Lord-Chaos

July 15, 2003

The games I´ve listed exist for the ATARI ST , because I have them.

Ultima VI is available for ST for example (this games was also ported to the AMIGa , the C64 and the SNES !!!)

I want to know if anyone knows more role-playing games for the ST.

Thimo

July 15, 2003

I collect ST games - anyone knows which rpgs were released for the ST ?

I know :

Dungeon Master and Chaos strikes back

Bloodwych and Data Disk

Captive

Knightmare

Legend and Worlds of Legend

Wizard´s Crown

Phantasie 1-3

Questron II

Curse of the Azure Bonds

the 3 action-rpgs by SSI : Hillsfar,Dragon´s of Flame,Heroes o.t. Lance

Bard´s Tale 1

Ultima 2-6

Legend of Faerghail

Fate - Gates of Dawn

Spirit of Adventure

Ishar 1-3 (and maybe Crystals of Arborea)

Alternate Reality - The City

Starflight

Hard Nova

Drakkhen

Dragonflight

Anyone knows more (commercial) rpgs that were released for the ST ?

There are some Public Domain rpgs , too , for example lots of rpgs created with the HASCS rpg creator.

Thimo

July 13, 2003

I have NTSC versions of these games :

Lock n Chase (Telegames)

Super Challenge Baseball

World Championship Baseball (the same as SC Baseball)

International Soccer

by Telegames

E.T.

Galaxian

Jungle Hunt

Pole Position

RealSports Football

RealSports Tennis

RealSports Volleyball

by ATARI , silver boxes , new and sealed.

These versions have European boxes with English/French/German/Spanish/Italian instructions , but the carts are NTSC (There is a big "N" for NTSC on the box) , maybe Canadian versions.

I sell them for $5 each , the games are new,boxed+instructions , games by ATARI are sealed/shrinkwrapped and in excellent condition (no crushed boxes).

Thimo

July 13, 2003

XL pictures - eh?

As for getting screenshots why not just run it under STeem and use your PC to get the pictures?

For best quality run STeem in as high a resolution as you can!

I remember the Amiga version having better 'shading' of images than the ST taking advantage of a few more of its colors. I enjoyed Bards Tale and wished more came out - SOmewhere near the end I remember encounter 99 Beserkers!

I´ve converted the pictures years ago before emulators were made - on the AMIGA this is easy with Action Replay freezer carts or screen grabber software.

The AMIGA versions work with WinUAE or Fellow.I think the AMIGA pics have a few more colors , since the AMIGA has 32/4096 colors in OCS chipset , the ST 16/512.Bard´s Tale 1 and 2 and Dragon Wars look best on AMIGA , BT 3 is the same on AMIGA and PC and I think C64 version´s animations are best.

BTW. In the castle you can fight 4 rows of 99 Berserkers , that means 396 Berserkers , but this is great for experience points since the Bard can use his flame horn and the sorcerers their spells.

In Mangar´s Tower , there sometimes are large groups of monsters ,too (200 or more).

Thimo

July 13, 2003

I've tried the BTCK but prefered the original game graphics. The gamemaker has the graphics in a proprietry format but can import LBM files. However, the only way to get the 256 colour graphics from it would be through a screen grabber.

I haven't yet found a site where all of the ST graphics are shown (were the Amiga images the same?)

Thanks for replying, can you post up some of the XL images you made?

Regards,

Mark

I did not finish the AMIGA version,but the graphics seems to be the sameas on the ST.Some pictures may have more or other colors and the graphics of the Magician as party member is the graphics for the Magician as enemy (and vice versa) in the AMIGA version.And the AMIGA version has a different title screen and all the dungeon graphic sets seem to look the same (ST has 3 different) , but I don´t know for sure.

Bard´s Tale 1 is available on many systems - PC,AMIGA,ST,C64,Spectrum , NES , but AMIGA/ST graphics are the best.

Only the PC versions are available today (in the compilation) , but ATARI ST/AMIGA versions can be found on various emulator sites or on ebay.For the ST ,there´s only Bard´s Tale 1 although there may be a "prototype" of BT2 since it was planned to be released and the "engine" was not different from BT1.

The graphics (and music) of Bard´s Tale 1/2 and Dragon Wars have been improved on the AMIGA , conctruction kit is the same as on PC , Bard´s Tale 3 a 1:1 port , too.I have all the games for AMIGA , they´ll work with emulators,but require the original codewheels/manuals for copy-protection (these are included in the Ultimat RPG archives).

XL pictures : I have all the pictures on original XL disks , I´m not sure if an emulator can display them.May use screenshots of the original ATARI screen.

