Trebor

Have an A3 Serial with some red: Looks like a stray FC thrown in there from the DF00 capture...

Will love to have one for the $99. Two consoles all green (A1 Serial on left | AT84 Serial on right)...Any other tests you want ran just ask - more than happy to help:

Love the polish work regarding the cosmetic changes. Those 'small' platforms especially look better than ever and have such beautiful detail. The additional wall and 'floor' enhancements look excellent as well. 'Springboards' also received a very nice upgrade. The new boss looks really good, but honestly found myself a tad bit disappointed it was relatively easy to conqueror; especially, following that awesome octopus challenge. Trying not to give too much away here; however, perhaps the 'pitch and delivery' could be sped up a bit or/and be more frequent (?) A couple of minor things to report...something new and something old... "New" issue ROOM 60: When re-entering from the top right, if you die (Hit the flame in the center), Knight Guy reappears in the middle of the stone slab at the bottom left. He does automatically slide through it though, so he's not stuck: "Old" issue ROOM 45: When jumping over the treasure chest to the left, Knight Guy can walk through it to the right. Behavior of when a treasure chest is present in other rooms is either Knight Guy can't jump over to the other side of it, as if there is an invisible wall present. Or, if Knight Guy can jump over it, he would need to jump over it again similarly to pass it; Knight Guy cannot walk through it: Suggestion: Death Penalty...Player looses a life +2 minutes to total time. Motivation to acquire more lives...For every life remaining when the game is beaten -1 minute to total time.

So, kiwilove's opinion of the 7800 hasn't changed in 3 weeks. Evidently, his style hasn't changed either. It's his modus operandi.

Just a couple of very minor items: ROOM 20 Knight Guy's head goes through the column top - though I kinda like how the helmet looks that way: When re-entering a previously defeated 'boss room' (11, 25, 38) from the right side, Knight Guy is placed much further over to the left, than when entering any other room from the right side:

https://books.google.com/books?id=-8YlaRclj2gC&pg=PA137&lpg=PA137#v=onepage&q&f=false Unfortunately, for the three Nintendo titles under the 7800, they were handled as cheaply and quickly as possible by ITDC, which leveraged low-cost Chinese programmers. If Sculptured Software would have developed the Nintendo titles, one can only imagine the quality of the 7800 Commando port that could have been applied towards those games instead, BITD. Thankfully, we have Donkey Kong PK/XM though.

Try renaming the file. Instead of: sounds.bas.a78 Try: sounds.a78

When it crashes to desktop, is there an error message? If so, what is it? It may be best to start with a clean/new install of A7800, including the optional files provided earlier, and see if the results are the same.

There is typically going to be some variance among some displays for colors. It's not necessarily hue related either. Saturation, brightness, and contrast can all play a significant role on how colors are perceived and demonstrated. Those all look very good to me, Greg; especially the 7800 pics. The 2600 ones look a bit duller. Although, how and what conditions the captures were under make a difference as well. Look at the three Donkey Kong example above. Same console and display, but the angle, lighting, and other factors impact how the captures appear. All three look pretty different from each other. While UAV would certainly improve output even more overall, we're not taking anywhere near the leap that was made when the console went from RF to the Longhorn mod. They'll be some improvements, but nothing drastically better utilizing Composite under a CRT.

Check the *.a78 file is being utilized and not the *.bin file.

Link. 😉

It's more Harpo now - just don't forget the horn. 😁

Under console hardware, the 8_3_2020 build worked fine through multiple games with and without an AtariVox/SaveKey attached. However, the 8_3_2020a did not even make it to posting the first time around. The latest, this build 8_4_2020a, under console hardware works perfect again, even through multiple games with and without an AtariVox/SaveKey attached.

Under console hardware... Played fine first 4 Gems, 'Score' game. Saved high score and cycling through screens without issue. Played a second 4 Gems, 'Score' game. After "Game Over", it became unresponsive to joystick button presses and Select/Reset button presses. Every subsequent try after that continued to be unresponsive after "Game Over" with or without an AtariVox/SaveKey attached, despite power cycling the console off/on. Prior to starting a game though, it cycles between the title and high score screen without issue.

