Robert M

November 14, 2003

Okay, Thanks to everyone for participating in Part I. It is now time for Part II.

As of 5 minutes ago I weigh 230 pounds. To enter the contest, you must guess what I will weigh on June 13th, 2004 (My 35th Birthday). Each person is restricted to a single guess. If multiple people guess the same weight then the first one to have posted the guess is the winner. You can make you guess anytime from now until the contest ends, but only your first guess will count, and obviously the longer you wait the more weights will be already taken.

I will post my weight every Friday until the contest closes. So If you wait to enter you may be able to guess my final weight by the progress I am making. Wait to long and someone else may take your guess. hehe.

The Prize:

The winner will receive $1 of Atariage store credit for every pound I lose from now until June 13th, 2004.

If the winner entered part one of this contest, then they will receive an additional bonus of $5 credit.

If I fail to lose at least 10 pounds by June 13, 2004. Then the first 50 people that entered the contest will each receive $5 of store credit!

I am aiming for 190 lbs!

Good-luck! To both of us.

November 13, 2003

Look at it this way...

You're losing easy access to the collection for a while, but in the long run you are gaining a Player 2.

Cheers!

November 13, 2003

Okay, I'll give it a go. Give me a few days to get organized. I will post the first session this weekend.

Cheers!

November 12, 2003

I think the best you could possibly hope foe would be 20 different colors in a single scanline. But you would need to use either the sprites or the missles to get a couple more colors. Plus you will have absolutely no time to do anything else.

A more practical trick might be to just make a rapidly moving horizontal stripe of color through a title made out of Playfield graphics. That would require only 2 timed register writes per line.

November 12, 2003

Dang! All I've found in the last 3 months is a badly worn BlackJack. Nice find.

November 12, 2003

Hi,

Andrew is doing a great job on explaining 2600 programming, but I notice that his lessons assume some familiarity with programming. Are there any complete assembly programming newbies interested in learning how to write assembly code so that you could apply Andrew's tutorials to make a 2600 game? I would start from the assumption that you know nothing about programming computers. The course would teach computer science fundamentals leading into understanding 6502 Assembly programming basics, and ending with advanced techniques and tricks for fast, small code.

Who would be interested?

Regards,

November 11, 2003

Does anyone know of the ID of the Midwest Classic guys here on Atariage? (If they are on here). I'd like to PM them on this Battlewheels thing...

Otherwise, I'll go the the Goatstore website - but I can't do that at work - no damn email access here .

Try PM'ing goatdan.

What other games would be good candidates for massive linking?

Cheers!

November 10, 2003

A memory map Diagram would be nice

Atari 2600 Memory Map:

----------------------

$0000-002F TIA Primary Image

$0030-005F [shadow] TIA

$0060-007F [shadow-partial] TIA

$0080-00FF 128 bytes of RAM Primary Image (zero page image)

$0100-002F [shadow] TIA

$0130-005F [shadow] TIA

$0160-017F [shadow-partial] TIA

$0180-01FF [shadow] 128 bytes of RAM (CPU stack image)

$0200-022F [shadow] TIA

$0230-025F [shadow] TIA

$0260-027F [shadow-partial] TIA

$0280-029F 6532-PIA I/O ports and timer Primary image

$02A0-02BF [shadow] 6532-PIA

$02C0-02DF [shadow] 6532-PIA

$02D0-02FF [shadow] 6532-PIA

$0300-032F [shadow] TIA

$0330-035F [shadow] TIA

$0360-037F [shadow-partial] TIA

$0380-039F [shadow] 6532-PIA

$03A0-03BF [shadow] 6532-PIA

$03C0-03DF [shadow] 6532-PIA

$03E0-03FF [shadow] 6532-PIA

$0400-07FF [shadow] Repeat the pattern from $0000-03FF

$0800-0BFF [shadow] Repeat the pattern from $0000-03FF

$0C00-0FFF [shadow] Repeat the pattern from $0000-03FF

$1000-17FF Lower 2K Cartridge ROM (4K carts start here)

$1800-1FFF Upper 2K Cartridge ROM (2K carts go here)

November 10, 2003

Just one small comment on this lesson:

The processor itself has just three 'registers'. These are internal memory/storage locations. These three registers (named 'A', 'X', and 'Y') are used for manipulating the 8-bit values retrieved from memory locations and for performing whatever calculations are necessary to make your program do its thing.

I don't know if this muddies the water for newbies, but I like to think of the 6502 as having 6 registers: A, X, Y, PC, SP, ST. A, X, Y are the ones Andrew already mentioned.

