Symmetry of TNG

Seb> Sweet! =) hmm.. when skipping through this info in the devmanual some 5 years ago I got the feeling you just plugget that "rainbow coloured" cable to that "2-connectors in straight angle to pcb" and that Into the DSP port on the falcon... I reconed the dsp is powerful enough to handle the data and emulate a 2x cd stream from a scsi drive... Do you mean there have to be yet another DSP board inbetween cable & dsp port on falcon? Actually if anyone have a picture of such a setup (complete on jaguar side & perhapps without the falcon, but with the dsp connector in the end of some cable?) I for one would be interested to see it, to see what parts were actually needed.. cheers /Sym

hmm.. do you own a cd dev kit? with the rainbowribbon & falcon converter?...cool =) cant remember i read anyone having such... but if someone do I hope he will help you sorry i cant be of any help :/ And i hope it didnt just break... that'd be a bummer /Sym

Hmm lastyear I totally missed this.. this year aswell =) Though I have some ol-crap hanging out of my sleve, I'll save it 4 jagCF i recon... (& release it without possible price But I read "Demo" on that homepage.. Is it demo as in "DEMO!" or must it be a demo of a game? ....Im just asking =) if gamedemo then what about a small game wrapped around a bigger demo? or like if your demo contains a small playable gamish scene? It could be good to know for future reference =) ------ Voting by threading+explination.. WOuld work fine IF! people cold restrain themselfs from diverging from the topic.. or commenting on others posts.... which dont seem to be that easy on this forum I´ll defenitely keep an eye on the contributions & vote! =) nice idea btw... /Sym

iirc from DC laser modding its NEVER more than +-10% from original value anyway.. Overturning it will probably kill your laser diode & it will stop Lasing... Good luck with the tuning.. and if you get a result plez tell us your findings =) /Sym

Why keep opening up this wound.....inaccurately I might add.... inaccurately no, since this is a -feeling- I got after reading the thread. In the beginning of the discussion, It was pritty obvious to me what was implied and to whom. But hey, English is not my tounge, perhapps I was wrong. Im Sorry & appologize. Thank you for not detonating =) >carmel_andrews: AvP & Cybermorph secual: Well.. Homer would say something fitting regarding Fox =) I will not go there. However.. it would be nice to see the source get to use as basis for something else.. avp engine could turn out a nice fps shooter... CyberMorph could make a nice start for a "Jump around in a gouroudshade landscape" game.. (N64 smellalike perhapps but Hey...=) Anyone feel an urge to digg through 1000ends of pages of assembler? (& preferabely rewrite it to risc asm =)

Just wanted to say a million THANX Curt!!!! =) that you "dared" to release these surces... (remembering what people elsewhere on the net were implying to Matthias & Glenn after releasing Minters sources). I will defenitely read the cybermorph & CF sources with a big inspiration-smile on my face =) THANK YOU! regards /Sym

=) ...so you want someone to rewrite it, so you can read & understand it? ...didnt you say you knew assembler? No, Im just kidding.. Just thought to explain my own views on this "chalange" .I dont know about other coders but Usually when i read old atari src I end up realising that is is easier to rewrite everything in a readable & better organised form. (cf. 3d engine, highlander, ...Id have to say Doom src aswell, ...) Atleast I have never been able to "copy paste" or reuse any source code from any other code than my own... since the way i write the code I can reuse the functions in any other code without loosing my mind over equr's and mix up of registers. And i mean sure, someone could make the code compile, but then what? ...adding levels perhapps (if you know CF 3d layout, or dooms WAD format), changing small independent code snippets perhapps... but not making a "new game".. But what i mean is that what CF needs is.. say a quadmap layout of Blender3D objects and a fast renderer that does frustum culling. and most importantly a entierly new physics engine that controll the behaviour of the car. (thats actually Based on physics and not a "nice" Craazyyy twirl =) All written in optimised GPU/DSP asm.. Personally that feels easier to implement from scratch than trying to incorporate that into an existing unknown code... Its like.. adding yet another unknown.. you first have to study how They did it and then fix it... Thats how i feel about meny of the atari source codes... However! I LOVE reading them! =) Its like reading a piece of ataris history.. and they are a great inspiration to continue my own code... And thats the 2nd point, I guess most coders today are involved in other projects... granted they take long time to finish, if they ever will be, but I would say most of them is not willing to just drop what they are dooing and start a challange.... ..Unless there is a price involved... =) ...perhapps.. (doesnt work on me, but perhapps some one else). enough talk.. The thought was good though! =) cheers

