orange808

Yes. NTSC. It's the first two characters and the first column of the third character that have artifacts. So, it might still be a reliable interlaced 33 chars kernel with a small blank space on the left. :)

That reminds me. On my hardware using that 36 char interlaced kernel: On my 2600 four switch woody, the first two chars have artifacts consistently on both Harmony and Unocart. On the 7800, it works properly intermittently, but never consistently.

You might contact Jordan Mechner for permission first. After reading his impressions of other ports of the game, I imagine the bar will be set high. There's also a chance that something else could arrive later and sap your enthusiasm.

Chicken and egg. Regardless, there were people suggesting a finished product should only need about twenty grand for a finished game. lmao Whatever. This is why lots of indie devs are trust fund kids from Massachusetts and New York. Oh well.. carry on.

The potato salad kickstarter grinds my gears. That's more money than the 8k Star Castle raised. People are walking around thinking that 20 grand net (before paying the bills) really funds a project like that. Call that what it was: a gift. The dev got pennies an hour for specialist professional work. (Doesn't have to be free to be a gift.) Then, there's the way people poo-poo-ed David Crane when he presented a sensible budget... ... ... But... there was $50k for potato salad? You have money to throw at this "VCS" Linux box? Pffft....

Nintendo is a software house first and a hardware company second. Content is king and it always has been. They don't just "survive", they thrive. That's because Nintendo committed to their developers early and never stopped. Nintendo's talent stays put. Nintendo invented the business model. Atari is a joke and has been for decades. Atari was on life support from the moment they allowed Activision to happen. Atari's disdain for devs killed the company long ago. It's too late for a comeback. Nintendo did it right and that's why they succeed. On the other hand, Atari execs were and are lazy grifters. Every generation, some kid with a fancy new Xbone or PlayStation declares Nintendo's "lame kiddie" business dead. They're (supposed) "luck" is always about to run out. lmao It's not luck. It's a consistent commitment to content. Atari can't replicate that.

Assembler still allows for meaningful label and "variable" names--in addition to comments. Furthermore, even assembler has to be assembled into a binary for the VCS to run it. So, there most definitely *is* source code, thank ya very much. Check out some sources online.

Oops. Bushnell. My apologies. Anyhow, Atari hasn't done anything right since the Warner Bros days. What's amazing is how long of a "tail" the real VCS has. Grifters Atari execs are still milking it 40 years later.

Need some honesty? Okay. Atari has been rudderless since Jack Tramiel left. Since then, Atari's most notable accomplishment remains the same: milk the real Atari VCS for all its worth. They even managed to screw up the classy Atari VCS name with a stupid name: Atari 2600. There's always some grifter in charge doing as little as possible, pocketing every dime immediately, investing nothing, pointing the company at the ground, and bailing out. Same as it ever was. The only thing that's changed is the "quality" of the grifters. Atari is a small time hustle these days.

If an Atari branded lodging establishment ever opens, it will have hourly rates. :)

I remember cursing my poor Atari 2600--while playing Venture on a ColecoVision kiosk at K Mart.

Really great work. I love this one.

I'm just grumpy. Didn't like the dollar figure and the mention of a supercomputer. It's a loaded comparison. Guess it just hits a nerve every time I stumble onto it. Intentional or not, it provides ammo to snipe stuff like Robotron and Galaga--and I'm absolutely humbled by new titles. They are jaw dropping.

Meh. I'll gladly concede if you say it wasn't you or I'm mistaken. Regardless, the $18 million dollar Cray thing is complete rubbish. Rather I'm mistaken or not, the Cray thing was a smear. Nice touch with the dollar value as well.

I distinctly remember reading about the supercomputer in other threads. Anyhow, you're absolutely right that the VCS continues to impose limits. Yep. The jump between SNES and N64 was quite large. Although, the cost of development also skyrocketed. For most purposes, that's the day the two man dev team died out. :( It's ironic that moving to C was the same event that squeezed out the old guard for good.

