SpiceWare

Interesting bit on macOS Catalina: 4K and HDR10 support for my iTunes content makes me want to upgrade the Mac mini to Catalina so the shows will look even better on the new TV. However, one major change with Catalina is it will no longer run 32-bit applications. To check what's on your system you can do this: 🍎 menu About this Mac System Report Software Applications click 64-bit column to sort After reviewing the ones running on my Mac mini: Canon IJ Printer Utility - non-issue, no longer own a Canon printer/scanner EyeTV - problem, old DVR software, but has 2455 recordings Futuridium EP - non-issue, old game I've not played in years GarageBand - non-issue, never use it, don't know why it's installed iDentify - non-issue, old video tagging software, I now use Subler Indigo 6/Plugin/Server - problem, Home Automation software that works with my INSTEON switches. Will need to upgrade to 7.4 InkServer - maybe, have no idea what this is MAME OS X - non-issue, but will be sad to see this go OpenOffice - non-issue, haven't used in years, use 64-bit LibreOffice on my Mac Pro quicklookd32 - maybe, suspect it's related to the <SPACE> to preview file feature SLLauncher - non-issue, Microsoft's defunct Silverlight, I think I'd installed it for a stream service like HBO Go Turbo.264 HD Demo - non-issue, came with EyeTV and I don't use it WingNuts 2 - non-issue, old game - cool spin on the old arcade game Time Pilot. Xbench - non-issue, do development on my Mac Pro, not the mini I doubt the two maybe's will be an issue, they're both by Apple so I assume would be updated if needed for Catalina. Indigo's a minor issue, just need to upgrade it. Can't upgrade EyeTV though, so I'll just need to sit down and watch the shows I'd recorded. 2455 sounds like a lot, but many episodes were recorded multiple times - such as after I watch the Becker episode Another Tricky Day I'll be able to delete 4 recordings. This is one feature of EyeTV that I wish HDHomeRun had, it only records an episode once; if it was interrupted for any reason, such as a football game that ran long: it won't record a later rebroadcast of that episode unless I'd already deleted the prior recording and selected the Re-record option. I'm not current on most shows though - this episode was recorded a year ago, so I've already missed the rebroadcasts of it.

Take 1 was for my home office, when I bought a couple 4K monitors for my Mac & work PC. This time around it's for the family room. I currently have a 2001 Mitsubishi 65" HDTV. It's worked well over the years, but started to have a problem with convergence when first turned on. It used to be a rare occurrence and the picture would snap back into shape fairly quickly, but it's now happening multiple times per week and taking longer to snap back. The current TV is a huge rear-project unit, so the screen of the new TV will end up about 2 feet further way. As such, if I stayed with 65" the new TV would be smaller in my field of vision. So I looked around for 70"+ TVs and decided to go with a 75" VIZIO P-Series Quantum X, it's scheduled to be delivered on Monday. As luck would have it it's currently on sale for $1300 off! Resulting price of $2199 does sound expensive, though it's less than half what the Mitsubishi cost me back in 2001 (and that's not even accounting for inflation). On the wall behind my TV is this: I don't want to mount the TV to the wall on the off chance it hits a wire inside the wall, so I'd been looking around at TV Stands with integrated mounts for a while. I finally found something I like. Specs I found said it only supported up to a 72" TV, but I suspected it was mostly a weight limit based and that it'd be fine with a larger, newer TV, as they're thinner and lighter than older models. I contacted Z-Line and they confirmed the specs were based on 150 lbs and that it'd work fine with the 80 lbs VIZIO. It'll be delivered tomorrow: The colors don't really go with the rest of the furniture in that room though, so after my success wrapping my center console I'm going to try wrapping the dark woods with a silver-grey vinyl.

Heads up! I ran out of disk space in the Virtual Machine. Just before it happened I noticed a message about Kubuntu updates - I suspect it was downloaded the updates and ended up filling up the drive. While it's possible to resize it, it's easier at this point to just recreate the Virtual Machine from scratch with a larger drive. I've updated the instructions to set it for 50 GB.

I'd forgotten about that, thanks! Sadly my USB to Serial adapter isn't working. I'd rebuilt my system at one point and think all I need is a driver for it, but I can't locate one. It's a Keyspan USA-19Qi if anybody has any ideas. I did find a driver for the Keyspan USA-19HS, but it doesn't appear to support the Qi version.

