Marius

44290 first try.

Could someone explain to me what condition green and condition yellow means? I could not find it in the documentation. And what is that warning message I get in the game? It talks to me then and I see some yellow graphics. I have no idea what it shouts... Alarm? Align? A lie?

Congratulations indeed to oracle_jedi! OH I do not mind at all that McKong knocked me off 3d position. I absolutely enjoyed Mr. Do! And TBH I was surprised that I scored so well. It only happened 3 or 4 times that I got a score higher than 200K. So if someone gets much higher, it is more than deserved to end above me. I hope Bosconian is going to be as fun as Mr. Do! was.

Could you link to the post? Post #68 does not give any instructions in that thread... Thanks! Ah I see it now, you probably meant post #62?

There are a few things to take in mind 1. When a level starts do NOT make a path to the enemies. You'd better wait for them coming to you. Use your ball wisely and make path to apples so when the enemies are close enough you can make the apple fall on one or more of them. 2. When it gets nasty try to eat the center cookie which makes every enemy stop and the letter appears. Go eat cherries then and walk in the opposite direction of the blue monsters. 3. Do collect letters as much as possible but also make sure that you have a ball ready to kill an enemy. This game is all about strategy. Most important is that you do not make too many short paths. Those creatures will always find the shortest way to you. Some scenes are easier than others. I think scene 2, 3, 4, 5, and 9 are the easiest. I find the zero extremely hard and 6, 7 and 8 are pretty hard too. The start scene (the 1) isn't the easiest as well. Although the center cookie might scare you (since those blue monsters are heading towards you) it can be a great way of creating some rest in the game. Another strategy then is to quickly first kill the pausing enemies.

Mr. Do! Is absolutely a very nice game on atari 8bit. I liked it before in HSC and I still like it. It gives me most certainly a "hehe, eat that you bastards" feeling when I can destroy several enemies with one apple. Or that "omg why was I so clumsy" feeling haha. It really thrills me, and it keeps me interested. It is a hard game too though, and success from previous tries is not at all a prove that you will succeed again. Most of the times I reach around 120K points. Every now and then I get more. But there are also times I already die way sooner. Anyway, just like Donkey Kong... Mr. Do! is really a very nice title in our a8 game collection.

Did you use the ATR of the XEX file? The XEX file does even run on my Atari 400... so it can not be that complicated to run from AtariMax cart and XEGS...

264950 Took me days to finally improve my own record. Still my biggest weakness is that I am too greedy. I should not try to get all the letters when it is too risky.

I really enjoyed being a Sysop on Atari 8bit. I must say BBS Express PRO!fessional did turn your Atari 8bit in a really powerful and fabulous system. It was (almost) an OS in itself with commands and stuff. When you did set it up right with a fast harddisk or ramdisk driver, people who called the BBS from their PC's did not believe that it did run on little atari. It was even capable of doing network-messaging and online games, and it supported 80 column width, full ansi (for callers of course). It was one of the coolest a8 experiences in my life.

You are a person who understand how things work. You can disagree about emkay a lot, and be hard in your critics, but you also recognize quality and you can be honest about that. I appreciate that a lot Stephen.

Well besides a matter of taste, there are not many people in the scene who create such an overheated discussion about music as emkay did with his contributions. That is what I meant. It is in some way very educational what the guy does.

It is an amazing and original arrangement. It's a pity the song was cut off because of the game play had to be shown in the movie too. Really creative how you turn the pong sound into a tune. Did not know it, but I understand you present it here.

@Simius do you see this notification?

Still... the discussion about who is tone deaf is not appropriate. So the discussion is still who creates the music that is the least out of tune/key. I do not understand why some people do not see the irony about that. It's like a discussion between morons who is the dumbest. Or a discussion between the top #3 people in the quote 500 or Forbes magazine who is the richest. Emkay is doing musical experiments, exploring possibilities. Do you think when I do musical experiments that the result of all those experiments do sound great? I can be clear: none of my experiments do sound good enough to present to anyone. Still the experiments and outcomes can be educational or entertaining for some. And the way I see it, is that emkay is doing just that. Even when what emkay is creating is fugly, it still is a contribution: you could learn that you want to create different music or sounds. People might wonder why am I falling for that deaf comment. Well music is my life and I am fulltime professional busy in this field. I see a lot of people stop with music due to unkind comments of other people. That needs to stop. It's always a good thing to do sound experiments. Nobody forces anyone here to press the play button.

