kool kitty89

Game sharks have also been known to corrupt N64 save data (on cart), not sure about memory cards/"Paks" (on psx/n64), or the Satrun's onboard memory.

The Genesis Model 2 (and all Sega produced MD/Genny models plus the 32x) have RGB A/V output (the 32x actually relys on this for the mixing cable) THe Genesis 3 only has composite, as do several other TecToy versions. (so others only featuring RF out) All versions of the Genesis (including clones using the TecToy ASIC, but not emulator based ones) will output RGB signals to the board (the VDP outputs an RGB signal), these then have to be encoded to composite, even if there's no external hooku-up avaiable. The SNES (not SNES2) and Saturn also output RGB through their a/v ports, though the SNES 2/Jr only outputs composite from the port. Of course, the old RGB format is of little use in N. America as it was never adopted for TV's (though older coputer monitors did support it), though it does allow a high quality starting point to adapt to component video or other formats like VGA. (the latter requiring scaneline doubling; VGA RGB isn't compatible with the old RGB format, though trasitonal VGA monitors supported both) The NES is a different animal, the VDP natively outputs a composite signal, which means you have to work with that as your starting point, which is much more limited than the ohters as you've got to seperate this signal before adapting it further. (if you want any gain in quality) The simplest modification should be the use of a comb filter to split the composite signal in to luma and chroma for S-Video, getting anything else would be trickier. (though I'd immagine the next step from there would be splitting the chroma signal for component video)

I was exagerrating. I was talking about the need to add extra RAM and a Pokey. Carts would have been much more expensive....not Neo Geo $ but not $50 either. Something like that would probably be more practical as an expansion module (ie an add-on passthrough cart -possibly with built in game(s) as well to help justify the purchase), something similar in form to the high score cart (they might have been able to include that functionality as well), a 1 time purchase to expand the system. In that respect they should have included some of this in the console in the first place, it would be cheaper still than buying a seperate add-on cart, and shouldn't have added unreasonable cost. (one earlier suggestion was to switch to a single, 8 kB SRAM, though this still wouldn't be enough for some of the things you were proposing) Other than cost, the only reason these weren't added (particularly the POKEY), was lack of board space, and lack of time for a redesign (for the proposed 1984 launch), though they could at very least have initially mounted the POKEY on a riser board in the intrim and later modify the board to encorporate it. Of course, with a later release date, there's a number of improvements that could have been made (including more RAM and a POKEY), but development was basicly done with the hardware, and more importantly, it had already started production and had the limited release. (of course, even if this hadn't occurred, odds are Tramiel wouldn't be supportive of further development of the design) From a practical standpoint, they probably could have released the POKEY+RAM cart expansion and later encorporated that onto the board itsself. (but would RAM through the cartridge bus be recognized and used in the same manner as the onboard SRAM?)

Based on the pres releases form EGM shown above, there's no CDi hardware in the machine whatsoever, no custom 68k (68070) CPU, no added vidio hardware, though the hardware the do list seems a lot more capable in many ways copared to the CDi. (which really wasn't originally intended as a gaming machine, rather a multimedia entertainment system, audio CDs, VCD's -with MPEG decoder- and with games offered in addition to the other features) Anyway, I don't know if this doccument shows anything different, or simply confirms the above articles, but well see if he decides to release the information. I'm not sure about Sony's machine, I know it was derived from the SNES hardware, with additional CD drive and decoser, with additional RAM for CD data. I'm not sure if there were other additinal coprocessors though.