Any questions so far? Last night I was working up the next step, installing dasm, but ran into a problem with the enhancement I did for SpiceC. It causes existing source to fail if includes are done like this: include vcs.h include macro.h Quoting the files fixes the problem: include "vcs.h" include "macro.h" However, I'd rather we not have to modify existing source. I plan to get this resolved before posting the next step, hopefully it won't take too long.

New easter egg found

Posted 64-bit build and source in the KrokCom for OS X topic.

64-bit executable and source. krokcom.zip

Look at CartDetector.cxx for that. It appears to be looking for a 128K file and the letters DFSC at $FFF8. Bankswitch::Type CartDetector::autodetectType(const ByteBuffer& image, size_t size) { ... else if(size == 128_KB) { if(isProbably3E(image, size)) type = Bankswitch::Type::_3E; else if(isProbablyDF(image, size, type)) ; // type has been set directly in the function else if(isProbably3F(image, size)) type = Bankswitch::Type::_3F; else if(isProbably4A50(image, size)) type = Bankswitch::Type::_4A50; else if(isProbablySB(image, size)) type = Bankswitch::Type::_SB; } ... } bool CartDetector::isProbablyDF(const ByteBuffer& image, size_t size, Bankswitch::Type& type) { // BF carts store strings 'DFDF' and 'DFSC' starting at address $FFF8 // This signature is attributed to "RevEng" of AtariAge uInt8 df[] = { 'D', 'F', 'D', 'F' }; uInt8 dfsc[] = { 'D', 'F', 'S', 'C' }; if(searchForBytes(image.get()+size-8, 8, df, 4, 1)) { type = Bankswitch::Type::_DF; return true; } else if(searchForBytes(image.get()+size-8, 8, dfsc, 4, 1)) { type = Bankswitch::Type::_DFSC; return true; } return false; }

When using a VM(virtual machine), the operating system installed on your real hardware is known as the Host. For me, that's macOS. The operating system that's installed in the VM is known as the Guest. For us, that's Linux. By default, the Guest doesn't interact with Host. To make the Guest more useful we're going to install Guest Additions, which will give us a number of helpful features such as: resizable "monitor" window share one or more Host directories with the Guest share the clipboard between Host and Guest Seamless mode Start up your Virtual Machine and log in. If you see a System Notification Helper just hit the close button and ignore it for now. If you try to resize the window that represents the Guest's monitor you'll see that while the window changes size, the VM's display stays at 800x600 window smaller than 800x600, scrollbars added window larger than 800x600, padding added While you can select different resolutions, it's nicer to have Linux automatically adjust whenever you resize the virtual monitor's window. Install GCC and other tools Guest Additions needs to use GCC and other tools, but since we did a minimal installation they are not installed. To install those we'll need to open a terminal session, known as Konsole in Kubuntu. Click on K-Gear Click on Konsole type the commands: sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install build-essential gcc make perl reboot sudo is a way to run commands using a different account, typically root which is the administrator account. For the first one you'll be prompted for your password, enter it. The password will remain active for a bit of time, so you won't need to enter it for the second sudo command; however, you'll be prompted with Do you want to continue? (Y/n) so watch for it. Since Y is capitalized it's the default answer, so you can just hit return to continue. Do note that the reboot will take a while. Install Guest Additions Now that those are installed we can insert the Guest Additions CD Image Select the Devices menu Select the Insert Guest Additions CD image... menu option. A Device Notifier will pop up. Click the drop-down icon Then click on Open with File Manager Once it opens, click the X to close the window. Open the Konsole like before, then type following commands: cd /media/atari/VBox_GAs_6.0.12 sudo ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run shutdown now NOTE: 6.0.12 is the version of VirtualBox at the time I wrote this, so might be higher when you follow these instructions. TIP: Konsole supports command completion using the Tab key. You can enter the above commands faster by pressing Tab: cd /me<TAB>/a<TAB>/VB<TAB> sudo ./VB<TAB>L<TAB> shut<TAB>now Guest additions are now installed. Note: if you did not open the CD with the File Manager then the cd /media... command will fail. Added Shared Folder I prefer to keep all my projects on my Mac - this allows me to use editors I'm familiar with, as well as use the Mac version of Stella to test my code, and have my Mac automatically make backups of my source code using Time Machine. In order for the compilers to access the source code we'll need to share our Atari Projects folder. On my Mac that's /Users/darrellspice/Projects/Atari, so that's the folder I'll be sharing. Click on the Settings icon Click the Shared Folders tab, then the Add Shared Folder icon Drop down the Folder Path and select Other. Select your Atari project folder. Check Auto-mount then click OK. Review your shared folder, then click OK. Start up your VM. You can now resize the window and the VM will adjust accordingly. So where's that shared folder? It's located in /media/ and the name will have an sf_ prefix, so my shared folder of Atari is /media/sf_Atari. To find it, we'll use the File Manager, which is known as Dolphin in Kubuntu: When Dolphin first opens we'll notice the Virtual Box Guest Additions CD is still inserted. We don't need it anymore, so Right-click on it and choose Eject. A leading / in /media/sf_Atari is known as root. So click on Root, then double click on media You'll notice there's a lock is on the shared folder: If you try to open it you'll get a could not enter... message. To fix it we'll need to run a command in the terminal to grant yourself access to shared folders. The command is: sudo adduser username vboxsf where username is yur Linux username. Mine is set as atari so I'll enter sudo adduser atari vboxsf You'll need to log out then back in for this to take effect. Click K-Gear Click Leave Click Logout Log back in then try to open your shared folder using Dolphin. I now see all of my projects Share the Clipboard If you'd like to share your clipboard do the following while using your VM: Select the Devices menu Select the Shared Clipboard submenu Select the Bidirectional submenu option Disable Screen Locking By default, Kubuntu will lock its screen after 15 minutes of idle time. That can become annoying, so let's turn it off. First we need to open up System Settings. Click K-Gear Click System Settings (just above Konsole) Click on Desktop Behavior under the Workspace group Click on Screen Locking uncheck Lock screen automatically... Click Apply If you don't have an HiDPI monitor then you're done for now. If you do, then proceed HiDPI Since we're already in System Settings, now's a good time to configure Kubuntu to take advantage of HiDPI monitor. Click on Desktop Behavior in the upper-left to return to the major settings groups. Scroll the list down to find the Hardware section. Click on Display and Monitor You'll need to scroll the settings on the right down to reveal Scale Display Click it and you'll see the scale is currently set to 1 Slide it to 2, then click OK You'll need to restart your Virtual Machine for this to take effect. Hint - start by clicking the K-Gear. Now you'll need to restore the Scale Factor to 100%. Click Settings on the VirtualBox Manager Then change the Scale Factor on the Display tab.

