Blue Azure

Not to worry guys, this is a video game blog and everyone is entitled to their own opinion. You can't ruffle my feathers as I have very few remaining... I surround myself with kids that love "junk" bins. They always say, "Show me the damage," and so I do. I showed them this and they laughed. Perhaps one person's trash is another person's treasure - rarely though. This "game" is damaged and admittedly has no where to go. I've accumulated tons of code and plan to do something with it some day...eventually. I doubt I'll exactly follow Bob's footsteps, however. Who could? My complete 7800 collection spans over 5GB in full documentation including Bins and A78s, board schematics, chip specs, source lists, disassemblies, hardware and software whacks and hacks, sprite development, artwork, and photos and videos, and obscure analyses you can't imagine. There's very little missing. So there's little doubt where my head's been at in recent time. Sadly, it's no wonder my dog forgot my name. He doesn't see me much when I'm working all the time. But we will have a whale of a Christmas. I did investigate the Mario lives decrement, after the fact. 404 City. Perhaps an increment is used to do the "decrement" so we'd have to chase increment codes E6,F6,EE,FE, or there are other ways to manipulate the data. I searched for Player 1 decrement of lives… C6 A1…nothing found D6 A1…nothing found CE 14 18…nothing found DE 14 18…nothing found I searched for Player 2 decrement of lives… C6 B2…nothing found D6 B2…nothing found CE 15 18…nothing found DE 15 18…nothing found So some other method must have been employed, or my computer is lying to me. Sorry, no bingo! >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Patience is a virtue, and virtues are well worth beholding. BGGO> Be Good & Game On. ///Blue Azure///

Bob says I like to make games that I can't die. That's normally true. This game you must die so you can see where you're going. Sadly, playing this version will improve your Mario game. Try it and you'll see. MARIO BROS player 1 start number of lives is at address $B903. In after-hours hacking, I found $B907 is player 2 lives, but this change is not included in this game. Replace $A9$03 with $A9$61 for 98 lives. Replace $A9$03 with $A9$FF for 256 lives. As homework, try loading $A9$0E @ $B903 as maximum lives displayed without totally obliterating your screen. For the purposes of demonstration, I show 98 and 256 here… NTSC MARIO BROS, emulator, 98 lives (actually, I think it's 97 but who's counting?) MarioBros98.a78 NTSC MARIO BROS, emulator, 256 lives for those who have the patience MarioBros256.a78 Some of the most important discoveries occur at 2am. This probably wasn't one of them. >>>AZURE>>>

The board is a beauty! CPUWIZ ROX! I just wish it had a POKEY slot on it so I don't have to carry my XM around with me. In fact, make it a dual POKEY with dual bankswitch and NVRAM. That should keep the 7800 busy & warm, but not hot. Code Blue

The fun continues...from the game genius to the game genie...we bring you METEOR BATH, a mod to Bob's METEOR SHOWER (2011). Will you take a bath on this one? Probably not. I never played this game much but then came across the source list to find the hidden magic that I love to find. The game is chock full of hooks to change the game, so I just had to do it. The original blog is here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/182308-meteor-shower/ The manual is on page 8 of this blog. Before, the boulders hit your ship and you die. Now, the boulders hit your ship and you don't die. Also, that really cool spinner UFO thingy dingy used to come down and hit the ground and BOOM you die. Now, the spinner UFO comes down and hits the ground and BOOM you DON'T die. Interesting effect, indeed. The game also offers a way to add more boulders but I haven't done that yet. The speeds can be increased, and I tried it, but it didn't really add much to the game. However, the background colors have been changed. I used bold red green and blue colors, although the black is my favorite. Black is the color that the game now transitions to at 100,000pts. The color changes at 200,000 and then again at 500,000. The game appears to progressively get faster until 1,000,000 points. For those who get there, the score rolls over at 1,000,000 points and then the gameplay is slower than snails on a dry day. It's funny to watch. The original game appears to transition to upgraded difficulty at 20,000/50,000/100,000 points so the next thing I did was to change the original start points EASY=0pts, NORMAL=5,000pts, HARD=50,000pts to EASY=20,000pts, NORMAL=50,000pts, HARD=99,900pts. This immediately adds more interest to the game. Another neat feature of this game is you lose points for everything that hits the ground. Accuracy counts! I'd like to change the game to add a feature that when you fire and miss the boulders you lose points as well. But not there yet. Also note, hit the joystick down and you can beam cross the screen much quicker. Also, two-player simultaneous is an option in this game. Truly great fun!!! I made some obvious changes to the title screen graphics. What's interesting with this game is the bottom 16 lines are carried through to the game, so whatever you see in the title screen you see throughout the game. Interesting effect. So here it is... NTSC METEOR BATH, binary MeteorBath_RC2_12122013_2944.bin NTSC METEOR BATH, emulator MeteorBath_RC2_12122013_16K.a78 To purchase the original METEOR SHOWER game, it's here: http://atariage.com/store/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1008 ENJOY ALL, >>>AZURE>>>