Okay. I've gotta say this, because you keep hammering this same talking point. Given the amount of time that has passed, it makes absolutely perfect sense. Moore's Law dictates that this would happen. In fact, we could have calculated this amount of available power becoming available in 1982. You keep hammering this point like there's some kind of unnatural sorcery at work. In reality, it's just the natural order of things playing out. shrug All I see is Moore's Law at work. Too bad other consoles aren't on the same train, because there would be a bigger market for new NES or SNES carts. Yeah. The add ons on other consoles weren't more powerful and Moore's Law is the reason why. Sorry. You just keep posting it over and over.

Yes. I was thinking a Windows program or plug in instrument. I wouldn't want the hassle of hauling the VCS around the house. Even after I hauled a VCS/7800 to the other room, I'd still need to find a way to get the audio into the mixer. No thanks. :) I've never used MuseScore (and I'm too lazy to learn another piece of software). For bigger projects, I got locked into Cubase years ago, but that's overkill for the VCS. I don't mind writing stripped down MIDI. Just me and my Juno; same as it ever was. I guess stripped down MIDI makes sense to me, because that's how I used it for a long time. I remember being excited to get a MIDI kit installed, but I'm really showing my age...

The ability to work with MIDI would be welcome. Too bad it's not a standalone program. I'd really like to have a capable Atari synth. With that, I could hear the VCS play notes in real time in my current workflow. Looks cool that you can map your own sounda. When I coded my own MIDI to VCS tool, I went ahead and abandoned absolute "pitch perfect" sound to make sure there wouldn't be dropped notes. For instance, I tried Miditari and the results would have required way too much hand tuning to be useful. Looks really promising. Can't wait to check it out!

Ignoring the limited market demand that probably dooms a commercial project from the beginning: A frame buffer is an unacceptable deal breaker for me in a hardware replacement. That's weak. What if Analogue showed up saying, "Only one full complete frame of lag, because (ya know) fixing that would be really hard to do!" ?? :) Well... I'll tell you what if... *Crickets chirping* --and a stack of unloved FPGA's piled up in a corner somewhere--waiting to be sold at a deep discount or buried in a desert landfill. I have no idea how it could be done, anyhow. Digital is much more rigid than analog. Even if you did solve it, how would you support it? Customers would complain that "Game X" doesn't work on my TV in "zero lag" mode--because there's no telling what kind of crazy signal the VCS is going to send down the wire. As for MiSTer, it's nice as a bonus feature on an otherwise nice machine. It's not a hardware replacement. That frame of lag isn't supposed to be there. That's not good enough.

Video processors with Faroudja chips are particularly good at handling changes in frame rate and signal--at the expense of some frame drops/studder. You'll want to chain through one of those to your capture card/box. Don't sweat the lack of frame lock, because every other solution I see here will have the same issues. Also, you might look into one of the Datapath Vision RGB capture cards on eBay.

:)

Pretty sure there's a note that it's 0-75 (zero inclusive) table. :) Tomato, tomato. It's the same cycle.

