Marius

This is a game that you can both love and hate at the same time. I really enjoyed it and I loved the personal improvements I made. But... on the other side after a certain screen the barrel screen appears to be so random that it feels like impossible not to "die". It is that randomness that I hate/dislike. Sometimes the barrel screen is a piece of cake. You can go upstairs without too much trouble. And the other moment the barrels just roll and fall in a way that it is really frustrating. Especially when you almost made it and then bump with your head against a barrel on the floor above you. So yes. I think this is absolutely one of the cooler and better games on a8 but also the one that does frustrate me a lot.

By the way, I took the Sleepy version of the Turbo-Basic XL 1.5 manual, and in that manual is exact the same mistake.

@Mathy Thanks for your reply. You might have overlooked it, but I did use APA-style referencing to make clear that I was using the original Wil Braakman edition. I love the Wil Braakman edition from the day I bought it. It's a nice looking book in a great format. I should check out sleepy's edition indeed! Good advice. I have it too.

My daughter and I love DynaKillers (unchained in case of multijoy). Mashed Turtles is indeed cool. And Blip! And Shot'em All. The Goonies has a nice co-OP feature. Just like Zybex. Joust and Mule of course and what you say Castle Crisis is amazing. I also love Astro4 Roads. Some of these games might not run at all on 800/400.

Yes I like this game too. It looks and sounds so awesome. I have seen worse games on Atari ST. It is a true masterpiece. Just like the Space Harrier port!

Thanks for the explanation! This is very interesting. Great to get so much insight. I am in PAL land. After I read your post, I tried a few things, but still I do not get the right value out of any formula. A pure "A"-tone is 440Hz. So how do I calculate what the 16-bit pokey value should be to let the pokey play 440Hz? 1773446/(2*440+7)? This is approx 1999.... But when I DSOUND that value, the tone is too high (higher than 440Hz). It should be around 2017. Probably I am doing something wrong....

First of all, this is really great. It is always cool when people get inspired by some classic and make a complete remake. Very nice. On thing though... the planet is called Fractalus by a reason, and I must say... the mountains do not look like fractals anymore, while they do in the a8 version. Perhaps that is something for version 1.0? Or am I thinking too far now?

Hi All, Seriously, I have no idea what is happening here. I am working on a TURBO BASIC program that will let the user exercise their (relative) ear. It is planned to test intervals melodic and harmonic and probably a few other things. To come as close as possible to the wanted frequency (I have really a sensitive and precise ear) I use 16-bit pokey registers in stead of 8bit. Downside is that I only can play 2 tones together, but ok... Perhaps I might decide later to go to the 8bit 4# voice capabilities of pokey. Earlier today I found that DSOUND 0,4020,10,10 would produce a perfect 220Hz A and and DSOUND 0,2008,10,10 would produce a perfect 440Hz A. I was very happy with the results, I saved my program to disk and that was that. Now I fired up the Atari with Turbo Basic and I was playing again with the DSOUND command and I was not as satisfied as I was earlier today. I was like: hmm it is not right. So I started playing again with it and I found different values. After checking: DSOUND 0,4028,10,10 gives the perfect 220Hz A DSOUND 0,2017,10,10 gives the perfect 440Hz A DSOUND 0,1001,10,10 gives the perfect 880Hz A Ok it is not really a big difference, but still, I was not as close as I would have thought. So my 2 questions are: How stable is this anyway? Can I assume that pokey in 16bit modus produces a steady frequency or does it fluctuate (when colder/warmer) or is it a different part on the PCB that might have influence on the frequency? (Like the audio-out circuit)? I am using the speaker of my television set, so it is not directly what comes out of pokey. In the Turbo Basic Manual by Wil Braakman I read a formula: "de berekende frequentie in HERZ nu 1789790 / (2*freq+14) bedraagt. De frequentie bedraagt dan 16 bit (0 . . . . 65535)" (Braakman, 1988, p. 3-36). This means that the 16bit pokey value for 440Hz would be: 1789790 / (2*440+14) is approx. 2002 which is closer to my earlier find of 2008, and than my newer find of 2017. It seems that either this formula is wrong, or my ears/tuner-app. My personal findings using ear and tuner-app come way more close to 220Hz, 440Hz and 880hz than this formula. Is there a better formula somewhere? Or is there something else wrong? Or do I ask too much of a formula anyway? I am really interested in this stuff, I hope someone can help. Marius -- Braakman, W. (1988). TURBO BASIC XL 1.5 MANUAL. 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands: Stichting Atari Gebruikers.

