Graphics 0 (ANTIC 2) color question

[Graphics 0 (ANTIC 2) color question]

You can "sorta" do this, due to an anomily called color artifacting. In Antic mode 2 (and 15 for that matter) the pixels are so small that they are less then one color-clock wide. The result of this is that if a pixel doesn't have one on either side of it, it will show in a color instead of white. The pixel will either be green or blue/purple depending on whether it's in an odd or even column. With some carefully created graphics this can be used to great effect. I specifically remeber this being used in the Atari 8-bit versions of Ultima.

 

Dan

[There has got to be a better way than eBay to get games!!!!!]

I have always tried (and succeded) to avoid E-bay, I much prefer finding my games in the wild. I have over 250, 2600 titles and found 95% of them at flea markets and yard sales. At my local flea market I actually found a 2600 Crazy Climber and Waterworld, for $1.00 each, and just a few weeks ago a find a complete Bally Astrocade with a couple games for $10.00 at a flea. So the good finds are out there.

 

Dan

[5200 2 port 4 port]

The 4 port 5200 is much rarer then the 2 port so I would assume it's worth more, epscially if you also have the special TV switch box the 4-port needed.

 

Dan

[work started on the 2600jr schematics]

Can't wait to see what you come up with for the Jr schematics. It will be interesting to compare them against the 4-switch schematics to see what has changed. I would love to create a page with the schematics for each model and board rev. to see the differences.

 

Dan

[Most Common Cart]

Those two would definitly be among the most numorous since they where both pack-ins with the 2600 system. Combat was the first and Pac-Man the second. I wonder what would be the most numorous after these two? I know from my own collection that Asteroids and Space Invaders where both very popular, I have accumulated a bunch of both of these over the years.

 

Dan

[Do you remember the day you discover atari emulation ?]

Here's a perspective on discovering atari 2600 emulation from the other side of the fence. I discovered emulation in mid '95 when I discovered Marat F's Gameboy emulator. I played around with the source code and that got me interested in emulation programming. I had also discovered the Stella docs around this time and tried to do my own 2600 emulator which didn't go anywhere. I then discovered the 2600 emulator x2600 by Alex Hornby. I took the source for this and produced a DOS port called Virtual VCS. VVCS became the first non-commercial (Activision Action Pack where already out) 2600 emualtor for DOS! Another DOS 2600 emualtor (Stella 96 I beleive) came out with a few weeks, ultimatly to be followed by quite a few more.

 

I also distinctly remeber some heated debate shortly after the Action Pack came out as to whether it was an emulator or not.

 

Dan

[making sram cartridge??]

You can get some info on this here:

 

ftp://kew.sel.eesc.sc.usp.br/Electric/Atari26

00/SRAM-Cart/

[video problem]

This might be as simple as just a dirtly cartridge connector. First try cleaning you caridges (alchohol and q-tips are good for this). Next try cleaning the cartridge contacts in the unit, this can be a little tricky but can be done. If that doesn't work, try taking the system apart and pushing the IC chips firmly down into there sockets. I have found that these steps will fix a majority of problems with the 2600.

 

Dan

[7800 Emulation is horrid]

Hello,

 

I'm the one who did this "BLASPHMEY of a coding job"

 

There is a good reason there is only one 7800 emualtor, this system is a pain to emulate and there is very little tech info out there on it. I got the tech info for the system a few years ago and passed it onto two other people to write the emu (since I had to many other projects on my plate), but in the end, ended up doing it myself.

 

Altough I say it myself, I think they quality of the emulation is quite good considering what I had to work with. Colors are always a big problem since with console systems there is rarely an objective way of determining "correct" colors. The only way to really do it is to observe the real game, determing the curresponding color code in the emulator and tweak it until it looks correct. This is a VERY tedious process.

 

As for the frame rate in MESS, 6fps seems a little low to me unless you have a really old computer. The 7800 emulation does require a pretty hefty machine to run at full speed (the video system is quite complex to emulate), but it should run ok on even an average system by todays standards.

 

"At least the 2600 emulation community has a true love for the games and isnt just interested in emulating more than one console"

 

I DO have a true love of the games, and the machine. Most of the systems in MESS are maintained by a single person, so each does get personal attention even though they are all in the same program. People often ask my why I stopped writing my standalone 7800 emu and moved to MESS. For a programmer it's quite simple. MESS provides the entire infrastructure for writing an EMU so I can conentrate of just coding the emulation and not have to worry about all the details of handling video modes, sound cards, file loading, differnt type of controllers, etc. Plus by putting it in MESS I get automatic cross platform support. My standalone was great if you where a PC user, but you were out of luck if you had a MAC.

 

Dan