Channel 2

Argh. That's what I get for sleeping.

My question is, is this thing entirely legal and thus usable in commercial products? I remember some discussion about reverse engineering the TIA chip where it was said that if you used the original -- still copyrighted -- scematics, without permission, to help design a perfect substitute, the result would be considered an infringement. It would be great if products like the 10 in 1 games from Atari and Activision could be powered by this chip, for obvious reasons. And of course everyone wants their own Atari handheld. I envision an inexpensive add on that snaps onto a portable TV. Another use I find intriguing is putting it in a GBA cartridge with a hundred or so games. But can the GBA handle the resolution and colors?

Brain Games. Because you been playing mind games with us.

Well Church, the prize should go to you. I looked for the term at some Go sites, and didn't find it. I searched for hente and atari together and found nothing. Now when I search for Go and hente, it's the first thing that comes up. I feel stupid.

In short: my guess is 'Sente' To explain: Using the same binary to number to letter code as the other contest, I get 'hente'. It seems to be a common word in Danish, and it's also a misspelling of hentai (I wish I didn't know that). Reading the numbers in other directions gives 'BTNet' and 'tent B', which means nothing to me. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you actually meant 'sente', a term from the Japanese game of Go (thus you keep saying 'GO'). When the founders of Atari were trying to come up with a name for the company, they had some trouble at first. They couldn't get their first choice 'Syzygy', or 'BD inc' or 'DB inc' (from the last initials of Bushnell and Dabney). Then: After Bushnell left Atari, he bought a company that was founded by some ex-Atarians and renamed it Sente Technologies, which was soon purchased by Bally/Midway.

Riddle of the Sphinx.

You're right of course. My experience with VCS programming is entirely from hacking the Adventure code, where objects can appear anywhere, so I wasn't thinking of that. The most recent thing I've been working on is using the playfield instead of a sprite for the 'light' that surrounds you in the invisible mazes; for that, I found that I needed to change the playfield color four times in one scanline so that the area would not be repeated on the screen. It's hard to get the timing right, but I've got it close enough now, so that's why I was thinking of switching colors etc. within a scanline as a good approach. I made a new design based on the horizontal approach. It doesn't look like any crib board I've ever seen, but I think it looks pretty good and gives the basic idea. Peg holes seem to be impossible, or at least not worth doing. It wouldn't be too bad to have the holes flicker, but the pegs would also have to flicker, or you would only have one peg per player, or make the pegs small and move the sprites between rows. I think it would be bad to cut down on the visibility of the pegs. This design doesn't involve any changing colors within a scanline. It does require changing some playfield graphics every line, but I think that could be fit in, it's not too sensitive to timing. Where it might break down is displaying the cards face up, which the six-digit routine is used for. You'd only need to change one playfield register here if you sort the cards, once in the middle of the scanline and once at the end. -- actually, come to think of it, you wouldn't need to change the playfield here at all, you could use the ball when there's an odd number of red cards.

Shouldn't matter. The power regulating transistor in the VCS cuts the voltage down to 5 volts. It should work reliably from 7 volts up. If there's a dip in the current though the 9 volt setting would probably make it a little less likely to reset your game.

Originally I tried a checkerboard pattern of green and brown, but having one of the colors the same as the surrounding background was ugly and a little confusing. It was even uglier when it was all black and red (so that the playfield and background colors would never need changing). Other possibilities involve flicker, which I don't like, or alternating scanlines, which would make the red parts of the cards look enemic. Here's a version that has less trouble with asymetric playfields and timing the color changes as I noted in my edit above. Repositioning still has to be done in the top and bottom, so I don't know how well it would really work. It's likely to take more than one HMOVE each time, and you can only do that once per scanline.

I was wondering about the feasability of Cribbage on the 2600 myself, a while ago. But since I play more than I want to already and have gotten tired of it, it wasn't something I wanted to do myself. I have, though, recently gotten into VCS programming, and now I know how the graphics work. So I came up with a mock-up of what Cribbage could reasonably look like on the VCS. The tricky bit is changing playfield colors twice in every scan line, especially in the top and bottom where the timing has to be perfect. Green has to be changed to light brown, then dark brown to green, to squeeze three colors out of two color registers. creative use of one of the sprites and the ball (used here for the winning hole) could give a little more leeway in the timing. For the rest, green remains constant while the browns are changed to red for the cards, then to the other shade of brown. The cards are the two sprites. They could be all in a line instead of staggered, using some trick like the one used in six digit scores, but this is easier and I like it better. The cards get their red and green markings from the color of the playfield and background behind them, which shows through the holes. The pegs are a sprite and its corresponding missile on the top and bottom, or the two missiles vertically. Since you can only have two pegs next to each other on the same scanline there, it only takes two. But the missiles are the same colors as the sprites, so both sprite colors have to be changed twice in every scan line, so there's three colors to change at once. Actually that would be as tricky as the timing in the top and bottom. In this picture, player two has picked two cards to put in the crib, and is about to click the done button. --thought of a few more (obvious and major) problems -- repositioning sprites, and the assymetric playfield. The first could be eliminated except in the top and bottom by having the cards in vertical columns. And the second wouldn't be a big problem, if the columns were properly spaced. That would free up some time for changing colors too.

