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Mr SQL

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Posts posted by Mr SQL

  1. Posted

    Update successful! 

     

    Ladybug ran fine but it's difficult to look at on a classic Television; good game though, probably why devs started merging the frames in the emulators and on the Retron community build.

     

  5. Posted

    4 hours ago, JamesD said:

    Quasar Commander is Radio Shack not 3rd party.  It is out of the cockpit game play, but it's kinda crap.
     

    Agree Project Nebula was a better port, now I'm curious what the 3rd party version was.

     

    Some of the ports were really well done on the CoCo with an added twist that made the game unique and sometimes confused players of the original port:

     

    I really liked the Polaris port of Missile Command (also from RadioShack) because it fit well with the 360 degree free floating control sticks and it let you select which base should fire the missiles. I saw one review with the player trying to use the buttons to launch the missiles and concluding that the cart did not work ;)  

     

  8. Posted

    3 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

    Why aren't there any screenshots or gameplay videos of this mysterious game? I can only see pictures of the cool manual.

    Great question! The game was locked in time encrypted for 33 years - I had long since released all my other games except this one because I couldn't remember how to get the copy protection off until just recently :) 

     

  9. Posted

    4 hours ago, r_chase said:

    Hi. Forgive me for resurrecting this topic, but...uh...you said I could use Atari Flashback Basic in any text editor, correct? I know it's been a long time since this has been brought up, but I couldn't help but to be curious about this. Especially when I'm a Linux user and stuff. However, I do wonder how do I make a rom with this. What do you think?

    Hi r_chase! Yes you may use any text editor and compile the ROM binary from the command line in Linux using PowerShell 3.0 or higher.

     

    Here's info on the latest PowerShell for Linux:

     

    https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/install/installing-powershell-core-on-linux?view=powershell-7.1

     

    If you use WINE or Windows, you can also use the PowerShell ISE as an IDE.

     

  11. Posted

    @Prizrak please install KC OS 12! :) KC_OS_12.bin

     

    Here are the instructions to launch the main demo's in the OS.

     

    Instructions:

    1. Navigate your Ghost-Monster onto the blue help system zone and click to activate Act's one and two of the Demo.


    2. You must immediately put the joystick down - this is important because multiple random generators will be affected if you move the joystick and the intended demo can change.

     

    Demo story sequence:

     

    Act 1:

    Classic KC Munchkin plays on the Atari in the familiar Arena but he has 5 lives instead of 1! He travels about catching Monsters, chasing dancing dots and power pills. He's super fast like only the Atari can do and he blazes a trail of flicker free phosphor with the three monsters and several dancing dots and dancing power pellet admist a rapidly changing board.
      
    Act 2:

    After classic KC exhausts all of his 5 lives Act 2 starts with a monster maze with a unique new design and larger play area -

     

    Over the course of a few minutes you will see KC sometimes get caught and sometimes win catching multiple colorful Monsters in a row or just missing them by a hair.

     

    Act 3:

    Playah should take control and clear the screen to unlock Act 3 of the demo - to do that you must stay alive in the fray scrolling around and catching the dots until you make it to the next level (just survive for a minute or two to advance).

    The tricky part is, as soon as you transition to the next level you must let go of the stick again (don't change KC's direction) or you will not see Act 3 - the Random generators are now in a pristine state again with different initial values they had on the first level and thus different play mechanics that will include a romp through the bonus big Atari stage narrowly missing the monsters between the big letters and circling around collecting up dots in a cascade before starting the dance sequence over again - this time after a minute or two you can see it is not as entertaining as act 2, KC is dying more often because the difficulty is higher so the AI is not as powerful on the next level - help him out if you take him there! :)   

     

    Returning to the Operating System:

    You may hold down the button to return directly to the OS at any time during act 2 or 3.

     

    Bonus ARKANOID AIRHEAD 2020 game included with the OS!

    Navigate your Ghost-Monster to click the bottom zone in the OS to play Arkanoid Airhead!

     

    Extra six months until contest - more time for cool demo's! :) 

    SillyVenture 2020 is postponed until June 2021 so there is time to enter a demo or a game for anyone inspired! 

    (classic hardware only)

     

     

    KC_Operating_System.jpg

    • Like 1

  12. Posted

    On 11/6/2020 at 8:51 PM, vitoco said:

    I got yellow instead of white. Could this be something introduced by the AV mod?

    Yes an AV mod can change the display characteristics because the Atari leaks chroma which makes colors brighter and more vibrant looking.

    This effect is even more pronounced on older Atari models:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmholtz–Kohlrausch_effect

     

    AV mods generally have a cleaner signal so some colors may change or look washed out like on the 7800.

    There is also a potentiometer to change the colors you may need to adjust.

  13. Posted

    2 hours ago, sramirez2008 said:

    Wow 83 carts in use. I know that some have more than one, but thats still quite a few carts in use. Very cool!

     

    Btw, 10 yr old me would have never dreamed of playing my favorite games over the air.