I may post them to the XL forum when I made them.

BTW. there are not many - about 30 - different monster graphics , since some graphics were used for 3 or more different creatures.I also have the "ripped" ST and AMIGA graphics of all the creatures and special places as .GIF or .PNG pictures.

Thimo

July 12, 2003

$7.00 shipping for one game is high. $14.00 shipping for 15 games is very reasonable.

I paid $9 for him to ship my Ghostbusters 2 via airmail, and I thought this was very reasonable. I just checked the postage on the box, and it was $8 postage. Don't forget, that these games are being shipped overseas!

the postage should be 8 Euro , the Euro is now about 16% higher than Dollar.This is another problem - if the Euro was lower than the Dollar , shipping would be cheaper.

A strong Euro isn´t good when you sell games etc. outside of the EU.

Thimo

July 12, 2003

I'd venture to say that the $7 shipping is where you loose most bidders
lot of people wont bid if the shipping is over 4 or 5 dollars

This is the problem - overseas letters are expensive.The German Post now demands 6 Euro (about $7) for a surface mail letter and 8 Euro (ca. $9) for an Air Mail letter.4 months ago the price was only 4 Euro instead of 6 Euro (Air Mail always was 8 Euro).

In Europe it´s only 4 Euro and in Germany only 2 20 Euro.

So the best way to save shipping costs is to buy more than 1 game since shipping as "package" is cheaper.

Thimo

July 12, 2003

no crushed boxes or something like that.

your game wasn´t crushed before shipping.

ask MMF about his Fatal Run , I think this one arrived in perfect condition.

I now use old PC games boxes which protect them games.

Thimo

July 11, 2003

Maybe you should lower your prices Most games you sell are not that hard to get...

Cheers,

Raymond

I usually offer games for $3 - $8 , a few $10 , this is not too much for boxed/new games and I there are ebay and paypal fees , too.

Please note that my games are new games in perfect condition , no crushed boxes or something like that.

And I don´t think that my prices are too high :

http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?View...owpics=1&stab=0

Thimo

July 11, 2003

I can sell a boxed /new River Raid II by HES (plastic box) or Activision for $10 , but as PAL version.

The HES version is the Australian version of the game , the Salu/activision the UK/European version.

Thimo

July 11, 2003

I tried to sell most of my games on ebay.com , but this was not very successful.

Although I offered boxed/new games like River Raid II (both HES and Activision versions) for $6 with $10 buy it now or Smurf for $6/$8 BIN or Xenophobe etc. nobody bought the games.

Are PAL games really that useless that people prefer used carts without boxes/manuals as NTSC and pay twice as much ?

Don´t understand this.

I mean some of the games are not too common and boxed/new copies are even more uncommon.Especially collectors should be interested in the different PAL boxes or cart labels of some games.

They even think thah XEGS carts are PAL just because I´m a European seller - although ATARI never made European XEGS carts.

I mean in Europe , there are thousands of NTSC games around and the only way to tell is to see the color-differences or to use a TV that cannot display 60hz.Nobody has a problem with NTSC stuff here on ebay.

Thimo

July 11, 2003

1. The 2-players to get 3 colors overlay trick -- is there any way to know what the 3rd color will be? Is there a table? A technical way that color is derived? For me it has been mostly trial & error.

You may also use software sprites and players as overlay.

On the ATARI 800 , this gives 2 extra colors for each player+player color , that means 12 colors for 4 players + 5 background colors in charmode = 17 colors.Only works with GPRIOR =0.

I think this should work on the ATARI 5200 ,too.

The overlayed colors are ORed with the background color.

The advantage is that you have more colors and it´s possible to create more and bigger sprites.

But software sprites in charmode take some more CPU time and collision detection may be more complex depending on the game.

Thimo

July 11, 2003

I bought a 1040 STE in 1990 and my brother an AMIGA 500.

Most of the games made in the 80s/ealry 90s were made on the ATARI ST - Bitmap Brothers games for example - and so they looked the same on both systems.

But the music was better on the AMIGA , although some games used digitized music , especially French games like Captain Blood or Purple Saturn Day.Some games supported MIDI (Sierra games) , some had MOD-players (Turrican title ,Pipemania title) , but most games used the ST soundchip...

In the 90s , more games were designed for the AMIGA and the ST versions were not as good (Beast for example) , BUT the ST was no games-computer , so it was a great bonus to be able to play games almost as good as on the AMIGA - and the ST was cheaper.

And PCs in 1990 were really bad (games in EGA/CGA) or you had to be extremely rich to buy a good PC...

And you could use programs like Calamus , That´s Write , good CAD programs , lots of programming languages and of course MIDI software ...

