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Andromeda Stardust

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Posts posted by Andromeda Stardust

  3. Posted

    With your "don't" this and "don't" that and "don't" the other...get over yourself and your own self-importance.

    who died and made YOU God? - oh yes of course, how silly of me - YOU DID

     

    happy new year.

     

    I believe you misread my post. I do not blaspheme.

     

    Your argumentative attacks against me and the op you quoted show that you lack reading comprehension and critical analysis. You got called out on it and retort with punitive insults because you have no case. Good day to you sir.

  4. Posted

     

    LOL. Scramble is easier than its sequel Super Cobra.

    Didnt you get the booty in Super Cobra?

    Scramble is easier and you just need to destroy the thing at the end, not capture it: :)

    I have successfully destroyed the target on the NES ported version (Khan Games), and in the Atari 2600 version (only on "easy" mode) in Scramble. The NES port lacks difficulty settings and matches normal mode on the 2600 port, but has smoother scrolling which helps in the final stages. Also the starfield background option is missing from the NES version (which was ported based on assets from the public 2600 beta ROM), but adds Achievements and on-cart high score saving using the Memblers flash based GT-ROM. I eventually earned all of the NES achievements except make it through the game without dying. I seemed to always die at least one time somewhere... :dunce:

     

    I also have the 7800 game on the PMP multicart but never played it much as I ironically liked the 2600/NES versions better. I'm weird like that with certain games. The trick to mastering the 6th zone is to move the joystick between straight forward and reverse diagonal during the narrow vertical corridors. The ship will retreat at the same speed as the maze when throttled backwards, giving just enough time to zip up and down the vertical maze segments.

     

    I did get to the "booty" on Super Cobra Arcade a handful of times (using multiple continues to do it), but was never able to collect it without crashing into the walls. Also while the final area loops if you miss the "booty" in Super Cobra Arcade same as Scramble, if you don't collect it on the second pass, you will die from fuel depletion before you get a third attempt. Unlike Scramble, there are no fuel stations in the final zone.

     

    I did have the Super Cobra game by Parker Brothers in my collection but never played it (I originally thought it was a J.I. Joe thing) prior to learning about Super Cobra Arcade. It is a very well built game considering tech what was available in the early 1980s, a bit choppier and certainly not as detailed graphically, but still very playable.

     

    I feel greatful we have three versions of Scramble across three platforms, and two different Atari 2600 versions of Super Cobra. I love comparing commercial and homebrew ports of arcade games across multiple systems.

    • Like 1

  5. Posted

    Hey everyone, last day of 2018 and I have an unfortunate update.

     

    [...]

    RnV_Cartridge_7800_640x480.jpg

    Thanks for your understanding.

    Happy New Years!

    Better to fix the bugs now than after they are shipped... :ponder:

     

    Your cartridge is beautiful btw... :lust:

    • Like 1

  6. Posted

    It's 2019... Almost a year since the first announcement of the DAC... I really hope it hasn't become vaporware at this point.

    I would personally rather them work on a new console like Turbografx or Atari. I've got all the oldish hardware and only have CRTs which support RF and Composite. And around 90% of consumer grade CRTs ever sold in the USA didn't support anything higher than S-Video.

    • Like 2

  7. Posted

     

    I didn't accuse you of anything. where do you get that idea? you're clearly a little touchy about it. I made a friendly suggestion as to how to consider the way you word things on public forums. i don't have any ongoing problems with you. You're far too sensitive about this if you think you're even a dot on the radar. My issue is with comments like those you made. This is 2018, not 1978! - try (for a change) to address your own attitude instead of deflecting blame at the person who raises a valid point.

    who you employed (colour, religion, sex) is not relevant and doesn't make your comment okay. the only point is your comment is inappropriate.

     

    however, your reply has just made my point perfectly. You back up your first sexist comment with another.

     

    Perhaps if you'd referred to "someone else you knew who couldn't operate a computer" who happened to be male, then you may have a point. But using another female as evidence only goes to make your original comment more blinkered.

