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BladeJunker

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Posts posted by BladeJunker

  1. Posted

    I'm kind of a weirdo, it's the only controller of this era I actually like, and I hate "side" buttons lol. I think it's the big area for grip rather than trying to avoid the keypads with your fingers, don't get me started about keypads. 😒 You're in luck, lots of options now.

     

    Edladdin makes really great high quality arcade sticks for all the systems but they are a bit large and the most expensive option. https://www.edladdin.com/Arcade-Controllers_c2.htm

     

    I managed to get an EU gamepad, I quite like that one too. It's not as comfortable as a NES gamepad in that I find the thumbstick mandatory because the D-pad edges are so sharp. If they had just rounded the edges it would be more comfortable either way.

     

    Got a Seagull78 from AA, I like Genesis pads so that was a no brainer.

     

    And going to get that arcade stick Bratwurst is making to have a controller with that arcade feel in a compact package.

  2. Posted

    On 4/1/2021 at 4:48 PM, BIGHMW said:

    I would LOVE to see Grand Theft Auto for the 5200 and 8-bit XEGS FOR REAL, but the Intellivision version, mockery or not, was funnier than f**k, maybe Bob Saget should take note, even the "ad" was funny, especially when the George Plimpton look alike said "Atari sucks balls" I laughed my head off. Somebody please port GTA for real, even of it has to merely be an 8-bit version of the Intellivision mock up, I'll take that, much like we took Yar's Strike last year (converted by @playsoft last year from the 8-bit port with a few improvements, download here) and made it an instant 5200 hit.

    Glad you liked it, yeah much like the 16-bit war the 80s had Plimpton talking smack about Atari on a regular basis. :) Yeah that would be cool, some sort of openworld game, I think the INTV and 5200 are capable of something like that. Oh I'll have to check out that Yar's Strike. ;) 

  4. Posted

    10 hours ago, zzip said:

    Yeah, I don't think they knew what to do at that point.   For one the 2600 was incredibly popular right before the crash, and it doesn't make sense to kill the golden goose,  but on the other hand the 2600 tech was ancient at that point, it was increasingly struggling to bring good arcade ports and was getting beat up on graphics by Intellivision and soon Colecovision, so Atari felt the pressure to be competitive with them before they stole Atari's marketshare.   Then when Tramiel took over Atari,  they didn't believe in innovating much for the old product lines,  just in selling huge volumes of them at low prices as long as people would buy them.   They kept the 2600 alive for years after it should have been done because it was still selling well in the 3rd world.

    True, I think about it often, what could have been done to keep Atari as big as it was. 🤔 I think at least companies like Activision managed to port arcade titles better than most but I really think a new joystick wasn't an unreasonable measure even in that market, we weren't buying 5200s so lets expand the platform we're sticking with for a while. But sure I've seen the Plimpton ads and Coleco's monolith DK port that was so good.

    Was just mocking a YT guy for 2600 bashing, apparently the golden age was the PS2 era now. ;) I appreciate all generations of video games, you can only measure them against the era they were made in.

     

    Not a big Tramiel fan myself but he did pay off Atari's massive debt in the aftermath. I liked his low cost approach to computers like the C64 but he made few exceptions to that rule, much to his detriment, hated the Jaguar I hear. However I still think the Amiga line was a bit too expensive for it's own good.

    Yeah there was a lot of global sales afterwards, I have a few 5200 games that came back from Venezuela when game stock was shipped south after the crash. At the very least that gave the 2600 a strong worldwide following. :)

    • Haha 1

  5. Posted · Edited by BladeJunker

    4 hours ago, zzip said:

    The graphics were a huge deal back then.   We kids knew we couldn't expect much from the VCS and were usually underwhelmed by the graphics.   When the 5200 and Coleco came out-  finally we could have arcade-like graphics at home!!   We were definately excited by it,  at least those of us still interested in gaming.   A lot of our friends were starting to get bored by gaming and started watching MTV after school instead-  I think this is a factor in the crash that gets ignored.   Videogames became a pop culture fad after "Pacman fever" hit, and all fads wind down.

