iesposta

I’ve been contacted about a replacement joystick (great design, great everything except being sturdy). Anyone else contacted? Still no communication about including my game, neither here nor at developer Hyperkin.

I don't want to get back on topic until there is actual news from Hyperkin. You can get Silicosis (silica crystals in your lungs) from clay, or is that different from ceramics? I like my silicon doing electronic things. Certainly Lead is dangerous for children's developing brains, and in large amounts dangerous for adults. I don't think an adult soldering with leaded solder is harmful enough to be a concern. Alcohol drinking is probably more brain damaging.

Forgot to add that I think there is a gosub without a return (or return otherbank), and I think that same code that is first called with gosub, is later called with a goto. Every gosub must have a return, unless the subroutine is complex and a condition occurs that you dont want to return, you can change the gosub into a goto with the command pop. If surprise=badluck then pop: goto Label Not returning from a gosub advances the stack whatever that is, and if it fills completely you have a stack overflow which can crash or reset the program. A gosub can call a gosub (even with goto(s) in the subroutine). But if you gosub down 3 times, you have to return from the last routine to the one that called it, and return from that second subroutine back to the first. I hope that makes sense. We used pop a couple times in the game I made wih Byte Knight. Programmers say if you need to use pop, you should figure out how to correctly write a goto.

I am being honest as far as I know. So it really is both reasons you guessed. It is bad blood due to a disgruntled troll, and also that AtariAge doesn’t want to violate other companies Intellectual Property rights, as I said before. It was on Melody because EEPROMS and old RAM and other logic parts would end up costing a lot. Melody hardware is AtariAge hardware. I found info about who would make Pink Panther to buy. This info was from a true troll who intentionally is out to harass those involved in that limited run (before I joined AtariAge). This Troll won’t remove his false “helpful” information. Maybe I was lied to, but I was told that this harassment made the cart maker get rid of the binary (which can’t be played on emulation anyway). I also remember he verified that another seller’s copy was real because it was his cart that he sold to this seller in question. I wish as many people would feel as passionate about having the Xevious Prototype in physical cart. Remember that newly discovered “later prototype”, complete enough to stand as a release (with 3 small fixes of coding errors).

Can you zip the Titlescreen Folder? I can help more if I can compile the game. I took out the Titlescreen, but I can't get a good compile. Sometimes I have found this to be the problem. If fixes bouncing and line count (if you're not doing a ton of things per game loop which will just go beyond the cycles the processor has). Before EVERY "drawscreen" in bB DPC+, you should set the fractional data queues: rem Re-writing it this way saves 7 bytes rem Below should be done before EVERY Drawscreen DF6FRACINC = 255: DF4FRACINC = 255 DF0FRACINC = 128: DF1FRACINC = 128: DF2FRACINC = 128: DF3FRACINC = 128 ; Column 3. rem draw screen drawscreen . . . Some tips to avoid huge waste of processing (which causes bad line count): A huge tip that saves ROM and processor cycles is to string same value variables on one horizontal code line. The tradeoff for being a bit harder to read, is the ROM saves add up a lot, and the compiled assembly is faster if coded this way. (Long story) batari Basic allows around 12 per line if I remember correctly. You can't do the whole alphabet=0 on one line. It won't compile. I've tried. gosub Quiet rem initial variables reset PlayerFrame=1: LevelNo=1: SpeedMult=1: SubLevelNo=1: BackLoop=1: P0Direction=1: LevelLoad=1 LivesNo=4 Falling=0: Jumping=0: NoArrows=0: NoBats=0: Bat1Direction=0: Bat2Direction=0: BatFrame=0: NoRocks=0: Killed=0: GameOver=0: Interim=0 rem reset score score=0 . . . Don't "gosub label bank6" for something small. A gosub to another bank and back costs lots of processor time and ROM. For the times you do code a gosub to another bank and back, use "return otherbank" at the end of the code. "return" is okay if your gosub is in the same bank. May small subroutines -- especially for code that's duplicated over and over -- ends up at the end of the current bank.Q For example in one bank you have a lot of quiet sound code. If you make it a subroutine and "gosub Quiet" it will save 37 bytes, but it takes a bit more CPU time. Do this if you want ROM back. Quiet AUDV0=0: AUDC0=0: AUDF0=0: AUDV1=0: AUDC1=0: AUDF1=0 return You probably can get away with just volume=0 in AUDV0=0: AUDV1=0 and don't worry about the channel or frequency being zero, or I have been kicking around keeping the volume and note where they are, and setting "AUDC0=0: AUDC1=0" because when that works, you are not changing volume register to 0 which can add noise by moving the speaker to rest (at 0) and the next note has to push the speaker out (at the next notes volume). Try a short program of just setting the AUDV0=0 and/or AUDV1=0, to AUDV0=12: AUDV1=12, every other frame, and loop that through a drawscreen. You get a tone!