     

    stop trying to be a social justice warrior for some office pc luddite back in '78 who happened to be female and was treated very well for the time. people like you are the reason industry pioneers like bushnell (who did employ women developers at a time when female programmers were unheard of) missed out on awards, but all people rave about are the pot smoking hot tub parties, which btw were not mandatory but many male and female employees voluntarily attended. take a step back and view history in context won't you? dont fault someone because the values they held 40 odd years ago clash with the current status quo. dont cry out "mee too" unless you were there or shared similar life experiences. you are obviously too young to be around in '78, much less managed a department then. people do grow and do change. i would certainly hope i do not share the same values now at 38 (will be next month) that i did at 18 twenty years ago. the poster likewise does not share the same values from 40 years ago, before my time and yours.

    • Like 2

  8. Posted

    it is a fun challenging game if a bit frustrating. the time limit is too short. the game is constantly trying to knock you off and nothing is more frustrating than making it too the top with seconds to spare then getting bumped halfway down. i wish there was a timer cheat for the game, then it would be more enjoyable...

  9. Posted

    Well for a 17-year-old I'd say I'm doing pretty well at the moment.

    I've got somewhere in the ballpark of 135-140 cartridges with mostly common titles, but my two latest additions were Road Runner (an R6) And The Music Machine (an R10)! It may be a Kaboom! rip-off, but so is Eggomania.

    ...And, between you and me... I prefer Eggomania to Kaboom!

    Welcome to the forum. I think my rarest cart is Bumper Bash. I have piles of carts I rarely play anymore, well because work and stuff. :P

  10. Posted

    Just curious, does JI Joe work with hybrid 3-player mode Joystick +Paddles?

    http://atariage.com/manual_html_page.php?SoftwareLabelID=210

    THE PADDLES AND JOYSTICK CONTROLLERS

    ------------------------------------

     

    Plug a set of paddles firmly into the LEFT controller Jack. The paddle

    on the LEFT controls the red shield and red gun turret. The paddle on

    the RIGHT controls the blue shield and blue gun turret. In a one-

    player game, use the LEFT paddle.

     

    Use the paddle to maneuver your shield from LEFT to RIGHT between the

    two gun turrets. To fire your missiles, keep the fire button pressed

    down. The missile will explode automatically. To direct the missile

    toward your target, turn the paddle dial LEFT or RIGHT accordingly.

     

    Plug the Joystick firmly into the RIGHT controller jack. The Joystick

    controls the Cobra in the two-player competitive and three-player

    games, only.

     

    Use the Joystick to maneuver the Cobra LEFT and RIGHT. Press the fire

    button in order to drop venom. Move the Joystick DOWN in order to

    shoot a laser beam.

  11. Posted

    Yeh, in theory, an analog monitor should be able to do any vertical or horizontal scan frequencies within it's range. So arbitrary vertical resolutions should be possible, as well as non-standard frame rates.

     

    And as there is no pixel clock or anything in analog video, the horizontal resolution just rolls off softly, being only a function of how quickly the beam can turn on/off in response to the signal, just like the high frequency response of a sound system. The monitor couldn't care less how many "pixels" there are horizontally, it doesn't know what a pixel is, there's no such thing in analog, all there is is scanning a varying strength signal across a screen. Again, similar to how audio speakers don't care how high the bit rate of the sound file was before it went through a DAC.

    I wish I'd never gotten rid of the Viewsonic crt but cest la vie. An hdmi to vga would warrant experimentation.

     

    I am aware there are names for all the supported video standards, ie vga, svga, etc. There is a wikipedia page with numbers and it is astounding.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_resolution

    Vga monitors do report the supported standards but you are free to try and force the video card or device to send over anything and the monitor will attempt to display it or pop up an "out of range" error.