     

    Another thing Atari did that probably hurt the 5200 was release the 600XL the next year.   This could play almost all the games the 5200 could, and some it couldn't, like Donkey Kong.   It was cheaper than the 5200,  much more compact than the 5200, used the classic joysticks and was a computer to boot!   It was much easier to convince parents to buy us 600XLs than 5200s

    I wondered because I thought that would be a bigger factor but then it wasn't. I could see how MTV might distract back then, when they played music and it wasn't saturated with reality shows. Well I think a lot of contemporaries at the time would have liked it to be a fad but it was here to stay as a form of entertainment media. ;)

     

    Yeah there it is, the home computer, the factor that could endure the '83 dip and the "homework" factor lol.

     I think the 5200 success could have rested on the controller if it had been better, more arcade oriented, something the classic wasn't equipped to do, but nope as it was a breaking analog stick with a keypad.

     

    4 hours ago, zzip said:

    When Atari released the 2600, they knew it would be obsolete in a few years and immediately started working on the replacement.   This became the 400/800 first.   It was pricey.    1981/1982 were probably the peak of the 2600 popularity, so it made sense to keep it going at that time.   When they released the 5200 in 1982, it was still expensive.  It would have been even more expensive if released earlier.   I think it was timed about right for the technology in it,  but nobody expected the crash, they thought the videogame craze of 81/82 would keep going.

    But the reality seemed to contradict that, the public wouldn't or couldn't let go of the 2600 for perhaps financial reasons, hence the backwards compatibility backlash. Like even now compare the homebrew scene, it's 2600, 7800, 5200 and even the past sales have this same priority order.

    Not saying they should have dropped the 2600 like a stone but it could have been reinvigorated with a new CX40 with added fire buttons to keep up with arcade port demands, cheap upgrade. Since that was going to be the established user base they should have made the most of it despite the crash.

    Truth is I couldn't think of way around the timing problems of release, custom chip making grew a lot after 1977. ;) 

     

    4 hours ago, zzip said:

    I think Atari could have salvaged it.  Maybe release new controllers, and a slim model as well as price cuts.   If they could sell 600XLs for $139 in 83,  they should have been able to sell a lower cost version of the 5200.   I call it a failure because Atari dumped it before it was even two years old and they tried to replace it with another new console.

    It's tricky, can't say Atari lacked for 2600 models, but yeah a slim 5200 would have been nice heh. Much later but look at the AmigaCD32, another rebadged hardware that failed to gain a market away from Commodore's computers. That is true about cost of 600XL versus 5200, it's possible the marketing department might have raised prices, they do dumb things like that. ;) Can't disagree that a couple years isn't much support, strange but before most crashes people get drunk with money even though they are actually bleeding, not cheap to make custom game consoles.

     

    Atari seemed to have a death grip on their controller designs, in the future they changed the controller to roll with the punches Egs. NES turbo controllers, Sega 6-button controller, the DualShock. Like I wasn't surprised to hear the Jaguar controller comes from another product line since it doesn't match the market they were trying to enter at that time with the Jaguar. 😟

  6. Posted

    5 hours ago, ajacocks said:

    Amusingly, I don't actually have a 5200, so I can't say if it would fit, or not. I built these controllers as a gift for a friend.

     

    If anyone has a spare functional 5200 that they would be willing to part with, I'd be happy to develop a mounting solution.

     

    - Alex

    A lot people don't have the 5200, just crazy folks. ;) I just got another console but it's spoken for if it works(as-is untested pile and such). See if I can measure the alcove maybe give you one surface, trying to get into print file making myself.

  7. Posted

    Well what is strange about the controller is that other people made better analog yolks, good ones existed before and after the 5200 release so there was a chance to remake and or fix the controller.

    It is a bizarre pinout, normally an analog joystick was used in the past to get the directional input down to two pins which a few PC platforms did which affords more face buttons etc. . The 5200 however uses a 15-pin port to make an analog joystick, a couple of face buttons, and one overindulgent keypad that takes the lion's share of the pins because the kids, they love keypads, can't get enough of them.🤣

    Then you take the 5200 games, they didn't use analog input since they were mostly arcade games with digital input Eg. Pac Man, so why go with an analog yolk idk? On top of that you can do digital control through an analog pinout, see Gravis Gamepad. 15 pins for that, it was like the whole NA console industry was allergic to multiplexers and shift registers, Nintendo and Sega sure weren't using 9-pin expansion.

