Mr SQL

Here's the Master File on the GAMELINE by Dan Skelton explaining the Master Control Module in full details; it connects you to the ENCOM Mainframe where you play Atari games on the game grid like in the movie Tron (the original). The older models may experience difficulty connecting to the Gameline service Today unless the company creates an API to support connecting to the new Ethernet based service or creates a legacy modem service for them. The old models can also have issues with battery replacement like this reviewer experiences opening a sealed CIB unit. With the new model I've never had a problem connecting to the gameline service, and I beat the high score in Pacman again last night! I also took a look at News Feed and stock ticker apps from the Master File which were really amazing to see on my Atari! These features are near completion but still under development as you can see from the original documentation. I've been having fun helping the development team and even more fun playing Atari on the new Gameline! Fun fact: There is at least one exclusive Atari 2600 game never released on cartridge that was only available for the Gameline.

Why do you have 8448-251 instead of 8448-256 calculating the start address? Is this the offset for parsing the byte in the header?? This may account for why sometimes the wrong ROM is loaded or an incorrect value and the 15 second freeze occurs resetting to the 1st ROM in the multiload? I think you should request the whole 8 bytes in the header to make sure the start address is correct and the number of blocks being retrieved to support partial loads and loads where the start address and bank are different (not all start at the same address in bank 3/1 config). Dirty Hairy's method is working very well, it's difficult to parse single bytes in a sparse header without breaking the header, header already sparse at 8 bytes so if parsing the header is not working it may be better to grab all 8 bytes. This will also enable the partial loads - I want to implement partial loads in SuperCharger BASIC and will test this next once we get the header working for multiloads

I wonder if it's the same engineer? It's possible the design initiative included marketing parameters and not just costs considering how many models Tandy manufactured, advertising the max graphics resolution as 640x192 instead of 640x225 was pure marketing downplay because the contemporary model 1000 was spec'd at 640x200.

Yes it would be really cool to see a demo of this mode being unlocked before it is lost to time. Check out this CoCo III only demo that creates a smoothly animated melting ball using timing idiosyncrasies in the GIME. CoCo fan Briza typed it in after I posted the program listing from Rainbow Magazine:

answered simultaneously

A famous CoCo programmer from the scene explained to me a few years ago that he had unlocked this mode and got it working on a stock CoCo III and that Tandy had deliberately disabled it. I don't think he was the only programmer to do so.

X2 - I think the issue with the CoCo III was decided to advertise it at 640x192 resolution and 64 colors for marketing reasons rather than 640x225 and 256 colors as the GIME was capable of specifically to keep from competing with the Tandy 1000 and keep it squarely in the CoCo I/II space. There was already an issue of internal competition for the 1000 line with the Model IV line which was in the business space. The OS-9 equipped CoCo III could have further intruded into this so Tandy was very careful to maximize niche marketing across their multiple line-ups without the multiple computer products breaking into each others niches. Underplaying some specs was part of the marketing genius.

OK I was busy playing with the new Gameline modem again but I'm ready to tell you more - I've been competing in the Gameline highscore contest against other Atari fans all over the world and I just set the high score in Atari Pacman! I competed in RiverRaid Today too and Asteroids last week but I've got the top score in Pacman - Pacman is all in the wrist and you need a Joystick to play Pacman properly not a Sega-Pad; players who like pads don't realize there's thumb-latency when turning-on-a-dime that just doesn't happen with a Joystick like the CX-45 Pacmen champions know what I mean: I hope that Qbert, Jawbreaker (one of the original Gameline modem classics) StarGate and Popyeye are added to the high score competition lineup for next month! Check out the high score contest information below - it's tremendously cool playing Atari for high scores against other players everywhere like an Atari Arcade:

OK I took a look and have some ideas! Here is the PlusCart code alongside Dirty Hairy's which is working perfectly on all multiloads. I think I see the following bug on the PlusCart side: Dirty Hairy creates an instance called header based on the class above it when he sets up the map in static void setup_multiload_map, then he seeds this instance's attribute. I think you are doing something different - you have instantiated an instance of an attribute of the class rather than the whole class and then refer to this instance attribute which I think is illegal and you get the old instance of the map sticking on subsequent loads.

