EricBall

My bad, that's (113.5 - 16.5) * 4 = 388 MARIA cycles per line.

Hmm... I can't think of a more efficient way to read the paddles than presented. Are you sure the problem is MARIA DMA? You should have (113.5 - 15.5 ) * 4 = 392 clock cycles per line to play with. I think I also did some 7800 sample code for driving controllers. Those worked better sampling per zone IIRC. Yep, see: my blog May 10, 2005 The problem with doing the paddle reads via a DLI is resolution. With standard 8 line zones you only get 200/8 = 25 positions. Smaller zones give you more resolution but require more work outside of the display since each sprite requires multiple DL updates. Smaller zones also means less CPU time per zone, which is the problem Bob is having. Starting the paddle capacitor charging at the end of the frame would shift the paddle to the center.

So after performing some housekeeping on my PS3 (didja know that you can assign downloaded games an "Album", and then select "Group by Album" - so now my purchased games are in a separate folder) I downloaded the multiplayer demo of Blur. First, big kudos to Activision for releasing a multiplayer demo which actually allows you to play as if you bought the game (up to level 10 at least). That's right - no timing out on the last lap or limited play time. You can really get a good feel for what this game is all about. And the game is Mario Kart, but with realistic graphics and licensed cars. And although I downloaded the GT5 demo, I have little interest in realistic racing. So for me Blur is cool 'cause it's an arcade racer and I don't need to do much more than hold down the accelerator for most of the race. Sim racers may still be able to beat me around the track by finding the perfect line, but they can't outrace my homing missile. Yep, there are weapons to be used. And they even have Mario Kart equivalents. Shunt (homing missile) = Red Shell (but can be fired backwards to block an attacking Shunt; Shock = Blue Shell, except it just puts a bunch of damage areas in front of the lead cars; Mine = Fake Item, which can also be fired forward; Nitro = Mushroom which can also be used as a mega brake; Bolt = Green Shell and just as tough to aim with, although you get three. There's also Shield and Repair items and Barge which pushes nearby cars away and can be used to block Shunts. Finally, as an added bonus, you can carry three weapons at once. (In fact, my only complaint so far is the most recently picked up weapon isn't automatically selected.) Racing (even if finish last) gets you fans, fans get you to the next level, and levels unlock new cars, mods (special abilities) and tracks. So even if you aren't the greatest racers, you can still get ahead. The online process is also fairly painless. Once you're assigned to a group (note: I've never had success being the host) each race takes 5-10 minutes. And once the leader finishes, a countdown begins to the race ending. Then awards are assigned and the next track is voted on and the race starts after another countdown. Will I buy it? Maybe... But I'm having fun playing the demo!

Interesting that the light gun is TV standard specific and has a regional lockout. That's quite extreme. Have any links to the technical details?

Graphs without scales are useless information except in a relative sense. The only thing which is important is whether you have enough strength to make & receive calls and how fast your battery disappears.

Not having a student loan from Sallie Mae (heck, no student load other than from my parents) I might be talking out of my ass, but I thought most people tried to stretch out their student loans as long as possible because they often are at lower rates and at better terms than most other loans. However, I can understand wanting to be debt-free as soon as possible - even if the concept seems foreign to many people. But looking through the rants on Google, I can understand not wanting to deal with a company that doesn't abide by their terms of the contract.

Real life. And now I'd need to relearn everything I did. Someday it could rise from the ashes, but I also have several other projects on hiatus.

It's obvious that they don't actually repair systems but just sell "refurbished" systems. Well, they might do some repairs; but probably only trivial stuff which there is a known solution.

Oh we do that too. (I can't wait until we can start playing Rock Band as a family.) But there are times were I want to play and he's not around (i.e. gone to bed).

I forgot to mention I'm a cheap bastard as well. So older stuff which I can pick up dirt cheap on eBay (I got the original Rock Band for US$14 shipped) is much better than having to pay full retail for the latest release.

My favorite games are Zelda the Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64. So action/adventure and 3D platformer. The latter is out 'cause my son likes those too. RPGs are good although they typically take longer than I have interest. (I stopped playing Dungeon Siege 'cause I got tired of killing goblin hordes.) Dungeon Keeper was a good 'un, and Overlord caught my eye when I did some window shopping over the weekend.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll check out Fire Emblem - read some reviews etc. One clarification - my son will watch me play Civ but he has little interest in playing it himself.

So what's your prediction for the Germany / Netherlands final on July 11? You were right that Germany beat England, but it didn't take penalties.

Any of the original PSPs is superior to the UMD-less PSP Go. Not that I have either or will be getting one. I'm just waiting for the 3DS.

Many moons ago I bought Civilization Revolution for the PS3 and have been playing it quite a bit ever since. But always single player, i.e. versus the AI. I've gotten fairly good, where I win the majority of the time against the highest difficulty level. But I've avoided the online multiplayer for a couple of reasons - can't save (so have to dedicate time), and there are quite a few very good players out there. Well, this weekend I played my first online game and got spanked. Yes, at the beginning it looked promising; but though I was expanding nicely I was falling behind in tech. So I started to question why I was playing Civ. Yes, I probably could get better at multiplayer - but it would take a lot of time, time I wasn't willing to invest. I realized I was playing CivRev because it satisfied two criteria: 1. it was wife acceptable and 2. it wasn't a game my son was interested in. So although I have other games I could play, my son also plays them and I don't want to get ahead of him. (He tends to watch and I don't want to spoil any surprises.) SO I'm looking for suggestions for PS3 or Wii games to play. Criteria: 1. In general, most M rated games (especially FPS) are out as they aren't wife acceptable. 2. Offline single player - I simply don't have the time to invest for an online game. 3. Not something a 10 year old would be interested in playing.