Probably wasn't done for the JAG since it would have been too costly and too time consuming for one title to be produced using the archaic tools of yesteryear. Even with today's tools it takes years to do the new FINDING NEMO movie. FINDING DORY is due to be released 17 June 2016 and we're not even into 2014 yet!

This holiday bin from last year was a fine piece of work by Mark et al. Mark's back on the XM right now, so who's doing the XMas 2013 version? Here's the text from last year which blessed us 7800ers & Jaguarers for a great year this year...it could easily be replaced with this year's commentary which could bless us with a great next year...it's all in ASCII and the new text just needs to be typed in... rip $ECFB .MERRY CHRISTMAS..AND A..HAPPY NEW YEAR..ATARIAGE..FROM..GROOVYBEE..NONNER242..PG.SEASONS GREETINGS TO NONNER242, ESPIRE8, PAC-MAN-RED, SH3-RG AND MIKER. THANKS FOR ALL YOUR HELP CREATING XM GAME GRAPHICS AND MUSIC. A BIG THANKS TO CURT FOR HAVING THE XM VISION AND ALSO TO ALBERT FOR NOT BANNING THE LOT OF US TOO. A BIG HO, HO, HO TO SH3-RG, NONNER242 (THERES A PATTERN HERE) AND LINKOVITCH FOR JAGUAR GAME GRAPHICS AND SOUND ENGINES. NOT FORGETTING THE INVALUABLE HELP OF DRACISBACK, HAMMR25, JAYBIRD3RD, NONNER242, MIKER, ANDYM00, TMR, SH3-RG, CYRANOJ, OMF, SHAMUS, SAURON, REMOWILLIAMS, LINKOVITCH, GAZTEE AND SAMWISE FOR BETA TESTING. ALL THE BEST TO THE ORGANISERS OF THE HOMEBREW EVENTS AT THE LASS, AC2012, PLAY EXPO AND EJAGFEST. THEY WERE AN ABSOLUTE BLAST! GREETINGS TO ZEROSQUARE, LUCIFERSHALO, TMR, TEZZ, SNICKLIN, NUY, DR DO, BMX, THORSTEN, 108 STARS, MATTHIAS AND EVERYBODY ELSE THAT ATTENDED. ERM.... WELL... MAYBE NOT TMR'S GROUPIE. LOL! BEST WISHES TO EVERYBODY OVER AT REBOOT, FORMATWAR, ATARI-FORUM, STARDOT, JAGWARE, NEXGAM AND YARONET. HAPPY BACON DAY! TO REVOLUTIONIKA, CMART604, INTVNUT AND THE REST OF THE INTELLIVISION FORUM'S GUYS AND GIRLS. GOOD LUCK TO ANYBODY WORKING ON NEW GAMES AND HARDWARE PROJECTS. 2013 WILL BE A GOOD YEAR FOR BOTH THE 7800 AND THE JAGUAR. .ROLL ON 2013!. end $F229 $F23F:$A9$FC >>>AZURE>>>

No problem, "friendly" suggestions are always welcomed. You like our games or you don't, it's OK. We put them out there which is better than not putting them out there, IMHO. How's about SPACE DEBRIS or SPACE BASURA? But these doesn't easily fit the pre-existing title screen graphics template. And they sound boring. I looked at the other SPACE JUNK and it is what it says it is. By the by, I prefer FIREFOX on the 7800 using the laser disc interface which is already installed (on some machines)... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzYKcjwCUvM >>>AZURE>>>