Great feature! Maybe there could be a selectable option to poll the left button too to be more convenient/intuitive. I was thinking the Atari was designed with it's 20 foot integrated RF cable to be put on the Coffee table in the living room with the players on the couch in front like they would be watching Television or reading periodicals and eating popcorn or a bowl of chips or even Coffee for the adults, off of the coffee table. That's a really fun traditional setup where you can get at the console switches without getting up and one of my Atari's is like that connected to my Plasma display in the living room. But my other Atari's are on a game room table with an Atari 800XL, Commodore 64 and PS2. The adjustable exit feature accommodate both kinds of setups - are any other types of Atari setups with the real hardware being used in the beta group? Do some players just use a left Joystick or only have one Joystick like the Atari Jr reconfiguration?

I played Crazy Tunes last night, this Atari game is a Musical with a mesmerizing phat beat and chiptunes that you shape with the game play! I must have played for 20 minutes before I could put the controller down But I didn't find this game online on AtariAge like I usually do, instead I got it from the Gameline modem: Playing new Atari games from the gameline modem Today is just as much fun as it was in the 80's! Checkout the Zeropage review for details!

That's awesome I'm looking forward to seeing what you create! PM me if you have any questions on anything or have any issues setting up SuperCharger BASIC so that it compiles the examples and launches them in Stella when you click the Play button if you are using the IDE, or creating the ROM binary if you are using the compiler from the command line.

Let me know if I can help with any quirks I may be familiar with.

Thank you Voxel! I had a lot of help from @Al_Nafuur , @batari and many other programmers on the forum getting disk basic to boot up! I'm going to demo it at the SillyVenture2020 compo in December! Hope to release it before then, as soon as it is out of Beta.

Yes this will run on the Harmony and in Stella! The maximum size for a SuperCharger Virtual drive is currently 32K on the Harmony, but it could be expanded to 256K or early Harmonies and 512K on later models with a firmware upgrade from discussion with batari. The Encore, PlusCart and UnoCart can support 1.5 MB virtual drives. The Harmony is so fast you don't know the virtual drive is there, the PlusCart and UnoCart will make you more aware of the virtual drive by showing loading bar curtain animation whenever the virtual disk is accessed during play.

Excellent presentations in the H word RT, that's very helpful to a lot of people - two thumbs up!

I like the new font but the other font was easier to read. Might be because it reminded me of the Color Computers 32 character all caps display with larger looking capitals (black border on them) for uppercase. Tandy later released a version with lowercase that reminds me of this font.

I like Andrew's idea and will implement it with SuperCharger BASIC IDE - was just posting an idea for autobooting mode on the other thread.

The Harmony does something like this if you put a bin called autoexec on it (not sure of the name), starts up running the program. I think that would work out fine - if we were using autoexec.bin or program.bin or something as the file we would be expecting to use the real hardware via the PlusCart in lieu of Stella for development to rapidly keep launching the program right from our IDE's anytime it writes the file to the PlusCart network share on the PC. I think it would be a good idea if we should also have the IDE cleanup when it closes and erase the autostarting file from the share to put the PlusCart back in gaming mode.

Idea from seeing Andrews automated build setup for the PlusCart - I wonder if the PlusCart Server could be used to completely automate classic development right on the Atari? The TextViewer could allow development via the keypad controllers to type in programs - A hypothetical PlusCart menu Atari Development On Atari might look something like this: Compile with DASM Compile with Batari BASIC Compile SuperCharger BASIC The textviewer already remembers information about text files like what spot you were at, so it could automatically save the file too and then compile it with the selected dev tool and launch it right on the Atari and then when you return to editing it you would be at the same spot. Current line number would be a good thing to add to the viewer but it already looks great showing the text files and the ASCII art for the sprites and has a page index. Both bB and SuperCharger BASIC allow you to use a text editor as an IDE with their ASCII art designers and Assembly could be used too if you don't miss the markup.

Awesome setup! I've been dropping files into the PlusCart through the web interface which is also pretty easy, but I think I will add that streamlined option to SuperCharger BASIC for completely automated Development. I think it should be a toggle option though and not stay on with each build.