Friday I stopped by a couple of local thrifts for the first time in a long while, and found the first video game stuff I've ever seen outside of the Goodwill I went to once. For ten bucks (marked down from 35 -- it had been there for three months), I bought a dubious looking bunch of stuff that turned out to include the Extremely Rare TI-99 cartridge 4A Flyer. I guess it's not that big a deal, it seems to be worth about twenty bucks, but it's my first genuine find. Hooray for me. Here's the complete haul, in excruciating detail: An APF TV Fun pong unit model 444, fair condition, one knob sticky and the other loose, with external paddles (cylendrical things that I assume go with the unit), a TV switchbox, and power supply. I tried to hook it up; it sounds like it works fine but I didn't get anything on the screen. The switch box might not be working or maybe the power supply is too low. A 6 volt power supply that doesn't go with anything. A four pronged cord of some sort. The rest is all stuff for the TI-99, too bad the computer itself wasn't included: Loose cartridges: Donkey Kong Alpiner Adventure Chisholm Trail Blasto Hunt the Wumpus Car Wars The Attack Tombstone City in the 21st Century Touch Typing Tutor TI Extended BASIC 4A Flyer Manuals for cartridges: Donkey Kong Alpiner Adventure Chisholm Trail Blasto Hunt the Wumpus Car Wars The Attack Tombstone City: 21st Century Touch Typing Tutor A tape drive with power and serial(?) cords (in seemingly good condition but with nasty corroded batteries), the "Program Recorder" with it's own manual. A power supply, including a short extra cord at the wall end, with a little box that says part no. 9500/2. The lable on this, which matches a lable on the power supply that says "safety checked", makes me think there was a problem with the original power supply alone that the extra cord takes care of. No manual, but there's an addendum stapled to some other addenda. A pair of joysticks, the "Wired Remote Controllers" with their own instruction booklet (and an addendum stapled to other addenda). A TV switch box, the "Video Modulator" with its own instruction booklet (and an addendum stapled to other addenda). Entertainment Games In TI BASIC and Extended BASIC, by Khoa Ton and Quyen Ton, published by SAMS, with the tape that goes with it in a big plastic book like case(what are they called?). It looks like there should be something else, maybe a blank tape came with the package. TI-99/4A: 51 Fun and Educational Programs, by Gil M Schechter, also published by SAMS and looks like it goes with the other. Texas Instruments Home Computer Games Programs, by Len Turner. Terrrific Games for the TI 99/4A, by Hal Renko and Sam Edwards. Programs for the TI Home Computer, by Steve Davis. Other programming books-- Beginner's BASIC and TI Extended Basic, both from TI, with an addendum to the extended basic book and a booklet "Important product information for TI extended BASIC" -- apparantly more addenda; and the BASIC and Extended BASIC reference cards. I guess these are basically the manuals for the BASIC cartridge(s). Read this first!, a booklet that shows how to hook up the TI-99. Computer Awareness Program, an activity book for kids from TI. User's Reference Guide, the manual for the TI-99/4A, with an addendum, and another addendum stapled to the addenda for the Video Modulator, Wired Remote Controllers, and the power supply. A sheet listing tape recorders that should be compatable with the TI-99.

Sounds like Atari ripped off the Car 54 theme.

Well, for all those who were interested in a synthcart beat editor/player/compiler (both of you), I've finally started working on it. I'm working on the emulation part first, and I've got it to output a playable .au file that sounds right -- except for the tempo. I find that a tempo of three frames per note gives the same pace as the samples on the contest page. The playback speed I'm getting from Stella doesn't seem to match any whole number of frames per note. I'm calling the project Synthari. I don't know if that's the name of my program, or possibly a cart if there's going to be one, or what, it's just more convenient than saying Synthcart beat editor/player/compiler all the time.

Hey, I got mine too! Can't wait to try Warlords -- better get those paddles fixed. Is this game good for three players? Thanks alot part 2, Moycon!

quote: Originally posted by Albert: This is off-topic, but I have to ask what this is in reference to. Back when I was growing up in New York, I used to watch the television station WPIX. They would have contests on TV where people would call in and "play" Intellivision games by saying "PIX!" into the phone, which would cause some action in the game (like firing a laser to destroy ships, I think Space Battle was one of the games used). This was all rather humorous, of course, since there was always a delay between the time the person said "PIX!" and when the action was taken. ..Al That's the one all right.