Here it is…as previously advertised…the swashbuckling "asteroids-style" game, brought to you by GAMBLER172 and BLUE AZURE. The game idea spawned in early November just a couple of weeks after I uncovered the "rock-invincibility" in Asteroids3D. I plugged it into Bob's SPACE DUEL to find out how great Bob's game really was. I was really excited by his game to the point where I was yelling out "Look at all this SPACE JUNK." And the name stuck. I called my trusty 7800 stamp collector, W_Gambler, and we were off to the races for a holiday release. We spent about a month of back-and-forth e-mails to achieve the final product. Maybe even Bob will play it [once or twice]. It's obviously a hack of the original SPACE DUEL game, including everything except the kitchen sink. Airplanes, Buses, Submarines, Firetrucks, Locomotives, Snowmobiles, Hot Air Balloons, and stuff I don't even know what it is. You name it, it's in here. All the SPACE JUNK that makes outer space so crowded. Some of the game is "alphabet soup." Will you find your initials in there? I think the "B" that happens to be blue in color must stand for AZURE, and the "G" must be for Gambler. What else will you find? FEATURES: * FAST action shooter. * Player 1 "rock" invincibility - only the UFOs can zap you. * Player 2 FULL invincibility - nothing will stop you now. * "Asteroids" speed-up algorithm. It's really too fast for you, or is it? * Player 1 starts with 10 lives. The game is really streaky - when the UFOs "lock" on you, it could cost you 3 or 4 lives very quickly. You will need to play around 250,000 points to see all the space junk you will ever need to see. TITLESCREEN FIRETRUCKS & SUBMARINES and, G, look what else? LOCOMOTIVES & Spacedome train car thing * * * The ULTIMATE question is…when you lose…WHO WINS? * * * You'll have to play it and see. Available only at Atariage.com NTSC SPACEJUNK, FAST, binary SPACEJUNK_12082013_81EA.bin NTSC SPACEJUNK, FAST, emulator SpaceJunk_12082013_32K.a78 Enjoy all & happy holidays for you all, G172 & >>>AZURE>>>

Try this simple program. 01 Buy a 5200 to 7800 hardware adapter (if you can find one) 02 Plug in 5200 QIX Cart 03 Power on the 7800 and enjoy the game that belongs *only* on the 5200 04 GOTO 01 The only thing we need to do with QIX is to QIX it off the 7800 line-up. Next... >>>AZURE>>>

We never hear anything about this game, nor other sports games on the 7800, since there aren't many. I drafted a few things together, just for reference. I would like to make my goalie "like wall" to see how the computer would get frustrated not being able to score. NTSC HATTRICK, raw disassy, and I mean raw. It's fully uncommented. It looks like 48 thousand million bytes and at one time I'm sure it all made sense. Now I wonder if we can find the originator to fill in the blanks...his name is apparently Jack Sandberg Sr. HATTRICK_3EC3_Disassy.rtf NTSC HATTRICK, commented and so forth, so to speak. HATTRICK_3EC3_Hockey_SML.rtf Good luck with this one. ///Blueman///

It's OK LynxPro, we just store these ideas away until we have time to do something with them. We've got another SPACE DUEL swashbuckler game version coming out this coming Monday. We spent a month on the details of this one. I just have to work out the PAL details and we're good to go. Keep an eye out for this one. >>>AZURE>>>

Hmmm, interesting input on the proposed BLASTEROIDS78 Mr. LynxPro. Yes, that must have been BJ at the Roach Coach. No, there's only one prototype I know of, and it's here: http://benheck.com/06-18-2008/atari-7800-portable Sorry to disappoint. >>>AZURE>>>

