Mr SQL

December 14, 2020

It's surprising the TI-99/4A did not endure longer; a good friend had a TI growing up and I liked the graphics and variety of genres particularly Adventures on the TI.

The Apple II did endure possibly because it initially shipped with Atari paddles included and a fast colorful game maker BASIC for "making games like Pong" as advertisements described it initially in 1977.

Excellent idea to get both a VIC-20 and a C64 to not miss the earlier years; I had a Commodore PET that was even earlier and also very cool, but I think color computers with multiple voice sound are more fun than BW silent or nearly silent retro computers.

December 13, 2020

1 hour ago, Mikebloke said:

Modern tvs potentially even more basic.

Agree CRT speakers often have deeper movie theater quality sound, by contrast modern TV's sound tinny even in stereo.

December 12, 2020

Lots of interesting perspective, cool this thread is still going like the Energizer Bunny!

I think that reading BYTE Magazine and seeing the colorful history of home computing from it's inception in the 70's through the 80's might help prospective retro users select the right dream machine.

There's lots of foresight in BYTE articles that are still misunderstood, this looks like the Apple Watch from the perspective of 1981 leading Tech:

Computer Magazines were important for home computer support and were an integral part of the retro computing experience evolving from the early computer clubs and their Newsletters.

December 11, 2020

20 hours ago, Atariperson23 said:

just wondering how does this thing exactly work?

You download new games and compete with other Players for high scores like GameModem!

December 10, 2020

7 hours ago, atari2600land said:

It got a little better but it didn't completely go away.

Very cool, does it go away completely if you make it an even darker blue or dark black?

December 9, 2020

12 hours ago, atari2600land said:

In this picture, frame counts 293 and 294 have exactly the same scanline count, and does not jump in Stella, but it does on a real Atari 2600.

Try a Darker shade of Blue for your COLUBK or COLUPF background, does the problem go away?

I had a similar issue and this resolved.

12 hours ago, atari2600land said:

WHY?

No idea I would like to know too!

December 8, 2020

17 hours ago, Al_Nafuur said:

Attached some example batari Basic code that uses PlusROM functions to load a random 32x32 pixel playfield picture from an internet backend. The binary and backend php code are attached too.

This version loads 8 bytes of playfield pixel per request and paints them with the pfpixel command. Before sending a new request the ROM waits 3 frames, so the picture builds up nice and slow.

The binary can be run with Gopher2600 or at the javatari here: https://pluscart.firmaplus.de/javatari/index.html

PlusCart user can find the binary in the PlusStore folder: "Public ROMs/PlusROMs"

PlusROM painter.bas 2.48 kB · 2 downloads PlusROM painter.bas.bin 8 kB · 4 downloads api.php 1.96 kB · 1 download

Awesome demo example for the api - I will try to implement this for Flashback BASIC (CBS RAM) and SuperCharger BASIC, I think I should be able to recreate the demo using the same stub to picture-fill and test the new commands against!

Question - do the following PlusROM hotspots stay the same for the CBS RAM Plus and SuperCharger format memory schemes?

PlusROM_functions = 1
	WriteToBuffer = $1ff0
	WriteSendBuffer = $1ff1
	ReceiveBuffer = $1ff2
	ReceiveBufferSize = $1ff3

	MAC SET_PLUSROM_API ; {1} = path, {2} = domain
	PlusROM_API
	.byte {1}, 0, {2}, 0
	ENDM

November 25, 2020

17 hours ago, SvOlli said:

I don't think there is any chance for a simple reason: speed. The audio signal was fed directly into the AVM chip to be processed instantly, while it can take several frames to get a reading from the potentiometers.

Awesome Video Music Machine Demo, and explanation of the choreography!

Interesting idea to use the potentiometers from the paddles, I was wondering how accessible the AD converter in the SuperCharger is because the Audio Spectrum Analyzer cart had utilized the AD converter in the CoCo to sample the audio spectrum.

I don't know what type of AD converter the SuperCharger is using but it it is pretty maxed out cycle wise pulling data at a high baud rate.

The rate is adjustable so perhaps the audio spectrum could still be sampled at a lower rate with greater accuracy than the paddle pots could do?

November 24, 2020

3 hours ago, Al_Nafuur said:

Are you planning to support PlusROM functions in your SuperCharger BASIC too?

Yes! I am going to start on this next for Atari Flashback BASIC, which is cross compatible with SuperCharger BASIC but uses CBS RAM which already has PlusROM function support.

I could back-port it to SuperCharger BASIC and release them together if we are able to add SuperCharger support before June 21.

