Level42

Love that patched version. Moving the joystick to port 2 always made me feel like a stupid C64 user.....

Can't log in. Did they change user passwords ?

This is why I have a (switchable) NTSC ANTIC in my PAL 600XL. "Old" games run just that bit faster and colors are correct. I'd rank this as an "old" game since it sticks to "old" game design rules (5200=16k) I assume.

Huh ? Albert isn't even suppose to run correctly on NTSC ? (lags greatly when I run the cartridge with NTSC ANTIC enabled, fine with PAL ANTIC)

I hope the final version is easier than the earlier versions (I see an option for it, don't remember if it was there before) because IMHO it was too hard and I lost interest in it very quickly, while I rate the original Bruce Lee as one of the best games on the A8. Downloading the final versions as we speak.....

Hmmmm....why would they need to drop a few transistors from TIA's design ? The only reason I can think of is that it is so crammed that else they couldn't make everything fit ? I mean, there is no cost advantage in leaving out a couple of transistors on a chip, right ? By the way, the original question should have been: how on earth did Jay Miner and his team manage to get 128 whopping colors out of a 1977 machine while absolutely nothing else could manage that at the time......? The second post nicely answers that question and I actually never realized this neat trick. Naturally the GTIA in the Atari 8 bit computers nicely topped this trick to 256 colors. I wonder how they did it in that chip because AFAIK both NTSC and PAL machines can both produce 256 colors. To me, this has always been an incredible advantage of the VCS and A8 machines over anything else at the time: games already looked much more different by the freedom of colors that the programmers could choose. Compare to f.i. the Odyssey2/Videopac with it's basic RGB colors and, of course, the C64 where all games use the same purple and brown all the time.... for me this was one of the reasons to stick to Atari when I went from game console to computer.

Ah surprised ab out the TTL info.... LOL. Yeah well I have a Sunnyvale (NTSC of course) 4 switcher here (in PAL land) with a CD4050 mod and I hadn't used it for quite some time and hooked it up again recently and where it worked fine before, I do get a working picture except it doesn't sync. I may have tried it on another TV before though, so maybe one is less "picky" about the sync then the other.... will have to try that other TV....

Has anyone ever explained why a CD4050 is used ? I've seen simple mods with just a single transistor, what's the difference between using a CMOS non-inverting Hex buffer and a simple transistor and why not use a TTL non inverting hex-buffer, CMOS are know to be relatively slow. Just wondering :)

I never felt the need for wireless controller with my A8 because my setup is always close, TV, computer and joystick. I also wouldn’t want Bluetooth wireless because of this: Lag test

Try and find a B&O MX8000. It blows the older MX4000 and MX7000 away (which are already great). I have MX4000,MX4200 (real flat, don't really like that), MX7000 and MX8000's. The MX8000 has the most vibrant colors I've seen on any of the MX series, plus that sound....that incredible sound.... Also: the menu system is SOOOOOO much better than the weird teletext style set-up menu of the older MX4000 and MX7000.

Well you have a point. I actually meant that as a joke but I should have put a smiley at the end of the sentence to make that clear. I'm sorry. Plenty of great folks in the USA, I shouldn't have written that. Sometimes we do feel it's a bit scary though. I can give you the reasons, but we're too far off-topic again as it is....

Thanks Stephen. Having two stepchildren with mild forms of autism I am absolutely appalled by this shit that Kyle22 wrote. You have no fucking clue about autism and the effects it has on peoples lives. My wife’s ex has it too, trust me life was hard for her with him, but he is totally not an asshole. Autism comes in all kinds of forms and ranges and the symptoms might seem someone to be an asshole, but in fact, sometimes they simply miss a part of the puzzle that makes social and human interaction the way most of us without autism think it “should be”. My mastery of English isn’t good enough to explain it fully, and this is also not the place….but my wife could write a book about it with an ex husband and two kids all having autism. You’ve been excusing yourself for what you wrote about your overcharged A8 but I demand an apology on behalf of all people with autism. ‘Cause if it sounds like there’s any assholes here, you’re the one.

You should not HOLD start "right away", you simply PRESS start while the demo is running. Then wait a bit (you sound like the kind of person to think it's not working immediately) , as the text that swirls changes and presents you the "results" of the random selection of Music and Sound banks. Next, the game starts. If not, use a normel Sally as everyone else does.

He didn't state which country. You Americans all think the world is not greater than your scary corner of the planet....