Judging by the date (1993) there's no way that has anything to do with Sony, they'd dropped that back in '91, and by 1993 Sony was on the verge of dropping their original SNES derived "Play Station" in favor of a new, more powerful design. (which eventualy ended up as the PlayStation) I think the final version of the SNES derived console was the "Target Box" PS-X prototype. This doccument almost definitely refers to the Nintendo-Phillips CD-ROM project, some refrences claim it was to be compatible with the CD-i, but from the specs I've seen it has very little to do with that console. I do hope this gets scanned or otherwise archived before it's sold, it would be a shame for something like this to just dissapear... (even if it was just recorded for preservational purposes as there's no telling what will happen with the new owner, or if it's damaged at some point) I's never really made sense to me whay protos and rare docs like these drop in value after being copied (though often the sale is technically illegal as well, or kind of in a gray area if they haven't been previously released, though often those holding the legal rights won't do anything about it). If it's the real deal, it shouldn't matter either way, the same for Betas of unreleased games... There's no logical reason the collector value should go down... Anyway, here's what I've seen on the Phillips collaberation: http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=126091

Yeah, but I kind of like the ones with that "creative" angle, a few videos kind of slumped recently, wth some good parts bat partially feeling forced at some points and just out of character in others. (the Jag review could have been better IMO) THe last couple have been getting back up there though, Terminator and T2 were pretty good. Yeah, ET was overhyped, and worse, they made too many copies, meaning they took a loss from all the unsold ones (they shouldn't have produced more than 1 million), Pac Man was even worse in this respect though, and a worse game overall IMO, especially considdering the sloppyness of the port. (compared to Ms. Pac Man, though they still went with the stretched maze and non black background on that one -the A-8bt and 5200 versons were stretched as well, at least the 7800 version of Ms. wasn't)

You'd need to take into account seek time as well, which of course is minimized by efficient data organization on the disc, but this was often not the case, which meant frustrating load times. (of course small games, basicly those that easily fit on cart, but decompressed onto CD -which would make them a bit larger in terms of physical space- wouldn't be too bad, any additional size on disc would be for added video or CD audio tracks, which shouldn't effect load time -other than possibly cluttering the disc if data is orginized slopily)

Isn't most 2D stuff on the PS1 done using textured tiles made up of polygons. (2 triangles together to make a quadrilateral, with no 3D calculations, just flat tiles) I beleive the saturn's "sprite" hardware works the same way, though it has the advantage of using quadrilateral tiles in the first place. (which has the disadvantage for 3D rendering, mainly due to dissimilarity with triangles, lacking some of the flexibility and making ports/multiplatform titles more difficult -as pretty much all others used triangles as the geometric primitives) Of course the Saturn had the 2nd "true" 2D VDP for generating backgrounds.

Yeah, I understood the rest (Mbits is clearly listed), I'd just been taking the "K" and M values as KB/MB rather than K/Mbits, that does make a lot more sence with some of the timeline and prices. (as well as the IC sizes in general)

Yeah, that then the (more popular) Sequel, Tie Fighter in 1994. As well as a lot of other contemporary PC games should have been ported. (technically they probably could have compressed the floppy version to a practical size to fit on a cart. at least for X-Wing) One thing the Jag's often critisized controller was goof for was PC ports, in particular games that required too many actions to do properly on most console controllers. (hence some crappy controlls on a couple flight sims and the like that ended up on some consoles, F-15 Strike Eagle II and Mig 29 on the Genesis are such examples) They screwed this up with Wolfenstein though (doom had the # keys for weapons). The re-mapped buttons on the Pro controllers are still preferable in many circumstances though. (in addition to the rest of the # keys) Wing Commander would be a nice port, with a CD they could probably combine the first 2 games (plus expansions) onto one disc. Then youve got the very impressive (for the time and even still in some ways) Wing Commander III in 1994 (which did end up getting ported to the Playstation and even the 3DO -though I cant immagine gameplay was very smoothe on the latter) The Jag should have been able to handle it, though it would have to be modified to work with the limitations of the system (mainly the RAM; the PC version requireng a pleintiful 8 MB), of course the PSX version (and 3DO in particular) would have been optimized to work on those systems as well. (with hardware corrections the memory limits and architecture change would really be the only issues, and with the well known architecture of the 020 that should help as well -perhaps being more attractive development wise than contemporary consoles in this respect) It would be promoting both the 3D and streaming video capabilities of the console. (with the port of an unpresidentedly high budget title) Of course this didn't come out until 1994, so that would be a later considderation (and a Jag port probably wouldn't be out until some time in '95) WC IV would be even later (also ported to PSX) and more demanding (same RAM wise though), but still probably one of the PC titels to go after. Along with these, many popular FPS's should have been ported (these in particular would also work with the online/internet angle mentioned a while back), Duke Nukem 3D, adn Quake should be possible with the hardware improvements. (though in reality, a big reason for lacking such games was a lack of development support, and lack of good tools to use the existing hardware -on top of additional hardware flaws -of course with improving the flaws and programming difficulties should also improve intrest from developers -which I beleive had been initialy high in reality) That said, upgraded versions of older console/computer/arcade games (the original 2 WC games included), with higher resolution and more colorful graphics, should have been possible even using the 68k in the current system, granted it's more difficult, especially putting some games on carts (those designed to run from CD or HDD), and newer game in this range might be pushing it with the 68k as well. (Wing Commander even had issues on the CD32, though probably in large part due to lack of optimization for the 68k architecture) So even for the older games, the 020 (firstly, then other possible improvements like MMU, OP bugs, and blitter buffer) would be a big help to make such conversions look fresher and more appealing. Of course a CD drive could add some of this as well, as CDDA, streaming Video intros/cutscenes, and conversions of some games that would be difficult port on cart, and of course the lower cost and lack of storage limits compared to carts would be appealing to developers and could offer a significantly higher profit margin for game sales for Atari as well. (especially where in-house titles are concerned) On top of lhis theres lower cost for distributors/retailers and, ultimately, consumers, as far as individual game pricing is concerned.