    DC843A1E-5E6D-42EF-96F2-98400BEE4FFE.jpeg

    X2! Loads of fun competing with you in the Pacman games! :) 

     

    I hope you enjoy the expanded Maze in the latest KC OS 12 prerelease, I'll be sharing it soon on the exclusives thread!

    2 hours ago, Al_Nafuur said:

    I have only sent 45 Carts and DIY Kits, and maybe 5 of them are not yet online.

    Wow almost half of the PlusCarts on the network are hacked then! I was talking with @grey/msb about the possibility these hackers might release OS 12 early, we pushed the SillyVenture 2020 party back until June 2021 so it would be kind of cool actually if they did ;) 

      

    • Like 2

  15. Posted

    9 hours ago, madscijr said:

    That will be very helpful to see your Berzerk 2000 R2 code. 

     

    Here is a question - can the SuperCharger BASIC handle input from a 4-controller adapter, such as described here? 

    These should work by simply "converting" the on/off signals from 4 or more joysticks to specific paddle and joystick values that just need to be interpreted correctly in the program.

     

     

    madscijr I will send you the pre-release of the BASIC source to check out!

     

    Yes it should be able to work with the QuadraStick Adapter -

     

    Berzerk 2000 R2 is nearly all BASIC but there is one line with an Assembly routine, the QuadraStick Adapter would need to be tied in via a line like that:

     

    You will see the line of Assembly somewhere in the BASIC listing looking a little bit like BASIC in structure because the ":" concatenator operator separates the Assembly routines statements like BASIC so more can fit on one of the line of code, similar to the way the BBC BASIC allowed Assembly statements to be included bitd.

     

    It is also possible to use four controllers natively on the 2600 via paddle controllers, those plug in two to a port -

     

    Paddle controllers could be used to have the four Berzerk characters rotate when you turn in one direction, and then move when turning in the other direction similar to the control scheme in COMBAT as part of the fun for the players to contend with. This scheme is a lot of fun for multiplayer imo, try COMBAT if you have not! :)  With a control scheme like that, you could add a 5th player at the console using the momentary switches to play! 

     

  16. Posted

    4 hours ago, Voxel said:

    LukHash, he puts out some good chip tunes.  There is an official site and from memory free to download.

     

    Spy vs Spy on the VCS sounds great.

    Thanks Voxel! :) X2 LukHash is phenomenal, I love that black VIC in the presentation! 

     

    Really like the way he keeps that original SID intact and intersperses the 8-bit scenes from the game through completing the mission.

     

    • Like 1

  17. Posted

    3 hours ago, madscijr said:

     

    Thanks... As long as it makes it easy, that increases the chances I would find time to create something 

    (not a lot of free time to devote to this stuff, and learning how to program assembly games for the Atari is high on difficulty & time drain and low on the priority list! Lol)

     

    The Berzerk 2000 R2 video looks pretty decent, the motion and scrolling is smooth. The music is a little annoying but it's neat that it can handle simultaneous music.  It would be even better if they posted the source code! :-D

     

    The other games are glitchy as hell and pretty bad, though. Whoever makes the SuperCharger BASIC needs to simply remake some well known Atari VCS titles (or demos of elements thereof) and post the source code, which will get people started. 

     

    Glad you like Berzerk and great ideas about SuperCharger BASIC! 

     

    I wrote the game and will share the source code soon, there have been some delays due to COVID-19 -

    Here is another one you may like that was going to be released next month at the SillyVenture Atari Art Festival in Gdansk, but that's been pushed back until June for the same reason.

     

    Here is an awesome SillyVenture 2020 Invitro video with an incredible chip-tune to inspire you and anyone inclined to enter an Atari 2600 demo or game in the art contest this year - there's an extra six months to prepare hope to see your creations there! :)  

         

  18. Posted · Edited by Mr SQL
    idea

    13 hours ago, Andrew Davie said:

    I have seen, and suspect issues with, the "string" used to determine exactly where the menu it at.

    I've seen exits where you need to press (Go Back) several times just to get into a "known state" (you are presented with an empty menu)

    I've seen one exit from emulator where it was stuck in an endless "blank menu".

    Confirmed Andrew I saw this a few times, I would be playing a game and go back and not where I expected to be or it would sometimes launch the game also (not where I expected to be in the menu, plus automatically launching the ROM).

     

    I agree these are not show stoppers and the fixes outweigh - suggesting release it now like a Windows build; build is more fun functionality wise :) 

     

    4 hours ago, Al_Nafuur said:

    Is in the endless "** Firmware Update **" loop.

    Update just worked fine for me - is "my recently played ROM's" new? That's really cool! Maybe I just didn't notice before...

     

    Edit: The bug where a new ROM launched could be used as a feature to allow 32K Sara games to be "multiload" like the SuperCharger - they could grab the next rom. A similar dos command could be added to batari BASIC similarly to allow this with the 32K games.