Later I got a MEGA STE which I still use today.It´s a 16Mhz machine with 1.44 MB drive , 2MB and 48MB HD , and the STE hardware.

I also bought an AMIGA 1200 in 1996 with a 030/68882 40Mhz card , 10 MB , a 340MB HD , CDROM and 1942 Multiscan monitor which allows flicker-free 1280*512 resolution.

The AMIGA 1200 cannot be compared to a 68000 ST/STE , it can only be compared to the Falcon.

I think the AMIGA was/is great for graphics (some of the AMIGA graphics programs are better for low-color stuff than expensive PC programs) , raytracing , video /Genlock stuff and for making music without MIDI (with Protracker/Soundtracker,OctaMED,DigiBooster etc.).

The ST is better for word-processing , CAD , DTP , MIDI Stuff , programming...

AFAIK it´s possible to emulate an ST almost 100% on an AMIGA.There is an old program for 68000 AMIGAs that only requires a ST ROM and most ST programs will run , but I doubt that many games work since some games use programming techniques like sync-scrolling or eliminate some of the borders (some demos show full overscan on ST).

I think ATARI had a good computer for working with.It´s far better than a PC from its time - remember the 8088 XTs with 5.25" drives in the 80s ? But ATARI made some mistakes and the cheap PCs took over the market.

In Germany , many companies used STs or TTs in the 80s/early 90s since they were better and cheaper than PCs.And musicians loved the ST with Cubase , too !

Same with the AMIGA : One of the best games machines , but lost against the PC (and maybe the consoles) because AGA etc. came to late and most companies made disk-only ECS games.

Thimo

July 11, 2003

Does anyone know if/how these can be extracted from the disks and viewed?

Don´t know exactly , but for the PC and AMIGA , there is the "Bard´s Tale Construction Kit".

It can be found on the "Ultimate RPG archives" for the PC , together with Bard´s Tale 1-3 , Dragon Wars and Wasteland

Maybe it can load in data from old Bard´s Tale games.There are lots of pictures (monsters , heros , city graphics etc.) in VGA in this program - the PC versions of BT 1-3 only used EGA graphics.The AMIGA and ST versions of Bard´s Tale 1 look the best , Bard´s Tale 2 has better graphics on the AMIGA than on PC , but there is no ST version.

Bard´s Tale 3 looks best on the C64,because PC version is EGA only and AMIGA a 1:1 port of it and animations don´t look good.

I once converted all the graphics from Bard´s Tale 1-3 (AMIGA) to the ATARI 800 XL (256 color mode,later player-overlayed multicolor charmode) , for a role-playing game , but without animation.The graphics were just ripped with a freezer cartridge (Action Replay).The resolution of the 256 color mode is too low for the fine animations anyway and in player-overlayed charmode changes in bitmap probably change color.

Thimo

July 11, 2003

If you´re interested in boxed/new ATARI 2600 games (most of them PAL , but also some NTSC) and 20+ boxed/sealed ATARI XEGS cartridge games , look at :

http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?View...owpics=1&stab=0

All the auctions are cheap buy it now and I may accept paypal and can ship worldwide.

I have for example :

ATARI 2600

Fatal Run

Ghostbusters 2

My Golf

Acid Drop

Xenophobe

NTSC games : Lock n Chase,International Soccer,Super Challenge Baseball , ...

ATARI 7800 Sentinel

Sesame Street games with overlays (Big Bird´s Egg Catch,Cookie Monster Munch)

ATARI XEGS carts :

Airball

Rescue on Fractalus

Lode Runner

Thunderfox

David´s Midnight Magic

Archon

Ballblazer

Star Raiders 2

...

Thimo

July 8, 2003

Ooh, that's what i've been trying to do for the last half an hour; can you explain how its done for a coder who only started on the Atari two days ago? =-)

Ok , my program uses character mode and only the 4 players.

5 GRAPHICS 12

10 For L=0 to 3

20 poke 53248+l,48+32*l

30 poke 53256+l,255

40 poke 53261+l,255

50 next l

- creating and positioning the players in lowest resolution

That means player 1,2,3 and 4 and the last 1/5 of screen is background

100 restore 1000

110 for l=0 to 3

115 read a:poke 704+l,a

120 next l

-reading the player colors

130 move 224*256,128*256,1024

copying the charset from ROM to RAM.Note : This is a Turbo BASIC command , in BASIC you have to use a for - next or something like that

140 BASE=32768

150 for l=base+100*8 to l+7

160 poke l,0

165 poke l+8,170

170 poke l+16,85

175 poke l+24,255

180 next l

190 poke 756,128

- creating 4 new chars in the RAM and set the charset to this new location - 32768 is 256*128

210 for l=0 to 3

220 color 100+l

230 plot 0,l*2:drawto 39,l*2

235 plot 0,l*2+1:drawto 39,l*2+1

239 color 228+l

240 plot 0,l*2+8:drawto 39,l2+8

245 plot 0,l*2+9:drawto 39,l*2+9

250 next l

draw a pattern on the screen.