??? What about Codemasters (Camerica), some pretty good games from them. (probably the best unlicenced publisher next to Tengen)

This came up in another recent thread: SPL is a very good language, but it lacks a few features (which I'm sure would have been implemented if hell froze over and Atari was successful) which would have helped musicians out. A 68000 would be detrimental to the Lynx's performance. It's a great chip, but it has no place in the Lynx hardware. Gorf, a 1x speed drive on the Jag would be unaccepable? (even if this was only done on early models, with falling component costs allowing for a more compeditive 2x drive later on -obviously early models would be stuck with the slower drives inless the drive was fitted as a module, which would again add to cost) Load times would be longer, but most video encoding at the time catored to 1x speed units (MPEG-1, Cinepak, ect), so that shouldn't be an issue. (and many smaller games, easily fitting on carts, possibly with added CD audio and streaming video, wouldn't have particularly long load times as the programs themselves would be small)

Yes, potentiometers, I don't know why it would have been an issue doing these on the 7800, TIA already supported 2 pairs of padles (which technically could also allow 2 analog joysticks wired to the paddle pots), the only possible problem I can think of would be possibly using the TIA bus more often (which can cause performance hits on the CPU as it has to drop down to 1.19 MHz when accessing 2600 hardware), of course this already has to be done when reading joysticks and generating sound. On the previous thought: couldn't you configure the keyboard readout for POKEY to support additional controllers? This came up in another thread (see below) on the 7800 recently (actually it was a question pertaining to POKEY handling I/O in general on-cart), and the answer I got was that you could add additional ports to a POKEY expansion cart (or full sized add-on as is being proposed here), but it wouldn't be able to access the two existing controller ports.

OK, so are the figures on this site: http://phe.rockefeller.edu/LogletLab/DRAM/dram.htm listing IC densities in "K" referring to Kbits rather than KBytes?

Yeah, the same simple 3-channel square wave +1 noise, TI PSG as the Master System (almost identical to the GG), and preceeding SG-1000, Colecovision, and similar to that used in the Intellivision and Atari ST. Too bad they didn't add the YM2413 to the Gamegear as was done with the Japanese Master System (and as an add-on for the Mk. III) It's a shame the ST had such limited sound hardware as well, an FM synth chip probably being the cheapest option there too. (though I suppose they could have used some POKEYs or a modified derivative thereof)

Why do SRAM IC's, as were listed previously, 1/2 the size of comperable DRAM chips? (does SRAM use exactly 2x the Silicon as DRAM)