Install Kubuntu Click on Start You will be prompted to basically "insert CD/DVD". To do so click the folder icon and select the Kubuntu ISO file you downloaded. When I posted this the ISO file was named kubuntu-18.04.3-desktop-amd64.iso. It's possible a newer version was released since then. Welcome After some time the Welcome screen will appear. If the text is too small to read then go check the footnote below on how to make it legible* Click on Install Kubuntu. Keyboard layout (part 1) The default "monitor" size is a tad too small so you'll need to grab the title bar and drag it left... Keyboard layout (part 2) ... to reveal the Continue button. Change Layout and Variant if you need Click Continue Updates and other software Select Minimal installation - we don't need the Office Suite or other programs installed in the virtual machine Click Continue Installation type Defaults are fine Click Install Now Write the changes to disks? Click Continue to partition and format the HDD (the VDI file) Where are you? Select your Time Zone Click Continue Who are you? Enter name and password for your virtual machine. I went with: Your name: atari Choose a Password: 2600 Click Continue Note: You can chose automatic log in if you like. I don't because sometimes you have to enter your password for updates and such, and from experience I'm likely to forget what it was if I don't use it. Installation Complete After some time the install will finish. Click Restart Now Remove the Installation Media OR print_req_error messages I've encountered 2 different things after clicking Restart Now. Either a prompt asking you to Remove Installation Media (there's a graphic version and a text version of this message), or a list of print_req_errors. The list of errors actually appears after the text version of this, so it's a case of "blink and you missed it". You if read the text on the screen where you selected the ISO file you'll see "The disk will be ejected from the virtual drive automatically..." so you don't need to do anything to eject it. So no matter which one you get, just hit ENTER on the keyboard. graphic version of Remove the Installation Media MISSING SCREENSHOT TO COME text version of Remove the Installation Media text screen after the Remove Installation Media message Login The user is already selected, just enter the password. We're done for now, so let's shut down the virtual machine. Click the K-Gear (Application Launcher) Click Leave Click Shut Down Click OK Your Virtual Machine is now Powered Off. You can quit VirtualBox *At this time if the text is too small you can switch over to the VirtualBox Manager window and access the Settings. On the Display tab the Video Memory, Monitor Count, and Graphics Controller options are disabled whenever your virtual machine is running, but you can still modify the Scale Factor.

