K.O. Cruiser - my first homebrew

[K.O. Cruiser - my first homebrew]

Congratulations Devin!

Ko Cruiser is a great game

 

I must be doing something wrong when trying to play the PAL version. Stella starts it up with the wrong colors, then when I hit ^F, it goes black-and-white.

 

Works fine for me, what Stella version have you?

 

Version 2.2 on Linux.

[K.O. Cruiser - my first homebrew]

Congrats on getting so far with this project. Do you have any plans for distributing it in cartridges?

 

I must be doing something wrong when trying to play the PAL version. Stella starts it up with the wrong colors, then when I hit ^F, it goes black-and-white.

[5 sears/atari pong games for 2,800!]

This reminds me of the guy who has been trying to sell a Kaypro II for $25,000 for the past few years.

[Yellowing plastic on SNES, NES, etc.]

I don't think the yellow SNES has to do with heat. One day I put mine away into a closet and didn't touch or look at it for two years or so. Then I decided I wanted to play with it and I discovered that while it was in storage, the bottom half turned yellow.

[Atari A/V mod update]

Longhorn, are you ready to take orders again?

[K.O. Cruiser - my first homebrew]

Select boxer screen? Where was that?

[K.O. Cruiser - my first homebrew]

Is there no way to toggle rematch-per-opponent versus rematch-per-game using a difficulty switch? Finally, would making the color/BW switch do the appropriate thing make sense?

[Evil Magician Returns (Adventure-type game)]

Some more commentary:

 

1) Is there a reason why I can't shoot fireballs up or down as well as right and left?

 

2) Adventure allowed the player to move laterally while thrusting against a wall. Here, that's not possible, which makes navigating mazes much more difficult.

 

3) Why are there stripes in the various walls?

 

Hi Frotz,

 

1) Because the sword in Adventure only points sideways... (I need to make a FAQ for this one!)

 

2) I wish I knew how to do this. Right now, if there's a collision with the playfield, the player bounces back to his previous position. Maybe someone else knows how to do it like Adventure?

 

3) See above.

 

In Adventure, I will frequently carry the sword in front or behind me. It works in those directions too.

[Atari A/V mod update]

Very nice work, Igallar. I'll have to remember to refer to your post when I finally get my modboards.

[Evil Magician Returns (Adventure-type game)]

Some more commentary:

 

1) Is there a reason why I can't shoot fireballs up or down as well as right and left?

 

2) Adventure allowed the player to move laterally while thrusting against a wall. Here, that's not possible, which makes navigating mazes much more difficult.

 

3) Why are there stripes in the various walls?

[K.O. Cruiser - my first homebrew]

I'd go for the pink mouth to avoid the mustache mistake.

[Evil Magician Returns (Adventure-type game)]

One problem I noticed is that if you hold down game-select, the game number continuously changes. It should be a one-shot.

[How to remove yellowing from an old Atari case]

The cat is out of the bag. The trick has been slashdotted.

[K.O. Cruiser - my first homebrew]

In my humble opinion, just two things would make it perfect. Add the face-flip hack and make the spirit bar toggleable with a difficulty switch.

[K.O. Cruiser - my first homebrew]

Here are a couple labels just because. It would be nicer if that labelmaker page accepted png files.

[K.O. Cruiser - my first homebrew]

I am curious to get everyone's feedback one last-minute change I can make. I leaning away from this, but what about displaying the computer and player spirit?

 

I've attached a mockup.

 

Sure, why not?

[Atari A/V mod update]

When is the magic time for those of us who somehow missed out on the preorder?

[K.O. Cruiser - my first homebrew]

I can't seem to figure out how to punch yet. The clock seems to run twice as fast as it should.

[Would anyone be interested in an Atari 2600 Joystick lamp?]

Are you sure the pillar needs to be so tall? I'm looking at a table lamp right here and the bottom edge of the shade is even with the top of the pillar.

[Atari A/V mod update]

Consider this as an alternative to bending up chip leads. Take a chip socket and clip the leads that need to be lifted. Solder to this modified socket instead of the TIA. Plug that into the socket where the TIA was. Then plug the TIA into the prepared socket.