Well my Model 2's even worse from that standpoint, no games at all, as it was a more expensive buisness only system. (interesting note on the Model 1 is that, due to lack of RF shealding or audio hardware, some games had you put a radio nect to the set for game sound effects) The CoCo was much better in this respect, but most (if not all) of its games were available as better versions on contemporary platforms. (I'm not sure whay they went with the layout they did with the CoCo, sure it's flexible, but having the CPU doing most of the graphics and sound work limits it a lot more too, you'd think they would have kept with the Z80 of their previous designs and added dedicated sound and video chips)

The paddles were built into the wireless controller, but I beleive it only supported up to 2 players using the wireless controllers. It did have the standard ports as well though, and in a more convienent place (IMO) and the Stock 2600 or Jr: I was just saying that they could have used the case design to give it an updated look, and possibly alter the wireless controllers into standard wired controller to match the styling and fit in the storage bin. (if they kept it) Also, it apears they used a different power socket, possibly the same size as the Master System, NES, Genesis (M1), Super Famicom, and PAL SNES. Either way it's a similar type. (a coaxial one rather than the 2600's 1/8" phono plug)

Didn't Warner actually take losses for a good while after the sale before things picked up? The other option he'd supposedly considdered was going public with atari (onto the stock market), but the stock market wasn't in the right position for this at the time. That was indeed part of the problem though, Warner oversaturated the 2600, while they could have kept it into the late 80's they should have been tapering off starting arround 1982 (when it peaked, and the same time their big problems started), and should have had a decisive successor in place by then. (they botched the 5200, though the rushed nature is somewhat understandable given the planned release of the 3200 and creating the 5200 as a quick fix, but making it incompatible with both the 8-bit line and the 2600 was a bad move, and that "bigger is better" reasoning was just dumb, ironically Atari Corp. did the same thing with the Lynx...) And I beleive Tramiel didn't re-release the 2600 Jr until after Nintendo had proven that the market wasn't dead, along with the release of the 7800. What are you talking about? If you mean colors on screen (bits per pixel) then yer, the 2 shade (black and white) monochrome PONG game is 1-bit, but the 2600 certainly doesn't have an 8-bit color display! 8-bit color is 256 colors, which wasn't seen on a video game console until the SNES. The CPU in the 2600 is 8-bit, yes, I'm not sure what TIA would be considered in this respect, and the PONG consoles used discrete logic (in the case of the home consoles in an integrated ASIC), no microprocessor. The 2600's master palette is only 7-bits (128 colors) and that's for NTSC, with PAL it's 104 colors, and SECAM only 8 colors. I'm not sure of the total colors available on screen for the 2600, but an individual player is indeed a 1-bit: 2 colors, the solid color plus transparent. (inless you change the color for the nect scanline while the sprite is being drawn)

Ah, I see. I often end up using the CX-40 joystick as a thumbstick (right thumb on the stick, left on the button), I kind of though this was from habbit, using gamepads growing up (though I had an analog Joystick for PC games), but I later discovered this is how my mom, uncles, and granpa used to use the joysticks on their Atari back in they got it, well before the days of Nintendo. (technically the Vectrex was eariler then Nintendo -even the Famicom- and it's controller seems to be orinted for thumbs as well) Right, I wasn't thinking, they probably use the NES/SNES interface logic. (it's frustrating that some unrelated clone systems do this, including some dedicated Sega Genesis ones, instead of using the original interface -compatible with the original controlers) Though this could mean that some of those other clone systems using DE-9 ports will have bcompatible controllers with the flashback. Of course the flashback 2 uses actual Atari compatible hardware (TIA, RIOT, and 6507 consolidated into an ASIC), so that's a different situation. (there are even soldering points inside to facilitate the addition of a cartridge port) Yeah, I noticed my PC's 512 MB DDR card had 16 chips on it, meaning they were 32 MB each (Each IC being 4-bit, combining to a 64-bit data bus?). Anyway this may be different than asynchronous DRAM, as you mentioned this example is SDRAM.

