.P.) - as it was an idea he had a while ago before a TIA version existed: "VE stands for Value Edition or something to that effect as it lacks the Pokey chip making it cheaper. Beef Drop (VE) was coded to detect an XBoard pokey and the XM emulates how the XBoard Pokey works. Technically the only code difference between VE and non-VE is the title screen. Hardware-wise the VE version lacks the onboard pokey chip. All versions of Beef Drop code will look for onboard Pokey (non VE version, ballblazer type cart board) first, and Xboard/XM Pokey second, and falls back to TIA sound third. If there is both an onboard pokey and an Xboard/XM pokey second both will actually be written to but XBoard/XM pokey will be turned off so it doesn't produce sound and only the onboard Pokey will produce sound (assuming the XM works like the XBoard in that respect)." What Mitch stated was (is?) the case from the start and for many years. The V.E. moniker was to make it clear that the hardware inside the cartridge lacks a POKEY. I am pretty certain I've seen recent cartridge purchases pictures posted (Say that three times fast) of Beef Drop that has a POKEY chip (PokeyOne or original) present. When that was the case, the V.E. is missing from the label. I may be mistaken and certainly @Albert could clear up the confusion on how the game is currently distributed and labelled accordingly. As Ken stated, the game programming code, including the way sound is managed, remains the same whether the title screen states VE or not; so for simplicity, it may very well be the "VE" on the title screen is the only one being distributed by AtariAge currently, which of course the cartridge label would follow that as well. There was mention that the POKEY version being sold many years ago were still being numbered even after the initial run sold out. Maybe when the numbering of POKEY versions stopped is when/if the V.E. name became the permanently utilized version. Again, Al would be able to answer for certain.

SUBTARGET not needed. For example, with a command line as follows: make -j5 SEPARATE_BIN=1 PTR64=1 OPTIMIZE=3 SYMBOLS=1 SYMLEVEL=1 STRIP_SYMBOLS=1 REGENIE=1 SOURCES=src/mame/drivers/pacman.cpp,src/mame/drivers/dkong.cpp,src/mame/drivers/galaxian.cpp The above generates a build file named the same as the main executable mame64.exe, just a lot smaller (~40MB vs ~270MB), and only incorporated the games (400) that leverage those drivers. If SUBTARGET=tiny is added, the same build is created with just the executable named differently, tiny64.exe.

Run the game you are interested in creating a 'tiny' build MAME. Press the 'TAB' button and go to "Machine Information". Reference the driver being used and substitute for the neogeo.cpp. For Pac-Man = pacman.cpp. For Donkey Kong = dkong.cpp. For Frogger = galaxian.cpp. To compile multiple drivers, separate each reference with a comma, no space. I.E. SOURCES=src/mame/drivers/pacman.cpp,src/mame/machine/dkong.cpp,src/mame/machine/dkong.cpp

Ha! Knew it... 😉

Jump is definitely not high enough without the platform lifted to pass the spikes. I am with -^CrossBow^- though in thinking there may have been more to it or for activating that switch. So far though, it appears to strictly be for backtracking that one room. Though I did not discern a need to backtrack pass that room (or even to that room)...at least not yet.

Issues "2)" and "3)" are very much linked to each other. As mentioned before, load the ROM then go to Options --> Input. Map the inputs. Automatically "Left" should be automatically set as the first input to map. Click 'Auto-Detect'... ...and move the Trackball left. After the input registers, select 'Right', click 'Auto-detect' and move the trackball right. Follow the same pattern for Up, Down, and button mappings. Every time that ROM is loaded, it will follow the configuration scheme that was configured for it. I just performed the mapping with kat5200 0.8.1 with my mouse and it worked perfectly. Again, go back to Pac-Man and it's controller scheme is in place. Load up Gorf, and it's controller scheme automatically loaded. Went back to Missile Command and the mouse now functions for it. The key with the mappings is setting up a "Default" configuration for the majority of games in which this will be checked off: For the games that fall outside of the Default, uncheck the above 'Use as Default' and map/configure the differences. I use Altirra most of the time for my Atari 8-bit/5200 fix; but long before it, kat5200 was my go to emulator for the 5200. I always have a soft spot for it. It's a great emulator.

AFAIK, there is not a command line to call individual controller profiles. All configuration data is stored in the kat5200.db3 file. For each ROM loaded where there is a desired exception to the default controller scheme that has been configured, go back to 'Options --> Input' and map the way you want controls mapped for that particular ROM. Utilizing Gorf as an example, everything is mapped the same as for Pac-Man, except "Simulate Analog" is checked off. There is no need to specify any command line switch for it, the controller configuration difference is stored in the same kat5200.db3 file. When the respective ROM is loaded the controls update according to what was configured for it. For some reason, it you wish or have created another kat5200.db3 configuration file, the command line to specify it is '-config' See here for all the command line switch options.

Try this ROM: Bounty Bob Strikes Back (Merged) (Big Five Software) (U).bin This command line: Works fine:

Freudian slip, eh? So, this guy... is related too?!? 😲😉

Considering some resemblance and what they both like to do under Atari systems, I've come to the following conclusion: This guy... is an ancestor of this guy... You heard it here first! 😁

http://www.penguinet.net/Games/Rikki_Vikki/Purchase/index.php#Atari_7800 You'll see this towards the top of the screen:

My bad...the screens posted are from the MCP DevCart running the Utility cart ROM. I misunderstood the request in wanting the test ran from the Concerto cart (Which unfortunately I currently do not possess one). Well, data is there if it useful for anything...sorry for the misunderstanding.