BAM!BAM!BAM! BAM! BAM! BLUE AZURE MONDAY BAM! BAM! BAM!BAM!BAM!BAM! I admit one day last week things were at the slow at the Roach Coach meal-on-wheels truck. Yawn. The people all looked the same. The food all looked the same, probably because it was. Who buys that stuff anyways? Then someone pulled out their trusty portable 7800 with the batteries and LCD screen and started playing ASTEROIDS3D. They were happy, whooping it up and so on. "Isn't this great?" the pioneer with the tired and worn out game asked. "NO," I answered emphatically. "No, why not?" the pioneer asked. "Your portable 7800 looks great, but the game is too slow," I replied, yawning. I went home that night thinking and dreaming of what could be done. I want ASTEROIDS on STEROIDS, and I was dreaming of what the title screen would look like. Something like this was what I was dreaming: But, no, as soon as I put the filename STEROIDS on my computer, the FBI came knocking down my door, asking "Where's the Steroids?" I told them, "Right here," and popped on my ProSystem Emulator. The FBI agent said, "Oh," and turned and walked out the door. "Hey what about the door you kicked down?" Then I woke up, oh, that was a dream I was having, or more like a nightmare. The next morning I was asking myself the math question, what is ASTEROIDS + FAST = ?????????? Oh, that's simple: How FAST is FASTeroids? So FAST it turned the Atari copyright upside-down. Features: * Speed-up technology to revive the good ole ASTEROIDS3D. * Rock Invincibility - no rock, big or small can kill Player 1 or 2. * Player 2 complete invincibility - the UFOs can do nothing to kill you. * Player 1 starts with 10 lives instead of the original 3 lives, to ensure you rack up some big scores. * Random dying when returning from hyperspace has been deleted. I always hated that. So did Andy Rooney. NTSC FASTEROIDS, binary FASTEROIDS_2075.bin NTSC FASTEROIDS, emulator FASTeroids_16K.a78 PAL FASTEROIDS/PALBIOS, binary (THIS IS NOT AN EXTERNAL CARTRIDGE) This is the PAL/BIOS with FASTEROIDS installed instead of the original ASTEROIDS3D. Pull your EPROM off the motherboard and replace it with this. The assumption is if the original PALBIOS works on PAL and NTSC, then this PAL version of NTSC must work on PAL. If this sounds like "Chrissy" on 3's company, then I must be doing a good job. FASTEROIDS_PALBIOS_2FE4.bin Now all we need is a copy of BLASTEROIDS on the 7800. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbmeX64041s ENJOY ALL, >>>AZURE>>>

You're welcome. However, IMHO, it's not really "my game" as much as a tribute to the work that Bob DeCrescenzo (et al) does for the 7800 family of games.

OK fans, here we go again. Yet another game variation, blah blah blah. But I just had to do it. This is Bob's SPACE DUEL stuck in bouncy-bounce mode. I made it just bad enough that you'd have to buy the real thing to retain sanity. The concept is you start in the box and you never leave it. Your shots rebound off the sides of the box and your ship shots don't actually kill your ship. You can face the walls and shoot the walls and the rebound actually passes through your ship and kills the unsuspecting space rocks behind you. And the double rebounds in the corner are kind of fun as well. Haven't seen "balls" bouncing off walls like this since PONG. Hence the name of the game. The game is a bit glitchy and if I had found an easy way to fix it, I would have. I traced most of the problem to the positioning of the space rocks within the game. If I could move them 1 pixel to the left and 1 pixel up, then this would have been a much better game. Try it today, if you must... The title screen has been slightly altered to add to the amusement. With 16 lines available for graphics, this is what I was able to do. All that's left to do is to animate the boxes by spinning them on their center axis (horizontal or vertical, I'm not sure which). If you like ASTEROIDS-style games and bouncing off walls, this game is for you. SPACEPONG available only here at Atariage.com NTSC SPACEPONG, binary SPACEPONG_PMP_E8E7.bin NTSC SPACEPONG, emulator SpacePong_PMP_32K.a78 If you like REAL games that actually do something, go here: http://atariage.com/store/index.php?l=product_detail&p=876 Enjoy it! And happy holidays to all. Now back to the next game... and the next game... and the next game. >>>AZURE>>>

True, the game is a little too easy, in fact it's a lot too easy. I could have increased the speed, increased the enemies, etc, but it still would have been too easy. For me, it enabled me to get further into the game and witness & expose the truly amazing work Bob did. It also enabled me to practice "docking" faster so I could actually be perfect at it. I agree TERRA CRESTA is awesome, but looks more like my ZEVIOUS. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdsBZgBdxNw Enjoy the game for what it is - a basic invincibility change. The holiday hackathon continues, much better stuff is coming... ///Azure///

