Chilly Willy
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Posts posted by Chilly Willy
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my girlfriend just called and said her friend was throwing out a Nintendo 64 with a bunch of games and she asked if she could have it, for me.
she said yes!Good catch! Free is always a good price.
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38x24
Yep! People tend to forget about that left column margin in the OS. Since you cannot change it before the memo pad runs, there would be no way to actually do 40x24 unless you wrote a program to change the margin, then jumped into the memo pad in rom.
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I find it easier to burn CDRs for testing software on my DC than using ipload... it NEVER works right for me, and it interferes with networking in the program you're testing.
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Those are both really good ideas. I've got one of those fake cassette with line in, but never thought to use it for the Atari. I actually got it for my PSP to use in the RV on long trips.
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You could try WAHCE, the Atari emulator my brother did for Windows back when 200 MHz PCs were the norm. It was more compatible and faster than other Atari emulators of the same period aimed at the same machines.
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Nice, but don't forget to run the other audio input to pin 11 of the SIO... that's how you get the cassette audio on the Atari sound for educational cassettes. One side has the data, and the other side has the audio.
I was wondering about that, the schematic I posted has a connection to "J1-11" I imagine that should read "P1-11"?
Probably, plus it shows only a mono plug for the sound in which should be stereo with one side going to the chip and the other going to P1-11.
It's not too surprising the CD interface doesn't connect them - it uses a higher frequency for the FSK for faster throughput, so it's geared towards just data, not data + sound. Connecting the audio in to the Atari is mainly for direct replacements of the cassette. I do find the idea of using a CD as a cassette replacement rather intriguing. What is needed is for someone to publish a mod for connecting the motor line from the SIO to a portable CD player pause control so that the CD acts exactly like the cassette. Or maybe a mini MP3 player.
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This one is about the same but supports up to 5000 baud and is intended to connect a CD player but any audio source will do:
http://sites.google.com/site/ataripal/megacd
Nice, but don't forget to run the other audio input to pin 11 of the SIO... that's how you get the cassette audio on the Atari sound for educational cassettes. One side has the data, and the other side has the audio.
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There are addresses at the top of address space that will cause the ROM to switch banks if read (basically, if the dwell time on that address is long enough). I believe the ROM uses FF8/FF9 bank-switching where a read to one of those addresses (relative to the ROM starting address) will set the contents to bank 1 or 2.
EDIT:
A bank change can be seen in the code at $FFEA. The next instruction after the load will be read from $FFED of the other bank.
; RESET Handler Hang drive FFDC A205 LDX #$05 FFDE BDEAFF LDA $FFEA,X FFE1 9D0090 STA $9000,X FFE4 CA DEX FFE5 10F7 BPL $FFDE FFE7 4C0090 JMP $9000 ; leap frog FFEA ADF9FF LDA $FFF9 FFED 6CFCFF JMP ($FFFC) ; Perform RESET ($FFDC)
Thanks. Might have to go back some time and try REing this again.
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So how does a rom like that work?
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Here's a commented disassembly of the Happy 1050 rom my brother did many years back. Not the same as having docs, but it should help more than an old magazine article.
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The controllers are cheap plastic, but they are responsive and comfortable (they are nearly identical in shape to a stock SNES pad). I've personally had issues with the built-in d-pad and buttons on the unit itself, but the wireless controllers that come with it work great.
QFT. The dpad on the unit itself can be rather "stiff" and harder to hit those diagonals, but the wireless pads are better than most third-party SNES pads I've used. And yes, it does have AV out for hooking to a TV. You can leave the unit closed when using the AV out, and because you're using the wireless pad, it's no different than using a regular SNES except no wires on the pads!
One other nice thing about the FC-16 GO - it doesn't check the region nor require those silly CIC chips. I can use a SNES Neo Myth flash cart without a SNES cart on the pass-through, and can play games from anywhere.
EDIT: Let me clarify one thing on that last statement - it DOES matter as far as PAL/NTSC goes... I cannot play PAL only games on my NTSC FC-16 GO; however, if the game is NTSC, then it doesn't matter where it's from. I play Japanese games on it all the time.
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Well I already have a nes and a atari 7800. I can only have 3 consoles at the same. (accept handhelds) so i thought that the snes was the better option
If you can get a handheld without having to sell the N64, consider a Yobo FC-16 GO. I haven't used my SNES since getting one.
They run between $50 and $70 new.
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I got Necromancer on cassette... it was a LONG load, but worth it!
After getting a Percom floppy, I wrote a program to transfer the cassette to floppy, and that's what I've used ever since, so I don't know what the "official" floppy is like. Sorry.
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And did you notice the quoting is having trouble getting the author right? Odd...
He He!!!
Hmm - I'm almost positive there's something wrong, but I can't put my finger on it...
But 256 samples really isn't very good. You either need really short instruments (no base drums), or really low sample rates. Having 2:1 or 4:1 ADPCM for the channels means you can have higher sample rates and/or better sounding base instruments.
The hardware support for music isn't really needed, but would be nice.
I wanted to keep the waveforms simple, but use frequency modulation + detuning + reverberation to make instruments more lush sounding. I probably will allow channels to modulate the echo delay parameters so you can create phasing/flanging sounds too.