260 poke 708,4

265 poke 709,8

270 poke 710,10

275 poke 712,0

280 poke 711,104

1000 data 48,128,176,80

setting the colors of the background.711 is the shadow register for the 5th color which you get when objects with use the 710 register are inverted.

players 0 and 1 interact with background colors in 708,709

players 2 and 3 with the backround colors in 710 and 711.

The advantage of character mode is the 5th color.In this picture it gives you 3 extra colors.

I think this isn´t only useful for colorful pictures , but also for colorful software sprites.

I don´t know yet if this works with the "display players twice per line" technique , if it does , the number of colors would be even higher.

BTW : if you run the program in Graphics 0 on an NTSC system you´ll notice 2 extra colors created by artifacting.But artifacting isn´t really that useful , especially because the colors aren´t that great looking.

July 6, 2003

Yes , this is what I mean.

You can use this in simple BASIC.

I´ve written a small BASIC program , look at the picture.

BTW : 2 overlaying players can also create a third color.This may be useful in special cases , too.

Thimo

July 5, 2003

For lots of colors and good resolution I´d use the character mode with players as overlays.

That gives 5 colots + 4 colors = 9 , but also additional 6 colors were players are overlays over the background.(with GPRIOR=0)

That means 15 colors without any DLIs in simple BASIC.

The disadvantage is that the overlay colors cannot be chosen freely , but if you use the right colors this doesn´t matter.

Also possible :

-With the right timing,it´s possible to change colors in the middle of a scnaline , but I doubt it will work with more than 2 colors.

- It´s possible to display players twice (with different colors) per line with little CPU usage , but some flickering.It´s also possible to use them 4 times (=16 players) , but with very much flickering.

- it´s possible to use players twice per line without flickering,but it requires exact timing and this may be a problem when you already using DLIs for color changes.

So it´s possible to have about 20 colors without much CPU-time loss , you can´t freely choose all colors , but you can´t do this on the C64 in the IFLI modes etc.

With DLIs and color/player position changes every scanline , it should be no problem to use 128 colors.

The advantage of charset - graphics with players as overlays is , that you can use this not only for pictures but also fro real games.

I mean - on the C64 you can´t really make a game in IFLI , but on the ATARI you could use software sprites with playes as overlays and have games with lots of colors.

And you may be able to play digitized sound while displaying because it doesn´t take away all the CPU time.

Thimo

July 4, 2003

Although the ST was sold as computer for "serious users" , there are thousand of games.In the 80s , most of the 16 Bit games were written for the ST first and ported 1:1 to the AMIGA - they usually only improved the music.

In France , many software developers made great games with lots of digitized music - Captain Blood for example.

Almost all major games from 1986-ca. 1992 were ported to the ST before the PCs took over (the AMIGA lived about 2 years longer as games machine).

My first ST was an 1040 STE , unfortunately there are some problems with older ST games on STEs , but there also are a few STE games like Stardust or Substation or a pinball game (don´t remember the name).

I have more than 500 original games for the ATARI ST , classics like Dungeon Master,Chaos strikes back or Defender of the Crown.

Anyone collects ST games ,too ? Or uses ST for gaming ?

Or anyone knows where to get cheap ST games except ebay - shipping makes even the 1.- games expensive , because of the large boxes of some games.

Thimo

July 4, 2003

bad news for all members of the EU and their ebays.Since July 1. ebay has raised the fees because of taxes.

But they have raised more than the taxes - some options are now twice as expensive.

This is really bad , because you can´t sell your stuff for a higher price - because nobody buys overpriced stuff.

The new fees depend on the taxes of the country you live in.

Because of this I and I think many more ebay-sellers from Europe will offer stuff on ebay.com to avoid the fees.

Example : On ebay.de you now have to pay 0.45 Euro for articles with starting price 2-9 Euro and 0.10 Euro for "Buy it Now".

before that it was only 0.40/article and 0.05 Euro for "buy it now".

And 1 Euro is about $1.16.

This becomes too expensive now ...

Thimo

July 4, 2003

I have about 50 boxed copies of each Bitcorp game except Mr.Postman.

The idea is to make NTSC versions of these PAL games and offer them at classic events in the US or Canada.