New dev Idea inspired from an unintended error other thread:

I would like to add the DOS load command to Flashback BASIC using the PlusROM API's in place of the SuperCharger BIOS -

Theoretically this would allow the same set of BASIC programs to run and call one another with no changes to the code.

Minor abstraction differences would be that the individual programs would have no security to prevent them from being called individually* like the SuperCharger BIOS imparts, advantages would be that any size Atari program and memory scheme could be loaded by Flashback BASIC.

*Programs could be run individually on the Flashback Portable for backward compatibility; I'll need to double test this while adding this enhancement because the Portable emu has some quirks like formatting CBS RAM like disk sectors from bitd (all $FF instead of $00) and it doesn't like blank space, requires adding filler to banks.

8 hours ago, Al_Nafuur said:

the text-viewer has a maximum length of 1024 rows with 32 chars..

The lines are more than 32 characters long in the 2nd example.

I had thought I saw a word-wrap feature for long lines, maybe having more than 32 characters with no spaces is breaking it?

November 24, 2020

Disk BASIC Development Update:

---------------------------------------

The SuperCharger Disk BASIC load command is fully implemented with optional arguments and overloading, here are a few examples in this code fragment and comments from my KC OS 12 SillyVenture 2020 demo which is available on preview in PlusCart exclusives, showing the different syntax possible:

Reasoning on overloading support and version history:

Simplification - BASIC should be easy so I simplified the command so that it could take an overload argument, but kept support for the previous method:

Specifying SUPERCHARGERINDEX is now optional, and a literal or variable argument (or the default) dynamically overloads the command.

Related ideas for discussion on language design -

I think it's imperative for BASIC to have a PRINT command and commands are really just interfaces, intrinsic API's.

Here is a nice WYSIWYG example from the manual displayed on the PlusCart text screen, and executing side by side:

You can see how the proportional font illustrates the bitmap graphics from printing the binary strings on screen matching

what is seen on the sprite.

In the second example, the text is also printed on the playfield or the larger virtual world using BASIC [email protected] command style positioning!

Fun with languages, interfaces and intrinsic API's

----------------------------------------------------------

These print commands are additional interfaces on the same language intrinsic API's for manipulating BASIC RAM arrays -

Alternate BASIC array syntax supported and also write and print commands (from the manual):

write [alias: print]
------------------------
120 print %11111111(player0,0):rem print to top row of player 1 sprite.
130 write i(boats,j):rem write value i into boats array at element j.
140 boats(j)=5:rem standard BASIC array syntax is also supported
150 boats(j)=boats(x)*5:rem BASIC array manipulation

read 
---------------------
110 read i(boats,j):rem read element j from boats array into i.
120 i=boats(j):rem read element j from boats array into i.
130 boats(i)=boats(j): rem assign one array element variable to another.

For discussion - why have multiple commands and interfaces to the same language intrinsic?

Wouldn't it be more efficient to have one best way?

Why support overloading with the load command?

"Programmers might learn more about programming without overloading" is a good argument against,

"that's what computers are for" is a good argument for.

Ditto for multiple commands and interfaces.

These are some of the things that the designers of programming languages think about, share your thoughts if you want to talk about these ideas! I'm trying to add support for loading sectors or just one bank but seeing forced corruption on the last block?

I encourage @Andrew Davie, @Thomas Jentzsch and @alex_79 to have a high level programming discussion on this private forum and please do not throw insults, encourage others to throw insults or constantly follow me about angry making demands of other programmers when I talk technology with them on the public forums -

If you want to play a game, get on the gamegrid with me like @sramirez2008 and let's play Atari!

@Al_Nafuur Possible text-viewer line length bug: the second example breaks in the text viewer, but is not using any additional characters than the 1st.

November 23, 2020

Wow I like these all! "Lava Land" is particularly enchanting.

November 22, 2020

16 hours ago, Keatah said:

I loved how RS bought all kinds of technology home to the average consumer and beginning hobbyist. I would not know as much as I do about electronics if RS wasn't around.

The kits, the discrete parts, the Forrest M. Mims books, the tools and supplies.. All of it. Ready-made products and phone and tv accessories. Great stuff easily accessible to kids, hobbyists, parents, and everyone.

Those old Forrest M. Mims books, especially the "Getting Started in Electronics" are on my bookshelf today and my iPad in pdf.

Very cool! I loved the Electronics kits, the building block components that locked together like Lego blocks with spring loaded contact connections were over the top. Learning about Diodes, Triode tubes and Transistors at the building block level and creating your own circuits was inspiring in a very similar way as learning to program with programming languages was later on.

I think Radio Shack inspired new inventions and technology innovations from bright minds; I bet it inspired the Outer Limits or Twilight Zone episode where a special Radio Shack catalog edition is received with parts to build a Sci-Fi machine.