Just starting out? Here's a snippet from my cheatsheet with essential stuff from the internets. Probably want to copy and paste it somewhere. If you stick with the VCS long enough, you'll eventually need all of it. I don't remember where the playfield chart came from. (Sorry.) It must be from the old mailing list. Credit to Omegamatrix for the division routines and Brad Mott for the motion information. 0 inclusive (0-75) table Asymmetrical Playfield, Repeated Graphics (PF0-PF1-PF2-PF0-PF1-PF2): ============================================== | Playfield Register | Earliest | Latest | ============================================== | Left copy of PF0 | Cycle 52 * | Cycle 20 | | Left copy of PF1 | Cycle 63 * | Cycle 26 | | Left copy of PF2 | Cycle 74 * | Cycle 36 | | Right copy of PF0 | Cycle 26 | Cycle 47 | | Right copy of PF1 | Cycle 36 | Cycle 52 | | Right copy of PF2 | Cycle 47 | Cycle 63 | ============================================== Asymmetrical Playfield, Reflected Graphics (PF0-PF1-PF2-PF2-PF1-PF0): ============================================== | Playfield Register | Earliest | Latest | ============================================== | Left copy of PF0 | Cycle 74 * | Cycle 20 | | Left copy of PF1 | Cycle 68 * | Cycle 26 | | Left copy of PF2 | Cycle 58 * | Cycle 36 | | Right copy of PF2 | Cycle 47 | Cycle 47 | | Right copy of PF1 | Cycle 36 | Cycle 58 | | Right copy of PF0 | Cycle 26 | Cycle 68 | ============================================== ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; HMPx values 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f Cyc 10 0 -1 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ** HBLANK 11 0 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 HBLANK 12 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 HBLANK 13 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 HBLANK 14 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ** HBLANK 15 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 2 HBLANK 16 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 8 7 6 5 4 3 3 3 HBLANK 17 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 8 7 6 5 4 4 4 4 HBLANK 18 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 8 7 6 5 4 4 4 4 ** HBLANK 19 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 8 7 6 5 5 5 5 5 HBLANK 20 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 8 7 6 6 6 6 6 6 HBLANK 21 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 22 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 . . 53 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 54 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 55 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 56 0 0 0 0 0 0 -1 -2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 57 0 0 0 0 0 -1 -2 -3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 58 0 0 0 0 0 -1 -2 -3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ** 59 0 0 0 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 60 0 0 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 61 0 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 62 0 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ** 63 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 64 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 65 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8 -9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -1 66 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8 -9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -1 ** 67 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8 -9 -10 0 0 0 0 0 0 -1 -2 68 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8 -9 -10 -11 0 0 0 0 0 -1 -2 -3 69 -5 -6 -7 -8 -9 -10 -11 -12 0 0 0 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 70 -5 -6 -7 -8 -9 -10 -11 -12 0 0 0 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 ** 71 -6 -7 -8 -9 -10 -11 -12 -13 0 0 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 72 -7 -8 -9 -10 -11 -12 -13 -14 0 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 73 -8 -9 -10 -11 -12 -13 -14 -15 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 74 -8 -9 -10 -11 -12 -13 -14 -15 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 ** 75 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 HBLANK 76 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 HBLANK 77 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 HBLANK 78 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 HBLANK 79 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 HBLANK 80 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -6 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 HBLANK 81 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -5 -5 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 