     

    As far as history people wonder about the vertical controllers of the era but it's never really explained. It has to do with the hand dominance migration issue in arcades, first they were symmetrical in face buttons so left and right hand ambidextrous layout, then they changed majority right handed layouts to a left hand to try and boost quarter intake which stuck as a standard and then face button count grew off that. Then you look at the 80s home controller and they tried to maintain that symmetry in the layout even though it was bad ergonomics for either hand dominance.

     

    The console is too damn big, it rivals most 1980s electronics in shelf real estate, right now I have very few shelf alcoves big enough for it. There was this marketing gimmick then of making the console tidy, put the controllers away, resulted in console shells far bigger than hardware inside of them. Also see the Intellivision and Colecovision.

     

    It was expensive bitd from what I hear, like a lot more than the 2600 that it couldn't take off. I think the graphics are a large step up but back then it probably didn't seem like enough to justify a new expensive console. What was David Crane saying, a 2600 game then in today's currency is $140 USD, imagine that across the spectrum of gaming expenses.

     

    Atari seemed to want to keep the 2600 going forever and it did but that doesn't bold well for advancing technology or new models. They made the next generation but probably released it a year or two late with the '83 crash pending.

    It was irrational but people really wanted to use their 2600 carts on the 5200 even though historically backwards compatibility is still rare, guessing they assumed Atari was screwing them but it was a non trivial matter to do that, the eventual solutions are just whole 2600 units attached to the main console for power and AV sake. Must have never occurred to them to just attach both machines to one TV or they didn't have the space to.🤔

     

    The present loves to use their "FAIL" stamp on anything remotely imperfect. The game industry failed as a whole and none of the game companies could escape that collapse. 😞

    • Like 1

  8. Posted

    I just playing catch up here, didn't realize how many people helped make this controller but thank you all for your efforts. :) I think it goes a long way to making the 5200 more accessible for more people, actually having people play the 5200 rather than mock it, avoid it, or rip out it's Pokey heh.

     

    Was just speculating on a new 5200 controller door flap and thought you could actually print an insert cradle for that alcove that fits this new controller. Imagine it being like those controller recharge stations except side to side rather than front to back. Do they fit inside with the door closed? If not these controllers inserting on top with a cradle would be a nice alternative to those without a door. 

  9. Posted

    50 minutes ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

    Resin mold is likely the most inexpensive way to do this. Removing the controller lid is easy though. Just undo the 7 screws on the bottom to remove he entire top cover with the controller lid. Then just lift it out of place.

     

    Thank you for the tips. :) I do have an intact one but haven't tried silicone molds yet. Just chatting with a friend about the 3D print option, could be some shortcuts towards a 3D file. Thinking the lid pins won't print well that maybe a mech insert is warranted for the hinge.

  10. Posted

    Old thread but worth bumping. Just got a 5200 delivered and despite good packing that back door flap shattered like glass because that's what they do. :( I think the best bet is 3D printing but first somebody has to make a model file which shouldn't be too hard to make.

     

    I too think it should be more rugged and textured rather than smooth glass, reminds me of record player covers, which also cracked and shattered if anything remotely heavy fell on them. 😄

     

    If someone could make a silicone mold of a good one you can pull a good amount of resin copies out for the initial cost of materials and with care it can be used a long time. It's tricky though since detaching the old lid can be hairy for it's age.

  11. Posted

    19 hours ago, Welshworrier said:

    As a slight aside...

     

    We've had a few days spare

     

     

    That looks very promising. :) Thank you to everybody working on these conversions, great idea to try and leverage JagDoom for more. 😉 Forgot how many games used OG Doom engine, Heretic, Hexen, Strife, and Chex Quest 1&2.

     

    Not exactly Doom2 but just imagining some of the vast number of mods one could apply to the engine. Amazing how many other 2.5D FPS games have been remade in GZDoom and such.

    https://batandy.itch.io/gz-pt Lol, was just talking about that demo that refuses to die no matter how much the company tries to squash it.

  14. Posted

    6 hours ago, agradeneu said:

    Iam not talking about a conversion of Kings Field, but it would be realistic to design a similar game for the JagDoom engine. That would mean a 1st person 3D world like in Doom and sprites for objects.

