Blackbird

Well, depending on how old you are, vb_master, I may be the youngest yet to post. But that's argueable. Most of my young life, we had a Commodore 64, which eventually died on us. That was annoying, seeing as how we had built up a decent game collection by then. We then moved on to PCs, a 486, then a P3. One day, I'm searching through the internet, and I come across a link for Gameboy programming. I bookmark it, and months later return to it. Every page links to another one, and I end up finding myself looking at a GBA community. Interested, I searched for a programming tool and took my hand at it. Didn't work out, but it was enough to get me into game systems. So a few years after that, I'm looking at Tighe Lory's NESp, out of curiosity. I kept seeing links to Ben's VCSp, but it took me a while to migrate there. Looking that site ever, I noticed I never really had a clue about it at that point, so I decided to look it up. Somehow or another, I end up at AtariProtos.com, and I'm fascinated by all these ancient games that were never released, especially Garfield. From there, I move on to AtariAge... From there, I just got into classic gaming in general. It wasn't all too long ago, though, so my collection is very slim: Atari 2600 with 11 games Commodore 64 with 30+ games (somewhere, haven't found them yet) NES with 10+ games PSOne with 10+ games N64 with 3 games PS2 with 10+ games Gamecube with 7+ games GBA with 15+ games Game Gear with 2 games Not so glamorous, eh? Most of it is modern consoles, I know, but I'm looking for older ones.

That looks great! I can't wait until the final version.

I'd like to know what the process is to convert the audio. The only thing I've even heard mentioned is that you have to convert the file to 4-bit audio, and even doing that's tough. Compiling it in a ROM must be even harder...

Well, even if it were fake, if someone wanted it they could probably get it off that page and make their own label....

I think it'll actually prove as decent motivation for Nintendo, to push their hardware to the limits in order to compete. And of course, we get some decent PS1 ports to a handheld system. The likelyhood that Nintendo is going to leave the handheld market, though, isn't that likely, especially with their fanbase.

I was thinking about this just a while ago. I finally decided that I'd simply pick out the 100 best games that I enjoy, and try to obtain them. I also added groups of certain games (both pitfalls, both river raids, all released swordquest games) as it gives the collection a little direction. Whatever works for you!

Apparently a loose Video Cart was going for $2000 a while back? I can only imagine what that was going for...

Ironically, for all the above reasons I think that Robot Tank is better... I just enjoy more, I guess. I'm a sucker for weather effects.

I guess it would. Can't imagine playing something like Soul Calibur II on it, though...

I'm insterested in that 3F+ scheme... it sounds very interesting, personally.

Maybe instead of playing modern controllers on older consoles, someone should make an adapter to play 2600 controllers on newer consoles...

Big bird does have two colors on one scanline, the blue against yellow is correct. His entire body is composed of two sprites, it seems, since he's that wide... But as for multicolored sprites, I still think Snoopy and the Red Baron has the best colors. Not only is Snoopy composed of black and white on the same scanline, against a blue background, but when the score is tallied all the bonus items have two colors per scanline...

Heh. I meddled in that too, out of curiosity. It was murder to find an assembler, or any info at all on the system... here's a page that I found: http://www.nyx.net/~lturner/public_html/Fa...irchild_F8.html And: http://www.nyx.net/~lturner/public_html/F8_ins.html Don't have a clue about the system itself. Try looking at some MESS source.

At least it will be better than VideoNow. Grainy, sratchy B&W videos on a tiny screen which is dwarfed by the sheer size of the player itself. More people own GBAs. At least there's a market for it, anyway...

Well, Snoopy has two colors in that image, and the black isn't part of the background. Either two sprites in one, or a ball/missile sprite were added to them...

I'd be crazy and suggest to go for FF3j, but since you've already done work on Elite, I would definitely say to go with that first.

And it's the news articles, the widespread rumors, and the theories... against the word of one programmer. Not to say HSW was wrong, but I think there should be more clarification from other Atari ex-employees before we close the book.

Hm, I how was Atari supposed to make the early 2600s? Haha... I knew that. I didn't realize they came out before 1976 though!

Krikkit is a planet from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". I was trying to think of something even partially related to "big" in a small "space", and for some reason, the thought of the universal game of Cricket in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, played with planets themselves instead of balls, came to mind. That was actually brought up in a totally unrelated subject to the planet Krikkit, but anyhow... the name sounded cool, "Krikkit Cart". And of course, that led me to the title of the book, "Hitchhiker's". ...also, if you do decide to make a 3F+ scheme, then it might be best to make it flexible for programmers who would want to use it. Just a thought, but maybe you could have the addresses $3C and $3D select the bank for the first 2k, and $3E and $3F select the scheme for the second 2k, which is normally hardwired. If anyone didn't want to use it in their games, they wouldn't have to, and if somebody wanted to take advantage of the extra power, it'd be available.

I just recently (not intentionally either) got my hands on a second-edition hardware and software book for the 6502, from 1976. I didn't even realize the 6502 came out that early...

Awesome! I was hoping a device would be released like this... surprising, I might know of an application where I would need a few K of RAM. For a name suggestion, I'd give: the Hitchhiker's Cart or the Krikkit Cart Why? It sounds cool! ...well, there was an explanation to go along with it, but it doesn't really make much sense in hindsight...

Mhmm. I just meant, even the earliest technology used at least 4-bits. And not long after that did they go up to 8. If only that was common knowledge... I know of many times where I've seen people incorrectly state one system's better than another just because of its bits, and they won't even listen when I try and explain it. Oh well.

4-bit processors were the first ones, anyhow-- the Intel 4004 was 4-bit. So anything less is just absurd (not that 4-bits is that much better, but in a sense, it is). I never really understood what "bits" meant in a system until I looked at classic systems. It's become such a mishandled term lately.

The Atari 2600 was an 8-bit system-- it had an 8-bit data bus. Same with the NES, Commodore 64, the Atari 8-bit computers, 5200, and 7800. They all used some variant of the 6502 chip. Atari has multiple versions of this chip, the 6507 being used in the 2600-- which was somewhat less powerful than a stock 6502-- and the 6502c in the 5200 and 7800-- which was somewhat more powerful. It was only the hardware and the other chips used in the console that made it more or less powerful. The processor was basically the same. As far as I know, the only time a real 6502 was used was in the 8-bit computers?

I voted for "Yes, and still play it", considering I just got my first one off EBay a few days ago.