Eyvind Bernhardsen

Oh, it looks like the mouSTer is still available on eBay: https://www.ebay.de/itm/324483346054 Their GitHub repo is still active, too. (Disclaimer: I haven’t actually used one, but I’ve come close to buying one on several occasions!)

It sounds like you’re looking for a mouSTer, but they seem to be out of stock.

There’s an ARM64 build of Altirra. Still needs Windows, of course.

Not only did they exist, there was an entire magazine named after the dual format disk they put on every cover: ST/Amiga Format (later split into ST Format and Amiga Format) from Future Publishing. Heady days.

I _think_ it’s okay to just write 3 to PORTB as a segment of the load file (start address PORTB, end address PORTB, 3), which most assemblers can generate.

That’s correct. Note that older 800s and 400s might have less than 48KB of RAM, in which case there’s no RAM to be switched in. Those machines won’t be able to run your program.

You’re fine as long as no cartridge is inserted. 8KB cartridges use $A000-$BFFF, 16KB carts (or 800 “right” carts) additionally use $8000-$9FFF. That’s why a lot of games used to tell you to “REMOVE CARTRIDGE”; they needed that RAM to be available.

Oh, that’s interesting. This method works fine for me with both executables and app packages, but if you do need to use the terminal, the command is sudo xattr -d com.apple.quarantine tnfsd

The easy way to do this is to control-click the executable in the Finder, select "Open" from the drop-down, and then "Open" from the security warning dialog. This only needs to be done once per download. (Source: the asterisk at the bottom of this Apple Support page)

I’d love one, but second pokeys are hard to come by (and/or expensive) these days.

Works fine with my Joy2B+ Sega adapter, but players take turns using a single joystick even though I have two connected. How do I get it to recognise the second joystick? Edit: I found out how to change the port number! Works fine with two Joy2B+ controllers, I don't have a 400/800 so I can't test with more.

Yeah, I’ve tried to support standard joysticks in the games I’ve patched for Joy2B, when there’s room. Will see what I can do with Scorch. Would this change even be relevant for the 5200 since its controller is completely different?

Not sure if any Atari games used extra buttons back in the day, but the SEGA consoles and the Amiga had the same convention of buttons being active low. Turrican is one title Extra buttons on the C64 worked the way you suggest, though. Nowadays a bunch of Atari games have been patched for Joy2B+, of course.

The decision to make pot-pin buttons work like this wasn't invented for Joy2B+, so changing it would break old games, but it's not quite as bad as you make it out to be. This code is universal: PADDL0 = $270 pot_max = $e4 test_button_c lda PADDL0 cmp prev_button_c beq not_pressed sta prev_button_c eor #pot_max bne not_pressed ; code to handle button press goes here! ... not_pressed ; button wasn't pressed, go do something else prev_button_c .byte pot_max (My code calls it "Button C" because that's what it's called on a Megadrive/Genesis controller). You can detect a Joy2B+ or compatible button by checking if prev_button_c ever gets set to anything other than #$e4, and you can read the third button from PADDL1 in the same way. Edit: the code works with a normal joystick because the button is "held down" on startup, and won't be detected until it's "released".

Yep. I've been worried about the high ledge that runs all around the bottom case, but the connector will be clear of it if it's still where it was in this picture: I think this will work!

I’m assuming top right as viewed from above the keyboard? There’s a big indentation on the top right of the bottom case where there’s only 1-2mm between the case and the keyboard, you can see it in my photo. It might be a tight fit if the connector is there.

Finally found time to open my keyboard. There is indeed not a lot of clearance between the ribbon connector and the bottom of the keyboard, but note that the connector is horizontal: Now I have some more questions: is the FFC cable connector on the top or bottom of the adapter? how thick is the FFC connector? how far does the adapter stick out of the ribbon connector? where does the FFC cable need to be routed to on the new keyboard? There's easily enough room for an adapter if the cable connector is on the bottom, but I'm not sure about FFC cable routing.

I was wondering where the adapter goes. I can try to measure the clearance between the board and the PCB. Turning the PCB around might be tricky because the external cable doesn’t have a lot of play. It might make sense to replace it with a longer one anyway, of course. I’m pretty sure I still have an extra XEGS keyboard with defective Mylar to experiment on, but I’m going to have to dig around for it.

I searched the topic and couldn't find anybody asking if this project is XEGS compatible. My XEGS keyboard looks like the one on this page: https://www.the-liberator.net/site-files/retro-games/hardware/Atari-XE/atari-xe-keyboard.htm, which seems to have the same circular stem keycaps shown earlier in this thread, except that they're doubleshot. The XEGS keyboard layout looks identical to the 130XE one, down to the start/select/option/reset keys that are hidden by the bezel (these confused me a lot the first time I opened one). The ribbon cable seems to be the same. Am I missing something important, or is there a hope of finally getting an XEGS with a comfortable typing experience?

I've now tested the SNACK support enough, by playing Attack of the PETSCII Robots, to make a proper release announcement: version 0.6 of the adapter firmware is available on the GitHub page. The button mapping is different when using an Xbox or PlayStation controller connected to an 8BitDo Retro Receiver, so I've added an extra SNACK mode to support those controllers. To switch to SNACK enhanced mode on a Mega Drive controller, press Mode+Start+C; on an Xbox or PlayStation controller, Mode+Start+left trigger. Mode+Start+Z (right trigger on Xbox/PlayStation controllers) switches back to Joy2B+ mode.

That would be true if the pixels were square, but they’re not. I think NTSC pixels are taller than they are wide (on the Atari), while PAL pixels are closer to, but not exactly, square. So on NTSC at least you’d need fewer than 180 lines to get a 16:9 display.

Thanks! I've just flashed the new (2022-11-06 BETA2) build and successfully connected to wifi.

Aha, thanks! That was quick, and now I know where the config program lives

Firmware version 2022-11-05 shortened the maximum wifi password length: it won't let me type my whole password on initial setup, which prevents it from connecting to my wifi network. I've reverted to the previous version for now, but is this an intended change? Edit: specifically, the configuration program stops me typing after 31 characters. MAX_WIFI_PASS_LEN is 64 in the fujinet-platformio code, but I'm not sure where the code that handles password input on the Atari lives.

Hey, my critique was ruthFUL I think the feature is worthwhile as it is, it would just work better on shared servers if games were patched to merge high scores (and even then it wouldn’t be perfect unless there was a way to explicitly lock the file for writing).