     

     

    So if the Lynx can pull it off, why not do something just as cool for the Jag? ;-)

     

     

    Don't get me wrong, I'd love King's Field on the Jag or any more dungeon FPS games. Just started saving up for a GameDrive so I can play Towers II, a good game that unfortunately has a rarity of 7 and costs too much compared to playing the genre elsewhere.😩 Pleased to see some of the other FPS games come up on AA. https://atariage.com/store/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1112 Guess I could rip to the GameDrive from the CD maybe.

    Me I was thinking of KF being directly ported, was imagining terrible prerendered GBA style sprites based on the PS1 models.🤢 I quite like sprites or 2.5D games, should have had more on Jaguar and 3DO, also thought they weren't bad on SS and PS1 either for higher frame rate performance.

     

    Been falling behind on my Lynx news, Silas looks cool. I got a Lynx about a year ago, unfortunately it had a cap related stroke after a week, but another to-do item for the ol' wallet heh. Lynx seems plenty capable of FPS games too. ;)

  15. Posted

    12 hours ago, 0078265317 said:

    Just saw this.  Looks pretty neat. 

     

    https://retrogame.cyberphreak.com/product/atari-5200-controller-jaguar-controller-conversion/

    Thanks for sharing this, been looking over alternative controllers but hadn't seen that one. :)

     

    It all fits when I compare them, enough buttons to cover all the 5200 ones. Could work out okay for supply ratios if the Jag Pro variant for sale now takes off in a big way it would create that situation the Sega Genesis had with it's controller where the 3-button is now less desirable than the 6-button in the present where modding the former controller creates new purpose for it rather than just sitting idle often.

     

    https://songbird-productions.com/product/jaguar-controller-parts/

    Might as well feature this site since there is a sale on Jag controller parts right now.

  16. Posted

    Company policy sounds plausible to me, lots of dumb things like that happen to the day. Really it comes down to why change arcade colors ever in a port unless you have to? Take something like the C64 with it's fixed colors where that's all you get, then you got platforms like 2600 and Sega Genesis which have decent system palettes but the people using them seem to have vision problems in many cases. 😄

     

    At least people are making lots of color hacks these days and we're rich with Pac Man titles now. :) 2600 P-M was definitely from a different universe but I can't say I didn't play it a lot, E.T. was very easy to put down bitd lol but I've grown to appreciate even that now.

  17. Posted

    7 hours ago, phoboz said:

    Maybe we do a BOSS that utilises some cool effects?

     

    Can we expect to see some sprite scaling, and rotational effects in Odynexus for the Atari Jaguar?

    Was just thinking about that, would be nice to see more rotating sprites on Jaguar, such a big thing from the 16-bit era and lots of it on SS and PS1 for what little 2D made it to the western continent heh. Loved those giant spinning boulders when I could get them.

  18. Posted

    3 minutes ago, phoboz said:

    The nice thing with the Jaguar is that it is possible to mix hi-color (65536 direct colors) sprites, and pseudo color (256 indexed colors) graphics in the same display. So the tile map foreground layer uses a 256 color palette, but since the sprites use hi-color (65536 direct colors), I don't have to care if different palettes are used on different levels in the game, the same sprites can be used on all levels independent of the palette. Also I can fade in/fade out the tile map, while the sprites are unaffected by the fade.

    That is very nice, the Sega 32X does that too but in a much more limited way with 32768 color sprites and 64 indexed color tilemaps. Much easier to get something out of global 256 color layers, can really apply that rich system palette to it. By comparison on 32X you have to reduce the number art assets on the original hardware layers just to make the four index palletization process give a higher color count overall.

    Definitely much easier to have independent palette index control per asset group, trying to palettize or worse re-palettize a global set of graphics again is no fun. The fade effect is quite nice. :)

     

    I'm no audiophile but the more I listen to the music the more atmospheric it gets. Nice crisp sound effect samples too, the egg crunch and blade eject is great. 😉

  19. Posted

    On 3/5/2021 at 2:49 AM, Welshworrier said:

    There would be a lot of work involved due to the 2.5d nature of the graphics and the way there are limited mobile character types in the game, each of which require a lot of sprite designs.

     

    The Chex wad, for example, takes about 4 meg at present so by the time you've added a few  other characters you are running out of space :( (as there is also the overhead of maintaining the character traits in ram too)

     

    That said a dungeon crawler style game could work.