     

    I've been having fun with the different implementations of the load command for SuperCharger BASIC allowing optional overloading and default overloads to be supported:

     load: rem default argument is used

    load i: overloads the default argument with a TIA zeropage variable (any variable may be used)

    load MyRomArray(34) : overloads the default argument with a RAM array variable

    load SUPERCHARGERID (still supported but deprecated)

     

  20. Posted

    SPY vs. SPY

    Working on a split screen two player CAM Spy vs. Spy like the original released in 1987! :) 

     

     


    I'm not sure if I will release SPY vs. SPY on it's own or with BERZERK2000, R2 
    Possibly variations for both.

     

    Technically possible with the engine from BERZERK Friendly Fire:
     

    The engine for BERZERK Friendly Fire (R2) coupled with the split screen CAM Two Player Tron code demo on my site should allow the gameplay in SPY vs. SPY to be very similar to the  mechanics from the original spy game from 1987.
     

    A comment on the Berzerk Friendly Fire video, inspired this idea. Hope some folks will share their ideas to encourage me on this project - it's quite challenging without all the extra hardware these kind of games usually require! 😎

    berzerkfriendlyfire.thumb.jpg.2f0f702707c98ee9b7a116ad292ee784.jpg

    • Like 4

  21. Posted

    On 11/6/2020 at 2:17 PM, Andrew Davie said:

    I switch on all warnings and fix them as I can.

    Wow if I did that I would never get anything done, please share how this new method works for you compared to ignoring them or what you used to do.

     I always RTM but ignore all warnings, Tron is one method that works well to find bugs and bottlenecks too.

    On 11/6/2020 at 2:17 PM, Andrew Davie said:

    But it was not my intention to force this onto the actual codebase.

    Very cool people have different coding styles. 

     

    You're an advanced developer but consider there is a group that work on the SQL Server codebase not allowed to work on the core for being beginners. Their code, usually gets reverted for doing just that. 

     

  22. Posted

    1 hour ago, Al_Nafuur said:

    Black screen should not had happen, even though your previous version was the hand made draft pre beta experimental v0.15.8a version.

    Can you check the update function with v0.16.0 again?

     

    Sure it worked fine this time, no black screen. The animated plus cursor lasted about 12-15 seconds and returned to the menu, but I was already on build 16.

    The black screen may have resulted from something in the beta build that got fixed - I was using a Heavy Sixer to run the update if the build had an issue with that. 

  23. Posted

    2 hours ago, Al_Nafuur said:

    New draft version v0.16.0 (RC 2)

     

    For draft User @Prizrak, @Thomas Jentzsch, @marauder666, @Andrew Davie and @Mr SQL

     

    Is in the endless "** Firmware Update **" loop.

     

    Fixed issues:

    • WiFi symbol on the first menu page is corrupt.

    • SuperCharger emulation skipping some address changes below 0x1000

     

     

    Awesome update! :) It worked fine for me but the screen went black after the update initially, I powered cycled the VCS and it came back with Version 16.0 fully applied.

    This may be because I had the beta build with the fixes or because I am in the beta group that gets the endless summer version.

     

    When the screen went to black I thought my debugging approach had failed; I rely on top-notch programmers like @Andrew Davie as Guinea pigs who will complete the full life cycle error checking and warnings best practices thereby freeing me to play contact sports and other fun activities between writing Atari games and playing them - there's never enough time and I'm working on a demo for Gdansk next month, it's cold there in December! :) 

     

  24. Posted

    1 hour ago, Al_Nafuur said:

    Upps, added the wrong device_id to the group.

    Sorry @Mr SQL, please try again.

    I was wondering where the option was - very cool this version completely fixes the remaining SuperCharger bugs - 

    KC OS 4 in pluscart Exclusives now behaves exactly as expected:

     

    Clicking on the Middle Zone in the OS launches the non-scrolling proto with 4 lives, when they are exhausted, Scrolling KC II loads automatically.

     

    Clicking the Top zone launches KC II and holding down the button in KC II will return to the OS.

    Clicking the first zone loads Arkanoid Airhead, and it returns to the OS when one life is lost.

     

    I'm now working on the music and some other enhancements to the OS and SuperCharger Disk BASIC, it's getting closer to deadline for SillyVenture - awesome teamwork everyone, glad this is fixed! :)

     

    Hope this build can be released for everyone soon!

     

    • Like 1

  25. Posted

    1 minute ago, Al_Nafuur said:

    I fixed a bug int the PlusCart firmware for subsequent loading, it should fix the SuperCharger loading too.

     

      Ifyou want to test with this draft version, I can add your PlusCart to the Draft User Group. But you better know howto manually flash your PlusCart, in case something goes wrong.

     

    Yes please add me! :) I will test it with the latest release of KC OS.

     

    I used to see the new version show up automatically at the top of the menu when I booted PlusCart, are the draft builds before these automatic releases?

     

    I thought I read somewhere in the discussion that the flashing bug was resolved, if not I will try to safely use the Draft builds without flashing PlusCart by first waiting to see if someone in the group successfully loads each new draft first or if it crashes and requires a flash ;) 

     

     

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