Ahahahahahaha...........NO !

GREAT Noticed and used it earlier on, too busy to respond yet though....

This game actually has a very famous developer (Owen Rubin) at Atari and it went through a long series of changes…. http://allincolorforaquarter.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-tortuous-history-of-tube.html also, the game uses two POKEYs, so the sound effects of either Star Raiders or Tunnel Hunt may have been “borrowed” in either direction, especially since development started in 1979….

It would be cool to have an A8 conversion of tunnel hunt. The A8 should be able to create the tunnel effect using the GTIA mode (like the launch tunnel on Rescue on Fractalus)…the rest is just some P/M graphics well the tunnel does move a lot….. would be hard on the A8 I bet. I’m convinced that this clever tunnel effect is not created with any (or much) CPU involvement, especially considering it’s from 1979 it looks like it’s done with hardware tricks, much like Midways Space Encounters.

I’d say in general, when ex Mister Commodore bought Atari, he started practicing his Commodore motto. Hence the quality went down. He was just lucky that the A8 chips are good, reliable and cool. It’s way too “generic” to say “XL/XE” we’re more troublesome. IMHO 600XLs are the sturdiest A8 ever. Yes better than the 400 and 800 because of its single board design, although the 400 and 800 aren’t that bad. But remember that Atari had to remove the neat housings of the plug-in boards of the 800 because of heat issues (caused by using RAMs that require 3 voltages instead of one). The 600XL also has every, and I mean every chip socketed. This doesn’t neccesareoy make it better or more reliable, but it IS a lot easier to fix, and hence you will find less “broken boards”. The 600XL was however, cancelled before Tramiel took over. Tramiel kept producing 800XLs though. IMHO following this there are almost only great quality 600XLs, there are also great quality 800XLs, the ones built under Warner ownership and shortly after probably. Things went downhill after Tramiel took over. I have never seen a XL with MT RAM that was produced under Warner ownership. It’s only logical to see that Tramiel started business with MT again after the remaining Warner stocks were gone. However, I have a 130XE with ALL MT RAMs and it has been working just fine ever since I bought it mid 80s. (Naturally it had the obvious keyboard Mylar issues later on). I agree that Atari’s roots in arcade games definitely played a roll in their quality of home machines. Their arcade machines were the best built, best documented and best supported ones. About POKEYs being used in arcade machines: I can’t blame them really because I have been a (retired) collector and restore of arcade machines. Believe me, if you have a Star Wars cockpit with one bad POKEY, harvesting one from a (preferably broken) A8 machine is very much a thing you want to do. (And yes I owned a Star Wars cockpit, but luckily never had one POKEY go bad on any of the 3 board-sets I had BITD, nor the ones that passed my hands for checking/repair. Back in the early 80s when I was wanting to buy a computer (to replace our VCS) MY UNCLE AND COUSIN HAD A C64. My uncle had installed a 230VAC fan on top of the bloody power supply because it got hot enough to cook an egg on it ! I still hear that fan running in my ears…..come to think of it, maybe THAT damaged my hearing on the right ear…… That, combined with looks of the machines, the capabilities (those were early day C64, software wasn’t that great yet on it), the much better arcade game conversions on the A8 (DK!!!!), the ultra slow 1541, the BASIC that didn’t support sound or graphics and the fact that they had chosen a Philips Videopac when we had a VCS…..(duh!) made me decide for the 600XL. As en electronics engineer I always found the (Warner)Atari stuff was much better built with less focus on price. However, I don’t think Warner Atari ever actually earned money on the A8 line…..Tramiel sure did as he had zero investment costs… oh and one more thing: many Atari XL and XEs are killed by Commodore power supplies….

Woohahahahahaha ! Pointless ! Never did that….well at least on the Atari.

I have never seen a Sally manufactured by MOS and I’m pretty sure they never produced Sally’s. Maybe some “real” MOS 6502s ended up in (early) 400/800s ?

Pele’s Soccer is about the only sports game that I ever really liked….it was not even close to football (as the game has should been called) but it was FUN…….and those fireworks….woohoo ! not an Activision title though….not is Cosmic Ark but if there’s one 2600 game I’d love to see ported to the A8 it IS that one.

Oh is that so ? Oops seems I'm doing it again....

Sooooooooo tired of this guy.

Maybe, but I can totally imagine the thought of one of the Tramiels accepting an offer for a very good price on "almost good" RAMs