Well, it'll will be interesting to hear how it sounds. Certainly nicer than any existing 8 bit sound chip.
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Sounds interesting. Did you mean 6809? That was big at the end of the 8-bit era... a very nice chip indeed.
6309 is a slightly upgraded version of 6809.
Thanks, I should probably look up some datasheets on it. And did you notice the quoting is having trouble getting the author right? Odd...
Does the graphics have two layers? That's important for platformers in particular. Otherwise, the graphics sound good.
Well, actually it's based on Neo Geo's sprite system where every sprite is a tall stack of 16x16 tiles with separate attributes per 16x16 tiles, with a joining bit that places next sprite 16 pixels to the right of the last one. To create a background, join 22 16x256 sprites together and the background coordinates are controlled by the coordinates of the left most sprite, since the rest just follow the coordinates of the last.
There can be up to 112 sprites per line, so there can be up to 5 layers.
That sounds really good.
The audio might need a little more thought. Given how little memory you can devote to the samples, perhaps hardware ADPCM decompression would be appropriate. One thing I can think of now that would have helped systems back then would be hardware support for tracker format music. For example, maybe you could have hardware support for playing 8 channel/31 instrument MOD format files. Think of it like display lists for the sound instead of video. Maybe not MOD format directly, but something that you could convert a MOD into easily.
It's just enough memory for each channel to have it's own 8-bit 256 sample instrument.
But 256 samples really isn't very good. You either need really short instruments (no base drums), or really low sample rates. Having 2:1 or 4:1 ADPCM for the channels means you can have higher sample rates and/or better sounding base instruments.
The hardware support for music isn't really needed, but would be nice.
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You have to ask whats going on with the planet, look at the number of awful disasters happening on a way way too frequent scale.
Makes me wonder if someone is playing with the weather...
There's nothing going on now that's any worse than in the past, it's just with the internet and global reporting at an all-time high, you hear about every last little thing in great detail where in the past whole COUNTRIES could disappear and you might not hear a thing for years, if ever.
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Late to the thread, but OF COURSE THE 32X IS WORTH IT!
No, not at $199 launch.....I paid $6 for mine, but my results may not be representative; it's worth more than that. Hell, I'd pay 7 times that.
It's worth it for Virtua Racing alone; single-best version. Then Star Wars Arcade. Then a few others. Totally ass-kicking-name-taking system? Hell NO! Overpriced at launch? Hell yeah! But amongst a community that respects and plays Jaguar games, the 32X is pretty cool....esp. for $6.
Um, it was only $159 at launch, and included six $10 coupons for six different launch games (I used all but the Cosmic Carnage coupon). I never regretted buying my first at launch time, but getting my second a few years later for $20 was much nicer.
Most carts are dirt cheap now, so that helps even more. I doubled my 32X collection in the last few years for less than $50. I've got a flash cart for the rare or unreleased beta carts.
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I've got a 400, and a 65XE. I also have my brother's 400 and 800XL. I've got a Mosaic 64KB expansion board in my 400; it has two modes: you can use the Mosaic bank selection, or set it for XL bank selection. I've got mine of Mosaic mode; I thought about changing it to XL mode, but got the 65XE instead. I have a number of things I hacked to use Mosaic mode that I didn't want to give up on the 400, namely BASIC XL and Action!. Hacking them to use Mosaic banks actually gives you more memory with those than using the carts.
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Where the artifacting comes from is the phase difference between the waveform made by the luminance, and the color burst on the hsync back porch. Any delay of the scan line as it's output compared to the reference transmitted for the burst results in a different color. Look at the basic pattern you draw:
01010101...
10101010...
You'll see they are out of phase with each other, so they'll always have the same relation on the color wheel to each other. Where the precise color they have comes from can vary with the design of the GTIA depending on when the data is output compared to the burst generated during the hsync.
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One person reported finding one of those AtGames thingys at a WalGreens. I've got both the RetroGen and GenMobile (ordered online). They're okay for the price... the main issue is the sound is still screwed up (plays music at the wrong pitch). Otherwise they're the same old ARM chip with an emulator.
The only flash cart to work with these AtGames systems is the MD-Pro. You can also get a Firecore Passport (from Germany) to use SD cards with them. At that point, it's like the Gopher. I've got an MD-Pro 64 in the GenMobile, and the Passport in the RetroGen.
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Sounds like it's dirty. A good cleaning might be all it needs.
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Sounds interesting. Did you mean 6809? That was big at the end of the 8-bit era... a very nice chip indeed.
Does the graphics have two layers? That's important for platformers in particular. Otherwise, the graphics sound good.
The audio might need a little more thought. Given how little memory you can devote to the samples, perhaps hardware ADPCM decompression would be appropriate. One thing I can think of now that would have helped systems back then would be hardware support for tracker format music. For example, maybe you could have hardware support for playing 8 channel/31 instrument MOD format files. Think of it like display lists for the sound instead of video. Maybe not MOD format directly, but something that you could convert a MOD into easily.
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Another question
in Classic Console Discussion
Posted
CDRW doesn't work on the DC, and yes, it's a LOT of coasters, but at $10-$15 a hundred in bulk, you can afford a lot of coasters for dev work on the DC.