BAM!BAM!BAM! BAM! BAM! BLUE AZURE MONDAY BAM! BAM! BAM!BAM!BAM!BAM! Many moons ago, and many mooncrestas ago, Bob endeavored to create another masterpiece - MOONCRESTA (2011). But this wasn't any "simple" task. His work represents months of intricate R&D to match the original, not just byte by byte, but bit by bit. He checked to see if anyone had done prior porting to other machines, but not to be. He was embarking on his own unchartered adventure. Here's some arcade (ca.1980) datum: http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=8745 Here's some arcade gameplay: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xabughyUB4E Here's the original (ca.19111) 7800 blog: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/185441-moon-cresta-7800/ He even disassembled the original Z80 processor code and here was that result: MOONCRESTA_Z80_Disassy2011.rtf Once disassembled he was able to actually change the code and watch the gameplay changes, thereby gaining full understanding of the original game (concepts) so he could precisely port it to the 7800, as best as possible. Attention to details that most cannot imagine. If you like math and want to see how he does the docking sequence, take a look at the disassembly (below). Bob has approved my including the full 7800 game disassembly… MoonCrestaDisassy1.rtf The general work I perform on games takes days or weeks, but I hereby celebrate Bob's original design which took untold months, if not years. The ship-docking and player control for the docking is phenomenal in this game. And the color renderings are amazing. In my opinion, this game is a must-have for both Atari 7800 game-collectors and game players. That said, to preserve the original design I wouldn't want to do anything beyond changing the name and updating the title screen and convert to invincibility. We attempt invincibility to enhance gameplay and to be able to witness more of the game, and to train to be able to play the original game even better. But what to name the game? Here's what I was thinking: MOONCRESTA -> MOONCREST A -> MOONCREST B. That's it, plan B, rev B, an engineer's job well done. Try these, and if you like the game, buy it!!! MOONCREST B, NTSC binary MOONCREST_B_31EE.bin MOONCREST B, NTSC emulator MoonCrest_B_32K.a78 MOONCREST B, PAL binary MOONCREST_B_PAL_2729.bin MOONCREST B, PAL emulator MoonCrest_B_PAL_32K.a78 Here it is on sale now. http://atariage.com/store/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1012 Enjoy all, ///Blueman///

CTV: True, Atari did work with a company AWI on original surface mount projects in 1984 (probably starting in 1983?), one was a 3x4 inch 2600-on-a-chip so to speak. However, the silk screen doesn't look like official Atari design, and the part number isn't normal. So it must have been a prototype, maybe proposed and/or built by AWI. Is the 28-pin socket labeled with a silk screen letters RWA? If not, I can't tell you what it is. BA

BAM!BAM!BAM! BAM! BAM! BLUE AZURE MONDAY BAM! BAM! BAM!BAM!BAM!BAM! This is a game mod to Bob's wonderful breakout game, CRAZY BRIX (2011). This game, TRIX BRIX (2013), has been shelved for months waiting for me to re-review the code. But still no time to work on it. So it is what it is. The game has been re-wired so the balls don't quite fall through the bottom. Ever. For me, the original was too hard for me with two balls, one of which I would lose instantly. Optimized for the NORMAL level of play, it doesn't fare so well on the EASY or HARD levels. Something to do with vertical offsets somewhere in the game. Maybe another 7800 guru can figure it out some day. I release it now for people to have something "new" to play over the 2013 holidays. If you like the game, play TRIX BRIX to polish your skills. Then go buy Bob's game on atariage.com to play the real thing. He gets all the credit and should get all the mulah. It's available here: http://www.atariage.com/store/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1004 As TRIX BRIX isn't perfect, I'm just releasing an emulator version that needs to be fixed and then re-compiled to make the graphics look right on the hardware. This one has all the original 32 levels (technically, levels 0-31). The game suffers color offset on the bricks if you don't have the update from Prosystem 1.3e. Sure wish I had it, then I could easily take fresh photos of all levels and post them. NTSC TRIX BRIX, EMULATOR Trix_Brix_16K.a78 Level 13 (technically, it's level 12=$0B) is a beast to get through, so this version bypasses that level. "L13R" in the filename means "Level 13 Removed." NTSC TRIX BRIX, NO LEVEL 13, EMULATOR Trix_Brix_L13R_16K.a78 2011 was apparently the year for breakout-style games. Now I wish for some day to have the source list for the other breakout game, ARKANOID (2011), which I was touting at one time as the best breakout game I ever saw, until CRAZY BRIX which I was enabled to modify. John P13 did a great job on ARKANOID. When somebuddy releases the source list it allows average blokes like me to play games with the games. And that's what makes things more interesting on the AA blog, IMHO. This is the link to the ARKANOID blog: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/154267-something-else-im-working-on/ Enjoy the balls-that-don't-quite-fall-through game! TRIX BRIX, only available here at atariage.com. ///BLUEMAN///