November 22, 2020

Ahoy, can't pirates just be pirates? This is interesting but confusing - if the Brazilians have permission to use the PlusCart they are technically no longer pirates unless possibly violating the GPL and many legitimate companies like Microsoft and Oracle never release source with GPL components that they make no modifications to, so the Brazilians are now seemingly reformed Pirates though rude for hiding the page - acting like pirates perhaps?

Sony quite clearly pirated GPL code when they built a root-kit for their CD's modifying open source code but I guess sharing their changes would have defeated the purpose of Sony quietly taking over your PC; I always wondered how the GPL could be honored properly in legitimate security projects, it always get's treated like freeware because those changes cannot be released.

November 21, 2020

39 minutes ago, Al_Nafuur said:

I can see and open 3 new files in my "ROMs Shared With Me" folder:

Atari Flashback BASIC Manual.txt

SillyVenture2019_Fluid_City_PAL.txt

SimonSaysAtariVCS_v5_AI.txt

I was able to edit them all in my local nextcloud folder on my PC. But only "SillyVenture2019_Fluid_City_PAL.txt" seems to be changed online.

Thanks that worked perfectly! I gave you the ability to edit Fluid City, but read-only rights on the other two files, and I gave Andrew the ability to edit the other two files and read-only rights on Fluid City.

I also noticed the 10 line program scrolls in the UI because the lines are 120 characters long, is it possible to have the box resize to a percentage of the browser window to accommodate instead of a fixed pixel width for the text box? This would make it easier to edit longer lines of code.

November 21, 2020

What VR multiplayer games cause the most Traffic Accidents?

Today we have few education oriented technology centers like this, most tech centers sell phones to a plugged in audience that can't put them down; I think Musk made a good observation every time I cross an intersection and see adults doing a bent necked walk like fearless Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles peering into their cellphones permanently and obliviously transfixed, speed vehicles passing closely by unseen:

Multiplayers_cross_the_intersection.jpg.0e8bd861db030a6c8e928a4d022797ad.jpg

Successful VR is all about Player immersion
Anyone who drives knows what I'm taking about because Today you have to constantly watch out for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles drifting slowly across the street at odd angles even stopping sometimes right in the middle of the street if their phone display becomes interesting enough to get closer to - once player immersion binding occurs in the VR environment this can happen at any time regardless of the surroundings.

Driving and VR Immersion
Similarly anyone who walks (while not using Twitter or Facebook) knows some drivers can be equally transfixed:

Toodles tweeting on Twitter, drives even worse than before.

VR Apps designed to be intentionally painful:

I've saved the best for last - online ads with jarring seizure inducing algorithms sure to get your attention at any cost and deliberately by design.

Video ads are some of the worst offenders, anyone even remotely involved in creating those offensive shaking attention stealing displays knows not to look at any content stream in which they might be embedded while doing anything that requires any degree of concentration - these engineers carefully avoid their own content and some video services now offer a paid services venue that excludes the painful ads as motivation to pay.

What's the best VR multiplayer Today?

Facebook, Linked-In, Yahoo, GoogleMaps, MaqQuest - even Specialty interest groups like AtariAge are also included as VR for Niche markets

Any others at the top of the list?
It's important to think outside the box as we see the most successful VR multiplayer models emerging Today are not the traditional models originating in Japan, but the social networking platforms - what other successful VR multiplayer models come to mind?

Specific to AtariAge

More than one member of the AtariAge online gaming forum has transformed into a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle by the VR, some on multiple occasions. Share your Ninja experiences - I can get really focused writing code and everything fades to the background; I see a similar state of Zen and the art of peering into the phone occur with cell phone users in cars and on foot everywhere, and I think this is the Matrix phenomena Elon observed and tried to articulate.

November 21, 2020

Radio Shack at it's height...

this colorful catalog walkthrough from Mr Science captures the tremendous fun the and variety of inspiring technology available at these learning centers for anyone who missed them bitd, and for anyone who remembers!

November 21, 2020

On 11/16/2020 at 3:29 PM, carlsson said:

Well, the SID scene probably is just as large, if not larger than e.g. the NES scene when it comes to composers. Many also worked on multiple formats.

Rob Hubbard, Ben Daglish, Martin Galway, Chris Hülsbeck, Jeroen Tel... the list is significantly longer than so but those are just some of the biggest names off the top of my head.

X2! Nick Scarim too with his First Star Software tunes which probably doesn't surprise you, but Mike Hughey might with this amazing one hit wonder featuring awesome chiptunes and a technical feat on the Color Computer where complex sound, required precise cycle timing like the graphics on the VCS:

November 21, 2020

This is working for me now - I was able to share just a single file within a folder, how does that show up?