Yes.. that is what i wrote above (or tried to =) the psu gives 12V (i guessed 14V) ..and that I beleive is part of the problem why my drive gets so hot that they after 2 long gameplay, make the drive not read cds... I actually ment that you should measure the voltage stability After these stabilizing cirquits inside the CD.. to see how they appear... If the schematics are correct its the LM2941 chips I mean... But I mean you have to have quite deep knowhow to bughunt glitchy electronics... (its usually better if its totally dead, since then its usually a power issue) but semiworking... chance are that you might cause more problems that you solve.. (speaking in general terms here). But step one is to check Power... circuits should have stable supply voltage to work... and usually its easy to check power.. Looking at the schematics and i see that there are realy no "user serviceable parts" on them.. so after the power test...?... I can only speculate: -Is the cart clean? ...ok that other carts work fine I can imagine if the cart is dirty the data gets scrambeled on the way over to the jaguar..? -There should be some adress&data buffer cirquits in the jagcd.. that have been known to break after 10 years of service.. a broken buffer can scramble adresses and or data sent to/from the cd... but I guess the problem would be "constant" if say 1bit was wrong.. -All power stabilising cirquits use a larger Capacitor to store energy.. after time they tend to either boil out or dry out making the Power unstable.. (cf motherboards of today or the 360 =) ...but thankfully the jag was made in the Good-Old-days so this might not be an issue). -There is a chip that controls the magnetics (to focus the laser & find the track) that i beleive gets quite hot... perhapps that is broken & it cant find the track corectly? ...I have no idea if its replacable... -Is Laser Tweeking an issue with the jagCD? ....so the diode just got tiered ? ...but you tested the unit with another electronics & that workt, or did i missunderstand? ...(otherwies I strongly susgest you not to tweak, usually the diodes blow up). enough useless speculation =) good luck!...Avoid the ground /Sym

0^2: ahh.. offcourse =) but my main point is still valid... if the power to all chips is corrupted than all logic will not applye.. and feedback loop will detect wrong error & spin disc in arbitrary direction =) and make the laser missread data, motors to go berserk.. =) and, as i forgot to say, my own CD works great, unless you play it for a long time (in 27degrees.. actually did that one summer =) then it gets so hot (underneeth, towards the connector iirc) that it cant read the CDs at all... cooling it down and it works again... It was just a thought.... if all the other "fixes" on the net didnt solve it.. I was just speculating =) a jagcd is worth saving.. its part of jaguar history! and thats always worth aving! =) cheers /Sym

