[It’s a miracle the nes sold like hot cakes]

20 hours ago, GoldenWheels said:

This was directly opposite to me. When the next gen system came out for me bitd, the last gen system practically became dogshit in my mind overnight. Why play 2600 or XE when you have a NES

 

Heh...my cousin gave us a Pong console, and interest in it cratered when I finally got a 2600.

[Champ Games - RobotWar: 2684 (aka Robotron:2084), 2600]

Amazing. Excellent, excellent work John!

 

Just the amount of moving things on the screen.....wow. Even Gauntlet seems possible at this point.

[Superman Hack?]

On 10/15/2019 at 6:44 PM, Nukey Shay said:

BTW flying vertically covers -almost- the entire overworld, as well (only the phone booth and river screens are absent).

 

And that "almost" is what ruined this game for me in the 80s.

[Superman Hack?]

On 10/14/2019 at 4:00 PM, guppy said:

Making Metropolis confusing and easy to get lost in makes the overworld seem larger than it really is.  It's just 21 unique screens, but to most players it feels bigger.  It's not easy to get lost in a world that is that small and isn't a maze, but they did it.  Yet, it's also possible to traverse the entire overworld just by flying horizontally. That's very slick
....

It'd be interesting to play hacks of Superman with different map layouts and see how some of them make the game easier for beginners, while at the same time limiting speedrun potential by trading non-intuitive, potentially confusing shortcuts for easier to understand, predictable topography.

Bingo. I found exactly this when I was messing around with it, and I tried different map layouts as follows:

#1) a N-S-E-W world map (non-wrapping). This works great in the middle of the map; just like Adventure or any other game...but then when you get to the edges it's a real problem. If you're all the way west, and fly off the left edge, what happens? Loop back to the other side of the same room endlessly? Go ×north or south to an adjacent edge room (which isn't super intuitive)?

#2) undersea (it was an Aquaman hack). I wanted to provide some sense of depth, so there were levels. You could fly swim horizontally through a single level and stay at the same depth. If you swam up or down you'd ascend or dive (different levels). But same problem as above. If you are at the bottom of the ocean, and swim down, what then? Staying on the same screen is boring...but anything else is confusing.

I found exactly what you said...if you simplify the map it suddenly becomes a lot less interesting with only about a 4x5 grid to work with. I tried a few tricks like holding a room or two off the grid that you can only get to by flying, say, in one  direction on one particular screen. That helps spice it up a bit, but the world still doesn't feel as expansive as in the original game.

Superman's layout frustrated the heck out of me when I was a kid, so I really wanted to "fix" it. But I've begrudgingly come to realize that it was actually done very well.

[Champ Games NEW 2600 Homebrew!]

Moon Cresta or Galaga would be amazing! Maybe he's heard me mention how much I'd love Galaga for the 2600 but I've been told that it would be unbelievably hard to do convincingly with the hardware limitations.

Ever notice the enemy attack patterns in Pleiades? I haven't looked at the code, but the enemies look like they move by consecutive predetermined coordinates. You could set up various x-y tables to simulate any movement pattern you want, and you'd get a pretty decent, though choppy, approximation of Galaga's attack patterns.

Of course that's a bit moot now. I missed this stream, but I'm sure this version works way better. Can't wait to check it out.

[Cartridge Circuit Boards - Interchangeable?]

I've gotten Atari boards in Coleco shells:

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/277458-crossover-carts-atari-titles-in-coleco-shells/

 

As Shawn said, it takes some modification. Dremel would have been good---but I used a file on both the case and a tiny bit on the board. I didn't end up needing any epoxy/glue or anything as screwing the shell back together held the board tightly in place.

 

I've heard that Parker Brothers games are challenging because the top and bottom halves are fused together not screwed, so it's tough to get them open without breaking anything. If you do a search for cartridge shells in the forum you'll find threads where the internals and mechanics are discussed.

[Dark Chambers to Gauntlet Conversion]

Partial correction...I think!

 

I've got most everything to 262 scanlines. Hopefully it works cleanly in 2player mode, but 1-player mode is at 259 scanlines now so you may experience some jitter there.

Give it a shot, see what happens.

 

Gauntlet-ScanlineFix1.bin

[Champ Games - Wizard of Wor Arcade - 2600]

Great to see this!!!

Nukey did some amazing work with that hack....and we were so close to a finished game!! But in the end, it would still have been just a hack--can't wait to see a new WoW programmed from the ground up with the latest technology.

[Dark Chambers to Gauntlet Conversion]

Gauntlet is definitely one of my all time favourite games and it's awesome to see it on the VCS, love it CDS Games, great work! We're broadcasting an all hacks special LIVE on ZeroPage Homebrew tonight and we'll be featuring your hack of Gauntlet 2600!!

 

Thanks!! I was able to watch a bit of the show...sorry about the freezes and glitches, this is the first I've ever heard of that happening. So it's a scanline issue?

[Make Carla Meninsky proud.... somebody finish 2600 Tempest!]

We had a month of craziness around here....multiple hospital stays, a car accident. Completely nuts. I dunno when I'll be back to messing around with Atari stuff.

 

Let me ask a question though....if you could get Tempest with just one screen rather than 4 different screens, would that be worth a release? Let's say the V screen since that seems to be OP's favorite.

[Donkey Kong 2: Lost Levels]

No, no updates. If I do I will post.

[Donkey Kong 2: Lost Levels]

I can't figure out what I am doing wrong. I can get on a ride up the elevator and I can get on and ride down the elevator, But no matter what I try, I can't get off the the down elevator without it killing me.