     

    My flat panel Samsung Syncmaster 1600x1200 from 2005 will display 1920x1080p60 over dvi single or dul link despite it exceeds the built in horizontal resolution. It also displays 1280x720p, again in 4x3 squished aspect. However because my dvi monitor does not expressly support widescreen resolutions, and has no audio capability, I cannot use it with Analogue or Retrousb fpga consoles with sound because my monoprice splitter (which I use to siphon audio) refuses to push unsupported display resolutions, resulting in no picture.

  12. Posted

    From a player's perspective, it's extremely odd. :) Apart from Blackjack and G.I. Joe, I don't know of any other multiplayer games--on ANY console--that support a maximum of three players.

    I gotta check out GI Joe, sounds like a real oddball.

     

    Bomberman II is another 3-player game (NES via Four Score and Famicom with auxiliary P1 controller).

     

    Technical mumbo-jumbo regarding NES and Famicom multiplayer support:

     

    Third party external Player 1 controllers were common enough on Famicom, though two player controller adapters using a Y cable, piggyback, or hardwired were rarer. I have a Hudson Joycard controller. Very nice feel to it.

     

    The vast majority of Famicom games, and many Japanese developed NES games ported from Famicom, mirror the inputs on Data1 to equal that of Data0. This means that external controllers plugged into the Famicom expansion port could work with existing Famicom games. I believe Super Mario Bros USA (Japan release of Super Mario Bros 2 which was a port of Doki Doki Panic with Mario characters) is one of those rare Famicom carts that doesn't support external controllers. Many western developed NES games (including unlicensed and homebrew) do not read Data1 inputs from the external port either.

     

    Later on 4-player Famicom games came about which used these inputs as player 3 and 4. Bomberman II only supported three players by using a single expansion controller as a third input. It retained this mode on four score when ported to the US. The four score device for nes multiplexed the data0 inputs on the controller ports (data1 pins are inaccessible on an nes controller port) so 4-player NES games will not operate properly on a Famicom and visa-versa. AVS and NT-Mini have menu options for switching 4-player multiplayer modes between Four Scote and Famicom.

     

    Also Legend of Zelda Triforce Heroes for 3DS, which got poor reviews because it did not support two player at all and required 3 systems for multiplayer (even with one game cart), and the AI players in single player mode were dumb and repetitive.

     

    And yeah, necro-bump time... :dunce:

  13. Posted

    They worked properly as right and left paddles in the SVAII and Gemini if you used the paddle switch on the console. Either way, they still sucked IMHO. I gut them to make 5200 paddles. :)

    I have a gemini and wasn't even aware it used a JS/paddle switch. The stock paddles and sticks work fine on it... :P
    • Like 1

  14. Posted

    Well then you bought the wrong ones. Plenty of crt tvs out there at free prices. Tell me how your light guns work on your splatscreens?

    :P

    I still have a crt in my bedroom I have no plans to get rid of. And that "shoot the dog" VS Duckhunt Repro from RetroUSB. And a Nintendo Zapper, Camerica Video Blaster (Famicom revolver clone), an XE light gun, Sega Phasor, and a Super Scope. Still don't have the Sega Menacer or the Lethal Enforcers stuff. Too many competing standards in the 16-bit era and not much games that utilized them. Yoshi's safai is fun though if a bit easy... :P
    • Like 1

  15. Posted

    Thanks! That's actually the artwork from my 18-year-old daughter who will be a Graphic Design major at Nicholls St Univ in August! She is currently in the gifted art program for the parish and at her high school. I gave her screenshots of all of the Christmas games and asked her to try and keep it looking "8-Bit". The cover is what you see that she hand drew, along with the Stay Frosty snowman who is on the back cover. She also came up with that catch phrase on her own too!

    Awesome. You're from LA too. I hail from the 318 area (Shreveport). :cool:
    • Like 1

  16. Posted

    If the console is outputting to a flat panel (LCD, OLED, Plasma, etc.), the color blend factor is lost. The likely better option outputting to those displays is S-Video (if available) for a cleaner, sharper image it typically provides over composite.

    Have any flat panels manufactured in the last 5 years if not 10 support S-Video? My TCL Roku (purchased March 2018) is composite, RF, and HDMI only. Even the 2-in-1 Component ports are gone now...