Thanks to everybody helping to continue this hybrid videogame pinball! I never thought about having both in just a videogame. Remembering back to playing this as a teenager, who also played pinball, the pinball was fast and hard to keep in play due to it being a small square space! I’ve played the pinball in the last post and that’s already way beyond acceptible! Fine tuning the pinball program will just be adding to an already great game!

The “last run cart maker” deleted the ROM and sold his copy, and as I said, has no interest in making them. But it could happen others make it happen.

So if you get the binary ROM file, there is no emulator that will run its one-of-a-kind bankswitch format, or did I misread somethinf?

There are no good 2-player versions I know about. The 1-player version sold in the Atari-Age store is quite advanced, saving scores to cart, 3-channel selection of 3 tunes. Many tricks for different color pieces... Your game will be compared to it. https://atariage.com/store/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1003 A 2-player Puyo, Puyo / Dr. Mario may be more desired. Tetris 2-player would be a first, and in no way un-liked.

it's NOT a proper control, its a miniature scaled down replica of a real trackball that can never match the actual arcade one. it's like trying to play a joystick game, with a tiny thumbstick like on the micro arcade machines, it can do the job sometimes, but is nowhere near proper. spot-on, but not EXACT. the spacing of the buttons, the cone start buttons, are all wrong, and completely incorrect. the relative distance between them is all wrong also. the side art is not quite correct, but scaled to fit, the cabinet is close, but again, not scaled exactly. that's a dealbreaker to most people honestly, why would most people care, the default settings are fine, and in fact, fiddling with the test menus or settings is fun one time, and then you never look at the test options again. as far as changing the settings, its not like anyones going to play these games on this version for any amount of reasonable time for it to matter. no ones going to set any high scores, or last that long. if i want to test out the trap spider trick, or get to the million point bonus, it won't ever be on a machine this small, so i won't need to worry about the settings. this argument has been brought up before, and i still find it puzzling. later | | | | | ||| | | n e g at iv e 1

Having pursued Pink Panther and given up owing one, I have played it. I haven't played it extensively. I don't know how much cart RAM it uses, but I couldn't see the need for a lot of RAM playing the game. It's not keeping track of lots of enemies like in Millipede or say the gems collected in Crystal Castle. There is a nice de-rez, sort of transporter-like disappearing effect that may need RAM for that, but that is only a visual thing. It just happened to be the only thing released on a new board designed to access lots of RAM in a new way. Every company's bankswitching and access to added RAM had to be designed originally (if not stole by copying) due to the fact that there is no write line on the cartridge port. Just amazing companies figured out tricks to do bankswitching and external RAM access! It is great for what it was, but classic and new homebrew games are much more fun to play. Someone like myself could probably duplicate most of the game using batari Basic, but not owning the game that's impossible to do from memory playing it one day for a few minutes. Those who made the first run, have no interest in doing it again. AtariAge would risk too much even being involved in a second party or third party way. It would take someone who owns the cart, dumping that code, and another cartridge hardware emulator board (Uno cart?), and then reverse engineering how the game bank switches and access RAM, and then coding that into the cart's firmware. Even buying Uno carts is going to cost around $50 each, and that's before buying labels, manuals, boxes, postage, etc.

