Mr SQL

That depends on the scene, at the SillyVenture demo party the ARM is a sign that you love the old hardware just enough to not actually code for it: Don't miss the fun with legacy code Orange, there are silicon secrets from Cyan engineering still waiting to be unlocked! Atari architecture is so unique that there is room for new discoveries in the legacy modes as well as ARM expansions.

The UnoCart and the PlusCart support batari's bBasic framework for classic Atari games, it's the ARM (DPC+) extensions to extend bBasic and the ARM game schemes mentioned that are not compatible. If the idea is for the games to be incompatible on purpose as copy protection to recoup investments that is the programmers choice, otherwise why not make Atari games more compatible everywhere?? I've been working with @batarito expand the Harmony support for large SuperCharger games where the UnoCart is currently in the lead and I think it would be great to see a cross compiler designed as @Al_Nafuur described to translate the ARM games or common libraries for the ARM shared between the multicarts so the enhanced games could be enjoyed by players everywhere just like classic Atari games - I developed a cross compiler along these lines for SuperCharger BASIC to translate the binaries to CBS RAM format so that SuperCharger games could be run on the Atari Portable which lacks native support for the format. Those classic memory schemes are tricky to equate being totally different - I think you guys have it relatively easy building compatible library routines for those ARM chips equipped with a gazillion cycles and bytes of RAM even if one is half as powerful

Breakout Pacman/Ms Pacman Space Invaders Asteroids Defender Qbert Pole Position Road Blasters Moon Patrol Centipede Burgertime Mr Do Punch Out

@Al_Nafuur I think adding this code to the SC BIOS stub after the curtain closes may resolve the issue where the button must be pressed very brief to enter the zones: ;----add to SC BIOS stub after the curtain closes: lda #0; just need D6 set to 0 sta VBLANK; Got this idea from the Stella Programmers Guide: 12.2 Latched Input Ports (INPT4, INPT5) These two ports have latches that are both enabled by writing a "1" or disabled by writing a "0" to D6 of VBLANK. When disabled the microprocessor reads the logic level of the port directly. When enabled, the latch is set for logic one and remains that way until its' port goes LO. When the port goes LO the latch goes LO and remains that way regardless of what the port does. The trigger buttons of the joystick controllers connect to these ports.

Great idea! Here is similar hardware this reminds me of this device which has some of those changes already made. It maps VOIP to the internet for an analog phone with ethernet and wireless and a USB connection allowing a PC to control it, maybe a Gameline driver could be written for it:

Gameline exclusive - Here is a video of a new classic version of KC Munchkin that will be part of my SillyVenture 2020 demo for December at the competition in Gdansk! PlusCart players can play the game early and preview new versions up until the contest, just like with the Gameline modem bitd! I will release the ROM on AtariAge after the compo

BASIC looks really cool in 32x16. I think we may be able to do this now with the PlusCart - SuperCharger BASIC has an old-school BASIC mode with line numbers, @Al_Nafuur could run the compiler on the PlusCart server and build the ROM and launch it. batari BASIC can also be written just via a text editor because of it's ASCII art GUI designers. I would definitely use a development environment like this to write a 10 liner for the BASIC programming contest for the fun of it. I think the interlocking Atari keyboard isn't so bad, it has buttons at least and is standard Atari equipment.

I'm working on KC OS, a new demo release with three games for SillyVenture 2020 in December and am sharing the game builds early and exclusively with the PlusCart Players until the contest release One of the games is a more classic version of KC Munchkin that has not been released before. To play this version click on the second KC zone - KC II PAL and Arkanoid Airhead (with the Arkanoid jingle added) are in the other zones. Airhead automatically returns you to the OS when you die and KC II will return if you hold the button. The classic version of KC will not return to the OS yet. How readable is the 3 pixel Playah font? Hope the PlusCart sees some more exclusive titles released like gameline! @Al_Nafuur there is still a PlusCart bug if you hold the button to long exiting or entering any of the zones then the SuperChargerID seems to become corrupt and the screen freezes after load, like the bug I had when the index went out of bounds. Releasing the button immediately when the loading bars appear always works. Maybe the PlusCart routine is getting called twice when the button is held? KC_OS.bin

I think I made some progress with this - found a bug in SuperCharger BASIC that may be related: #bugfix 20200919 2nd rem bug - 2nd rem causes code between to compile: rem e=SUPERCHARGERINDEX*50:COLUBK=e:rem debug I removed a bad line from the programs that was passing bad index values on some of the loads. I now have a stable SuperCharger OS demo for the SillyVenture compo that allows exit and controlled re-entry to two games and a third with no re-entry to the OS. I still have to double check recursive loading but bidirectional loads and duplicate reference callbacks from the individual loads in the demo all worked perfectly on the PlusCart with this build I will post this shortly on it's own thread with some related ideas for keeping the demo as an online exclusive for PlusCart players until the official SillyVenture release in December!

Just played this on the real hardware with my PlusCart - very intriguing game vitoco! Once it hits the corner there is a double hit that is quite difficult to orchestrate. Some tuning will make this a lot of fun! Paddles work great with no jitter. I suggest using the right joystick port for the paddles though, the left port should be for the joystick or players have to swap. Had no problems viewing this on my CRT and it is right on the spec and will roll if the scanline count varies by 1. @atari2600land maybe you need to adjust the vertical synch?