Haha so you are deaf after all?

I also had good experiments with the 512K upgrade from Hiassoft. It was pretty easy using a GAL and a SRAM chip that could be soldered on top of OS or BASIC IIRC.

Not at all. If there is a real-life song I appreciate a lot, and I decide to make an arrangement for a musical instrument that is not suitable for replaying that song, you also can not blame the original. If Prodigy produces music that way, it means that pokey chip is not capable of replaying that. In the No Good example you hear obviously that the sound of the 'melody' and the bass-line do not merge very well. It is hard to explain in English, but you could say melody and bass are slightly incompatible here. That is one of those things pokey can not do right, so if you are a musician and use pokey as your sound-source you should prevent this kind of situations. If that is not possible, than this song can not be done on pokey.

You also could go for a Turbo Freezer. They look nice too and turn your 800xl into a 576kb XL and gives many other cool features. I personally do not see how your question did result in a C64 vs A8 discussion. I might be wrong but my troll-alert was going off by that. Anyway if you're after a 320XL you might want to change your strategy since c64 vs a8 threads do usually not win any empathy and will definitely not increase your chance of finding someone here willing to sell a 320XL ram upgrade to you.

My point seems not to be understood. When you want perfect pitched music, you do not chose pokey. So people here blaming other people for being tone deaf is a joke. You can not tell another being tone deaf, while creating music on pokey yourself... since pokey can not create perfect music. I could tell any pokey musician that he or she is tone deaf. I won't do such a thing, since I think it is an inappropriate thing to say. And again I do not see the use of it either. I love pokey music, even with all it's flaws. I like poison's work but I also encourage emkay to do his experiments. Eventually it is the tone that makes the music and calling other people deaf is not a nice tone.

Omg guys, stop with that 'deaf' insult. It makes no sense. Be honest, so the discussion here is: who can create the music that is the least out of pitch on pokey? Is this 'being deaf'actually a real argument? Almost all pokey music is terrible when it comes to pitch accuracy; yes poison your music too. From a musician's point of view I see you guys trolling about who is the most deaf. Well let me give the redeeming word. When it comes to pitch accuracy, everybody should better be deaf to be prevented hearing all this pokey-crap. What a nonsense; it really makes me angry. Pretty funny to find a Poison demo called I am Blind (which perhaps better could have had another title), whilst the music is also not that pitch accurate (listen at 0:36-0:48, 1:03, 1:34, 1:38 or 1:45 for instance, omg what were you thinking; not my idea of pitch accuracy, or being in tune in what way?) I do not blame you at all poison; this is exact what is pokey-music is all about. But you should be way more cautious calling other people deaf. It does not make any sense at all. Listen to your own stuff, and conclude. Or listen to your 'No Good' song on soundcloud (excellent title again). The first 38 seconds or so, there is definitely some intonation-problem going on there. The distance between bass and 'melody' is too large and exposing the intonation problem: there is definitely some 'floating' going on in the frequency/pitch. That is not only a flaw of pokey, but also in your arrangement... your choice as a musician. I personally do not care, but from a musician's point of view it sounds horrible. I am absolutely not after bashing you. Not at all. But you found it needed to disqualify emkay as being deaf, and then I thought: hmm the pot is calling the kettle black.

