johnnywc

Thanks! @Nathan Strum did an amazing job with that!

For those of you who missed the announcement in the other Galaga thread, Galagon is now available in the Atari Age store!

Wow, when you list them all one after the other, it does sound like a lot! 😮 Galagon, WoW and Avalanche are code complete. Galagon/WoW to be released this week sometime, and Avalanche released sometime in the Spring (pending a label contest). Zoo Keeper is about 90% done, release planned for summer of 2020. Lunar Lander is 100% playable, but we plan on adding in a few bells & whistles before release. Release probably not until 2021. Elevator Action is about 30% done but requires BUS technology so for now it's on hold until the issues are resolved. Gorf Arcade is about 40% done, release planned for late 2020. Champ Sports Hockey is about 5% (just POC with the scrolling rink). Archon is not officially planned, although a display kernel was worked on for a few weeks back in 2014 with Thomas J. A few that you missed: Rip Off! is about 40% done; no official release planned. Moon Cresta was started in 2007, no plans as of yet to complete it. Cosmic Avenger was started in 2015 (which turned into Scramble), although we hope to complete it someday. LOL we do keep ourselves busy, that's for sure! Of course none of these games would be completed without the help of a lot other people like Nathan Strum, Mike Haas, Dave Dries, Ross Keenum, Thomas J, Darrell Spice, Bob D., all the game testers like Steve Ramirez, James @ ZPH, Glenn AKA GRay Defender, and everyone else here on Atari Age! And of course we can't forget Al for all his work coordinating with everyone to get these games put together and in the Atari Age store!

*** EDIT: the NTSC and PAL60 ROMs for the first Gorf Arcade demo are available here! *** Hello all, As we finish up Zoo Keeper, Champ Games has started on a new project: Gorf Arcade for the Atari 2600! Although a version of Gorf was released for the 2600 by CBS, the Champ version will follow the same treatment given to Wizard of Wor by adding the following: All 5 arcade levels Updated graphics (by Nathan Strum) All 30 speech phrases using the AtariVox (by Mike Haas) Updated sounds (*) Improved game play High score support using the AtariVox/Savekey Cut scenes, ranking badges, etc. We estimate that the game is about 40% done. Here are some teaser screen shots showing the current progress: We are currently looking for a volunteer to help with the sounds (TIA). If you are interested in helping bring an updated Gorf to the 2600, please send me a PM!

We are currently testing a new board design by Richard H. and so far there are no issues! I'm pretty sure Al is planning on having new AtariVox's in the store sometime soon with this fix. That is correct! @Nathan Strum has done most of the graphics and I'm finally getting around to working on the game. The title screen and Astro Battles screen is looking good so far. We do plan on adding all the phrases (or most of them depending on space) with AtariVox support too!

Thanks everyone! I am in contact with @mumbai and picking up a couple of the classic controllers. I'm also going to check out the gamepad from @RetroGameBoyz in case the Colecovision classic controller causes hand cramps like the good ol' days.

Hello all, I just got my Collectorvision Phoenix and I'm looking to see what the best options are for controllers. I think an original CV controller would be fine; I think I saw some with a ball replacement for the disc sometime ago. Any suggestions are welcome, or if you have some controllers you would like to sell that would be great too! Any help is appreciated. Thanks, John

This looks pretty promising - thanks! I was away at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo this weekend and we demoed the finished Wizard of Wor Arcade with a prototype QuadTari using 74HC245 transceivers and 74HC04 inverters using the DUMP_PORTS as the select line. Functionally it worked great and since we were using a modded Atari there were no interference issues (the interference on an RF system is really bad as we know). I would like to try to build this circuit over here so I can see how the interference looks and try a few different capacitors to see how the response is. Would you happen to have any links to Mouser to the parts I should pick up? How does the interference look on your end? Thanks! John

Hi there! The 2 player co-op mode plays like a 1 player game with the following changes: - when there is one ship on the screen, control changes every 8 seconds from one player to the other (red ship and blue ship) - when a ship is captured, control of the rescue ship will not change until the captured ship is rescued (or the rescue ship is destroyed) - when a ship is rescued, the double ships are independently controlled by each player We have done a lot of testing with co-op and made some tweaks along the way, but the overall consensus is that it's really fun and challenging!

This sounds very promising! Anything I can do to help? Should I look into buying some of these chips? Thanks! John

Thanks for the update! It's weird that this only happens with non-modded Ataris using RF and there is absolutely zero interference with a modded Atari, even with the circuits that use 7404 and bus transceivers where the interference is much more prominent vs. the circuit with the NAND gates. Could that be a clue?

You're welcome! I may be wrong, but I think you need to wire pin 5 to VCC (not GND) if you want the arcade stick to be recognized as a 2-button gamepad by Scramble since it's expecting INPT1 (paddle B) to be '1' on startup. Good luck!

