SpiceWare

That's one fancy title screen! I like the "sonic style" scrolling.

Stella will output in stereo. 1) start Stella 2) load a game 3) hit TAB 4) select GAME PROPERTIES 5) set SOUND to STEREO (it's on the CARTRIDGE tab) 6) hit OK 7) hit EXIT MENU reload the game to trigger the stereo. APPLE-R on a Mac, CTRL-R on Linux or Windows. You can try it with Medieval Mayhem, the ROM can be found in this topic. Current versions of Stella will correctly set it for stereo.

Sweet!!! There's no longer a slowdown during Medieval Mayhem's flashing sequences

Missed this last night - I'll update my site when I get home.

I wrote Medieval Mayhem for stereo. Any sounds for left side castles come out the left, and sounds for right side castles come out the right. It's also quite noticeable when the dragon flies across the screen. My understanding is that the earliest games used "stereo" as the Atari was originally going to have two speakers built into the unit. Typically what they did was left player's sounds came out the left side and right player on the right.

That's an idea. I'll try that for the next one, though my cannonfire update may take care of the date for Cabana. I was looking in games, not reproductions.

Made some headway this weekend and we now having bubbling lava!

Australia uses PAL - perhaps it's an NTSC cart? Colors will get goofy when using an NTSC cart on a PAL system.

bubbling lava. The lava graphics are just a placeholder. cf20070923.bin

What I've been doing is setting up a draft entry for the next review whenever I publish one. As the week goes by I play the game and edit the review a few times. I started the review of Star Fire before I posted the bit about The Spazmatics, maybe that's why the Star Fire review has the correct posting date. Writing them offline is an idea, though having them online is convenient as I often tweak them at work during lunch. Thanks! Cabana EP+ is about done, will probably be posted by Wednesday. The UA bundle is after that - I suspect it may take longer than a week to review the 3 games. Hmm - just realized you cannot buy the games separately.

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Sounds interesting - but then you're limited to 1 player games. Using the paddle pots, like the CBS Booster Grip, would let you have 2 player games where each player has 3 fire buttons.

weird - sometimes the date shows when I started the review, other times when it was posted

Slick - time to dust off my VB

Spyro the Dragon.

Stelladaptor, by Pixels Past 5/5 Emulation is great in that it allows you to play games from classic systems on your computer system. The only downfall is modern computers do not support the original controllers, and sometimes something is lost because of this. This can be readily seen with paddle based games - playing Kaboom! with a mouse is an exercise in frustration. Pixels Past addressed this problem for Atari VCS emulators when they created the Stelladaptor. The Stelladaptor basically turns Atari joysticks, paddles and driving controllers into standard USB gaming controllers which are recognized as a standard HID(human input device). It works under Linux, Mac OS X and Windows, though I myself have only used it on a Mac. While designed for Atari emulators, it also works with others. I've used it with MAME OS X with both joystick and paddle based games. Driving controllers require an update to the emulator - the popular Atari VCS emulators Stella and z26 have been updated, MAME has not. The only downfall to this great production is it does not support Atari keypads or non-standard controllers for the VCS such as the CBS Booster Grip or controllers for other systems. I've tried the Booster Grip as well as Sega and Amiga CD32 gamepads - all work on a real Atari but not with the Stelladaptor. I suspect the additional buttons are wired in such a way as to trick the Stelladaptor into believing that paddle controllers are plugged in. This is more of an FYI as no claims were made to support these controllers, so lack of support will not impact the review score. Also - please note that while some reviews mention a problem with Mac OS X, this problem was fixed and is no longer an issue. Next up, Cabana EP+