It's an interesting discussion though. Another thread brought me here. The AI in YouTube has simply one goal and that is detecting copyright infringement so the original artist can claim money. It is in no way a prove that what is heard, is in tune or key. That is a wrong redenation although I can understand. I have made a karaoke version of All of me for my music students in school. It only plays some chords (chords, even the order of chords are never bound to be copyrighted) but in combination with the title it is still marked with a copyright stamp from the UI from YouTube. Not even a melody is heard in my tune. Now back to the subject. I actually am a professional musician with a high degree from the Rotterdam Conservatory Codarts, so I may shine some light on this subject from a musician's perspective. The discussion is about intonation. When I play piano and my piano is in tune an A 440hz sounds always as A 440hz. Even when in the score of the music is a Bbb (Hbb in German) which is on the piano the same key, I hear an A 440hz. Tones do have a different harmonic function though. In an F major chord the A tone is the third while in a D major chord the A tone is the fifth. When I play the violin I have all kind of possibilities to alter the frequency of this A to fit best in the scale or harmonics. Just with 2 part singing. The voices do have to do some intonation to sound right together. So even when you put 2 singers together who sing their own part in a perfect pitch but they do not hear each other it might not sound as pleasant when you put their voices together afterwards compared to the result of them singing next to each other, hearing and listening to each other and intonate their singing. A piano is a compromise tuning called the equal temperature. This means that what you hear sounds quite ok, very ok to my ears but is from a physical point of view a non natural and constructed way of sound. Now back to pokey. I can stand pokey sound very well although it is out of tune many times. Especially in certain pitches (both bass and descant). I see it like the singing of untrained children voices. Yes you hear that they sing twinkle twinkle little star, and if you would let someone (or an AI) transcribe the notes it would go great. But if you analysed their singing on accuracy in frequencies (with a more trained ear you do not need any tool) you'll see that there is quite some wrong. Somebody already mentioned tolerance. Personally I like your tune/arrangement. I know of the limitations of pokey and sometimes I even embrace the non-tuned sound (Especially in the Overmind demo tune#1 starting directly after the thunder and lightning screen). Also in the saxophone and brass section in one of Amy Winehouse's Valerie you can hear some out-of-tune chords which I find charming (although there is discussion about this, some professional musicians think this is lack of respect for music and it always should be in tune). And do not discuss further. Your arrangement lacks all kind of intonation and is here and there out of tune. It is a fact. And since the sounds do not melt together as they do in the overmind demo this makes the "ouch-it-is-not-in-tune-experience" even worse (also because of a relative large distant between bass and melody). The question though is: is it a real problem? I wouldn't qualify pokey as a serious competitor in the music scene (although I love pokey, and Iirc there are even real music projects where pokey was used). It's an 8bit computer multipurpose chip which can also do a very nice part of sound. But come on... it is not a stradivarius violin or a steinway piano. Musicians on a8 like Miker know exactly what tones to use to make the music sound as pleasant as possible. I am 100% sure they did not use some tones sometimes because it was too much out of tune; so they picked another tone... perhaps not always the tone of their first choice from a musician's point of view but the first choice from the perspective of the limitations of the chip. Last but not least: not all original songs are equally suitable for a pokey arrangement. Some do extremely well (like the Englishman in new York in the 2048 game) and some don't. Best songs are originals on pokey. Let's not tell each other that they are deaf or something like those disqualifications. It's of no use since music enjoyment goes way further than hitting the right notes. If people were only allowed to make perfect music I could stop with my work as well. I love to sing, but I am not a professional singer and at least 1% of the notes I sing are not on the most accurate pitch. Should I mute because of that. NO! My pupils in music class LOVE music. They sing, play on all kind of instruments. Does it sound nice and on the right pitch all the time? No! Do they enjoy music? Yes! Do their audiences enjoy their music? Yes! If I remember correctly in the game 3plex emkay did the music. I have to add here that that 3plex music is excellent. I love that tune and it works very well on pokey and in the game. And it does sound pretty well in tune either. Good job emkay! I want to encourage emkay to experiment as much as possible with his music projects. To my ears he has most certainly a kind of musical talent for this. My All of me Boomwhackers arrangement: Amy Winehouse's Valerie with the out of tune sax section. Oh and here is that pretty cool emkay-song in 3plex. Very nice and pretty respectful to right pitches. I like it.

Absolutely. And he is also a very friendly and helpful guy.

Today I sent Stephen J. Carden an e-mail. I hope he will check that, and return to here. He is one of the people who could address this issue.

Well never discuss taste. Syscheck is designed I the first place as a device to check your system. It does do a very good job in that. Meanwhile it also gives xe compatible extended ram and external replacement OS's. Indeed the device is not designed to match xl or xe style. You have a pretty sharp way of telling that it is poorly designed from a visual standpoint. It simply is NOT designed from that standpoint, just like many other stuff and things in the world around us. Well it was a suggestion.

Not here, but like some people suggested here... the SysCheck II will give you also a XE compatible ram expansion, just by connecting the SysCheck II PCB to your XL/XE computer. The only thing you'll need (but that is also the case with the RAM320XL) is a +5V wire connection to joystick port 2, or a very small modification of the 800XL PCB (one wire). On a 600XL you won't need to do anything, although I am not sure the SysCheck will turn a 16K computer into a 576K XL or that you might need to upgrade base ram first. (on 600XL the +5V mod is not needed)