Here are some captures from the LHE mod displayed on the composite input of a C1702 manufactured in 1983. Although it's a 37 year old display, honestly, these few captures really do not provide justice for it. It looks much better in person; especially color saturation and clarity. Apologizes for the glaring moire effect (which is not present when viewed 'live'): The aperture grille seen on the output for the zoomed-in Donkey Kong of course has nothing to due with the mod, but native to the display. Some strong reflection is present and unavoidable at the time, sorry about that. Of course, it's not perfect. However, none of the issues mentioned with Donkey Kong or the Harmony Cart have been experienced by me. It's hard to capture how rich and brilliant the output appears. On the other hand, one of my other systems with a simple/basic composite mod is a different story - that is relatively both muddy and dull in appearance. If you have a choice, of course you want to go UAV. However, a great deal on a Longhorn mod is nothing to sneeze at either. I can only imagine how much better it would look on a late model CRT with digital comb filters and such. -^CrossBow^- knows his stuff though. Numerous consoles have received a mod from him with the utmost care and attention to quality. I'm actually looking forward to having a system mod with UAV performed by him, added to my 7800 collection. Nonetheless, I may be lucky or have the ideal setup for the LHE, but either way, I'm very happy with it. It's worlds better than those standard/basic/simple composite mods out there.

Under console hardware, the '8_3_2020a' build has issue(s). It cycles through the title screen and high score entry after initial system power on. However, played the default 4 gems, "Score" game. Once 'Game Over' was met, it does not advance to high score entry, and the game does not respond to controller button presses or select/reset button presses with an AtariVox/SaveKey present or without it present (Nothing plugged into the Player 2 port). The '8_3_2020' build works perfect under the console hardware with or without an AtariVox/SaveKey present.

Green instead of blue, like the water in Rikki & Vikki for example, via composite, may occur with a UAV mod too. From the video linked above - Same UAV mod - Composite capture followed by S-Video: The issue is with 320 mode and color artifacting. On some display combinations, the outcome will be green instead of blue for the water in Rikki & Vikki, and some may very well be blue instead of green, as artifact effects can vary between setups. Leveraging S-Video takes color artifact differences out of the equation; however, any game that relies on it, can look considerably worse. Tower Toppler is the best example of this under the 7800. Jinks to a much lesser extent. Under Rikki and Vikki, utilizing S-Video, the water is not just blue, it's blue with white 'jailbars'. Tower Toppler is similar when S-Video is utilized, where there is a color followed by black 'jailbars' for the towers and other items. Here is a setup incorporating just straight RF, and has blue water: Note too, that it doesn't mean all blue colors appear green under Composite for 320 modes for some setups. Utilizing Rikki & Vikki again, even though there may be green water, the blue keys probably still appear blue. It depends on how the color is utilized and what color is adjacent to it that can make the difference and likelihood of there being variance among setups due to the impact of artifacts. To answer the topic question, UAV is definitely the superlative mod for the 7800 currently, but a LHE mod done right is not bad by any means. A simple or basic composite mod is where things can get quite ugly.

Sounding 100% to me... Kung-Fu Master - Main Theme (Real HW) (20200731).mp3 🙂

@Albert & @CPUWIZ would likely be best to answer that question. It also may be best to PM them for specifics.

Not too much of a difference, but the most recent video is here. 😉

Needed to confirm the presence of and access to the Water Level under the PC port for myself... And... 🙂

Here's a bullet direct illustrative solution for exiting the Water Maze: Last but not least, here are a couple of videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx8OpugC9X0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zigmkMV7YIY