Test questions:

I've shared the Flashback BASIC manual with @Al_Nafuur and @Andrew Davie - Andrew you should be able to also edit the user manual, Al should have read only access. Do you guys see the other file names in the folder but cannot click them or just the manual.txt shared file within the folder and the folder name?

November 21, 2020

Here's the manual for the Audio Spectrum Analyzer cartridge for the Radio Shack Color Computer:

https://colorcomputerarchive.com/repo/Documents/Manuals/Applications/Audio Spectrum Analyzer (Tandy).pdf

The Color Computer had an audio input which the VCS lacks however the SuperCharger cartridge has an audio input jack, I wonder if the AD converter in it could be utilized to write a video music program. If so you could use asm or SuperCharger BASIC.

November 21, 2020

Saw this awesome Color Computer video that explains some of the things I always wondered about in really good detail:

I'm pretty sure the 555 timer affected which side of the phase the artifact colorset fell on - weather you got red and blue or blue and red as the dominant colors the other artifact colors were generated from when you pressed reset...

bitd that always reminded me of the Atari 2600's BW switch that could change up the games with a second color palette.

November 20, 2020

2 hours ago, carlsson said:

I don't have sales figures at hand, so I'll take your word for granted. Perhaps it boils down to only 10% of the VIC-20 owners actually used their computers, so it was for them the software companies released games both for unexpanded and expanded machine?

Quite possibly and you had another great point earlier about accessories light the light-pen not being intended to sell in mass quantity which could apply to some of the larger RAM programs.

From my own experience when I released "expanded" games from Saint John Gallery Software I made sure they only tricked out a bit on newer versions of the hardware and were backward compatible with the lowest common denominator memory configuration that had market share unless it was a specialty product which could have it's own draw to make users upgrade to more memory and a disk drive, or even buy the whole computer system just to run the software.

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Atari never got held back by the 8K or 16K limits on some models though. Especially once the disk game era arrived. You can't run a floppy system on 16K so those fell by the wayside. But most vendors limited their games to 48K to maintain compatibility with the 800. A few would give enhanced features if you had 64K or even 128K

Great post zzip! I think this is exactly how a successful 3rd party software company should be run in the 80's to maximize sales from Magazine ads (users system configs will follow the distribution curve) and it's how I ran mine.

November 20, 2020

On 11/15/2020 at 4:50 AM, bluejay said:

This was brought up by a status update from @Keatah. Is the Apple II closer to home computers from Commodore, Atari, Tandy, etc. or hobby computers like the Altair and IMSAI?

I think Apple was closer to the hobby computers like the Altair and so was the Tandy Color Computer as opposed to their original TRS-80:

imo what made it a hobby computer was the precipitated inclination (which Apple certainly did right) and the ability to open the machine with enough space to hobby; Atari 400 and 800 qualify like the Color Computer, but not the VIC-20 or C64 or the 600/800XL form factor modeled after the 1977 TRS-80 "computer is [crammed] in the keyboard" hot seller design (folks were getting wary of hobby computers).

November 20, 2020

1 hour ago, Keatah said:

Only when 64K came from the factory on the //e was it "required" and utilitized.

X2 only this caused significant market penetration of the bigger memory models and not the RAM add-on upgrades.

1 hour ago, carlsson said:

I don't know about memory expansion. If you look at the now defunct vic20tapes.org, it lists 889 titles (a few duplicates). Those are broken down as following:

383 for unexpanded machine (43.0%)

50 for 3K expansion (5.6%)

126 for 8K expansion (14.2%)

106 for 16K expansion (11.9%)

224 where memory expansion is not specified (25.2%)

So at least 31% of the entire VIC-20 library was made for some sort of memory expansion. If those were that uncommon as you make it sound, certainly not almost one third of the library would require one.

Excellent point that almost 1/3 of the library required some sort of memory expansion however the sales figures were not even close for that third due to a million people with an unexpanded VIC vs only a handful with memory expansion that were not even compatible with each other.

November 20, 2020

Memory expansion - because whatever the base system came with was the best bet for software developers to target the largest audience.

Consider VIC-20 games that required more than 5K of RAM reduced their market base by 90%

Similarly with the Atari 400/800 games that required more than 8K (later 16K) limited their base to mostly the 800. Like the VIC, only a small percentage of 400's were expanded beyond their stock RAM configuration in what became a growing trend to upgrade the whole machine with a new machine.

The C128 upgrade was badly overshadowed by it's C64 compatibility modes much larger market base as compared to nothing, so almost no C128 software was produced.