To my knowledge, there are three reasons no POKEY was resident on the 7800 mommy board in 1984. One is real estate - no room. Two is cost to add the chip. Three is the memory map is crammed without it, although that might not be an issue if switching from TIA to POKEY as only one is used at a time. I didn't think about that before, so maybe it's not an issue. There should have been more RAM like a 1 x 6264 in place of the 2 x 6116 but that was spendy and the 6264 was limited in production at the time, and increased RAM probably would have bumped the HSC out of the line-up to map the extra RAM. Maybe the answer is to pull the TIA, install a POKEY and reprogram/adapt all the games to work with POKEY. ///Blueman///

Ditto that, I wish I had the horsepower to do this superior game coding. I can whack and hack, but that's about all my brain can handle. Not to worry Bob, I now have 6 games in the Q for release in the next month, and a 7th if I get the guts to ask its original author if it's OK I do what I do on his game. So that one's on hold as I have plenty to do without that. I was just thinking-out-load on MILLI. She's out there, and when we build it, they will come. It will be a great project some day. ///Blueman///

Yuppers, a 6502, and love your "simple" conversion from arcade to 7800. Shouldn't take more than a couple of weeks and we could ship by THIS Christmas...(This is the way Atari management would work with Bob - anything is possible, until it isn't!). On page 13 of the PDF schematic above, it mentions 2 "custom audio" chips, but doesn't specify the part. The photo of the PCB (above) is hard to see, but I'm thinking there's two 40-pin pokeys with the label upsidedown and they say C012294B-01. If so, those are the pokeys. Sure we could cram everything into one design and probably could fit into 48K. I'm hoping we'd design in stages, and the basic tia/pokey version would be 32K and then add all the XM goodies and SELL as a XM game. Or we could make a custom cart with a muxed quad core C012294B-04 chip and wire to a 7.1 surround sound system and we're good to go! I think the critical parameter is to start off by having a full understanding of how the arcade version operates and then convert that into our 7800 version. Bob lives about 2300 miles away from me so he's probably not going to see my machine run anytime soon (although always welcome). Since I have a cocktail I will need to build a custom camera mount to video how an invincible game runs, in full detail. With that, I think we'd save a lot of time resolving the ultimate design issues up front. Or try to fully disassemble my raw arcade disassembly and then you'd know how the game runs anyways. That's a kick - over the decades, I had no idea the game had a 6502 in it. It's only 16K, how hard could it be? Regards, Blue

Thanks for the comments guys. Use the audio from 2600? I didn't even think of that. Do we have the C/F/V data segregated and defined? And the 5200 has POKEY, do we have the audio from that? Anything and everything helps. The ultimate game file size doesn't really matter. I suggest a target of 32K as this works directly with the 32K/POKEY board that we use for FROGGIE and others. And judging by the basic game design we should be able to achieve this. BUT, we may not get the animated start-up screen. That's a lot of work and takes a lot of bytes unless a clever way to borrow the animations from the game is devised. I'm sure one of the guys from our think78tank can do it. Now back to my other game designs. This will be an interesting holiday season in 7800-land. Not sure when the first release will be yet. Some of us are working 7 days a week on a set of games. There are four games that I know of right now, one is thoroughly tested with a single game mode bug that I don't think anyone will care about, so that will go out, maybe on Monday. It would be nice to have something else by T-giving, but that's a 4-day weekend when most of the work *might* be done. Loads of fun coming to you soon at atariage.com. ///BLUEMAN///