I've been looking at beats.asm, and I think I have the values figured out. The five bits for pitch translate directly into a value (0 to 31) for AUDF. The three bits for instruments taken as a number 0 to 7 correspond to values of 4, 6, 7, 8, 15, 12, 1, and 3, as found in soundTypeArray. The volume is 0 if no note, 15 if accented, 5 if unaccented (I think -- it's 15 with an attenuation of 10). And I'm pretty sure each 32nd note is 3 frames or .05 seconds in duration. If it has to be a whole number of frames, it's 3. Does that sound right?

I guess I would say nostalgia first of all, but that's a pretty broad concept. For me, the games I had or I wanted as a kid bring back a kind of enthusiasm and an unburdened mindset that I just don't have as an adult. The fact that I can share this enthusiasm with the community and with family, adults who have comparable memories, makes it that much better and opens up whole new possiblities. We're not just looking back, we're keeping it alive. I admire the games for how they manage to overcome the severe limitations of the hardware. The games, and the programmers, make so much out of so little. And I find a high esthetic in great possibilities rising out of limitations and simplicity. The artwork and design, which is often both nostalgic and admirable on it's own merits, is a big plus. Let's not forget convenience. You don't usually have to spend a lot of time playing to get some enjoyment out of these games. They come in durable cartridges that you just plug in and play, and you can play them wherever there's a television -- which is usually more comfortable than where your computer is. As a collectable, Atari is still fairly cheap and available. The good games are typically inexpensive. And there are so many of them out there. All these things work together to keep me interested. When I started getting back into the 2600, I had been looking for something to collect, something that would be for me what my Grandmother's sheet music collection was for her. It's a substantial collection, but it wasn't just something to amass. The music was a part of her memories. She could still enjoy it, playing it on the piano and sharing it with her sisters. It looked good, too. And she could take satisfaction in having built up her collection over the years, largely from garage sales. I found something comparable in collecting Atari.

IF I succeed with the first project, adding features shouldn't be a problem. The work would mostly be on your end, as long as compiling the bin file consists of plugging the beat data into an existing bin. Stuff like scripting in the data, let alone real compiling of code, I'm not going to think about at this point. I thought of some more info I need. What's the duration of a single note? Anything else I forgot?

I'm considering making an application in Java for editing beats, playing them so that you can hear them while you work on them, and creating bin files for emulator, supercharger/cuttlecart, or EPROM. I've got no talent for music myself, but I did find the synthcart concept interesting, I would like to contribute something to the Atari world, and I need some kind of project to do while I study Java. I'd like to know how much interest there would be in this. It would be nice to have a little extra motivation if it gets difficult. I can't predict whether I'll complete it in any case. I'm not a programmer, though I have taken two classes in C++ and did very well. And when I finally found the right code to study, I didn't have too much trouble understanding how to emulate Tia sound. I also need some information. How do the values that go into beatdata.h translate to the values that go in the sound control bytes?

quote: Originally posted by Thomas Jentzsch: Manuel has shown me another version of Qix: Jezzball . I don't know Qix, but I was pretty good at Jezzball at one time. How is Qix different from Jezzball?

If you want the cursor from Adventure, or something from Combat or Pong (source of the Atari logo), again I suggest Retrogaming Times' mascot -- Billy the Block. However, if it comes to having a real mascot, on the level of Sonic and Mario, my vote goes to the Yar too. True, it's far from cute, but that's a plus as far as I'm concerned. Pitfall Harry would be great to represent VCS gaming as a whole, since third parties were a big part of the rise and the fall; but then he extends beyond that era and so is more emblematic of Activision, still a thriving company, than classic gaming. Anyway, doesn't Intellevision have a pixilated running guy in their logo?

Yeah, Lode Runner would be great. Robotron would be exceedingly hard to do even a passable job of, but I recall there being a lot of interest in seeing it done. I guess it would have to use playfield graphics for most of the robots, sort of like the mushrooms in centipede? I'd like to see some kind of pool game, but I doubt it could be done. Some sort of endless adventure game, maybe something like the old SPI board game Death Maze. Ms. Adventure -- I like the name, but I don't know exactly what it would be. Perhaps an Adventure style game with Pac-Man like action. Temptris -- something like Tempest and Tetris. Rock Scissors Paper -- a literal translation would be almost as fun as Skeet Shoot, I was thinking more of something like Jezzball. There would be this piece of graph paper, with rocks rolling around, and you would be a pair of scissors avoiding the rocks and cutting the paper to isolate them. The rocks could leave bits of debris that slow you down if you hit them, and sometimes the rocks would break into smaller, faster ones. Some sort of alien falconry game. Quilting Bee -- sounds like super fun, eh? No, it's not a bunch of women sewing. Actually, you're a mutant spider-bee that sews with your stinger/spinnerette, trying to assemble various pieces of cloth... and... never mind.

Apart from making an entirely original game... I would do Airheart, the old AppleII game. Maybe Zany Golf. Space Harrier would be cool. Starlanes.

Why use two bytes for ship positions? Just store the start points in order of size so you know how long each one is, and use one bit to indicate down or across. 10*10*2 = 200 < 256.

Billy the Block, from Pong, Adventure, etc.