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Thorsten Günther

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Everything posted by Thorsten Günther

  1. Maybe because you are a Lexx fan? Don't worry I thought of "Star Trek DS9" the Defiant attacking Dominion ships. Doesn't the Defiant look like a turtle instead of an insect? OK, except for the Cardassians simply being Evil German Nazis with spoons tucked to their foreheads, DS9 was quite decent. Yet, I am not a fan of either DS9 (ending too weak, too many cliché characters, they still ignore the fact that space is three-dimensional and has no gravity and thus do WWII dogfights or even naval tactics whenever they can, plus what the fuck does that (pseudo-)religious stuff supposed to mean?) or Lexx (too weird for my taste), though, but as I am owner of the domain dilgar.de, you can perhaps guess what series I prefer. Thorsten
  2. Why do I suddenly visualize the Lexx and Brunnen-G-ships attacking His Shadow? Thorsten
  3. Funny, I always thought that the first consumer oriented computer with a multi-tasking OS was the Sinclair QL in 1984. Thorsten
  4. Thrust+ and Demolition Herby spring to mind. Thrust+ even uses this effect to reach a comparably smooth horizontal scrolling. Thorsten
  5. My old Thinkpad T23 runs Atari 800 WinPLus 4.0 (and STEem), my desktop PC runs UAE, both without slowdowns. Could you be precise and tell me wich part of the hardware of these computers modern PCs can't emulate by sheer brute force? Thorsten
  6. That's a little surprising, as this game doesn't seem too demanding. Yak's stuff though... no surprise. I tried some German games now, starting with some of Christoph Schulte-Vennbur's stuff and it has several glitches in NTSC mode - Slot Machine (text scroller after each round is much too s.l.o.w., bonus demo (shown after major wins) flickers, "Axis Komputerkunst" intro has some sound errors and ends with a disturbing continous beep) - Nibelungen (same glitches in the intro, player invisible) Peter Finzel's stuff (Cavelord and Schreckenstein) runs, though. OK, he wrote some books on programming the A8, so he should know. I fear this one doesn't count, as Lucasfilm Games is an American company. The tune (like that of M.U.L.E.) obviously is meant to play that fast. This doesn't mean it sounds bad if played slower, though. Thorsten
  7. Just tried Drunk Chessboard and some other demos on WinPLus 4.0 in NTSC mode - some screens (those with the 256 colour plasma background) flicker, but other than that, it just runs incredibly fast :-). Numen doesn't run though and there may be some other demos with problems, but any claim that "most demos" won't work is incorrect, as all those that do not go to the limits of DLI and VBI subroutines will run without problems, including most of the classic demos like FujiBoink! or the in-store Atari Swan Demo published at the CES '85. So far we have: Demos: - Numen (doesn't run) - Drunk Chessboard (some flickering) - Das Omen (terrible flickering) - Lajf (some flickering) - several more Games: - Thunderfox (apparently early versions only) - Yoomp! (prior to 1.1) Apps: - The Last Word (early versions) Thorsten
  8. Hello! There are some programs on the XL/XE that - in contrast to the vast majority - fail to work on either PAL or NTSC machines due to the critical timing in their code (i.e. using longer/more interrupt subroutines than are available on the given TV system). As of now, I know only very few of them: - Thunderfox - Yoomp! (versions prior to 1.1 only) - The Last Word (currently being fixed - or is it already?) Does a comprehensive list of these programs and/or fixed versions exist anywhere? Thorsten
  9. The barrier misses in "Star Raiders II", it only appears in TLS. This caused a major change in the gameplay. To be honest, I consider TLS to be a much better game. Thorsten
  10. And additionally, the PAL TIA has no BLK signal (PIN 6 on NTSC TIA) - so I don't know whether this mod really has less vertical lines than the CD4050 mod in the FAQ on PAL machines or does work at all (the other signals are just on some other pins). Thorsten
  11. I would recommend an SDrive or SIO2SD. The latter one is being offered on eBay UK from time to time (even neatly built into a 1010 case) or available for EUR 80 by Wolfram Burger of ABBUC. The former one is much cheaper to build, but I have yet to find a source offering it ready-to-use. Thorsten
  12. You do not want a French 2600. These are modified PAL consoles and will only have 8 colours, plus the colour standard in France is SECAM, which many TV sets will not decode at all. For an idea what a SECAM 2600's picture looks like, you should look here: http://www.spiceware.org/atari_ntsc_pal_secam.html. As you can see, the 128 (NTSC) vs. 104 (PAL) colour palettes don't make a difference, they just give you wrong colours if you insert an NTSC cartridge into a PAL console or vice versa (some TVs may have additional problems with the video signal's timing, though, in these cases), but the SECAM 2600 always shows totally wrong colours - and very few ones. BTW, it's the same with the Atari 8-bit computers, these also were cheaply modified PAL machines with a reduced palette. So you mean all French ATARI 2600 JR are Secam suck and show only 8 colours? For example a German ATARI 2600 JR is PAL? and shows 104 colours? So the best i have to do is to get a german one, and forget about the french secam version? Yes, I would look for a German (or Dutch, or Austrian, or Australia) or UK 2600. Just check whether your TV set accepts both "PAL B/G" (German) or "PAL I" (UK), in that case, it doesn't matter at all which one you purchase. These have different audio subcarriers via RF - though otherwise they are interchangeable - that's why you'll have no sound if your TV set understands the wrong format. In case you only have a TV set that accepts PAL through video in (as mine only accept NTSC through that connector), you'll need to solder or buy a video/s-video modded 2600 in that case. The 4-switch mod from the FAQ works very good, and The Longhorn Engineer has perfectioned it recently by making some minor changes and adding an FMS6400 chip for even better signal quality (there is a thread with diagrams on the hardware forum). Thorsten
