jdrose

"placing it inside a box protector" Where can you buy box protectors?

The author shows the problem with the cart starting at 1:40 into the video. Since Space Invaders works fine I would say that your console and TV are OK. Perhaps the exposed traces on the cartridge should be carefully and gently cleaned. However, looking at other messages in the forum, some River Raid II cartridges are known to have compatibility issues with sixers for some reason. Some blamed it on thin cartridge PCBs used by Activision. Others say it is a bank switch issue. When you get a chance try your cartridge on a non-6 switch console and see what happens.

"We got a morgue full of corpses, there's nothing crazier than that!" Great line. I can see it now. The player is an evil knight with a sword and the score is the body count. I think picking the 2600 is a great choice. Definitely retro and it has a very large player base. Probably the biggest of any retro console. I hope you get the game developed. Keep us up to date.

Interesting. Did you develop this in bBasic or Assembly? How are you determining where the walls of the maze are? Collision detection, position or something else? I like how the player overlaps the wall by just a touch. Makes movement more fun.

Phoenix is by far my favorite Atari VCS 2600 game. Other favorites include Defender II, Missile Command and Wall Defender.

"I think you will really like the phat sound on the TIA! It's a flexible chip and difficult to emulate completely." Yes. I definitely notice the difference in sound quality that is generated by the 7800. Nice.

Phoenix is definitely my favorite game for the 2600. I got my Atari console yesterday and I have to say that it is even more fun playing on real hardware. Perhaps it is my imagination, but it seems smoother and reacts better than an emulator. High score so far is only 31,870. I noticed at least one player has rolled Phoenix. I wonder if the Phoenix code could be modified to keep score to 7 figures?

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. I finally got an Atari 7800 yesterday. I went with the 7800 because, as mentioned above, it is like getting two consoles in one. After using 2600/7800 emulators on the PC I think I got used to the sharp graphics. I am surprised at how lo-res and difficult the games are to see when using the RF modulator and antenna input on the TV. I think my first mod is going to be composite output. :-)

DiStella can currently be found here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/distella/?source=dlp

That is a good question. Clearly the VCS needs a Galaga type of game. With ship capture and challenging stages essential. Games like Phoenix and Galaxian on the VCS hint at the possibility of a Galaga type game being technically feasible. The challenging stages would be straightforward to implement without using too much memory. No AI involved, the offenders stick to a predetermined route. Setting up the offender flock for main screen gameplay would use predetermined routes as well. You would need logic for up to 4 offenders coming down from the flock to attack and logic to determine when to drop a capture offender. If a programmer could get around the difficulties of flickering and producing some cool sound FX the logic of the game itself would not be all that complicated. The original Galaga allowed two defender projectiles to be in the air at once (four if you had two bases.) I think that is another thing that is essential, it makes the game much more lively and fun. The 6507 can address up to 8K. That allows for quite a bit of machine language code actually. It might be doable.

If you have a 6502 Assembler cartridge for the VIC20 you don't want I would be happy to take it off your hands. Thanks.

What do you recommend? What is your opinion of the "2600.emu" app that is currently available at Google Play? Thank you.

I have always wondered about that. Space Invaders and Phoenix, for example, have a large number of objects moving at the same time. Must be some tricks to get around the 2600s apparent limitations for objects in motion.

Phoenix, Frogger and Pitfall.

Thanks. I like CC65. It is a handy 6502 C cross compiler that includes an assembler as well. My gut feeling is dB would produce tighter code because it is optimized for the Atari 2600. However, I much prefer C to BASIC. May have to develop some libraries for CC65 and see the difference in program size. 4K is precious little to work with. Gotta conserve every byte.

Hello, I was wondering if there are any libraries for the Atari 2600 that were developed for C compilers that produce native 6502 code such as DVC or Ace for example. Wondering if a C compiler could produce tighter code than the BASIC compiler?

I appreciate your enthusiasm. Personally, I would rather see game programmers spending their precious time on developing their own original games.

Outstanding!

Pardon me. I meant to write TIA instead of RIOT.

Good question. bBasic is a great language and I appreciate the effort that went into it. I used it to get familiar with the RIOT. However, it is not the native language of the 6507, thus it is a barrier between you and the processor. In my opinion, I would say just dive in and learn 6507. It has a very small instruction set and is not difficult to learn at all. Though it does take months or years to master. Also it is really important to learn 6507 so you can make code as small and elegant as possible. It is also possible to know what is going on with the 6507 to the cycle. That's important in the VCS environment.

Impressive.

Sounds like an interesting project. I think your picture quality will be better using the FB2 board as your engine. Who ever designed the Flashback 2 had some fun doing it because it was made to be modded. The pc board is fully labeled, including traces for a cartridge port! The pc board is small enough to be embedded into just about anything you can think of. People have made some cool portable 2600s based on the FB2. Anyway, someone might be thinking of the original Flashback and Flashback 3 regarding emulation. I have a Flashback 2 and I am fairly certain it is a 2600 on a chip. The games look and run just like the original games. Most likely executing the original code.

Very cool. I am inclined to think that 1/50 is essentially priceless?

Me too. I am thinking BLT with fat free mayo and a small glass of diet Dr. Pepper on the rocks. Yummy!

The vendor says they are the author. A most interesting lot. 42 bidders so far. eBay Auction -- Item Number: 200738765114 Your thoughts?