I have :

Bobby geht heim (Bobby is going home)

Mission 3000

Phantom Panzer (Phantom Tank)

Schnecke gegen Eichhoernchen (Snail vs Squirrel)

See Monster (Sea Monster)

Sesam oeffne dich (Open Sesame)

Tanzende Teller (Dancing Plates)

Weltraum Tunnel (Space Tunnel)

These games have German and English instructions.

Some of the games are quite good and Open Sesame is one of the games with digitized speech.

All the games are 4K only , so we would need a 4K PCB with the NTSC version of the games if it already exists.

The carts are "Activision"-style carts , easy to open , most PCBs should fit.

It would also be nice to have better labels - these versions have only text labels (name of the game in English and German written on the label).

So i´d need someone who can make PCBs for me and someone who can create labels like the old Bitcorp games had /labels that look like the picture on the box.

And someone who could offer the game on classic events.

BTW : I also have some other PAL - only games :

About 20 Acid Drop

about 25 Fatal Run

about 100 My Golf

where it would be nice to create an NTSC version.

Thimo

picture of the games :

June 18, 2003

I only have a normal PAL NES , so it won´t fit.

Maybe this is some sort of pirate cartridge ?

Thimo

June 18, 2003

I have bought this one a few years ago , but don´t have a system where it fits.

[/url]

June 18, 2003

Some years ago I ripped some graphics from different AMIGA games and tried to make games on the XL.

Two of them were role-playing games which look surprisingly good on the ATARI , although both were not finished :

The first one used graphics from Eye of the Beholder (VGA) in the 256-color mode.This really looks good and would not be possible on a C64 for example , but the biggest problem is that this graphics takes lots of memory and CPU time.

But it looks better than the PC CGA and EGA versions.

The second one is about 95% finished as "engine",it uses graphics from the 16 Bit versions of "Bard´s Tale" which look far better than the C64 or Apple 2 or DOS versions.The only thing missing is the game design.

The graphics is 256-color mode too,but since the pictures only have 16 colors , I always wanted to change this to 160*200 with some players,because there are never that much colors/line ,so that sampled music could be played.

I´ve also converted lots of pictures and sprites etc. - the difference between ATARI 800 and AMIGA or ST or older PC games isn´t that big.

C64 games are not a great source for new XL games,because C64 games only use 16 colors but the better games are programmed so that they use the C64´s advantages well.That means Hires sprites,using the color-ram , FLI mode etc.

ATARI ST screens for example only use 16 colors , sometimes some interrupts to change these for "copper effects" like AMIGA,but usually 16 colors in 320*200.

The pictures of adventures like "The Guild of Thieves" look almost identical to the ST version on the XL ,only with 160*200.Even 320*200 is possible if interlacing is used.

So the idea is to grab graphics from ST/AMIGA and older PC games and use them in ATARI XL games.

Speaking of music : ST and old PCs with Adlib cards are not better than POKEY sound-wise , AMIGA usually uses MODs ,4-channel Soundtracker or multichannel custom-trackers - these music pieces are available on several internet sites and could be ported to POKEY music,since the .MOD format is well explained.

Thimo

June 18, 2003

Look at my auctions , ending soon :

http://cgi6.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewS...owpics=1&stab=0

I offer many new,boxed ATARI 2600 games , most of the games are PAL versions , but new and boxed , not used , great for collectors.

I also have some games that were only released as PAL :

Fatal Run by ATARI , new and shrinkwrapped

Ghostbusters 2 by Activision/Salu

Acid Drop by Salu

My Golf by HES

9 different Bit Corporation games (Open Sesame etc.)

ATARI 7800 Sentinel new and shrinkwrapped

Many games as special PAL versions with other boxes/carts than the NTSC versions - for example CBS Smurf , SALU Double Dragon , SALU or HES River Raid 2 etc.

Boxed+shrinkwrapped Cookie Monster Munch/Big Bird´s Egg Catch with Kids Controller overlays.

There also are some NTSC games like SC Baseball , Lock n Chase , International Soccer , ...

ATARI XL/XE carts :

More than 20 different carts available , all games are NTSC versions (but also PAL compatible) - for example

Rescue on Fractalus,Airball,Thunderfox,Crime Buster etc.

all new and shrinkwrapped .Some of the games require 64K RAM.

I can ship worldwide , accept paypal.

Please note that some of the auctions are in $ , some in Euro , but I can always ship the games worldwide.Auctions on ebay.de don´t have the paypal - auto - payment-option , but I ´ll accept paypal for all auctions..

Thimo

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Posts posted by Lord-Chaos