HBLANK 82 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -5 -5 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ** HBLANK 83 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -4 -4 -4 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 HBLANK 84 0 -1 -2 -3 -3 -3 -3 -3 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 HBLANK 85 0 -1 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 HBLANK 86 0 -1 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ** HBLANK 87 0 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 HBLANK 88 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 HBLANK 89 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 HBLANK 90 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ** HBLANK 91 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 2 HBLANK 92 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 8 7 6 5 4 3 3 3 HBLANK 93 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 8 7 6 5 4 4 4 4 HBLANK Notice that 10 + 76 = 86 and the table is repeating... 10 0 -1 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ** HBLANK 11 0 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 HBLANK 12 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 HBLANK 13 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 HBLANK 14 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ** HBLANK 15 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 2 HBLANK 16 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 8 7 6 5 4 3 3 3 HBLANK 17 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 8 7 6 5 4 4 4 4 HBLANK ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; Unsigned Integer Division Routines ; by Omegamatrix ;Divide by 2 ;1 byte, 2 cycles lsr ;Divide by 3 ;18 bytes, 30 cycles sta temp lsr adc #21 lsr adc temp ror lsr adc temp ror lsr adc temp ror lsr ;Divide by 4 ;2 bytes, 4 cycles lsr lsr ;Divide by 5 ;18 bytes, 30 cycles sta temp lsr adc #13 adc temp ror lsr lsr adc temp ror adc temp ror lsr lsr ;Divide by 6 ;17 bytes, 30 cycles lsr sta temp lsr lsr adc temp ror lsr adc temp ror lsr adc temp ror lsr ;Divide by 7 (From December '84 Apple Assembly Line) ;15 bytes, 27 cycles sta temp lsr lsr lsr adc temp ror lsr lsr adc temp ror lsr lsr ;Divide by 8 ;3 bytes, 6 cycles lsr lsr lsr ;Divide by 9 ;17 bytes, 30 cycles sta temp lsr lsr lsr adc temp ror adc temp ror adc temp ror lsr lsr lsr ;Divide by 10 ;17 bytes, 30 cycles lsr sta temp lsr adc temp ror lsr lsr adc temp ror adc temp ror lsr lsr ;Divide by 11 ;20 bytes, 35 cycles sta temp lsr lsr adc temp ror adc temp ror adc temp ror lsr adc temp ror lsr lsr lsr ;Divide by 12 ;17 bytes, 30 cycles lsr lsr sta temp lsr adc temp ror lsr adc temp ror lsr adc temp ror lsr ; Divide by 13 ; 21 bytes, 37 cycles sta temp lsr adc temp ror adc temp ror adc temp ror lsr lsr clc adc temp ror lsr lsr lsr ;Divide by 14 ;1/14 = 1/7 * 1/2 ;16 bytes, 29 cycles sta temp lsr lsr lsr adc temp ror lsr lsr adc temp ror lsr lsr lsr ;Divide by 15 ;14 bytes, 24 cycles sta temp lsr adc #4 lsr lsr lsr adc temp ror lsr lsr lsr ;Divide by 16 ;4 bytes, 8 cycles lsr lsr lsr lsr ;Divide by 17 ;18 bytes, 30 cycles sta temp lsr adc temp ror adc temp ror adc temp ror adc #0 lsr lsr lsr lsr ;Divide by 18 = 1/9 * 1/2 ;18 bytes, 32 cycles sta temp lsr lsr lsr adc temp ror adc temp ror adc temp ror lsr lsr lsr lsr ;Divide by 19 ;17 bytes, 30 cycles sta temp lsr adc temp ror lsr adc temp ror adc temp ror lsr lsr lsr lsr ;Divide by 20 ;18 bytes, 32 cycles lsr lsr sta temp lsr adc temp ror lsr lsr adc temp ror adc temp ror lsr lsr ;Divide by 21 ;20 bytes, 36 cycles sta temp lsr adc temp ror lsr lsr lsr lsr adc temp ror adc temp ror lsr lsr lsr lsr ;Divide by 22 ;21 bytes, 34 cycles lsr cmp #33 adc #0 sta temp lsr adc temp ror adc temp ror lsr adc temp ror lsr lsr lsr ;Divide by 23 ;19 bytes, 34 cycles sta temp lsr lsr lsr adc temp ror adc temp ror lsr adc temp ror lsr lsr lsr lsr ;Divide by 24 ;15 bytes, 27 cycles lsr lsr lsr sta temp lsr lsr adc temp ror lsr adc temp ror lsr ;Divide by 25 ;16 bytes, 29 cycles sta temp lsr lsr lsr adc temp ror lsr adc temp ror lsr lsr lsr lsr ;Divide by 26 ;21 bytes, 37 cycles lsr sta temp lsr adc temp ror adc temp ror adc temp ror lsr lsr adc temp ror lsr lsr lsr ;Divide by 27 ;15 bytes, 27 cycles sta temp lsr adc temp ror lsr lsr adc temp ror lsr lsr lsr lsr ;Divide by 28 ;14 bytes, 24 cycles lsr lsr sta temp lsr adc #2 lsr lsr adc temp ror lsr lsr ;Divide by 29 ;20 bytes, 36 cycles sta temp lsr lsr adc temp ror adc temp ror lsr lsr lsr adc temp ror lsr lsr lsr lsr ;Divide by 30 ;14 bytes, 26 cycles sta temp lsr lsr lsr lsr sec adc temp ror lsr lsr lsr lsr ;Divide by 31 ;14 bytes, 26 cycles sta temp lsr lsr lsr lsr lsr adc temp ror lsr lsr lsr lsr ;Divide by 32 lsr lsr lsr lsr lsr