Saboteur, by Howard Scott Warshaw 5/5 The Qotile, an ancient friend turned enemy, have returned and are building a warhead to obliterate your people, the Cytonians. You found their base on accident and The Elders have decided it's up to you to protect your people by sabotaging the launch rocket and destroying the warhead. Wow - a new game by Howard Scott Warshaw, creator of VCS games Yars' Revenge, Raiders of the Lost Ark and the ever controversial (it's great! it sucks!) E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. Saboteur was written back in Atari's hey day, but was never released. It was originally going to be repurposed into an A-Team game, but the video game market collapsed and neither version saw light of day until HSW released Saboteur thru AtariAge.com. At $45 it's one of the most expensive items in the AtariAge store, but it's worth the price. Sadly, AtariAge.com had to stop selling it when Saboteur was included in the the Atari Flashback 2. Here's hoping that Saboteur can someday return to the AtariAge.com store. Saboteur is a multi-level shooter that works well around the Atari's video hardware limitations. Each of the 3 levels offer unique game play. All the characters are very colorful and well animated. Sound effects are also well done and there's a neat short tune that plays at the end of the game. You can select one of four starting difficulty levels and start the game with either reset or the fire button. The Launch Site is the first level and your task is to prevent the launch rocket from being completed. The level takes place on the catwalks at the launch site, where Construction Robots and Yar Flies carry rocket pieces from the left to the right side of the screen. If they make it to the right side the rocket is raised up a step. On this screen you do have some help - the Gorfons, a yellow bird like creature, also make their way left to right. If they safely make it to the right side they will steal a piece of the rocket, lowering it one step. On the top catwalk is the Master Robot, which slowly moves back and forth shooting at you and the Gorfons. If you can survive this frantic level without the rocket being launched then the second level will be easier to play. The Warhead Assembly room is the second level. Your task is to destroy all the warhead pieces in 38 seconds(29 if the left difficulty is set to A). The warhead pieces are on a convery belt at the bottom of the screen and the Master Robot from level 1 chases you around the room - if he touches you the you're dead. Both are shielded from your shots - but the shielding is in sync and shots bounced off the Master Robot can pass thru the shielding on the convery belt and destroy the warhead pieces. Timing the shots takes a bit of practice, though can be made easier if you keep the Master Robot at the bottom of the screen. This isn't as easy to do as it sounds as a security drone also bounces around the room and is deadly to the touch. If you can destroy all the warhead pieces then warhead will self-destruct in level 3. The Warhead Battle is the third level. If you successfully destroyed all the warhead pieces in level 2 then level 3 starts and ends with the warhead self-destructing. If you weren't able to destroy all the pieces then you have a narrow window of time to destroy the warhead before it launches. A single successful shot is all it takes, but the warhead has a defense matrix and will attempt to destroy you while it prepares for launch. Surprisingly enough, there's no penalty for failure, the game just resumes at level 1 as if you had succeeded. I would have expected failure to at least cost you one of your lives. This is the weakest of the 3 levels. The manual and box are top notch, once again with some excellent artwork by David Exton. The manual even includes a letter to the Classic Gamer from Howard himself! All in all, this is a great game. I highly recommend picking it up if it appears in the AtariAge store again, else try to track down a Flashback 2. Next up, Stelladaptor

FYI - using the following doesn't work under Safari (the browser on Macs). <applet archive="vcs/jstella_0_7.jar" code="jstella/runner/JStellaApplet.class" rom="vcs/caligames.bin" height="480" width="480"> </applet> Use the PARAM option instead, as in <applet archive="vcs/jstella_0_7.jar" code="jstella/runner/JStellaApplet.class" height="480" width="640"> <PARAM NAME=ROM VALUE="vcs/caligames.bin"> </applet> Also note that 480x480 isn't correct - you should use 640x480.

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I had some screen jitter issues in MM that took longer than 10 minutes before they'd show up. Well, that '10 minutes' would be the most recent 10 minutes, not 10 minutes from when the game started (ie, it would be a rolling log). And the 10 minutes was just an example number I picked. It would depend on the amount of RAM and/or disk space you have. There could be a setting stating how long to keep saving state (ie, the amount of RAM you want to commit, or the number of seconds/minutes/frames/whatever to use). So the '10 minutes' would really be the size of the buffer 'window'. In theory, if you were watching the emulation and immediately stopped when you saw a glitch, a 1 minute buffer would be sufficient. I'm actually getting kind of excited about this feature, since I think I have a fairly clear picture of how it would work. In fact, this feature could be used with the breakif function. For example, you could do a 'breakif {_scan > 262 }', and just let the emulator run until it happens. Then, once it breaks, there could be a 'rewind' command that goes back the specified number of frames. Then you could single-step through the frame to determine exactly what caused the overrun. Hmm, exciting stuff Thanks for clarifying - this sounds really cool!

I had some screen jitter issues in MM that took longer than 10 minutes before they'd show up.

I picked up a Xerox Phaser 6120 earlier this year when they were 100 off at $299(I see they list at $349 now). I've been very happy with it, I plugged it into my network and my Mac picked it up right away with Rendezvous Bonjour, no drivers needed. I did install the drivers on my iMac so I can get the extra info like toner levels, but just left it via Bonjour on my MacBook. I went with this model due to the network support, makes it easier for my folks to use the printer when they're visiting. As for the TIVO - have you tried pointing the remote at a wall or the ceiling? I've found that the signal can be bounced off the wall/ceiling without any problems and will do that if something is blocking me from pointing directly at the AV equipment.

Ahh, I miss OS/2! Your link to "a newer OS/2 port" appears to be dead.. ..Al Hmm, looks like it's here now. I'll fix it if I decide to move my old OS/2 pages to my new site, the old one is going away because Houston's now Comcast instead of Time Warner.

Initially because of the OS/2 port , now because of the OS X port.

Space Invaders. wonder if berzerk could be hacked to have 2 sets of robots, each on alternating screens