Hi! Just some thoughts. First wanna thank you Else for this post.. It opened my eyes for the Wii mote and it gives great inspiration =) I have actually looked into this a bit before, wasted some moey on IR-angle sensors.. and stuff.. but this Wii thing is so much nicer & better... However!... digging into this topic and you soon realise that its to early to connect it to the jaguar... The wiimote uses BlueTooth to communicate with the world... and they use a linux BT stack on the PC to communicate with it.. So connecting this to the jaguar would mean making a BT interface with a BT stack for the jaguar... (count me out at step 1 =) It would be easier if the wii mote was hacked 100% ..then we could just highjack the packet stream Before it got sent to the BT chip and make that data into a jaguar friendly data (bank switch via a converter of some kind). But I did a quick search on the net and noone seem to know how to do that.. and since a cheap BT unit & the BT stack are available to the PC (ie "problem solved for them") I dont think anyone else will dig further into this.. How about using the sensors? I dont know how intelligent the IR camera is, or how it works... It would be bad if it was just an ordinary camera and there was some custom "graber chip" somewhere that converted the signal to data... It must be a digital stream... but that is like 78,6Mb/s (if its 8bit resolution) of data to handle each secound!... If that is the case, that its just a digital data out chanel from the camera amd then that sensor could be used.. However!... you then need to surch for the blobs FAST.... = Edge&blob detection, which would mean a custom dsp or fpga to do that.. If the camera is stupid then the wii mote have such a chip somewhere that does this for you, & finds 4 blobs of IR light and report their position in the 1024*768 matrix... it would be a must to highjack the signal After that... not having to make your own edgedetection FPGA... (its not impossible just hard work =) So.. sensor wise its interesting for tracking a VR helmet... but atm I'd say its not hacked enough to make an easy connection with the jaguar... There is actually a better video of this.. using the Wii controller for viritual reality & measure 6DOFs.... check it out at: It is defenitely the way to do it today.. I mean in essence its the same way atari did it back in the days.. Though i assume they didnt use a 1024x768, 100Hz IR camera... but perhapps some angle sensors like I bought. But a camera is so much beter... Imagine 2 cameras positioned as the ir "bugeyes" are positioned on the jagVR helmet.. it would give wider "field of view" detection capabilities than just one (which is 45degrees)... and it would detect your absolute position & orientation of your head in 3D in 100Hz. (Atari had 200Hz right? ...and they had motionsickness problems?... hmm.... have you people who tried this had any problems with motion sickness? ...or was this just a notion that "some people Can perhapps develope it, hence it needs to be scraped", or what?... ie if we today dont care perhapps 100Hz would be enough?) Ohh... he speaks of solving the overdeterimned nonlinear equations to get the (euler angles Id assume) and that "todays computers are fast enough" ...well... either an interface would have to containn such a computer or the jaguar would have to work its ars off to solve the equations... Perhapps this would be possible with the JagCF... or there would have to be some kind of High preformance CPU in the converter to make the job easy for the jaguar... (which only wants x,y,z & 3 euler angles) Having a PC running linux & all that you say?... well atm it seems to be the easiest way... having a linux with that program running... and using the BJL communication code & cable to talk to the jaguar, emulating a bank switcher... hmm.. that would actually work.... =) Though I agree that the hardest part is the helmet... personally I havent found an "cheap headtracker" yet, so this is verry interesting to me... (any pointers to cheap headtrackers, plz! enough speculation =) interesting stuff anyway... cheers! /Sym

Hi! just thought... dont understand how the disc could start to spin the other way.. ? if the jag is anything like a normal cdplayer of today that is just a DC motor... that spins one way... Unless the polarity is reversed.... IIRC there are some DC stabilising cirquits (7809 ? or 7805 ?) inside the unit.. that btw on my cdrom gets realy hot (no wonder they hets fed with dc14V or so from the 9V adapter) .... But perhapps you have a PowerSupply problem ?.... some of the stabilising cirquits gives rippeled dc to all chips... that could explain crazy behaviour... ! do you have an oscilloscope to test the stability/polarity of some of the supplypoints? (dc engine, some known chips perhapps... and so on.. see that the power supply is stable) just a thought... /Sym

>cd bypass does hill software work for you then? ...If not you could get the src for mine and try to get it running. (cant say why it would not run on your specific setup..?) >Filtering tunnel has no filter, though the texture used is based on a "plasma" (a cloud thingy that when stacked to oneanother create seamless edges) the "averageing" in the plasma generation is indeed a filter... though in tunnel its "precalculated" so to speak, since its already in the bitmap. Fire on the other hand is a realtime filter, sum the 3 adescent values below + above centerpixel /4 will be the new centervalue "above" ...this will make the average value move upwards one row untill next run. This has the effect that if one pixel is lit in the buffer it will create natural flame shaped values above it (ie spread a bit) and later die out (when values of 0 start to be averaged in). Point with this and "mainram" is that this is realy heavy on memory loads and if the code was in main each load would cause a pagefault and it would be terrible slow. Hmm.. AO.. well, we had a cooperation once, but it got kind of "one way" so it died out, But i'd defenitely wellcome some thoughts on mainram running in return. But to be honest all code i ever made that accesses mainram becomes so damn slow, with clever coding its so much much faster (but a pain in the ars to code =) (one should see it as a "challange" to cope with mental pain Mars also contains "filters" ...basically its a "plasma" to make heighs values & colours of the landscape. It also has an average technique when reading the height info to get nice interpolated heightvalues. >demo menu Yes... that was the initial idea, but so much time went by that I thought it would be better just to release them so perhapps someone would enjoy them, instead of them rotting away on my HD =) Actually I already have a "demo system" that can do several things, (even synced to time/music) but it was made after the release of those demos. It Will be used one day for sure! But I kind of figured noone in the jagscene was interested in demos, so i quitt that & made "game related coding" instead... But after birth of jagware, demos are now more interesting than before, something i wellcome allot (beeing a demo freak myself =) And with JagCF they are easily spread to the masses.. Hmm... a jaguar kickass demo would be nice *dreaming* cheers /Sym