Lol but now it is a tie between Gyruss, Yoomp and Mr. Do. My order is then: 1. Mr. Do 2. Yoomp 3. Gyruss Mr. Do feels like one of those ideal HSC games.

If it's a tie please let it be Yoomp then. Yoomp is awesome!

Oh I am SO proud. For the first time in YEARS I managed to reach 125m. 111700 points. Pfff. More luck than wisdom though. I managed to survive the extremely hard barrel screen. The rest of the screens is easier for me (well the bakery is harder too).

So far I never made it higher than my last score. It is quite 'frustrating' (in a good way) ... Most of the time I already in screen #3 (that is when you get the barrels again). That is for me the moment to press START again. I do not want to die so soon, otherwise I will NEVER get to a higher score. Do you guys recognize this, that you press START in this game before you lost all your lives?

As a professional musician I can add that it is not likely to have a midi thru on a computer side. The Atari ST did not even have a midi thru. Midi thru is a way to link more musical instruments, which can also be done be crisscrossing in and out (and a setting in the musical device/instrument) or to use the midi thru on the musical device/instrument. Is there a good usuable reason to add midi thru on an atari midi interface then? By the way.... if someone would write a REAL sequencer (like cubase) where people could record multiple tracks separately and then play them back together (or even cooler playback a track and record a new one) then I would be highly interested in that. I got rid of all my ST's by donating them to a friend but tbh I wished I kept 1 or 2 ST's for cubase. Much more fabulous would it be, to be able to do this with a8 of course.

This is one of the most important things that is on top of my wishlist for myIde (or MyBIOS to be more specific). APT is amazing and should be supported by any mass storage device in A8 land.

Actually a good thing still after all these years I love MyIDE.

That is seriously bizarre. But I agree with you that things are not always as simple as I sometimes think they are. The world is a weird place isn't it?

Seriously? Well it is silly indeed. And wrong.

So let me get this straight. Lotharek asks 21.12 euros more for a SIDE2 with FJC firmware, but does NOT pay you 21.12 euros for every SIDE2 + FJC FIRMWARE he sells? Huh? What? So you write a fabulous piece of firmware for U1MB, or in the case of my example for SIDE2. ... Lotharek both offers SIDE2 with, and without your fabulous firmware. Lotharek asks more money for the SIDE2 with your firmware, but does not pay all of that to you? If I buy a SIDE2, I will pay you 21.12 euros for every non FJC-SIDE2 I buy from Lotharek then. I think your firmware is one of the key features of U1MB and SIDE2. That does deserve a proportionate reward, well... that is my opinion.

Thanks for your detailed answer Dropcheck. I understand what you write!

Did you see in my initial post that I already mentioned that. This time I got the impression that it is about a single-person operation. Since she gives insight in the challenges a designer do face, I gave the suggestion to do cooperation again. I do not say it will go wrong, definitely not... but when I am honest, I see quite some half-baked expansions and other 'gadgets' in the atari 8bit scene, and from that point of view I see: please people more cooperation.

I tend to agree although I can not imagine someone in the end wants to win this game/round by doing this. I personally do not care. I want to conquer as much as possible fields and I am less interested in the points. So I would say: leave it to the player. As long people do not use freezer / save state I am fine.

Hence my advice to Dropcheck to work together. There are so many bright lights in this scene capable of great things... but people stay in their own bubble way too much. I am pretty sure a cooperation project is what we need right now.

Haha I love it. I would call it a feature.

Try to get a firmware upgrade now. Even when you keep it 5.25" (which I did too).... stock xf551 has a few troubles that you won't like eventually. One of the biggest problems is that it does not detect density changes once you switch disks (with different densities). Perhaps a new firmware is already there. You can tell by simply leave the drive open (no disk inserted and the handle to open) and boot the atari. If a short menu with a few characters appears you'll already have hyperXF installed.

Great picks. I remember we played Mr. Do a few years ago. I never played it before HSC and due to HSC I really started to LOVE this game. It is actually one of my most favorite games. I also picked Blue Max 2001. I remember this one from my youth. I actually loved the pretty 'sad' tune. It's beautiful. I am not so good at BM2001. So perhaps this HSC can help me getting better in it.