     

     

     

     

    There is plenty of Doom1 specific content to use after all these years, never thought I'd see Chex Quest on the Jaguar. 😎Well it would be like a version of Slayer, a remix of sorts. ;)

     

    Went to look at King's Field again, yeah that one is much harder to covert, a lot more geometry to simplify into 2.5D and none of enemies are sprites unless somebody makes some. See a lot of rotating objects, need like the Jag port equivalent of Chasm: The Rift to make that happen.😄

  20. Posted

    3 hours ago, phoboz said:

    No palette fades possible as the sprites are hi-color (65536 colors, and no 256 color palette)

    However, what is not captured properly in the video is the flashing/blinking animations (most of the time the sprites just disappear in the video capture) So the effect when the enemies disappear, just like when you have been hit, is that the sprite appears fainter because it is flashing very fast.

    Oh interesting hardware property limit, but nice to see more hi-color graphics since that is what still stands out to me about the Jag and 3DO, higher than 256 color graphics. Really pops with pixel art color palettization techniques, usually only see that kind of saturation reserved for Neo Geo titles bitd, same with photoreal sprites.

     

    Shame about the capture loss, there is a lot things on many platforms like that which simply gets lost in the average video capture process. More of those subtle things will be seen once 60fps capture becomes more common.

     

    That background parallax vista, monochrome hue tint colorspace sure but it's such a big image to handle. Again mostly saw big sheets like that on Neo Geo, well done. 😲

  21. Posted

    8 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

    “Best”, I don’t know about, but certainly most essential. The poor INTV has such limited portability to other consoles due to the unique controls.

    Essential works too lol, yeah not great side buttons. ;) I guess I just mean they truly took it heart to use the keypad, 2600=Star Raider controller, 5200 meh, Coleco sort of moderately well used keypad. Mainly the whole keypad era was "Hey we can do keypad matrixes.", "But what do you use them for?", "Uhhhhhh?". 🤔 😆

    Most other examples of keypads have had more definite purposes Egs. telephone, hexadecimal, elevator, vintage handheld games. Generic keypads are versatile enough but when you don't need them it's like a reverse hole in the controller when it's inborn.

    unnamed (4).jpg

    828565.jpeg

    • Like 1

  23. Posted

    6 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

    IMO the problem is that all eight Rhinos will meet in the middle, and that will cause hefty flicker.

    Yeah been a while since I played HHH lol, tried to limit their neck length so never actually meet in the center and overlap too much with each other. Not sure how well that will work with that game, maybe the center repels balls outward. Don't need to tell you it's hard to get eight players on screen. :)

  24. Posted

    11 minutes ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

    Oh wow!! That's awesome @BladeJunker!!

     

    You may want to make it so there are just two Rhinos side by side at the top and the bottom to reduce the amount of flicker, as the 2600 can only handle two sprites on the same horizontal line at a time. This would make for two Rhinos on each of the four edges, which is much easier for the 2600 to draw.

     

    The marbles could be drawn using either be playfield or balls. By using playfield you can have unlimited marbles on the board but they would move around in 4 pixel chunks horizontally. This works really well in @johnnywc's RobotWar: 2684 with the Grunts and may work well in this for the marbles, it's hard to say though without seeing it in action. With balls you would be able to only have one ball per horizontal line without flicker but they would be able to move around smoothly. I don't know if either solutions are achievable on with bB and you'd have to implement software collision for the marbles in either solution. Another method would be to add in the missiles as the "second" and "third" marble objects in addition to the ball to reduce the flicker but then the marbles would take on some of the colours of the hippos at times depending on where they're being drawn and how quickly you'd be able to switch the colour over to 'marble colour'.

     

    Great start!!

     

    - James

    Yeah it's a bit much with five/six Player objects wide but thought maybe up to six might work. So much easier with four players, with eight I was just trying to fit them on screen together at all. 😬 I guess six players would still be good, btw my QuadTari came and it looks sweet, very nice build quality. :)

     

    Was thinking that with the PF, a lot of marbles to render and the middle rhinos need M0 and M1 to stretch their necks horizontally without more Player objects added.

    True I think BL could be used within the ball cluster too, some finer movements. Was maybe going to smooth the score characters with it but they read fine without it. Was hard to fit a score in at all with now height so it only goes to 9, mainly getting a color interrupt in two places is hard but color is the only identity they have from each other.

     

    Thanks. I'll give it try when I get to bB if I can but would rather consult and make art on it.

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