That was a great computer to learn BASIC Programming on! I learned Tiny BASIC on a 4K TRS-80, but I borrowed one of those briefly when it came out to learn about it - the 2K of RAM was roomy enough to write small games and usable programs with the BASIC programming language, thanks to very efficient memory management. The smaller the Tiny BASIC the more efficient the memory model becomes and Atari BASIC Programming is the most memory efficient - The 1K model of the Timex Sinclair ZX-81 had about 10x the free RAM of Atari BASIC Programming weighing in with about 690 bytes free to BASIC, but Robinett had maximized the efficiency model so the 63 bytes free on the BASIC Programming cart stretched even further, effectively I think it felt like having 230 bytes free to BASIC. The small program examples in the video would probably be about that size if you saved them with BASIC Programming on the Sinclair or TRS-80.

Here's a great collection of programs, I was particularly impressed by the musical algorithm that creates a tune. Many people have derided BASIC Programming but Robinett did an incredible job creating an educational implementation of Tiny BASIC that could teach real programming concepts and efficiency (which is missed Today) from extremely small BASIC programs. Robinett also created a modular IDE with a visual trace on the program code, a visionary and influential design:

This effectively tricks players into thinking they are playing against each other in the fast action sequences when each player is playing against AI there and the Server is picking the player who did better against the AI. Good point, slower games like Chess and two player games like Tetris with side-by-side two player action would not need frequent synching. Perhaps repeating the synch to get the players actual geographic strategy coupled with brief periods where players fight the AI instead of each other and the Server arbitrates the outcome for the next synch may be the solution to combat latency, in COMBAT.

RT has a great online resource for all of the AUDC and AUDF values for Fx here Very cool, Looking forward to seeing the new elements added! Thanks! Check out 10lineBlitzII for my latest version of this game with some new enhancements. I agree about how challenging it is to fit the code particularly with only being able to have if at the start of a line, but I managed to add ramping difficulty, adjustable difficulty levels, and colorful waves and mission levels! There is also a trick to increase the line space using tokens like AtariBASIC that I think you would like - I didn't do it because I wanted the BASIC listing to be as readable as possible, but all control features like "SUSTAINFORFRAMES" can be replaced with whatever their token is in the zero page and the same for the big register names, freeing extra line space for competition code. Fantastic start! You write lots of awesome games for the A8 and I am looking forward to seeing what you will create on the 2600 in both assembly and BASIC!

Cool! It automatically scales the image too - very nice! Great idea! I was thinking the same thing - the server creates the binary on the fly and serves it up whenever the user clicks a .jpg or .bmp This will be an awesome viewer app!

Perhaps Teletype Computer Game or mainframe game might be the most accurate description. Lunar Lander started out that way too with the scrolling Teletype display providing the animation instead of a VDT. A Teletype Terminal has a rolling parchment display it's just a different type of Display Terminal than a VDT. VDT's like Teletypes were not really computers on their own but had just enough processing power handle markup to render display animation via VT100 protocol, somewhat reminiscent of the way a modern web browser or an Atari 2600 ARM game renders the display from a mainframe game in that respect.

Good point but perhaps we should technically call them Teletype games. Adventure Games debuted on Teletype, and we could take that parchment scroll with us and read the interactive fiction story we just created as the main character. This was really novel at the time - creating our own novel. This was possible to emulate with home computers that could redirect to the printer but not native.

An email app would be awesome! I would like to see a high score app too, that would show the players names and scores from the online page like the email client; maybe they could share the same codebase. Or maybe the news retriever/ticker codebase could be revised to also show the high scores from the webpage and pull emails to view from the players accounts (we could add pop3 config to the wifi setup menu).

Disagree it's superfluous because I like to read the text manuals, and it's easy to identify them from the .txt extension. Plus, other apps might be added to the PlusCart that use other extensions - Maybe someone will create a viewer app that can render small bitmaps .bmp files or a wav player app that could play back small wav files!

X3! A Multiplayer Berzerk for the 2600 would be fantastic!

Awesome to see Don't Go! on the Atari 2600 and you writing games for the 2600 vitoco! If you would like to enter a 10-line BASIC game for the 2600 in the Programming contest, SuperCharger BASIC has an old-school mode for classic BASIC programming with line numbers like the A8.

X2 Very cool! I shared the BBS experience with the TRS-80 playing online adventure games and downloading ROM's like with the Gameline modem. The PlusCart is the same genre of fun and the high score competitions makes it feel like playing in the arcade.

That's what I think from playing with it and from watching the ZeroPage review. If you click Gameline Modem in the first post it links to the PlusCart WiFi modem thread. What are your thoughts? Yes that's what it feels like! Not a joke just a lot of fun to play!

This thread is for Players perspective but can include developers provided you share your impressions as players - I've shared my impressions on the 2600 forum, but the players in the club actually have this wonderful new gameline modem to play with so what are your impressions?? Did any players in the club have the original Gameline Modem when it came out, or download new games from a BBS for a Home Computer or a similar experience from bitd to compare with this?

Yes! Watch the ZeroPage review until the end (it's long you may want to fast forward) and you will see James downloading games online, competing in the high score contest and even playing COMBAT against another Player 2 who is far away!