I wonder whether the GCC document timings were for the original prototype and the Atari document reflects optimizations made to later revisions. In nearly all cases the Atari timings are less than the GCC times (ignoring the Indirect/Character Map confusion). The only exception is the 5 byte header which is either 10 or 12 cycles. Now if I were to design it to maximize the DMA time per line while providing the 7 post-HSYNC CPU cycles: HSYNC start, CPU enabled, wait 7 CPU cycles (28 MARIA cycles), wait for CPU to finish bus access to start DMA (5-9 MARIA cycles), fetch headers (2 cycles per byte), fetch character map (3 cycles), fetch graphics (3 cycles per byte). Continue until last possible cycle given worst case shutdown (13 cycles). If DMA finishes early, enable the CPU. It might be possible to get more info by scoping the HALT pin.

One of the amazing things with Wave Race 64 was how the waves affected your jetski. (There was a Japanese-only re-release with Rumble, so you could actually feel them.) Avoiding and using the waves became paramount as the difficulty level increased.

I don't have any direct knowledge, but from another forum: Instead of targeting N-gage, you can make your programs available to all symbian Os 6.1 phones. Take find some help, take a look at http://www.newlc.com/ for some tutorials and articles. Unforunately, this site is dedicated to C++ developement, not JAVA. Go here for development resources www.forum.nokia.com

Hmm... with both your and Howard Tayler's thumbs ups, I'm changing my mind about seeing it this weekend. (Ramble on) It's strange. I used to be a major movie goer. I enjoyed seeing films in the theater. But I find I have little interest in seeing movies on the big screen. And it's not like I have transitioned to watching them on the "small screen" instead, although I do watch them more there. But I don't have this overwhelming desire to watch most movies. Unfortunately, TS3 has fallen victim to this malady. I know it's going to be a "good movie" - it's Pixar. (Although the aren't batting 1.000 anymore IMHO.) And I'm glad to hear it's going to be a better movie than just a three-quel (which is what the trailers led me to believe). But I'm not chomping at the bit, looking forward to when the lights dim. (Ramble off)

For those interested the best way to follow this lawsuit seems to be via the docket. It looks like July 15th will be the very important step of determining which law firm will represent the defendants as multiple lawsuits were filed. For those who have read Grisham's "The King of Torts" this makes sense as the lead law firm stands to make the most money from the settlement.

Gamefaqs has a few level codes. Give 'em a try.

Yep, the 3DS will be DS/DSi compatible (except for those games which weren't DSi compatible). According to Wikipedia the top screen is 800x240 (400x240 per eye) and the bottom screen is 320x240 while both DS/DSi screens were 256x192, so DS/DSi games will either have black borders or be rescaled.

At E3 each of the big three consoles hit the stage to excite the press and public with their latest gadgets. Microsoft was first up and they showed off Kinect (nee Natal), where the 360 uses a camera to turn your body into the controller, along with various games (mostly sports stuff) and a staged Star Wars lightsabre battle. The other big announcement was a smaller, quieter, lower cost, Xbox 360 with built in WiFi. Nintendo went second with Shiguru Miyamoto showing off the new Zelda for Wii where you have to move the Wiimote / nun-chuck to control your sword & sheild respectively. It looks cool, but might get frustrating since there isn't the same level of feedback you get when using the Wiimote to control an on-screen pointer. They also announced some other interesting games, including a GoldenEye remake. But the big announcement was the 3DS - a new DS with a no-glasses-required 3D screen in the lid, dual exterior cameras (for 3D pix) and an analog slide-stick. It will also play 3D movies. Finally Sony made their announcements. The first was 3D games for the PS3 (3D HDTV & glasses) required and second was the PlayStation Move, Sony's camera + controller Kinect/Wiimote alternative. Personally, I found the Nintendo presentation blew the other two away. The 3DS is simply amazing (I can see one in my future) and the Zelda demo was very impressive (and I can't wait to buy it). OTOH, although I have a PS3, neither of the big announcements had any appeal, especially since both are rather expensive accessories ($x,0000 for a 3D TV and $100 per PS Move controller set.) Kinect is much more interesting (although still $100 for the camera), but I don't have an Xbox 360, nor am I planning on buying one (even if the slim is cheaper). Finally, watching the Zelda demo got me to thinking. Both the Sony PS Move and the Microsoft Kinect are aimed at 1:1 motion capture - so your onscreen avatar moves in synchronization with your moves. But I suspect Zelda treats motion much more like a button press - so if your swing is _mostly_ horizontal Link swings his sword horizontally. But the action is preset. This gives much more room for error and for the software to Do What I Mean, so your actions won't have to be as precise. It will also make any lack of synchronization much less obvious. Of course, all this new hardware isn't anything without the games. And the games which interest me (Zelda) may not appeal to you.

Since the 3DS will play DS (and DSi) games it is highly probable that third party studios will continue to release DS games until a significant number of 3DS handhelds are sold. I suspect any newly announced Nintendo created games will likely be 3DS exclusive.

I know what you mean. Even more stupid are people who pay more than retail! OTOH you can sometimes get stuff insanely cheap. I bought my son a used 2nd gent iPod Shuffle, but the seller said he had misplaced the USB cord. So I ordered one for $1 including shipping from Hong Kong.