machf

Yes, those 65XEs with ECI are really nothing more than cut-down 130XEs, they aren't "true" 65XEs...

Yes, me too. Actually, what I'd like to eventually see is an A8 port of Heart of Africa. And Murder on the Mississippi.

Don't get me wrong... first, I didn't make that one, it's just that since it had screws, it was easy to open it to look at the inside back then. A regular XL/XE power supply would have needed cutting the casing. The important thing I wanted to point out was that all three +5V pins are tied together, and also all three ground ones. So, you don't just solder one of the +5V pins to one of the AT power supply's red cables, you solder the three of them to the same red cable. And all three groud pins to a corresponding black cable, similarly.

I concur, get VirtualDub. Didn't know Pinnacle had a free program...

Definitely sounds like it... (why did I keep thinking "Select" instead of "Start", when I clearly had in mind the one that was two keys away from "Option"?) "BOOT ERROR" probably shows up a while after pressing the spacebar, right?

A long time ago, I made this (very rough) schematic of the custom power supply the 800XL of my cousin's children used. All +5V pins were connected together, as well as all the GND pins. And it worked fine (still works fine, I got it from them several years ago - being an early model, it has socketed ICs, ideal for modding). So, you could just do the same.

Because most archivers insist on changing the file extension to something like .z## on all but the first/last part of the archive. And when you try changing the parts with the .z## extension to something that the forums will allow you to upload you have to rename them back to what they were or the archivers get confused and won't extract the files. I still use PowerArchiver 6.11 (last free version, IIRC), which doesn't do that, it will use filename###.zip instead. Similarly with WinRAR 3.0 for RAR instead of ZIP files. When did archivers start doing that with the extensions? Yes, I know...

The only signal I need that is not on the cart slot is composite luma, which I can get from the monitor connector. So, it's a purely external add-on, huh? Good to know...

The name rings a bell... I don't remember when was the last time I visited it.

Oh... I see. I thought so, but the first pic looked a bit like there was nothing on the underside.

Hmmm... it's marked "J1", with J2 apparently being the 5-pin connector on the left. I'd like to take a look at the traces on the other side of the board... The 40-pin IC is probably a FDC, the 28-pin U5 some memory chip. RAM, likely? As the EPROM is on the top left edge and this isn't a PROM... and I don't think it's a custom ROM. Oh, I get it: THAT is the FDC, the 40-pin IC is the processor. The 14- and 16-pin ICs are most likely TTL gates... as ijor said, it's probably the external logic the non-Happy designs used. Again, I'd like to take a look at the backside...

Yeah, it's usual practice. Though it's still possible to determine what they are...

That's the easy part, you'd probably use an AT power supply (not an ATX one), the hardest part would be fixing the mobo inside the case... but also remember, you'd need an AC 9V supply for each of the disk drives (if you're placing them inside the case too). And a couple adapters and an extender cable for the keyboard, which would probably remain inside the origina A8 casing. Didn't someone already do this long ago? I even remember it had the cartridge slot on a 3.5"FDD bay... That's NOT easy. The default A8 video outputs are composite video, S-video and RF; VGA uses component (RGB) video instead. Maybe you could buy one of those commercial converter boxes and stick it inside the case... I'd be happy with having standard output connectors for the regular A8 video signals.

On the original subject, I'd be more interested in finding out how you're supposed to write a game that can use the networking capabilities. For starters, are you supposed to use some client/server scheme?

Here's an ad from a Spanish magazine (Muy Interesante #38, VII-1984, pp. 10-11) advertising the remote joysticks as equipment for the 800XL, so I see no reason why they wouldn't work with the 800 too, and not just the VCS... no mention of the power supply, though. If it did indeed use the VCS's power supply, then it's just a simple 9V DC 500 mA supply with a standard plug (+ at the tip). I've heard they were very uncomfortable to handle, given the size of the bases (the batteries and required additional circuitry required more space than was available inside the standard joystick casing), so keep that in mind...

Does that mean it's going to use the cartridge slot, then?

Probably but it's definitely Intellivision, as also mentioned above. Yes, it's most likely, given that the other one was an Intellivision game too. The year of the episode would probably further confirm that.

Oooh, that's a classic. A friend of mine kept his 130XE only to play it, basically, after he switched to the ST/TT line. Didn't know there was a cart version... I think I have that one lying around, used to belong to my cousin's kids. I'll get it out and play it again, it's fun. I think it's one of the carts which I managed to crack, just to see how it was done. Hey, for some reason it doesn't want to work on the 130XE... works fine on my 800XL, though.

Looks pretty straightforward to me... analog ASIC design using TENTOS on DOS or TANIS on a Sun SPARC in the mid-90s was harder. Plain digital design using predefined blocks is so much easier.

For the quotes, I just manually add [/quote] [quote] tags where I want to break the flow of the quote. As for the 800XL schematic, yes, it sounds like that one I scanned a while ago. Maybe the best option would be to take the sheet to a photocopying shop and have it reduced (from an A2 to an A4 size), and scan the reduced copy. And there's one that was redrawn, available as a GIF file here, but it only has the circuitry for the UK (PAL) version, without the notes mentioning the diffrerences in the US (NTSC) version. And I don't get why you people have so many problems with multipart files... speaking of which, here's the 1050 FSM as a PDF, just open the last zip of the set after you download all three, and extract the file. No renaming needed whatsoever. 1050_FSM_001.zip 1050_FSM_002.zip 1050_FSM_003.zip

Hmmm... from what I'm reading, Rally Speedway apparently is an improved version of Intellivision Auto Racing, so we both mean the same episode, then.

Didn't know that, or I would have scanned it yesterday too... I know the feeling... I haven't downloaded them yet, so I can't comment on that... BTW, I converted those GIF scans of the 1050 FSM that Rybags linked to into a PDF... would it be worth uploading now, or not anymore?

"She" who? You actually know such a person, or are you just guessing?

IIRC, there was one time they had Rally Speedway on KITT's monitor... don't know about that one, though.

Yeah, they are all .partX.rar... so, maybe the forum doesn't allow the .rar extenssion, I had thought I had seen .rar files attached to other posts but now, that I've looked again, I only see .zip ones.