In actual implementations there were bankswitched carts that had up to 32 kB of ROM, I'm not sure if that would be a hard limit or not though. As to actual physical space, the cartridge slot supports 12-bit addressing, allowing 4 kB to be addressed without bank switching. The 2600's 6507 CPU has a 13-bit bus -8KB, granted some had to be allocated for the 128 bytes of SRAM on RIOT, but the 12-bit cart address limit comes from the 12 pin ribbon cable used to connect the cart connector to the board, the cart connectors have 24-pins but only 1/2 are actually connected. (hence why the 7800 could address more with the same connector)

These arean't really the best examples, Conker was good, though I'm not suer it's as impressive technically as something like Battle for Naboo (the culmination of Factor 5's custom microcod work stemming from Indiana Jones, and subsequent Rogue Squadron titles), still there was untappedpotential due to the limitations put on the hardware configuration. (a lot cost reduction related, htough that generic SGI microcode was limiting as well, not verry flexible) As for the others, the SNES games are also poor examples as the SNES was designed form the outset to support enhancement chips, granted I'm not sure the invisioned anything as advanced as a RISC coprocessor (Super FX) when they designed the system, but still the potential was there. (of course the Genesis has that single SVP chip games too, in Virtua Racing) DK Country is a bad example particularly as there's no enhancement chips and it doesn't do anything special with the hardware, it looks better on the SNES with its higher color capabilities than it would on the Genesis, but the graphical quality is due to the use of 3D rendered sprites and backgrounds made on graphics (SGI) workstations. (sonic 3D blast is another example of a similar technique, Vectorman, or Sonic Blast on the GG/SMS, as well as to a limited extent in Earthworm Jim, EWJ 2, or Toy Story) There are better examples like games pushing polygons on the Genesis (Hard Drivin, F-22 Interceptor), or games like Red Zone, Panorama Cotton, Zero Tolerance, Battle Frenzy, "Duke Nukem 3D," or Toy Story (the air duct level). Porting Wolf3D to the Apple IIgs and Super NES might fit this category as well, and possibly Doom for the SNES as well. (granted it used the SFX 2 chip and was pretty cut-down and choppy, but that's still a lot more than that chip had been meant to handel and there probably had to be a lot of optimization, particularly given the 2 MB ROM addressing limit of the Super FX 2 chip)

The Atari 400 had been intended, more or less, as a video game console "with a keyboard" -giving it limited utility as a computer as well, though it was a bit expensive for this role, and the 2600 continued to be pushed. IIRC, the 400/800 stemmed from what had been intended as the replacement for the 2600 outright, but were reworked due to the rising interest in home computers. (and the 3200 was then put into works as the 2600's true successor, then that was cancelled and the 5200 became the quick fix)

Either way, the Lynx was the most powerful portable console out at the time, I don't think it would have been a good choice for a home console though; as far as "what ifs" go in that area, thare are a lot of other missed opertunities prior to this. (several 68000 based systems, an ST derivative for one, or prior to Tramiel, there were plans for an Amiga derived console, and Atari's own Sierra 68000 computer project which I beleive had been cancelled in 1983 after Kassar left; there's also the Gaza design, but that seems more expeisive, and more like a workstation though both of these latter 2 are fairly vague in discription) As for the sound, AFIK the Lynx sound has nothing to do with TIA or POKEY, from what I;ve read it features eight 8-bit DAC's which I beleive are controled through software (I haven't seen mention to a dedicated sound controller/processor). I'm not sure what other features are these, or what you can do through the DAC's (the digitized samples are pretty clear though), it does sound strangely like a POKEY in many instances though (which itsself is reminiscent of TIA's sound in some ways, though much better, certain effects, especially the nois generation are quite distinctive). Nevertheless the sound is usually a better than similar games on the Gameboy, and (particularly) the Game Gear. (like the Master System -and Atari ST for that Matter- the sound capabilities were pretty limited compared to the NES, Gameboy, let alone the Lynx)

Yep, along those lines there's this: Aiwa Mega-CD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variations_of...Sega_Mega_Drive