tep392

I've played around with the colors a bit recently. Will post NTSC and PAL Altirra screen shots later. One comment on pinky. The arcade version is much less saturated than either of the examples above. Keeping it saturated helps to keep the eyes distinct in this version. Otherwise they tend to blend in when viewed on a monitor.

Whoa, that looks wonderful. If you're going to spend a huge amount of time on the code, may as well devote some care to the cartridge itself. Considered packaging? What are the requirements for this baby? Is there 400/800 compatibility? Unexpanded (16K) 600XL? It should work on any machine with 48k or more of RAM.

Here's a hi res crop. It's Slag.

I just picked up the audio book and have been listening on the way to work the last few days. I'm up to chapter 8 and really enjoying the story. It's actually my first audio book and I'm kind of digging it. It was read by Will Wheaton.

A800 got, Trivial Pursuit got (and the a8 ver is fun too)... now where's my A-team lunch box? Have any of these from the 70's? Please don't tell us you have the JJ Walker doll.

This is an old thread, but I thought I would share a photo of the 800 in the exhibit. I visited the childrens museum with my family this weekend and was surprised to see this 800 on display.

Do you know which versions had the improved dot eating sound? I have one of the old brown carts and it has the same poor sound as the 5200. I have played some of the xex's with the corrected sound but don't know their origin. What's funny about this particular sound effect is that the difference between the old and improved sound is a single byte of code.

Thanks for the info. It also does not work in MESS 0.111 from 2006. So, just to summarize, a MESS version from nine years ago it works on, but defintiely anything six years ago or newer it doesn't work on. Undoubtedly, due to better emulation and not allowing the writes it previously did. Still wish there was a way to get this running in a verison of MESS within the last several years...lol. Does MESS emulate the XBOARD? If it does, I can make it work with that.

You are a machine PMP! And your avatar is quickly becoming out of date.

Thanks for the compliment! The fruit thing will be fixed in the next version. Stuff like the mouth being open when stopped probably won't. It seems like a small change but could take a bit of coding to implement and I'm at a point where I'm focused on fixing bugs and want to avoid breaking anything by making changes like this. I will be tweaking the colors over the next couple days and then should be ready to post a final version.

That's a Bkey? I recall a full stroke keyboard with yellow keys. Was that something different? Too bad these are sold out (to Atari-ize my PC) http://www.geekstuff...e-keyboard.html My 400 had a Cherry keyboard that looked like this. http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=23143&d=1312347986 I preferred the look of the original so I sold it and bought an nos keyboard from Best Electronics.

To be fair, Atarimax charges $39.99 + $5 shipping for a single cart. Someone may not want to put out $100 for 5 carts. So this single cart is actually $5 less than a new one and he's taking offers.

Here's a photo of the official cart. I'm going to start a new topic in a few days with the final versions of the code and more photo's of the cart and game play. I'll be selling the cart for $25 plus shipping. PM me if interested so I can gauage how many carts to order. Regards, Perry

I won't count my VCS with Basic cartidge. So my first computer would be the 400 with 410 tape drive. The games were so much better than the VCS, I abosutely loved that machine. Probably played Defender and Donkey Kong the most. Spent many hours typing in programs from antic, analog, etc. Had sore fingers but good memories. Learned assembly on that machine with the Assembler Editor cart. Next computer was an Apple IIe with floppy drive that I bought used. It was a great tool for college but not nearly as fun as the Atari.

Are the ghosts and pac moving at the same speed in relation to the the maze, or just the same speed as the arcade? If you clock how long it takes pac to travel from the left side to the right side, it should be the same as the arcade. This version has the same number of dots as the arcade horizontally.

Actually, a "coder" should know about the machine and chip he wants to code for. He doesn't need to be a musician. Same with a Piano builder. He hasn't to be a musician, to build the Piano itself. He even has not to be a musician, to bring every key in tune there. He has to be a musician, if he wants to play on the finished piano. The "Piano builder" has done his job right, if a musician can play on the instrument, and everything plays fine. I know how to code the Atari and I know the POKEY registers and how to use them. I don't know how to do these advanced POKEY techniques you speak of so could not help unless you describe them. You have to communicate SPECIFICALLY what you want done if you want the result you desire.

This step is essential if Emkay wants to see his tracker become reality. He can't expect the coder to be an expert on Pokey and chip tunes. If he does, it will limit the number of potential coders who can work on this. A good software design process will start with a detailed functional requirement and technical spec.

Good thing we are using LCD, LED, and Plasma Flat TVs and Monitors today. It is possible to extend the screen vertically with a longer Display List, but I discovered not all TVs are the same. Have to leave about 12 to 16 pixels at the top and a few at the bottom. We don't know what kinda of VBI processes PAC MAN is doing and could mess up timing/multiplexing, etc. I have seen PAC MAN versions with the score, lives, Fruit displayed on the side. That is difficult to do on the Atari. This version is using 2 fonts already and needs to do a DLI. The screen graphics font uses up all 127 characters. It is possible to have the "READY!" and "GAME OVER" characters stored elsewhere and copied into a group of characters when needed. The Font has to be in RAM, not sure what the cartridge plans are. I did add one line for "1up high score 2up" so were currently at 25 lines. I also thought about putting the fruit on the side but need to change the colors with DLI's. The sprite multiplexer is using DLI's so would need to take care with that. Bigger issue is that the fruit is currently done with PM graphics, so putting it on the side would increase flicker. I'm using two overlaping players for the multiple colors. I would need to change the fruit to character graphics to make that work and as you noticed, I don't have much space available in the font. You might be intested in how the VBI is done. Most of the VBI work is actually done with a DLI on the last line of the display. This gives more time for updating the PM stuff and sound code. It still runs well into the next screen though. Doesn't complete until the maze starts getting drawn. This is actually why I was having an issue with Pac getting clipped in the top line. My sound code was delaying the PM code too much. Solution was easy. Just moved sound code after PM code. There is still a defered VBI that updates colors and sets up the first DLI.

I've though about sqeezing more dots in, but I think the root of the problem is the that the maze is smaller. I could widen it a bit without too much trouble. I going to try tweeking some of the times first and see how that goes. I did notice that the blue time is the same number of tics for both PAL and NTSC, so PAL users are actually getting more blue time. I'm going to change that so timing will be the same on any machine. I also noticed the ghost always flash 5 times, even at higher levels. It should drop to 3 at the higher levels.

I'm actually very close to wrapping up this project. I'm making a few graphic tweaks suggested by MrFish. Fixed a few bugs including the one with pressing the fire button while paused. There is also a somewhat significant change I'm going to make for game play. I'm finding this version to be a bit too easy, even though the pac and ghost speeds and behavior are identical to the arcade. I think it's because the maze is smaller with less dots so it is easier to clear. There are a few things, like blue time, that I will be ajusting. Also, just ordered a sample cart. Hope to get it in a week or so and post a pic along with the final binaries.

Yikes. I'll get that fixed.

That should work. Just tell me which color patch matches best.

I went back and looked at pacmanv5.xex and the orange is much more orange. Looks good on my 400 and in emulation. I'll go back to that color.

Thank you!

Firestorm, Please provide some details. Is it just black screen? Does the intro screen load? How are you loading it? Is your machine modified or standard? Anyone else having problems with PAL machines?