Create a virtual machine Welcome to VirtualBox! Click New Name and operating system Name: AtariDev (can use whatever you like) Type: Linux Version: Ubuntu (64-bit) Click Continue Memory size Click Continue to accept defaults, or adjust it if you like. Note: the memory will be unavailable to your host OS while the VM is running, so don't give the VM more than you can spare. I have 32GB in my Mac Pro, I set my VM to use 4096 MB. Hard disk Click Create to accept defaults Hard disk file type As a BIN is to an Atari 2600 cartridge a VDI is to a HDD or SSD. Click Continue to accept defaults Storage on physical hard disk Click Continue to accept defaults File location and size I ran out of space with a 10.00 GB hard drive, so I increased it to 50.00 GB. Click Create Congratulations, you've made a virtual machine! Before we start it we're going to tweak the Display settings. Click Settings Click Display Video Memory is set to 16 MB. I ran out of Video Memory when I resized the "monitor" window to be larger on my Mac's 4K monitor... ... so we'll increase Video Memory to 128 MB. If you're using an HiDPI display you may also wish to set Scale Factor to 200%, else the text in the "monitor" window may be difficult to read during the installation. If you're not sure, leave it at 100% because you can change this while the virtual machine is running.

Just like you can run the program Stella to emulate an Atari 2600 and play games, a virtual machine lets you emulate a PC and run different operating systems. There are many virtual machine programs available, we'll be using Virtual Box because its free. Download and Install VirtualBox Visit https://www.virtualbox.org/ Find the downloads If you're computer uses a 64-bit OS then download the current release of VirtualBox. If you're still on a 32-bit OS then you'll need to download the 5.2 release. Install Virtual Box Download Linux visit https://kubuntu.org find the downloads download the LTS version. LTS = Long Term Support At the time of this post the file I downloaded was: kubuntu-18.04.3-desktop-amd64.iso As a BIN is to an Atari 2600 cartridge an ISO is to a CD/DVD. Note there are many Linux distributions available. I tested a six and decided to use Kubuntu for 2 reasons: It has a minimal install option - why waste space installing an office suite, etc. supports clearer text on HiDPI displays If you're familiar with and prefer another distribution feel free to use it, just note that some of the setup will be different and I might not be able to help if you run into problems.

This club is for creating Atari 2600 programs that utilize the ARM processor found in the Harmony Cart and Melody board. The tools we'll be using run under Linux. If you're not running Linux you'll need to first set up a Virtual Machine, these two topics will go over that: Create your Virtual Machine Host Integration Once you have a Linux system, real or virtual, you'll need to install the development tools. Install dasm Install Linaro Once you have your tools installed then head over to the CDFJ Topic area to learn how to use CDFJ, which was used to create games like Draconian or Mappy. The DPC+ Topic area will eventually be used for a DPC+ tutorial. DPC+ was used to create games like Scramble and Stay Frosty 2. Note that ARM support was tacked on towards the end of developing DPC+, so it's a bit kludgy to use compared to CDFJ. Likewise the BUS Topic area will eventually contain a BUS tutorial. Bus Stuffing is a very advanced technique that allows for even more TIA updates per scanline. Note that BUS fails on a number of systems (mostly Junior and 7800) so AtariAge will not produce games for sale that utilize BUS.

I don't think this will be Tesla specific, I think it'll really be "The EV effect: How EVs are changing the New and Used Gas Car Game" as the rest of the automotive industry catches up to Tesla. Cleantechnica wrote an article about it back in February - The Osborne Effect On The Auto Industry. Basically once people become aware of the benefits of EVs such as lower operating costs, how much nicer charging at home is (for those who can) vs "crap, I'm running late but I need to stop for gas!", etc. that they hold off on buying a new car until they can get an EV that works for them(mostly price-wise, but could be "I need a truck for work" like my brother-in-law). That holding off is already showing up in the downturn of ICE car sales* that will accelerate over the next few years. Overall industry will see a major downturn until EV production can be ramped up enough to meet normal demand. Ramp up will take a while due to insufficient battery production, a key part of why Tesla built the Gigafactory in Nevada. I'm a perfect example of this Osborne effect - used to buy a new car every 5 years or so, but once I decided to go EV I kept my last gas car for 13 years before buying my 3. I don't foresee Tesla owners holding onto vehicles longer than typical, especially when considering how quickly the tech changes. Tesla has the highest customer satisfaction, so it seems likely they'll get another Tesla - I know that's my plan. After reading abut how poorly the early Nissan Leaf's battery faired I can definitely appreciate you being on the fence about a used EV. Tesla's are seeing less than 10% degradation after 160K miles. My 3 had 310 miles when new, it's currently 309. I put 14K on my 3 in the first year, so after 11 years it should have 279 miles of range. The reality is I'll most likely return to buying a new car ever 5 years, so I'll never see that. * I've been seeing many reports like this about record inventory levels at car dealerships and the problems its causing them. Ironically the UAW Strike could be a major benefit to GM as it could get their inventory levels back to normal.