Yeshh.... i dont stop here often anymore, sorry for that... but thats just the way it became years ago. Anyhow some short answers to this sentury old post of mine Thanx all... i realy feel like updating some of these demos... or perhapps make a BIG demo one day with updated versions... to JagChris: CD bypass: ..hmm.. iirc insert the cd, upload prg to bjl & it will (or might load the boot track to 4000 & jump to there.. and most of the time the game start =) (worked for my 2 unencrypted cds, and all encrypted i tested except highlander, the OP gets problems with their code..? but then again its no need to run that since its encrypted already). The code is realy a quick hack.. since it uploads to 4000 & boot program also wants to be at 4000 some sincere realocation is needed for programs to run without wrighting over themselfs... but it worked for my purposes anyway.. (AH,CoF). Lavalamp demo I realy like the fire demo myself =) ...its optimised & fast (love to run it "from main" and compare speed, I sincerely doubt it would be faster It could however be made nicer =) ...I'd like to try an 8Bit version doing CLUT, that'd add some nice possibilities with different colortables... But its a total remake of the code so I kind of satteled for thatone =) It will most likely be part in a demo/menu or something in some future release.. (though with the added extra that is a secret & visible only in my mind for time beeing so... >Unfortunately OD without fail freezes up after a few minutes So i take it noone have problems with init/setup.. that is good to hear. I personaly had problems with init in menny UGD releases (since they dont folow atari suggestions on op init) but i hope my programs will run ok on most jaguars... Good that you try to learn coding.. jagscene needs those kind of people anything more i can do for Y'all? cheers /Sym

Rumour has it that KasumiNinja were to play the role of Ninja Gaiden Black to PS3. But its been like 14 yeats since Kasumi did KungFu so his bearbelly & headband didnt quite convince the rolecasters, so they just stole the concept & did CG instead /Sym

*dusting of AA keyboard* That was a nice demo!... But beeing a bit of a demo freak myself I just have to say some things about amiga demos. the ST had a 8MHz 68000 and it made ~0.8MIPS... the original amiga 500 iirc was putting out 1MIPS, yet the ST kicked its ass ;P assuming the 68K scales linerarly id say 12MHz= 1.2MIPS... but thats besides the point... my point is that the 68K at almost any clockrate could NOT do that demo! ..id bet its made for a 68060 amiga 1200 ...perhapps with their AGA video chipset (but it was so darn slow that its probably not made for that gfx card either). ...reading the video comments you can se that someone is suppriced that it "even runs on a 030" ....so taking that demo as a reference to what the 68K could have done is not realy fare... ..but! =) ...that demo could most defenitely be made for the Jaguar, live rendered!... and much more! and that with the 68K turned off! (a must =) So the competition would then be 68060 vs Tom&Jerry ...which becomes a far more interesting competition =) Seeing what the 060 can do today (falcon demo scene) ..i'd say that the Jaguar has enough power to kick its ars, defenitely! ...but I'm a bit partic beeing a jaguar fan ;P but hopefully the jaguar demoscene will kick off and we will see some realy nice demos for the jaguar, and hopefully in the future they will show what the jaguar is realy capable of... the jaguar have 2 problems: only 2Mb memory and no quick & easy way to load lots of data. That problem will be solved with the jagCF, which will make the jag more like a "computer" or atleast give it more "computer like" options. That would make such a demo easier to do than it is now... (granted it would be done..with the jagcd but... but... aarrgghhh its so hard to develope/debug on it). but we still need good coders! ..so lets get down to assembler & renderpipelines! ;P cheers /Sym ps. regarding 2D i'd say the jag kicks anytning in its time-era, but then I am a bit partic ;P ds.