PC: Is a 16-bit register its points to the next address the processor is going to fetch an instruction byte from. It is automatically incremented by the processor during execution. As a programmer you can change PC with branch and jump instructions.

SP: Is an 8-bit stack pointer. From the CPUs point of view the stack is located from $0100 to $01FF. In the 2600 this maps to the 128 bytes of RAM in the PIA. Note that the same 128-bytes of RAM appear in the memory map of the CPU: $0080 - $00FF, $0180-$01FF, etc. The SP register is modified when instructions push or pull data from the stack. The stack grows downward in memory as items are added so it is generally initialized to $FF. You can set the SP from the X register using TXS. You can figure out how much data is on the stack by using TSX to transfer SP to X and find the difference from the value you initialized it to.

ST: Is the processor status register. When the CPU performs operations on data in A, X, or Y it sets or resets bits in ST to indicate mathematical properties of the result of the operation. A whole tutorial would be needed to explain how to understand the status flags and use them in your code for optimum efficiency. One thing worth noting here is you can push the ST register onto the stack to save the result of an operation, perform a different operation and then pop the old result off the stack to look at it. This can be handy. Also, as I stated earlier the 128 bytes of RAM repeat through the address space. The TIA registers do this as well. In short, you can point the SP register at the TIA registers and then write to the TIA by pushing data onto the stack. This technique was intended by the designers of the Atari 2600. Many registers in the TIA use bit 2 to control the register function. Bit 2 maps to the Z-bit in the ST register, so you can test for a condition and then push the ST onto the stack. The result of the operation will turn the function in the TIA on or off without you needing to look at it. Very efficient.

Okay I'll shut up now. Thanks for putting these lessons together Andrew.

Regards,

ST: Is the

November 10, 2003

Thanks for clearing that up Andrew.

November 7, 2003

Hi,

I am trying to make use of segments in the Gravity Ball code, but I am not sure if I am using them correctly. The first time I declare a new segment, should I put the ORG pseudo-op before or after the SEG pseudo-op? Like this:

ORG $0080

SEG.U RAM

ORG $F000

SEG CODE

Or, like this:

SEG.U RAM

ORG $0080

SEG CODE

ORG $F000

Thanks,

November 6, 2003

Okay, as stated before try to grab an onion an puagt some in your Ramen for variety. Onions last a long time when refrigerated. I like to keep a bag of frozen peas around and throw some of them in the pot too.

Ramen Gravy trick:

- Cook the Ramen and remove from pan to drain.

- Put a tablespoon of butter/margarine in the pan, and 1 Tablespoon of flour.

- Stir constantly cooking on medium heat until the mixture (called a rue) is bubbling and starting to brown.

- Slowly add a 1/2 cup of water and the flavor packet. If you don't add the water a little at a time you will get lumps.

- Cook until it is gravy of a thickness you like. Add more water if its too thick.

- Pour over noodles.

Cheap stuff:

- Big bags of flour. If you are willing to bake your own bread and biscuits you can make them really cheap.

- Big bags of rice.

- Big bags of potatoes.

- Big bags of dry beans (lots of time to cook, but dirt cheap and good for you) I lived on Beans and Rice for years in college.

- Bacon. Its not cheap per unit, but a little goes a long way. Cook it all and save it in the frig. Add a single slice to a dish to give it zest. Save the fat from cooking to make hashbrowns from your big bag of potatoes.

Good-luck.

November 5, 2003

I can think of 2 things:

1. Responsive player control. Visible lag is no good.

2. When you die, you can see that it was because of something you did or failed to do, not because the game "cheated" or blindsided you. That way you are motivated to try again because you know if you play better you will get farther.

November 5, 2003

Hi Dan,

You might consider moving the Summit to this place:

http://www.capcom.com/nickelcity/frammap.xpml

Nickel City Northbrook

(Formerly Super Just Games)

555 Waukegan Rd

Northbrook, IL 60062

Tel: (847) 559-8727

They have a room about the size of the room at the hotel with tables and power outlets. Its normally for kid's parties, but the owner would probably be interested in renting it for a classic gaming show that will bring in customers. You get the advantage of on site food: hot dogs, pizza, soda etc and about 100 video games many for free and none more than 20 cents to play after a $2 admission at the door. It checked it out yesterday and the place is very clean and kept very nicely.

It might help draw more people to the event this year plus get some extra people just coming to play some games.

Cheers!

November 4, 2003

And I'll be at the Midwest show next year - I'll try to remember to bring at least 4 of my lynx units!

That would be great. I can bring up to 3 lynxes, but I only have 2 copies of Battlewheels.