 

Which version? The one with invisible elevators? Start your jump when you are exactly at the level of the platform you are jumping onto. There's I think a four pixel allowance, but if you jump at the same level you should make it to the platform ok.

[The backgrounds in Double Dragon]

The backgrounds are drawn in 3 main sections. So in the screen that Darrell posted, the little top windows are part of the first section--two sprites, playfield, and background colors. Then the second "main" section that has the garage door and the columns. Again it uses two sprites, playfield, and background colors. And then the third "sidewalk" section that just consists of background colors. Since the action doesn't take place up that high, the program can spend the available cycles just drawing each section in great detail.

 

Then below the sidewalk where the actual game play takes place, the background switches to a single invariant color.

 

It's very cleverly done, and I agree with you....the background graphics on this title are excellent. It's just frustrating that the player characters looked shoddy in comparison.

[Make Carla Meninsky proud.... somebody finish 2600 Tempest!]

Turns out I was wrong in the first post on that thread....the Tempest prototype was not written by Carla, at least according to Carla.

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/251026-fixing-the-tempest-proto/?p=3650346

 

It's actually not that far from done. Most of the good stuff is already in there. As I left it there was a level problem--once that is fixed, then we can set up a bankswitching scheme. Once that works, the rest is just level design and getting the movement tables right, which is tedious but conceptually easy.

 

Maybe I will post the problem in the Programming forum, see if anyone wants to help with the specific issue that's holding me up. Believe me, I'd love to finish it myself and have something tangible in return for the time I spent messing with it.

[Broadside (Combat hack) Atari 2600 carts]

Ok, I think we've reached critical mass for a new run, so I'll be ordering more boards. Give me a few weeks to get everything together and I'll IM everyone who was interested with more details.

 

Thanks everyone!

[Broadside (Combat hack) Atari 2600 carts]

I am out of EPROMS at the moment, but I can have some more made if there are enough pre-orders to cover the cost.

[How do you implement X07 (Atariage) Bankswitching?]

I'm trying to implement X07 bankswitching. I've consulted the guide (see below), and it's still not clear to me which address I should be calling. I've also stepped through an X07 ROM and seen that the different banks are called with LDA $1FEx. But then when I add that to my 64k ROM I get nothing.

Can someone give me the quick scoop on how to set it up and what values to use?

 

Thanks!

 

X07 (Atariage)
-----
Apparently, this was only used on one cart: Stella's Stocking.
Similar to EF, there are 16 4K banks, for a total of up to 64K of ROM.

The addresses to select banks is below the ROM area, however.

The following TWO masks are used:

A13 A0
---------------
0 1xxx nnnn 1101

This means the address 80B selects bank 0, 81B selects bank 1, etc.

In addition to this, there is another way:

A13 A0
----------------
0 0xxx 0nxx xxxx

This is somewhat special purpose: Accessing here does nothing, unless one of the last two banks are selected (banks 14 or 15). In that case, the new bank is:

111n i.e. accessing 0000 will select bank 14 (Eh, 1110b) while accessing 0040 will select bank 15 (Fh, 1111b). This allows for bankswitching by accessing TIA registers at 00-3F or 40-7F without incurring any overhead.

 

 

[Crossover Carts: Atari titles in Coleco shells]

They are definitely a pain. The labels are really stuck on there and don't come off, and Atari boards won't fit in there without modifying either the board or the case.
I don't blame Al for not wanting to go through that.

[Crossover Carts: Atari titles in Coleco shells]

I had some extra Coleco shells and Atari boards and thought maybe I should try to put them together. Threw in a bit of graphics work for good measure, and here's what came out:

 

Yes they are playable!

 

This was a lot of fun....I really like how Coleco incorporated the arcade marquees in their titles. I'll definitely be giving some other games this treatment as well.

[Label variant fight: Which one is your preferred label variant and why?]

For the Atari, my label variants are all chosen as if I had been buying the games as soon as they came out. So the Launch 9 games are the text labels with the Dewey Decimal numbering. Then all the games that first appeared as text labels are collected in that form. Then the relatively small set of games that were first published as picture labels, then silver labels, then red labels are the ones that were only published as reds. With the red labels, if the game was first published by another vendor, then I do not collect the Atari version.

 

This is about what I do: the classic/representative titles of each Atari label type. If it came out as a text label and its a 70s style game with a blocky scoreboard then I'd prefer it as a text. For red labels I only am looking for original reds, not rereleases.

 

I do have some duplicates...I have the text and pic labels in rainbow order on the shelf so I'll go out of my way for unusual colors like purple.

[Broadside (Combat hack) Atari 2600 carts]

The last two Broadside carts are now spoken for. I don't currently have plans to make more, but I would consider reordering EPROMS if there is sufficient interest and I can cover the cost of having more made.

 

And if you've already ordered, keep an eye out here for news that should interest CIB collectors.

[Broadside (Combat hack) Atari 2600 carts]

I have just two more carts and manuals left, after shipping out the second batch. Thanks to everyone who ordered! I hope you're enjoying the cart.

 

I'm not sure if I will be reordering new EPROMS anytime soon, so if you still want in, now's your chance!

[Who is the Commavid artist ?]

Looking at the boxes in my collection, I think the artist's name is Noel Berry.

 

I think you got it Zwackery! What looked like the "h" part of "Nash" is actually just part of the capital "B". It probably is actually a lowercase l.

 

Could you post a high-res photo?

[Who is the Commavid artist ?]

Played with the image a bit to get that last name:

 

[Who is the Commavid artist ?]

Looks to me most like an initial N: "Nash B----". Cursive Z possible but that typically has a loop at the bottom. "J" seems really unlikely....at least the way we were taught cursive.