tep392

No problem, but you should wait until the final version is posted.

I;ve thought about it, but Ms. Pac-man is pretty good as is and there are other projects I want to work on.

Here's the latest xex version with MrFish's intro screen. Other than possible bug fixes, this will be the last version. I havn't had any feedback on the PAL colors, so I'm assuming they are ok. If anybody has suggestions for color tweaks, I consider making those changes. The next update will be adding the intro to the cart version. pacmanV8.xex

Thanks for the advice. I tried the immediate VBI and the intro screen works correctly now, but the loader stops after loading 40 bytes of the main program. I'm close to giving up on having this work with DOS.

I'm having a problem with loading a multi-segment XEX file from DOS. I've done some searching but havn't found the answer yet. I'm trying to create an xex file that will load an intro screen and then continue loading the game while the intro screen is displayed. I believe I have it setup correctly. The screen code is loaded and executed via the init vector 0x02E2. After it runs, it rts's to the DOS loader which then loads the main code and executes via the run vector 0x02E0. Now here's the problem. My intro screen used DLI's and a vertical blank interrupt. The VBI stops executing after I rts back to the loader. It then restarts when the main code starts. Is it not possible to have a vertical blank interrupt running while dos is loading the binary? I haven't traced the DOS code but it seems to be preventing the VBI from executing. I did check NMIEN and both NMI's and DLI's are enabled while the loader is executing.

Yawn.

Try this one. pacmaxflash8mbv2.bin

There are no standard cartridge schemes that support 48k at $4000-$FFFF and POKEY. The only way it will work in MESS is if the emulator supports the XM module or the XBOARD. It will work in ProSystem13 because it doesn't emulate the hardware precisely and allows me to read ROM and write POKEY at the same memory locations.

I plan on doing that one after I get my DK carts made. Unfortunately, I can't do anything until I get a XM in my hands. I have no way to test the Yamaha sound code without it since the emulators don't support the XM yet.

I've just finished the menu for the flash cart version. If you don't have a cart, this will run in emulation on both Atari800Win and Altirra. Cart type is 1mbit Atarimax. Edit: Forgot to give MrFish a shout out for doing the fonts. Thank you! pacmaxflashV2.bin

Could you post a picture of it? I'll get that done tomorrow. My phone is dead right now. Thank you. I need as much feedback as possible to make sure all the bugs are worked out.

Thanks so much for the kind words. It's been fun working on it. My main goal has been to get the game play to feel as much like the arcade as possible. I think it's worked out well so far. Still have a few tweaks to do on the ghost logic. Thanks again.

Could you post a picture of it?

I have a couple questions to help me figure this out. 1) What machine are you trying to run it on? 2) Which version are you trying? Have you tried versions 4 or 5? Thanks! I'm running these on a stock PAL 800XL, using the xex files sent over SIO2PC. I have just run versions 4, 5 and 6 and these are the results: Version 4 - absolutely no problems...smooth as butter. Version 5 - runs, but seems to 'skip frames'. Every now and then, Pac-man himself seems to skip animation, and also jerk ahead. If this was a game on a modern PC where screens are completely redrawn, I would say it is frame skipping to catch up with itself. Version 6 - As MrFish described. Give this one a try. I'm not sure why V5 didn't run smooth, so this might do the same. I've made a few changes to fix some of the bugs mentioned earlier. If it still runs jerky, try to figure out if it is under certain conditions or just in general and I'll take another look at it. Thanks. pacmanV7.xex

I have a couple questions to help me figure this out. 1) What machine are you trying to run it on? 2) Which version are you trying? Have you tried versions 4 or 5? Thanks!

OK. I don't have a PAL machine so I'm stuck using emulators for debugging. Works on Atari800win. I'll try it on Altirra and see if I can figure it out. Thanks for the feedback.

My sentimental favorite is the 400 which was my first computer.

I thinks it's a real cart. Here's my reasoning. The game runs out of 8k of rom at 0xa000 - 0xbfff and only uses the first 16k of ram. Clearly designed for a 16k machine. It's very unlikely that the disk version would have been built to run at 0xa000, thus requiring 48k machines to run. If this is a correct assumption, the person who made this cart would have to have disassembled the disk version and re-assembled it to run at 0xa000, which is not a trivial task. Why would someone go to all that trouble to make a cart? Would be easier to make a cart that copies itself to ram, as the disk version would have, without going through the whole disassembly/assembly process. Labels get damaged all the time. Do we know it's the original label.

Thanks for posting. I've seen some of those before and thought they were fixed. Probably related to some changes I made to the DLI's. Should be easy to track down.

That's interesting. I was testing the flash cart on my 800xl (NTSC) and had a similar experience. It was working but then all of a sudden, I saw some colored vertical bars. I pressed reset and it went black. After that, nothing would run. I suspected a problem with the computer so I tried it on my 400, and all worked fine. I pulled apart the 800XL, and probed some of the signals and wasn't seeing anything on the data lines. I reseated the chips, and it all started working. I'm by no means saying you are having the same problem on your computer. It's just funny that I had a similar problem with verticle bars, then blank screen. Seems to work fine in Atari800win in PAL mode.

Here's another update. I've tweaked the NTSC colors, added joystick selection of options and fixed some bugs. Since I can't test on PAL and I've heard the current colors are messed up, I just made the PAL color codes the same as NTSC. If your not happy with the colors please suggest better ones and I'll make the update. You'll need to give me the Hue and Luminance values. Thanks. You can now select the start level and 1 or 2 players by pressing the joystick left or down respectively. It's nothing fancy, but it was very simple to implement since the bits for those direction correspond to the same bits in the consol key register. I've also have a bin available now that can be flashed to a 1mb Atarimax cart. This new version saves the high score on the flash cart at the end of the game. Only one high score is saved and no initials. If you want to reset the high score, type "RESET" from the menu screen. One thing you will notice is the game will only go to the strawberry level. I'm going to be selling carts of this so I've decided to make this a demo version. I'll still be updating the xex version which will maintain full functionality. It just won't have the high score save or the animated menu screen. Next update will be adding the animated menu screen to the Maxflash version. It will probably take a few weeks before it's ready. PS. I've put an easter egg in the Maxflash version. The key to finding it is in the characters pacmaxflashV1.bin pacmanV6.xex

I believe it is. I've compared game play in emulation and it seems to run at the same pace as the original in PAL emulation.

The first digitized speech I ever heard was when a buddy of mine got one of the Apple IIe's in our HS computer lab to say "I am Iron Man". Quality was awful but it was very cool at the time. That was when I first learned about digital sampling.

I plan on making my POKEY update available on cart but can't do much until I get an XM in my hands to test with. I could certainly make some of the modifications suggested above. I think the dot's look great but I don't like how they are so off center in the long vertical corridor on the left side of the maze. I'll have to see if the maze font can be reworked to fix this.

I see. I better get working on that then. I'd had to see your cat get squashed.