Sorry no.. Im not going to flame... this will be the last remark I ever do about this hole thing.. no matter what you throw at me. It is funny, yet sad, that a legitamite post can go unnoticed and a stupid one attracts more attention.. ?...a sarcastic joke attracts most people here, thats just it....and you cant tell a sincerepost from a joke... cant you just leave it be? you all must coment to show your honurable standpoint that you proven tenfold before... it is sooo tiresom!.. you know.. if i gave a crap.. but to be honest.... i dont... so its all for nothing! =) /Symmetry leaving this scene

I say lets make 2 versions... I "Europeean" where you can play roms, develope awsome new games & truly take the Jaguar where it has never gone before.. And one "US-only" ..where you cant do much at all except pay billions of dollars for it on Ebay and stack it in shelf under a glass bowl... hence it will not brake any presious pirate rules. Sticker with "In Europe someone is playing Quake on this you know" included without extra cost!.... (US only sticker). Then everyone will be happy! =) problem solved!! Speaking of pirates (aparently everyone that is here & at jagware are falsly beeing accused of beeing a "Pirate"). I just want to point out what noone seem to question: I would rather get a JagCF thats been developed from scratch by the copyrightholder than ever use hardware that was based on secret beta hardware by Atari that someone Stole & altered a bit! ("filled in the blanks"), their innermost secrets of their new hardware (...that will NEVER be ok to use nor resell, not by ANY "registered developer" EVER!!! It doesnt matter if he'd bend over & let the CEO himself corn-hole him, Thats Ataris hardware secrets and thats it!... ....Now whos the Pirate?.... To all Jagware people I say, KEEP Up The Great Work!... and stay focused on target & dont let anything distract you from the goal! (ie stop flaming & back to coding!!!=).......you darn pirates ;P /Symmetry of.... Pirates

just a short math note: If the jag were to be summed up it would be 64+64+32+32+16=208bit POWER!... =) now it isnt, its 64bit datapath for shure! =) but Atari CAN do wrong math.. look at the falcon.. it says "32bit system" on my box, but what is it? ...32bit 030 yes, 56bit dsp.. well!..?.. but what realy counts, the databus is actually 16bit! ...(multiplexed to give 32bit).. which is a big difference!. But i fail to see the connection to the subject here so i stop ;P /Sym

..un f-----g beleivable.. how such a big part of the "scene" can be so against new HW (=new posibilities!) for a console they love... ?! I just wanted to point out some thing.. lets rewind the tape a bit.. some years ago when there were no CFplans or hardly any encryptionKeys for roms.. Then some aktive developers Aktually! released something new ....on CDROM!!!..... CDs that are soooo hard to make Pirate copies of!...not! (this is an ironic argument yes, but the hole thing is ironic to me so dont bother pointing that out Yet they sold several hundreds of copies, well beyond expectations on this small scene......Despite the fact that CDROMS are more easily copied today than CF will be tomorrow.. And if someone (and someone most defenitely will) make new games for CDROM do you think that things will be any different now than before? or more different than CF would be tomorrow?... Untill some time ago all new games would have come out on cdrom.. (since noone has the ability to make carts today, or we would se more of that wouldnt we?...retorical question). And all coders accepted this.. despite the fact that cds are so easy to copy... yet they went on with their projects and sold allot of cds!.. I would say that CF would open more doors than in slams it in the face of older games.. Now you (as a developer) would have a hole new universe to play with, so much more options to make GREAT games that would put ALL jaguar games to date in pitty shame!... now all of a sudden easy-copy is a concern? ....how can it be when CDs were not?.... I would say that there are some "ankor" people in the scene that keeps pulling backwards in fear that their past will one day not be "#1-ever" anymore (if you beleived that in the first place ie) and that is a pitty for their "followers"... that beleive that hanging on to the past is the future. Instead of calmly make sugestions, licence agrements (instead of fighting the future, take advantage of it, see it as an opportunity not a stab in the back, republish old games in new format do something!), anti-piracy implementations, or whatever... people start a fire or start namecalling the only active coders on the jaguar.. ...(which I might add is also a thing from the PAST!... not the future, we should all be friends people!). The only logical explanation for such a reaction is fear... fear that ones beloved trasures will loose their value... But people come on! as long as we have hardcore collectors this will never be an issue... and as far as i know the majority of the jagfans are! in one way or another.. so this will never be a problem!... As a developer of the present and future I for one is for new hardware that will give me "limiteless power"... and atleast an option to make it harder to copy a game than the past ever was!.... and I cant se any active coder in his right mind going against that statement... no.. wasted enough time on this post... Im off doing some real coding =) just my thoughts, dont use them to fule any fire for or against ..please... cheers /Symmetry ...embrasing the future..