 

Another question. Why are the SYNC and LUMA signals (among others) tapped at resistors instead of directly from the TIA?

 

I see no problem with bending the chip leads. The Sync and luma lines take from the board to deduce the amount of bent leads and part count on the board. You would need to add pull ups to each line if you disconnected them.

 

Ignorant question...

 

Since I don't have the schematics for the 2600, I was wondering why the one resistor and one capacitor were clipped and then not hooked to anything. Does that disable the RF circuit?

 

They are clipped to keep the color line clean on the 6-switch. Alternatively you can just lift the pin 9 but this way reduces the amount of bent pins.

 

So I see that making modifications to a chip socket will indeed work. Clip some pins but not others and tap at the bottom close to the socket body. Aside from clipping two resistors and one capacitor, no soldering to the 2600's board needs to be done.

 

Most 4 switchers and all Juniors are not socketed. Thus using this method alienates most of Atari players.

 

I was just suggesting a means of applying the mod. The way I want to mod my own hardware is by the least changes to the old hardware itself.

[Atari A/V mod update]

Consider this as an alternative to bending up chip leads. Take a chip socket and clip the leads that need to be lifted. Solder to this modified socket instead of the TIA. Plug that into the socket where the TIA was. Then plug the TIA into the prepared socket.

 

Another question. Why are the SYNC and LUMA signals (among others) tapped at resistors instead of directly from the TIA?

 

I see no problem with bending the chip leads. The Sync and luma lines take from the board to deduce the amount of bent leads and part count on the board. You would need to add pull ups to each line if you disconnected them.

 

Ignorant question...

 

Since I don't have the schematics for the 2600, I was wondering why the one resistor and one capacitor were clipped and then not hooked to anything. Does that disable the RF circuit?

 

They are clipped to keep the color line clean on the 6-switch. Alternatively you can just lift the pin 9 but this way reduces the amount of bent pins.

 

So I see that making modifications to a chip socket will indeed work. Clip some pins but not others and tap at the bottom close to the socket body. Aside from clipping two resistors and one capacitor, no soldering to the 2600's board needs to be done.

[Atari A/V mod update]

Consider this as an alternative to bending up chip leads. Take a chip socket and clip the leads that need to be lifted. Solder to this modified socket instead of the TIA. Plug that into the socket where the TIA was. Then plug the TIA into the prepared socket.

 

Another question. Why are the SYNC and LUMA signals (among others) tapped at resistors instead of directly from the TIA?

[2600 flash cart project]

Given that the Chimera cart project seems to have fizzled out, I was wondering if anyone would be interested in collaborating on a new 2600 flash cart project. Unlike the Chimera, it would only be a flash cart. Hopefully that approach would avoid the problem of trying to do too much.

[Shout Out the Arcade you grew up in.]

In Bakersfield, California:

 

*"High Voltage" at Valley Plaza. This one went through several incarnations before culminating in a huge suite in one corner of the mall. Closed about five years ago.

*"Tilt" at the Toy's R Us shopping center, right next to a mattress store. Closed three years ago, I think.

*"Jimmy's Arcade" in the Mervyn's shopping center. Moved to Niles around five years ago. Now known as Rocky's Arcade and Pizza.

*"DJ's Arcade". Gone at least ten years ago. The strip mall shop it was in has never been rented out since. There's still a coin-op basketball game in there.

*"Peter Piper Pizza". Now known as King Leo's Pizza. All the ajoining strip malls are gone now, replaced with a Lowes hardware store. But King Leo's is still there. They had well-maintained older games before that was considered cool.

 

There's a relatively new arcade, maybe six years old, at the East Hills Mall. It never was very interesting.

[Atari A/V mod update]

Uh oh. I assumed there would be mounting holes in the corners. I think I see some places where I could drill my own. My intention was to epoxy or bolt some threaded standoffs to the inside of the chassis.

I was going to supply double sided sticky tape foam stuff like I did for the V1 kits

Ah... I should have thought of that. Could you add holes to the artwork for the next time you send out for boards?

Could but it would make it bigger

 

There's plenty of room in a pre-junior to accomodate a couple few more millimeters. Not sure about the junior, but I'm sure it wouldn't hurt.