According to an entry from this post the 'secret level' is also accessible under the PC version in addition to the Apple IIe and C64. The Water Maze Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20060522222950/http://www.video-fenky.com/archives/000227.html For posterity: The Commodore 64 and Apple IIe (not IIgs) versions of Marble Madness (both coded by Will Harvey, one of EA's first "software artists" and nowadays the head of There.com) had a secret level, the Water Maze, that was unavailable in any other home version released. It wasn't even in the arcade version, actually, and Mark Cerny (creator of the original game) didn't even knew about it until somebody told him after it was already in stores. Why is it there? This is just a guess, but I imagine Will Harvey (a) noticed that Level 1 is so tiny that there was space left in RAM for him to play around with, and (b) decided to make gamers' lives as depressing and grief-stricken as possible. Here's how to access the Water Maze, in case you aren't aware of its existence. In Level 1, you have to pull off the "Jump bonus" trick (fly off the lip of the zigzag ramp) and hop over to the left-hand side of the stage. Once there, park your marble at a position roughly seven squares northwest of the "3" painted on the ground. When the timer reaches 13, you'll get the "Entering the Water-Maze..." message and the floor you're resting on will sink into the ground. You'll then have to wait until time runs out -- once it does, you'll be deposited in the Water Maze with 99 seconds on the clock. This procedure already goes far beyond a mere secret to discover and enters the realm of "easter egg", but the Water Maze itself is an even greater burden on the mind. Fifteen long years I have toiled at the task of completing the level. It took me all of this time to realize that two players were required. Yeah, so I didn't play C64 games with other people too often. The C64 was too intellectual for my NES-owning friends. If you enter the Water Maze all by your lonesome, as a blue marble, then there's no way past the first screen, even. Cross the bridge, and it breaks apart on you, sending you to your death on the right side of the screen. Try to hitch a ride on one of those water lilies, and it immediately sinks, drowning you. I don't need to tell you, of course, that unlike all the other levels, losing a marble in the Water Maze results in an instant Game Over. Your marbles float on water, but they're otherwise uncontrollable. The secret lies in that colored block on the lower right-hand side of the screen. When a marble is sitting on that block, the lilies will not sink when you hop on them, but instead they'll take you across the river, bouncing you to the other side and then back again. So, one player has to park his marble on the square while the other hitches a lily over to the entrance at the left-center of this screen. Once that's done, the lily-riding marble (blue, in this case) will reappear at the passage directly below the entrance. You'll need to jump into the water and then get up to the next pathway before falling down the waterfall. Then, you'll have to cross the paddle-wheel elevator when a platform is lined up with your path, coming to a final stop at the flashing square at the end. Now the red marble must repeat everything the blue marble just did -- riding a lily to the entrance, navigating the water-filled passage, and so on. This is very tricky, because the blue marble's progress has scrolled the screen downward a fair bit, giving the red marble less space to work with. (You lose your marble, of course, if you go off the top of the screen. Marble Madness is no whistle-ass wimpy game.) Instead of joining the red marble at his cliffside parking spot, the red marble will continue to ride his elevator platform downward, hoping against hope that the game doesn't get confused and think that the marble's falling to its death in the progress (which happens sometimes, of course). If it makes it to the next path down, you'll find two flashing squares; park your red marble at the closest one to the edge. Now the blue marble must also take the elevator down (a bit easier, since the game isn't scrolling the screen and tends to get confused less often). Once both marbles are parked on both flashing squares, the platform will drop down, revealing a great, flashing arena with two evil black marbles circling about. You'll need to take them on in battle. Knock both marbles off the arena, and that's it. You've done it! You've completed the Water Maze! In addition to getting this cryptic message, you'll receive approximately 100,000 points and be transported posthaste to Level 2, as if nothing had just happened.

👍 Indeed...that did not go unnoticed - thank you - very cool! One of the reasons it is my favorite boss yet. 😁 Ah, I misunderstood/misread - so, a potion is eluding me at this point. 🙂

When I first encountered the Octopus, I was thinking one of his 'attacks' is angled too high. However, I soon came to realize as you got closer to the head, the harder it became, and indeed that second attack, once thought to be too high, is well placed. The challenge becomes tougher but not unfairly so. My favorite boss character, so far, with a feeling of satisfaction after slaying it. Haven't found the secret room yet though.