Article by CapitalOne. Looking at their depreciation article, the link in the quote, that 2018 BMW should have taken about a year to drop 20%, not 6 months. The 2016 Mercedes should have dropped 15% in a year, not the 30% in 6 months they're now seeing. I see some serious repercussions ahead for ICE lease holders, they're going to lose out big-time as the leases end and the vehicles are now worth significantly less than originally expected.

Successfully built Draconian after making the same tweaks as in reply #5. Kubuntu is go.

I'm back to working on the Harmony/Melody club. I decided to take another look at Linux distributions and found a couple that look promising due to HiDPI support: Kubuntu - has a minimal install option Xubuntu - does not have a minimal install option This weekend I'll be installing dasm and the C compiler to make sure they work OK. If they both work fine I'll decide which one to go with, which would most likely be Kubuntu due to the minimal install option (we don't need a full office suite for Harmony/Melody club). After I make that decision I'll do an install from scratch so I can take screenshots and document the steps needed to set up the Virtual Machine. @Dionoid has set up a new dasm repository on github which includes enhances and fixes made by @RevEng, myself, and others, so I'll be using this version of dasm for Harmony/Melody club.

Just tried, on my regular Harmony it crashes right away. On my Encore I get this: Press FIRE to get to this: Press FIRE again either goes back to the SOKOBOO screen, or it crashes.

Thats' a bummer to hear, I've enjoyed going in the past - especially in 2015 when AtariAge attended. I would have gone and done a panel, but my cousin's wedding was that same weekend so I took a road trip to Wisconsin. That's the furthest I've taken my Model 3 so far, the way up only cost $40.47 in charging to go 1360 miles.

related to this - the link used is to the topic itself, not to the specific reply you received the reputation on. So if you want to see it in context you have to hunt thru the topic to find your reply.

Awesome turnout for the Houston event at Ikea, I gave away as many handouts as the prior two events combined. Last year I gave rides, so was positioned in the parking lot. With the gaming setup I didn't give rides this year, so ended up on the concrete slab in front of Ikea. Was great in the morning as we were shaded by the building, but the last hour of the event was quite hot. I'd planned to take photos early on but people started showing up even before the event officially began at 10, so I didn't get to walk around to take photos until 12:53. Most of the EVs in the parking lot had already left as the event ended at 1. This gray wrapped 3 showed up at the very end. The kids managed to unlock all but the last 2 drivers and last 2 tracks over the past 2 weekends.

Interesting - I've always seen DCP used for DoDraw, not ISB. In a number of the comments below this blog entry for my Collect tutorial I broke down how DoDraw works for @Exuro89 and @BNE Jeff. I even did the same line-by-line breakdown Andrew does in one of the comments, but the value is decreased rather than increased. Do note the blog entry itself is a bit messed up due to the recent forum upgrade - namely all the code boxes ended up with code on a single line of text. Code in all the comments is OK. Random Terrain did an offsite conversion of the tutorial if you need to see the blog entry's code snippets as they should be.

Different clock rates. From my blog post about NTSC/PAL/SECAM detection in Draconian: 60Hz * 1.182298 / 1.193182 = 59.5Hz

Not a stupid question - it makes it possible to do more TIA updates in the kernel, resulting in better visuals for the game. A typical draw sprite routine would be something like this: lda #SPRITEHEIGHT dcp SpriteTemp bcs DoDraw lda #0 .byte $2C DoDraw lda (GfxPtr),Y sta GRP0 ;+18 cycles which takes 18 cycles. If you're drawing two players with single-line resolution, as is done in Vanguard, you'd use 36 cycles which leaves just 40 cycles on the scanline for everything else. For Vanguard that'd be the scrolling playfield, playfield color changes, lots of shots flying around, etc. which is not enough. By doing this: lda (gfxply1),y ;5 tax ;2 7 lda (gfxply0),Y ;5 12 sta GRP0 ;3 15 stx GRP1 ;3 18 the time required to draw both players is cut in half, leaving more time for other things.