  18. Posted

    Can't analog monitors just sync to any hscan as long as it's in range? There is no standard horizontal resolution with analog monitors. 720p is in between 600p (800x600) and 768p (1024x768). So I assume it would have worked but I've never tested it.

     

    I did slightly "overclock" my old Syncmaster (max resolution 1280x1024 60Hz) by forcing 1400x1050 60Hz so it's not out of the question that some monitors might handle up to 1080p. 1200p displayed "unusable signal". Definitely if the monitor supported 1600x1200 at 60hz it should be possible.

     

    Aspect ratios would be fubar obviously.

  19. Posted

    I honestly have no idea. I know there was a unit somewhere that had a twistable stick. There were so many cloned Atari products bitd that it makes my head spin.

    One modern example I know of: The Jakk's Pacific Ms Pacman plug-n-play joystick (early 2000s) had a self centering twist knob for Pole Position. I picked mine up for 50 cent at a garage sale.41%2BugPjlPmL._SY355_.jpg

    I guess I was thinking of the Atari 2800 / Sears Video Arcade II controllers. That was an official 1st party combo stick, not that the cheese eatin' surrender monkeys squattin' on the brand would know anything about it. It's astounding they don't even do their research on the past products they're trying to crib. I'm sure it will work just like the 5200 controller. LMAO.

     

    CJFFHWJUEAAy5Is.jpg

    videoarcadeii04.jpg

    videoarcadeii05.jpg

    That is the exact device I was thinking of in my post. Internet sleuths to the rescue! 8)

     

    More info:

    http://atariage.com/forums/topic/250307-why-does-the-sears-video-arcade-ii-have-four-controller-ports/

     

    Fun fact: some games like video olympics use the right paddle so they won't work with it in stock configuration. If one wanted to get the paddle function, they could easily mod the controller with a toggle switch or internally rewire one button.

  20. Posted

    If you CRT support HD resolutions you can use the SuperNT use a HDMI to VGA adapter then a VGA to component transcoder. This should introduce no lag, I have my SuperNT connected to my XM2950 via a HDMI to VGA adapter. You may want to take a look at the MiSTer project, the SNES core while not perfect is already pretty good and you can output scaled HDMI and 240p in component, RGBS or RGBHV at the same time. FPGA console like this are about preserving and reimplementation of hardware not specifically about just using using HDMI. In the MiSTer community there are people that say you are stupid if you want to use old CRTs because newer is better and we are dumb purist who should stick with their orginal. This was even the opinion of one of the primary authors fortunately being a community it's not just one person's mindset. Analogue's products are targeted toward the prosumer, enough of us have dollar that demand a DAC/high quality analog situation to not take our money would just be bad business sense. CRT, especially professional users are most likely going to have the most disposable income for novelty items as such.

    Another possibility, if you have a good late 90s - early 2000s era computer CRT laying around, hook the HDMI to VGA adapter up to that. 720p should be supported by most monitors, and even some max resolution 1024 line / 60fps monitors might accept a 1080p signal with slight vscan overclock, given 10% component tolerances of analog devices. You will want to stretch the picture to maximum width.

     

    1280x720p with 5x3 integer pixel multipliers would be ideal. The monitor will squish the widescreen format into a 4x3ish aspect ratio by default, plus there are vertical and horizontal adjustments to get the picture to fill the screen without cropping. Light guns might be possible on a svga or higher CRT, but I doubt it.

     

    I wish I'd never gotten rid of that beautiful 19" Viewsonic CRT now that I think about it... :dunce:

  21. Posted

    @Pacman Plus: I do not know how many colors you have left to work with in the palette, however maze walls are typically one color for the border and another color for the filled in parts. The mazes that render portions of the walls invisible or alternate colors would assign the third unused color to this effect (assuming the available sprite colors are transparent plus three additional colors like NES). The alternate colored maze parts would need a unique tile set but they could share the color palette of the standard tiles. Either the borders would remain the same and the interiors change color, or the interiors remain the same and the borders change color.