  13. You do not want a French 2600. These are modified PAL consoles and will only have 8 colours, plus the colour standard in France is SECAM, which many TV sets will not decode at all. For an idea what a SECAM 2600's picture looks like, you should look here: http://www.spiceware.org/atari_ntsc_pal_secam.html. As you can see, the 128 (NTSC) vs. 104 (PAL) colour palettes don't make a difference, they just give you wrong colours if you insert an NTSC cartridge into a PAL console or vice versa (some TVs may have additional problems with the video signal's timing, though, in these cases), but the SECAM 2600 always shows totally wrong colours - and very few ones. BTW, it's the same with the Atari 8-bit computers, these also were cheaply modified PAL machines with a reduced palette. Thorsten
  14. So you want to pull a game off a menu that auto-loads it and put it on a disk where you have to click it instead? seems rather pointless to me. Now, if it's for Hard Disk installation, try: http://dbug-automation.co.uk and click "patches" at the top. That's not necessary for every game. Some games on menu disks are just renamed .PRGs (e.g. "Stunt Car Racer" off one menucan't remember which one though. The point of this is either hard disk use or getting rid of unwanted games (if there is only one good title on a menu disk and three crap titles, what's the point in keeping the crap titles?). Thorsten
  15. At least there are colour versions of DROL (this was indeed the first version I ever saw), and of Lode Runner. Sadly, there are still none of A.E. and Tower Toppler. how come that I have a color version of AE in my collection...?!? Don't know where you got it. I have searched all the archive sites and they all had one or two (the 5200 version additionally) artifacting versions only. Could you post it or send it to me? Thorsten
  16. At least there are colour versions of DROL (this was indeed the first version I ever saw), and of Lode Runner. Sadly, there are still none of A.E. and Tower Toppler. I wonder why Atari put the artifacting version of Lode Runner on the XEGS cart - they should have known by then that artifacting doesn't look good on PAL systems. Thorsten
  17. If I remember correctly, auto-loading of GEM programs was indeed introduced with Rainbow TOS (1.04). There are small programs on the usually suspected ftp sites that claim to do the same in earlier versions if put into the AUTO folder on the C: partition. But I'd recommend 1.04 anyway (as did STuart Townsend, cf. Little Green Desktop), since this was the first version where many of the bugs of earlier versions in hdd handling were removed, plus each partition may be up to 512 MB in size. Thorsten
  18. Good you missed Zorro. It's nothing but a bad Bruce Lee copycat job (I have it on the "Atari Aces" compilation). Alley Cat was also available on English Software's "Atari Smash Hits Vol. 7" compilation. Thorsten
  19. The Atari 800 rocks! My Atari 8-bit of choice. Still hope the day will come when Warerat's XE memory mod comes out so you can all enjoy that. Your lid switch is bad? Is it the switch, the plastic piece, the hatch? I have like 30 Atari 800 hatches. The switch apparently has gone bad when the previous owner still had this machine. He removed the plastic piece that is pressed down by the nose on the hatch and kept the switch mechanics shut with some paper pushed into it. The hatch is fine, except for that black spongy(?) stuff that's supposed to hold the alum part on the inside. I'll replace that with some double-sided adhesive tape occasionally - or would silicone be a better choice? I have no idea where to purchase that kind of switch here in Germany, though, and the plastic piece seems even more impossible (now that's illogical :-)) to replace. Thorsten
  20. We all know perfectly well that aliens disguise themselves as penguins for invasion purposes. Thorsten
  21. I just did some quick research and found OpenRedAlert. Given the lower resolution of games based on the first C&C engine and the fact that Red Alert has been released as freeware, this also might be a better choice than Starcraft. Thorsten
  22. Heaven, you need to know that this machine's PAL version is much rarer than the NTSC version. I luckily happen to own one (with a defective lid switch, but otherwise good condition) and won't sell it until I find a better one to replace it with. Thorsten BTW: the musician Lonzo also owned one and it was sold on eBay Germany after his death by his estate administrator
  23. Heaven, you need to know that this machine's PAL version is much rarer than the NTSC version. I luckily happen to own one (with a defective lid switch, but otherwise good condition) and won't sell it until I find a better one to replace it with. Thorsten
  24. And again, I beg to differ: there are thousands of retro games that suck golf balls through a garden hose, noone prefers them over anything (cf. Sturgeon's Law). It is the same as with current games, it's just taht the larger market makes it more difficult to find the diamond in the rough nowadays. The difference is that the industry for some years catered to the regular gamer mostly, making game controls (and controllers) more and more complex. Just recently Nintendo re-discovered the casual gamer who just plays occasionally and doesn't want to learn complex control schemes. This type of gamer will - of course - also appreciate arcade games and games from early consoles - which in many cases were adapted arcade games or loosely based on them, as most of these have simple control schemes and the rules of play are generally very easy to understand. Regarding the plain graphics and sound of these early games: yes, modern games tend to have a lot of eye-candy in comparison, but even retro gamers usually dislike typical problems of early consoles (e.g. choppy scrolling/animation and flickering), that's why you will perhaps find the Amiga or arcade version of "Marble Madness" on a retro games collection, but never the Atari ST version (same with arcade "Defender" or "Super Cobra" vs. the 2600 version, etc.pp., you get the idea). And modern graphics on otherwise old titles will give you neither a old nor a modern title, I guess that's why this is hardly done (plus it's cheaper to keep the graphics and sound as-is). Thorsten
  25. US$ 159 plus shipping/handling for Battlesphere Gold. Thorsten
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