Hmmm, does it say "GAMEPAD FOUND" on startup? If not, then the auto-dectection scheme probably isn't working for the arcade stick based on a different reading of pin 5 on startup. Looking at the Scramble init code, it thinks you have a 2-button Sega Genesis controller connected if INPT1 (pin 5 on the Atari) is logical "high" on startup. Can you reach out to virtvic to see how he has wired up pin 5? If he grounded it (maybe he didn't need it), then unfortunately Scramble will think you have a 1-button joystick connected as this pin (and pin 9) are both 'low' when regular joysticks are connected. Hope this helps! John

Thank you so much for the kind words! Galagon is set to be released at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo in about a month, and will be available in the Atari Age store sometime after that. Wow that's great news - thanks for sharing! I'm glad Galaga aka Galagon was a hit! Thanks Steve! We're busy working on getting a playable Zoo Keeper ready for PRGE - it's looking good so far!

We have started on "Gorf Arcade", by request from our graphic artist @Nathan Strum, expected to be released sometime in 2020. And yes, it will have all 5 screens, plus voice using Atarivox.

Okay, I do have a multimeter so I'll see if I can get a measurement. Let's hope it doesn't come to that. It's hard to tell since this is an RF connection and the picture isn't clear to begin with, but I was eagle-eyed on the area where it usually appears and didn't see anything. Okay, that makes sense. Thanks! John

I hope I'm hooking the DC circuit up correctly. I have pin 7 going to a pin on the board, then the inductor between this pin and another on the board. I then connect the output of the inductor to my common vcc pin strip on the side. I connect pin 8 to the common ground strip on the board. I then add the capacitors with one pin on the common vcc and one pin on the common ground strip. I then pull off of vcc after the capacitors to feed the chips and resistor networks. Hope that makes sense; I can take a pic to clarify. Is it possible I fried the large capacitor when I connected it the wrong way (a couple times )? For sure the interference increases slightly but noticeably when I add the large capacitor and reduces when I remove it. Yes, I have 1M resistor networks on the 5 inputs from joystick 1, 5 inputs from joystick 2, and the combined output from the NAND gates prior to the 74HC05 which then goes directly into the Atari. I am using a 10K resistor pull up on the select line input and a 100K pull up on it's output from the 74HC05. Should I try a 1M on this too? Okay, I will give this a try. I changed my test program so it toggle the input select every 2 seconds (instead of twice a second). In this case there is no static, you just can only use 1 joystick every 2 seconds. I measured pin 9 with my multimeter and alternates between 4.98 volts and 0.16 volts every 2 seconds as expected. I think it was suggested above that there may be a situation where all the chips are active for a split second during the transition that may be drawing more power which is causing the interference? Maybe it's more noticeable when it's happening 120 times a second vs. once every 2 seconds. I'll keep you posted on my progress. Thanks! John

The large capacitor causes more interference when connected. The small one doesn't seem to have any effect. I connected the large capacitor with the short pin (negative) to ground; the small capacitor doesn't seem to have polarity. The interference gets slightly worse when you press the joystick in one direction, but seems to almost go away when you press the joystick down and to the left or up and to the right. The interference seems to go away when you unplug both joysticks. Yes, I think that's how I have it hooked up. I originally had the resistor pull-ups connected to straight 5v as it wasn't clear in the original diagram, but I made the change and it didn't seem to have any effect either way. I can always ship you a unmodded 2600 if that helps and if you have the time to work on something like this. I want to also mention that the interference does go away completely if I disable switching or use the QuadTari with a standard Atari game (I use Basketball to test). The controls work great (it always uses joystick 1 since Basketball isn't setting DUMP_PORTS) but there is no interference. One last thing I want to mention; if I disconnect VCC (pin 7 from the Atari) completely, the circuit still works and there is no interference. I measured vcc at the chips and it's getting 4 volts somewhere, probably from the other Atari pins; I measured the select pin and the directional/button pins and they measure 4.6 volts). I'm sure it's not good for the overall circuit or health of the Atari/chips but thought it might be useful. I should stress that the interference is almost down to nothing compared to what it was before. Here is a pic and a short video so you get a visual. The interference are the white dashes: quadtari_inteference.mp4

I had a couple hours free and wired up the design above with the 74HC03 and 74HC05 chips with the inductor and capacitors. Functionally it works great! The interference is much much less than the previous test with the x245 and 74HC04 inverters but still small traces at the top of the screen. Interestingly, the interference is worse with the capacitors; if I pull them out it's barely visible but with them a bright short line of interference shows at the top. The inductor doesn't seem to have much effect either as the interference seems the same whether or not the 5V vcc is connected to the chips directly or thru the inductor. As with the previous design, if I disable switching (DUMP_PORTS is always on or off), there is zero interference (but of course just 1 joystick works and controls both players ). I hope I'm connecting the capacitors up correctly! FYI The 74HC05 has 6 inputs/outputs so I was able to use 5 of them for the output prior to the Atari for the 4 directions/button and the other to invert the select line (the design above has the up direction hooked up to a NAND gate to save a chip but I was able to use the 05 instead since it really doesn't save a chip - you still have 3 74HC03's and 1 74HC05). For the select logic, I have the select pin 9 connected to a 10K pull up resistor before connecting it to the 74HC03's for joystick 1 inputs, and the output from the inverter (the inverted select line) I have hooked up to a 100K pull up resistor prior to connecting it to the 74HC03's for joystick 2. Does that sound correct? So it looks like we're getting really close! Any other suggestions? I can try a version with the LS641 open collector bus transceivers, plus I have the 240 octal buffers too.