Dear all, Over the past few months I've been working on a pathfinder project for the proposed (& hopeful) 7800 MILLIPEDE design (& release). We've seen it and heard it over the years, "I wanna racing game, gimme gimme gimme," I wanna ZAXXON game, gimme gimme gimme, or "I wanna MILLIPEDE game, gimme gimme gimme (that was me, by the way)." But what are we saying, what does it mean to create such a game? How do we go about doing it? Is it even feasible? But before we get into this, what happened in 1984 that MILLIPEDE wasn't being worked on? Weren't there any loose engineers looking for something to do that would be working on such a project? Isn't there a GCC prototype laying around waiting to be updated and completed? Sure, Atari produced a list of games and CX-7812 was reserved for MILLIPEDE. That was the easy part. But there was no source list, no binary, no papers, nothing to suggest there was ever any progress on MILLIPEDE coding. There was a legal battle back and forth and MILLIPEDE was an Atari game, not a GCC game. So GCC settled on CENTIPEDE, and it was CENTIPEDE that was released. And I always wondered on May 24, 1984, what was the SECRET game that only VIPs of the highest order would see in the back room in the summer CES show in Chicago? It was prototype TRAK & FIELD, not MILLIPEDE. We waited and waited for the 7800 MILLIPEDE to show up, but it was not to be. I hate duplication of effort, but there is no duplication of effort if something never existed. 7800 MILLIPEDE never existed. The one game that would have and could have raised the 7800 to yet another plateau. And we still don't have it… In case it's of any use, here's the 7800 CENTIPEDE disassembly with the playfield and sprite definitions. Of course MILLIPEDE is quite a different game, but there may be something we can use. One thing is for sure, if we already had 7800 MILLIPEDE in hand, we wouldn't be here talking about how we could create a CENTIPEDE! CentipedeDisassy8.rtf First I looked at the 5200 MILLIPEDE. There's 32K of ROM used which is what I kind of expected for a game of this caliber. BUT WAIT. As Bob found that 5200 Space Invaders was duplicate code so it was really 8K and not 16K, 5200 MILLIPEDE is actually 16K duplicated twice as well. I guess the PAM coders were paid by the byte, and it was great business. Monkey business. So this is good news for the 7800, for if the basic program code and basic sprites can be done in 16K on the 5200, we can afford 120 bytes overhead for things like encryption and so on and so on and so on. Not of much value, here is the raw-uncommented 5200 MILLIPEDE disassembly: MILLIPEDE_5200_5D9C_Disassy.rtf Then we turn attention to the ARCADE MILLIPEDE. Here's a static photo of the start-up screen, which is animated in real life (see below): To get a fresh "new" look at MILLIPEDE, there are videos on the internet… ‪Gameplay Showcase 1: Millipede Arcade (a) ‪Gameplay Showcase 2: Millipede Arcade (b) ‪Millipede Invincible http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZZkVruTqXQ I happen to have one of these Millipede cocktails in my living room, so that's a help. I was able to "rewire it" to be invincible by changing 2 bytes. Sweet. Here's a photo of most of the board: I scan the internet and I'm flabbergasted with the results. Here's the schematic with the memory map: Millipede Arcade Schematic.pdf I FOUND IT HAS A 6502 PROCESSOR ON IT!!! Are you kidding me, no 6809 or 68000, it's a 6502??? We're in business. Therefore, here's the raw uncommented ARCADE MILLIPEDE disassembly: MILLIPEDE_ARCADE_16K_7252_Disassy.rtf And would you believe an ARCADE MILLIPEDE Hexdump of the four 2532 EPROMs merged together? MILLIPEDE_ARCADE_16K_7252_Hexdump.rtf With that, I guess we could start building some arcade machines. BUT wait, that's NOT what we're here for... 7800 MILLIPEDE Features Wish List * 32K configuration, REAL 32K - not 2 x 16K. * All joystick support. * TIA/emulator version support. * POKEY detect support. * Trakball support - could be a separate binary version the same way 7800 CENTIPEDE TB was done. * High Score Card (HSC) support - all the other original games have it. * Animated title screen like the arcade (well, "it would be nice"). * XM support is considered to be a secondary issue. We want a game that can be played on the original 7800 system w/o XM, as it would have been originally intended. Once released, the 7800 MILLIPEDE will be designated CX-7812. WE WANT DRAGONFLY, WE WANT EARWIG, WE WANT INCHWORM, WE WANT MOSQUITO, WE WANT SPIDER… WELL, WE DON'T WANT SPIDER… MOST OF ALL, WE WANT DDT!!! EVERYONE WILL WANT THIS GAME - 7800 MILLIPEDE - the de facto standard of 1984 gaming. ///BLUEMAN/// CentipedeDisassy8.rtf

Sure we could change colors and drop a file on uTube. Will you do it? Meanwhile, there's a bug in the ASTEROIDS3D_INV1_16K.a78 file I posted yesterday. In the lives decrement routine, it isn't expecting that more than 4 spare lives are showing on the screen. So if you have 5 or more lives showing on the screen and then you lose a bunch of lives, it will decrement 4, 3, 2, 1 and leave the 5, 6, 7, 8, etc lives showing on the screen. The quick fix is to revert back to a maximum 4 spare lives displayed. I'll be looking to fix this soon. Here's the quick fix... Asteroids3D_INV2_16K.a78 Double meanwhile, I'm working on 3 other games right now that blow this away. This is holiday rush month to get the games out in time for Christmas. Bob is waiting for his Christmas gifts. He worked for it, and now we work for it. Stay tuned, only at atariage.com! ///Blueman///