Although I haven't used my allocated space yet, you can write and test your game by saving to the "scratchpad" area, correct? In batari Basic, is very simple to: include anything.asm and any needed variables/constants are defined or reused from the ones available depending on which "kernel" is used, and defined in the batari Basic way at the start of your code.

I love my Replicade 11.8" Centipede! Good: -It is the Arcade ROM that plays full speed, and has proper Trak-Ball control. -The shape, side art, coin door, marquee, T-molding, are spot-on. -The screen bezel is like the cabaret version, not the full size version, because they used a large LCD screen. - Cost of backer model was bearable around $100 due to the added shipping cost. -Size is perfect. If I want to play with a larger display, I have computers, laptops, tablets, phones, PSP emulators. The 1/4 scale cabinets being too large unless you have the space in a home bar, a man cave, etc. Not so good: -The battery drain from the always on Trak-Ball chip. Keep it plugged into something always on like a set-top-box and enjoy the four red LEDs. -There is no menu option for "Service Mode" to set number of starting players, game difficulty setting, Extra Man score level, high score table reset, test screens for checking dead pixels, Trak-Ball direction test, and to see the unused "grasshopper" sprite that's still in the ROM. It does use circuit board dip-switches to change number of starting players, extra man level, etc. so maybe they could not implement these? However it should be possible to have menu options in the currently implemented menu, pass these values to the emulation. -It "forgets" the sound level between shut downs, while remembering high scores, brightness, marquee on/off, and Trak-Ball Sensitivity? I like the Super Impulse micro arcade machines because the sound is correct. I like that it's not the NES version. I like that you can wire the jumpers to the joystick and have 3 or 4 games in one unit at power-up. I like they are cheap impulse buys I do not like the small screen real-estate which causes the need to change the original game ROM and adds bugs like not moving while firing in Galaxian; The very low frame rate seems ridiculous. Notes on Tempest, next from Replicade: Being a color Vector game, it needs a higher pixel density LCD than what was used in Centipede, and I told them this! You are already losing hundreds of brightness levels, overdrive brightness, and pixel trails that the slower refreshing CRT phosphors give. Surely a high dpi 3.5" phone screen must be discontinued somewhere that they could use? I doubt they will use a better screen. The diagonal vectors will be a jaggy mess, hopefully overlooked because it plays great. If they're charging "collector action figure, limited edition high prices", my Tempest screen should be at least as good as my early iPhone 3 or 4 display? I agree that to be truly replicating the arcade game, you should be able to configure game difficulty, starting lives, etc., like the real arcade machine. MAME has had this configuration in emulation for decades!

That is so cool! And on a dip-switch re-configurable 32b circuit board! Good luck at the demo party! Now how much sound can be made if you don't have to worry about keeping a display? Some of those simple math equations can create very intricate "songs".

I made them. Any bin that’s 4K or 2K can be made into a sound file, or sound file back to a binary. There’s a command line PC exe that still works for wave to bin. The 2600 Cuttle Cart used sound files and that software can make sound for Supercharger or the larger RAM Cuttle Cart. The Official Pac-Man is my hack of The New Pac-Man 4K, wishing that would have come out after “The Official Frogger” (but Supercharger games can be 6K) The Supercharger is just a 6K RAM cart with 2K BIOS for turning sound into bits. After a Supercharger game’s code, the rest of the 8K left over can be used as game RAM as I understand it. It is still slow to read and write to RAM because the 2600 can’t do write, and has to use shadow locations, or 2 byte locations, to write 1 byte. I may be incorrect as it has been 7 years since I read about Supercharger programs.

Supercharger CX022 Missile Command: Also, Reactor Trak-Ball is highly recommended by me! Edit: It comes it 2 Trak-Ball speeds, slow and fast. P.S. This New Pac-Man 4K with cut-scenes and arcade like enemy movement: Note: New Pac-Man 4K "TheOfficialPacMan Supercharger" is not a Trak-Ball game, it just rocks from the Supercharger! It is a graphic hack from DINTAR816's finished 4K New Pac Man with changed score font and seperated eyes. Along the lines of what The Official Frogger was, (except the Supercharger version could have used the additional 2K to become 6K, so somewhere between DINTAR816's 4K and his almost-complete New Pac-Man 8K.) Missile Command TB CX22 NTSC.wav TheOfficialPacMan_SuperchargerS.wav Reactor TB-slow speed CX-22 v1.3 .wav Reactor TB-high speed CX-22 v1.3.wav