This is very cool! Compumates are very colorful when they talk to one another! I notice Compumate BASIC uses tokenized BASIC, but I suspect you could type the whole commands to create a pure ASCII file though it wouldn't work when you typed RUN - but I wonder if you could save the code and RUN it in bB or SuperCharger BASIC. The joystick ports are bidirectional so two Atari's could use each others other joystick ports to share controller signals, the same program running on two separate carts like in the Compumate video could also be made using the joystick ports to combine both Atari's joystick controller inputs and outputs. Idea: You would be writing your own protocol for this kind of program to init because it would need to do a handshake so that both instances could commence the game at the same time, one Atari could display waiting for Player2 or something and then they would synch and the game would start and it would have the same output on both displays.

Are you sure it is the load in the lower left that is timing out? That one always works for me on the plus cart (I am light fingered, you have to be to beat the game it brings up). I can make all the loads work on the BETA on the plus cart, including the upper right but that is the hardest - I can make the load in the upper right work on the plus cart, but it is very hard to do consistently - I have to immediately let go of the button as soon as it transitions without waiting an extra frame. When I am able to do that it always enters the KC Title screen load. It's much easier to get from there to KC, and from KC back to BREAKOUT. Something interesting to observe that may flush where the bug is - Try holding the button extra time in Stella on the upper right or just keep it pressed down, and you will see it enter the title screen and there will be a ~1/2 second delay (20-30 frames) before it allows the button press to transition it to KC, and if you just keep it pressed down there will be another small delay before it will transition back to BREAKOUT. Stella and Harmony transition immediately so may have needed to have a handler added - Uno and Plus do not transition right away because of the delay from the bars: So I am thinking that maybe Dirty Hairy already grabbed the index from the footer at the end of the file when his loading bars start or during, while your code is waiting until they are finished to do this and so can encounter a race condition? There must be something different - I will stare at the code too and see if there is anything that jumps out at me

https://forums.atari.io/topic/819-starpath-supercharger-seems-kind-of-cool/?do=findComment&comment=58517 Put a thread with a beta release for the SillyVenture compo on the forum and a discussion thread on IO linked above!

BREAKOUT RELOADED Conceptualize BREAKOUT as an OS both in form and function on the classic Atari 2600 hardware platform, using an ISAM analog Database created on a looping cassette tape to create a virtual disk up to 1.5 Megabytes. The example attached is an Atari 2600 bootable virtual disk 24k in size with four applications in the directory, the Operating System is one of them and it boots up first from the virtual drive just like a real OS BREAKOUT_GUI_OS_BETA.bin Since the operating system is also a game and a demo you can either watch the demo or take over and play the OS as the Ball armed with a Laser Beam scrolling around a large breakout board. Launching applications: Scroll to any of the four corners and pin the ball there holding the button down to launch the apps. Clicking Shortcuts: The upper left corner has a shortcut to an app, the upper right corner will take you to the apps Title Screen first. Returning back to the BREAKOUT GUI OS from the apps: Most apps allow you to return directly to the GUI OS simply by holding the button down. Just like Windows some apps will take through another app first, and the app in the lower left requires that you complete an EULA before returning you to the OS with helpful system prompts and a status report to assist you. Rebooting the OS: Most operating systems let you reload the OS, BREAKOUT GUI OS can reboot from the lower right corner. OPERATING SYSTEM FEATURE COMPARISONS ------------------------------------------------------ Underlying OS Technology - Windows Microsoft Visual BASIC BREAKOUT GUI OS Disk Extended SuperCharger BASIC Mouse Pointer - WINDOWS The Pointer is hard to see BREAKOUT GUI OS The Ball can never be missed Finding shortcuts on the desktop - ANDROID OS Tediously page through screen after screen like playing Pitfall to find the treasure, then after the updates the treasure will move to a different page. It's completely random and never where you found it before. BREAKOUT GUI OS Scroll and click, apps stay in place and the navigation is more intuitive without paging. APPLICATION DEMOGRAPHICS ------------------------------------- BREAKOUT GUI OS: All applications are Atari games. All other Operating Systems: Not all applications are Atari games.