     

    So if the background color is black, you could set the border color to black as well and use alternate colors for the interior walls, or leave the wall interiors hollow and use alternating colors for the borders. One caveat to using colored borders with hollow walls is sometimes the RF only or composite modded consoles will bleed the colors a bit, marring the image. My TCL does this with my 7800 but ironically not CRTs. Alternating the solid color inside the walls might be a better strategy. But I don't know what your assignments are for colors.

     

    If the pac pellets or text utilize the third color assignment on a shared palette with the wall graphics, rather than an independent palette assigned to pellets and text, that would complicate things somewhat.

    • Like 1

  22. Posted

    Some comments of mine:

     

    When testing the last binary, I also ran through a non-blue ghost once or twice. But I think this is also able to happen on the original Pac-Man machines... don't know if it's possible on Baby Pac-Man though.

    If the pacman maze engine is similar to other games, this behavior is expected.

     

    Pacman uses a nearest neighbor approach to determine collision detection. When Pacman and ghost are travelling in opposite directions, and both cross a tile boundary simultaneously such that neither share the same tile on the same frame, collision detection will fail. Because the Pacman engines Bob used in Pacman Collection have a lower resolution tile size on the 7800 (4 horizontal x 6 vertical iirc for 7800 as opposed to 8x8 in the arcade), collision detection misses are slightly more frequent than in the arcade. I did this the other night on my new Pokey sound Pacman Collection from Albert while wrestling with errant turns from hitting diagonals on one of my 8-way arcade sticks. Was on last man too so lucky break for me. |:)

     

    Yeah I got some of em set up for four way clover restrictor, just not the little one I grabbed to play with Christmas Eve, that had a Sanwa 8-way octagon in it.

  23. Posted

    Yeah something happened to my MMC5 implementation when I ported it from the original FPGA NES prototype, to the nt mini. It used to work perfect for all the koei games, but after the port they had various issues. I am guessing the same thing is wrong with Sim City. When I get time I will try to fix it, but have been super busy doing the usual 7 days a week, 12 hour a day grind on the msg. Yep, I worked on xmas day all day too. No breaks or vacations for me.

    :sad: Take a break. You deserve one. :)

     

    Bob Decrescendo has been known to take "sabbaticals" from 7800 development. Maybe you should too from your fpga work... :thumbsup:

    • Like 1

  24. Posted

    The Nt Mini's MMC5 support is complete but a bit buggy and kevtris has not had the time to fix it. The PowerPak does support more than Castlevania III but it suffers from the same bug. The EverDrive's MMC5 support is currently the best implementation, although I haven't had a chance to test it with SimCity yet.

    Can't agree with the Everdrive having the best implementation. You can't do anything with Sim City, compared to the NT Mini running it. With the N8 ED, EVERYTHING is garbled. With the NT Mini, well, you can see my pictures above.

     

    It is strange, because for me each flash cart offers something. The initial screens show up fine on the PowerPak but are glitchy on the EverDrive. Conversely, the main play screens are too glitchy to play on the PowerPak but fine on the EverDrive (with recent beta firmware).

     

    I remember attempting to run the Retro City Rampage ROM demo on the Everdrive. It was so glitchy as unplayable. The Zelda and Mario hacks are too large for either device. Castlevania III might as well run the VRC6 version as that's got superior audio tracks which both drives support. Powerpak has more accurate audio quality even with the new Everdrive mappers.

     

    Is it possible for any of these FPGA consoles to apply a patch to a physical cartridge on the fly? For example I insert a Japanese cartridge while applying a translation patch that is stored in the SD card (instead of loading an already patched rom).

    This is impossible due to how fpgas interface the cart hardware. It does not dump the rom cart like the Retron devices, which is bad idea for numerous reasons. You can change individual bytes of ROM/RAM using a cheat device or code, or you can pre patch a rom and run it on a flashcart or sd card via jailbreak firmware.
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