Howard Stern used to play that Orson Wells audio. As I listened again I thought to myself, “my that sounds like the cartoon Pinky & the Brain!” Then I saw it, there below the Orson Wells video. This gem:

So sorry to hear the designer is not active at this time. He has heard from me that his games included on his hardware are top-of-the-line perfection, and that I would personally pay around $60 for each of them. They are that good. He told me that his game is pure Vectrex code and not something that needs his hardware. I am unclear if he was referring to one of them being native code, (I asked about the Asteroids because it was so accurate), or all of them. I wouldn’t dismiss not ever getting the games in the future. I also respect authors and designers and make it a point never to annoy or bug them. (Respect is important.) He has this thread, his friends, and his customers should he come back to this, or wish to make his games or hardware availabe for others to create.

I keep forgetting to tell Al and mention that the Millipede Trak-Ball game WILL NOT MOVE CORRECTLY if the AtariVox+ is in the 2nd joystick port, as that hack brilliantly uses the Joystick 2 registers as “extra RAM storage”. Those that leave AtariVox+ plugged in to store high scores will find that Millipede Trak-Ball moves left/right at an insanely fast speed. Anyone want to print up warning stickers to put on the cart and/or instruction manual and/or box?

How about this? Found 4 bytes. Made 1 drawscreen. Found 41 bytes. Is the sound broken now? MonkeyKing0.23c.bas

Sorry I cant help with AI. Everything but game logic. Sound, music, samples, graphics, color, layout... I started with bB DPC+ kernel so I know that better than the standard kernel options. I can optimize even if I dont understand the code. The smartbranching will add back in a goto if it cant branch for free, but some dropped goto commands get missed even by smartbranching on and will error on compile, thats why I said it is best to write code using them, and then to remove and test compile later. That and the put as many things=(same value) on one line using : between them, are 2 large optimizations, even though it makes the code harder to read. I dont know about writing a compiler, but if I were to add a compile pass it would be to look for seperate defines to the same value and combine because it compiles like this: player1x=0 player0x=0 AUDV0=0 AUDV1=0 _apple=0 _anything=0 Compiles To (load / store): lda 0 sta player1x lda 0 sta player0x lda 0 sta AUDV0 lda 0 sta AUDV1 lda 0 sta _apple lda 0 sta _anything When: player1x=0: player0x=0: AUDV0=0: AUDV1=0: _apple=0: _anything=0 compiles to (one load / store): lda 0 sta player1x sta player0x sta AUDV0 sta AUDV1 sta _apple sta _anything So thats where you get ROM back by writing it differently.

Wow. Save very often. Sometimes a file will compile, and then it will not due to some "invisible text character". For instance, I was getting an error at the " = q " which was written okay. Some return character or other before or after that was not letting it compile. That's what I mean by "invisible text character". As soon as I commented that out and retyped the exact same thing, it compiled. It's hard explaining something that doesn't seem to make sense!

This is about 64 bytes returned, by re-arranging, and dropping "goto" (in "if then goto" IF "goto label" is close). Really you need to code "If - then - goto" and then remove the goto and recompile and see if it gives a savings or errors. If it errors, you need to add the "goto" back. If it saves bytes, you don't need the "goto". Technically assembly can jump to a label "free" if it is within 128 bytes of the "if statement". Usually goto jumps to the label over "collision detections" is too far away, and it will error. In the attached code you need to add back my commented out player1scorecolor and add back the "inline xxx.asm" at the end. MonkeyKing0.22.bas

Don't know about your question, however: this is an invalid bB command: player1scorecolor = $fe add a space after: ;dim _startgame = p Then it compiles for me. How many bytes does your game have left? I see places in your source code that can get you back a lot of ROM if you need it for things.

Now wire up a diode cart. Only needs to be half of the 64 byte one in this video! Somebody make a parts list so we can build one as a kit project?