Interesting... that there is a 68k src for elite2 .... I always asked for src like this but noone knows where to get it.. since a port is not that dificult to do (i have done such) ...part of the worst is to convert bitplane gfx to jaguar friendly & change painting to use blitter.... (ie if only src is given and not the full project (src,gfx,audio,..)... I sure wish you good luck! ..verry interesting project =) ...if you ever need help or loose interest or whatever let me know and I will trye to help/continue ... (Another source i would like to have is the mac 68K src for Wolfenstein.... if anyone has it... ...and i will start a conversion myself =) Interesting 3D Engine project you have there... to bad it has been stopped ....would be verry interested in that aswell... (since any fixpoint 3d routines interest me.. ) cheers & good luck! regards /Symmetry

(just a quicky) well then its defenitely the mod player that went bad... since I assume you have music in other games... This is however, NOT uncomon with the sinister mod player.... I and mr spock have had similar problems with that player, when there is no sound yet it consumes vbl time and the games does not behave as it should... as i said the mod player is not bug free ....unfortunately... strange that there has been onyl one insident so far... I kind if assumed you burnt the cd but what upload method did you use? .... the problems we at "TNG-HQ" had is under alpine uploads... where it just hangs & flickers when the modplayer is included...Sometimes!... Its either that or some problem with the OP list init or setup.... is the OPL setup according to atari demands? ... we'll have to wait for orions vacation to end =) *taking a chair* cheers /Sym

hmm.... sorry Walter that you cant play it... and sorry for saying this but this is verry interesting problem from a developers point of view... why would it not play on a single jaguar and ok on all other?... does any other cd game you own ever went bad or had unexpected crashes? ...(some kind of read error or whatever.. perhapps to cdunit overheating?...) Though i have an idea of what it might be..... the MOD player might be causing interference with the OP list ... some how.... or it hogs up the bus or whatever... the flicker is ~consistent with the VBL time it takes to play an ordinary module.. so.. is there a way to turn of the music? .....(not mute, kill the player so it goes away from the vbl time ?).... and se if it stops... or its a "clear BBS area" thing... some variable isnt set up correctly.... (this IS a problem with the modplayer, it is FAR from perfect)... What pussles me though is why only Walter has this problem and no other?.... ahh well... just some late night thoughts =) ...(gowing on 1v wacation tomorrow so I hope this is solved when i get back .... no no dont mean like that .. no preasure cheers /Sym

Hi! quite an interesting mod.. I could use an VGA connection myself... So you are saying that all those air-wieres does not pick up any noise from the rest of the jag and create bad picture? more space in the back of the jag and one could make a built in catbox and a moment of silence, may your other jag RIP cheers /Sym

Yes Yes Yes! =) its out in the open =) Just GREAT! ...I salute everyone that was part of making this release!.... just great work! =D CHEERS! /Sym

Question should be What are you dooing to make it crash? =) But this time when you remake the polygon drawer, it should be realy fast sincerely though, Spock has used vmware to dev under xp quite allot... and never had those problems (as far as i know). I mean since the use of its features are so limited.. you start W98, and some old dos program and an editor... and that should not create the problems you describe... unless it was a vmware fault.. in which case allot of people should have similar problems... ...And if the image vanished... i mean...? ...that sounds like an XP problem!... make a surface scan of your entire Harddrive and check for bad sectors... if any replace it at once!... or clone to a new HD... Not that there is anything wrong with a CT060 ... cheers /Symmetry