Update: The parts came in today so I hope to wire this up in the next few nights. Silly question before I blow up something; is there a specific direction I should be hooking up the capacitors? I read online that the inductor doesn't have polarity so that should be okay in any direction (I think) but read about capacitors blowing up if you don't hook them up in the right direction. 😮 Any safety tips are appreciated!

Sounds like a good plan! I just got the open collector bus transceivers in the mail (74ALS641) so I'm going to swap those in in place of the x245 and diodes to see if that makes a difference, but from what you've found in your research it seems that the interference is most likely being caused by VCC on pin 7 which I won't be able to test until I get the inductor and capacitors in the mail. It's times like this I really miss having a Radio Shack around!

Great thanks! I ordered the 7 items on the shopping list; they should be here by the weekend. Okay, I'm ordering 10 of each to save on costs (plus I'll probably fry a couple while I'm testing lol) so I should be able to mix and match to reduce chip count if needed. Okay, I have a 10K on the input side in my current design, so I can keep that. I'll add a 1M on the other end. Quick question; regarding the design above where we're using the 74HC04 to invert the select line; why isn't a 1M pull up resistor needed for that output? Does the 74HC04 pull up the value but the 74HC05 does not?

Okay, so this looks very interesting and reminds me of my discrete logic class @ UCONN (CS207/208). It all makes sense to me except for the NAND gate connecting the Joystick pin 1's (UP); why is that being used instead of the inverter? EDIT: I think it's to reduce chip count? The NAND and inverter have the same logic but using only 4 inverters means just 1 74HC05 is needed and the 11 NAND gates can be accommodated on 3 of the 74HC03's, right? As for the select logic, if we go with the 2 joystick option, could we use the 12th NAND gate on the 3rd 74HC03 to simulate the 74HC04 inverter? Meaning we could just pass the select line (after a 1M pull up resister) for selecting Joystick 1 and the inverted value from the NAND gate to select Joystick 2? I would like to add some NAND gates to my order before I checkout; is this one okay? Thanks again! John

Thanks, I figured that symbol was another capacitor but the 10/16 threw me off a bit. Excellent! I have these in my shopping cart @ Mouser; I'll wait a bit in case we end up adding a few more items based on your 'crazy' design above Although that sounds tempting and very interesting, I think we should keep it simple with just 2 joysticks as the logic involved for selecting/etc. gets a bit complicated. Our plan is to allow 4 joysticks on 2 ports by basically using a 2-joystick selector adapter on each port. Of course that means we can't use a Savekey/etc. in the right joystick port, but that should be fine since the pros (simpler circuit, easier to read and confirm values for each player, less ROM needed, less time needed in vblank/overscan etc.) outweigh the cons. So, with an adapter connected into each port, for 4 player games we can detect if there is an adapter in each port (INPT1=1, INPT0=0 if an adapter is in the left port and INPT3=1, INPT2=0 if an adapter is in the right port). Also, we use just one write to VBLANK to read two joysticks, one on each port: DUMP_PORTS=0 you can read Joystick 1/Joystick 3 movement in SWCHA, Joystick 1 button/Joystick 3 button in INPT4 and INPT5 respectively DUMP_PORTS=1 you can read Joystick 2/Joystick 4 movement in SWCHA, Joystick 2 button/Joystick 4 button in INPT4 and INPT5 respectively Perhaps down the road we can design a 4 joystick adapter on 1 port; that would be a cool project! Thanks again for all the help! John

This all sounds very promising! Could you recommend a 15uh inductor I should pick up? I just did a general search on Mouser and there's a bunch and the price range is wide (50 cents to 5 bucks) and I'm not sure what the difference is. Looks like there are fixed, coupled, each with different power draw, resistance, etc. Also any specifics on the capacitors would be helpful too. I'm looking at the diagram and I think I see the capacitors, the .1 and .22? I'm not sure whre the 10uF one is. Also, what is the symbol right below the inductor that has 10/16 next to it? Is that a capacitor too? Maybe that's the 10uF capacitor? Sorry for all the basic questions! Hmm, it looks like the 74HCx241 is an octal buffer/line driver. So this would replace the bus transceiver? May I ask, what is the difference between the 74HCT241 and 74HC241? Also, how do these differ from the 74HC244 octal buffer that I was using before? Regarding the resistor network, do you mean I could use a 1M RN in place of the 4.7K RN that I'm currently using to reduce the power consumption if we switch to the 74HC241 vs the 244? Since a lot of these components are cheap (and the big cost is the shipping and the time to have them shipped), maybe I can just get a bunch of different types that you think may work so I have them on hand. Again, apologies for all the basic questions... I appreciate the education and help!