November 3, 2003

Hi,

How many people here have played comlynxed games of Battlewheels? What the largest number of human players you hav e had linked? I have had 2 and I hope someday to play with 6 human players. I think it would be highly entertaining to play with all human players, talking smack, and ganging up on the leader. Next time there is a classic gaming convention in the Midwest, would anyone be interested in getting together to play a round of 6 player Battlewheels?

Cheers!

November 2, 2003

The contest is closed:

My current weight is 232 pounds and my waist size is 40 inches.

The contest winner is:

with a guess of 234 pounds and 40 inches.

Congratulations! I will send you a PM shortly.

The runners up were:

Scooterb23 with a guess of 234 pounds and 43 inches

Chistopher sly with a guess of 227 pounds and 41 inches

Thanks everyone for playing. Watch for part two with even better prizes.

Cheers!

Rob

October 30, 2003

In my mind the term 'Hack' should be reserved for changes made by editing a ROM binary image without any use of an assmebler.

Homebrews by my definition involve changes to the executable code that require recompilation.e Homebrews can be broken down into 3 categories:

1. Original - From original source using no more than concepts or code snippets from other games.

2. Adaptation/Modification - Using an existing source listing as basis for adapting a different game to a console.

3. Extension - Expanding an existing game using its source code, and adding more functions or features while maintaining the original game as mechanics as much as possible.

Examples of original homebrews would be: Thrust, SCSI-cide, Marble craze.

Examples of Adaptations would be: the "Ace" game that sparked this thread.

Examples of extensions would be: Voice Enhanced Berserk, and the optimized Adventure work in progress.

Ultimately, the author should choose the category for their own work.

Cheers!

October 29, 2003

Was the hockey aspect of the game simply artwork, or was there something more to the game that made it more like hockey and less like a variant of Tic-Tac-Toe?

October 29, 2003

Did you try a 2600 cart in the 7800 with the 2600 TIA chip, or a 7800 cart? I suspect the TIA in the 7800 is able to handle the higher clock speed of the 7800. Moving the 7800 TIA chip to the slower 2600 should be trouble free as you observed already.

Cheers!

October 29, 2003

To drum up interest in this contest, I am adding the rule that if you enter the first part of the contest, and win the second part of the contest then you will receive an extra bonus prize for winning part 2. If you don't enter part 1 and win part 2, then you won't get the bonus prize.

Cheers!

October 27, 2003

That sounds like Nickel City your talking about.

My bad. You're right its called Nickel City. Apparently its part of CapCom according to the website.

Ohh!!!!

I just had a video-game induced orgasm!

I GOTTA make the 100 mile trek up there!

Its your lucky day Inky. There is a Nickel City in Northbrook, IL.

Nickel City Northbrook

(Formerly Super Just Games)

555 Waukegan Rd

Northbrook, IL 60062

Tel: (847) 559-8727

Enjoy!

October 26, 2003

245lbs. 40in. waist.

Are you considering Atkins for weight loss and health benefits? I've lost 35lbs this summer on Atkins, have about 20 more pounds to go to be happy. Most of the new research out really shows the benefits in terms of cholesterol and blood pressure of the low carb diets. Cool forums with lots of info here: http://forum.lowcarber.org/

I am on a low carb diet. I will look into the Atkin's diet. Thanks for the tip.

Good luck with however you do it

Thanks!

October 26, 2003

You weigh 225 with a 42 waist.
If your chol. is astronomicially high, I'd guess that at 260.

Actually its 229, but my Triglycerides are 696 and less than 200 is normal. If I went over 1000 I would be a walking time bomb waiting for something to break.

October 26, 2003

I recently learned that I have astronomically high cholesterol. I need to drop my cholesterol, and lower my weight considerably to protect my health. So I figure I will get some motivation by running a pair of contests. The first contest is to guess my weight (in pounds) and my pants waistband size in inches. I will score everyone by subtracting my wieght and waist from their guesses and taking the absolute value of the differences and adding them together. The person with the lowest resulting score wins. In the case of a tie, whomever posted their guess first will win. The winner has their choice of any one of the 3 following carts:

Food Fight for Atari 7800

Ms. PacMan for Atari 2600

Picnic for Atari 2600.

So go ahead guess my current weight and waist band size. Here are some hints. I am a white male. 6 feet tall with a medium build. I am 40 to 50 pounds over my ideal weight.

The first part of the contest will close at Midnight Central time on Friday October 31st. I will announce the winner shortly after. The second part of the contest will be held in June of next year when you will guess my new weight and waistband size.

Good-luck!

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